khamosh sa afsana

Looking back, looking ahead

2011-05-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

I was visiting a ruined city recently. It was striking how a lifeless city could evoke so much passion in me. I essentially live in the past -- there I made a mistake, there I could have done something differently, here I could have taken a chance, here I should have left things as they were.
In this constant looking back into the past, I also looked towards a bleak future. If it didn't work in the past why would it in the future? If it didn't work for my mom why would it work for me? If it worked for my sister, it wouldn't work for me. I could go on and on but I am caught up with the past again.
In the ruined city, I met my ghosts. My ancestors from bygone eras. I was understandably scared. Time stopped while I waited to see what havoc they would wreck. My companions told me not to look at the past in its eyes. I obeyed them. And they decided to let go and walk on their four legs past us, presumably oblivious of their future waiting to let them pass.
We didn't face the wrath of our ancestors that day. They moved on and we, relieved, started walking out of the city. But that's not my nature. I have to constantly look back, right? So, scared that past might overshadow my present again, I turn ... and guess what, the past turns back too and looks at me squarely in the eye.
We are no different, the past us and the present us. The future will be no different either.

2011-05-16T00:33:00.000-07:00

The journey of a rebel who appropriated every cause, except that of religion, is over. Does that make me a conformist? I don't know. I now do things out of a sense of detachment even while working for place that is all about a higher cause. I don't know and hardly care what has come over me. I have only one destination, one desire, one hope, one mean (never used means in singular before – don't know if it even means anything, nor for that matter any of this) of salvation. Self-interest and self-obsession has taken over. I have become (or was I always like this?) what I have always criticised – the apathy, the disinterest, the sheer lack of motivation for anything. I am not myself or is this the real me? Is this what humans were supposed to be – the 'natural' way of being? Am I human finally? Lots of questions – and I don't ever care if they go unanswered. As I embark on a journey that will disrupt many lives I wonder if I will even feel guilty enough. I don't like this self. But don't dislike it enough. You are welcome to dislike me from now on – I have stopped being the person who wants desperately for people to like her. I am, what exactly?

Hope floats

2011-04-28T22:13:00.001-07:00

Eons ago I wrote a story that I thought was pretty smart - it was also a gift to someone. It has come back to haunt me, and that's an understatement.
Dear self of 2009: you were sick.
I wasn't dead, far from it. I was struggling against it. I lost that battle last year ... well nearly. I no longer fight to survive. I survive like everyone does. I have left death behind.
I am trying come back to the world. And I am starting with the most favourite part of the world. The blogging universe has seen the best of me. It is a sign of hope. Even if I wrote about morbid things I found some kind of peace and contentment in it.
I am still trying to be alive. I want to share with my fellow bloggers (of which very few have survived) that I was not well and yet the sabbatical. I need them to reconstruct a world of sanity - a world I can be brave and safe. Where I can give happiness a chance.
Please come back.

2011-02-20T07:12:00.000-08:00

Where do we go from here?

We don't know.

And we don't want to know.

Either it is adolescence or mid life crisis,

either too late or too early.

The future is scary,

the past fuzzy.

It is that time in our lives again.

Where we need a rewind/fast forward button.

Waiting is no healing.

The eternal quest for happiness,

is the road to nihilism.
I want to have little
so that I am not disappointed.
But I want everything
so that
I am shattered to pieces.

2011-01-27T08:54:00.000-08:00

I can pretend no longer.

There is no point anyway.

I have to lose an old friend,

One I have known all my life.

The one I confused for myself.

I struggle, I don't want to let go

what I detest most.

Perhaps it is me afterall.

Perhaps it is not.

I will burn myself.

Incinerate myself to nothingness.

To live

it seems

I have to die first

Okay, sorry, the last line is clichéd but can't be helped...

2010-09-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

Come hither, for you shall burn.

There is no escape,

after all it's your rite of passage.

We shall look gleefully too,

for all your claims and fames,

it is flames you finally seek,

reduced to ashes

like the rest of us,

You shall finally

come of age.

Uncommon

2010-08-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

The journey to the centre of the global world started with a nondescript airport. I say nondescript though it is the exact opposite of its own intention. Indira Gandhi International Airport, Terminal 3 is another world. Stuff that made novels out of hitchiker's guides. It is glitzy but not colourful. It is expensive but has no character. The dim white lights make you drowsy, and the flashy stores make you blink and look the other way. The sheer space of it is unnerving - all that earthy nature sacrificed for an otherworldly experience. If this is the welcome for commonwealth, it is a chilling, unfriendly space with no sense of what it is to have arrived in India. But then India's pride depends on hiding the real India - the earth, the places, the sounds. Welcome to India-Delhi, it's unfriendly, fairly hellish, to its own ppl and chilling in the midsummer heat because it tries to be something else - and its not even sure what exactly that is.

Meet and greet

2010-08-10T02:03:00.000-07:00

My review of My Name is Khan had turned out into a testament on political films in general and I added more to the dialogue with Rajneeti/Raavanan. The crucial point about MNIK which I still hold on to is that it is not a product of a nuanced political analysis but politicisation of everyday life. It is more about experience than practice.
That's the key point that made Prakash Jha's earlier films special and Rajneeti shoddy. Jha coupled a nuanced political outlook to the everyday experience of politics. In Rajneeti where he dealt with the practice he messed up. Mani Ratnam was all over the place when he dealt directly with political practice too. But in Raavanan he dealt only obtusely with the subject and came out looking pretty decent.
Karan Johar, on the other hand, didn't get his hands dirty at all. In his goodlooking film, even pain finds subdued outlets like an unemotional voiceover of the protagnist. The experience of politics forced on certain people by virtue of their identities gets negotiated on the surface. History of middle east politics, American imperialism and Arab betrayal are not part of the picture. It is about an apolitical individual tackling a subject alien to him. So while I, with my annoying cultural relativism, would say there is no good or bad, Rizwan beleives there is just that - good people and bad people. And he is about to tell the President that his people are not bad. Sharukh Khan is in turn telling Indians that I may have entertained you as brat Raj/Rahul all these years but you have to face the real ME - I'm Shahrukh Khan and you are communal. This country may have treated me with adulation but I know that Muslims in general are treated as second class citizens - here and everywhere.
There is a simplicity, nay naivety, in this project. But it probably works in isolated cases - if Hindutva agenda worked due to aggressive marketing then it can be countered through similar hammering. Dilli 6's subtlelity failed to ruffle feathers while the in-your-face project of MNIK works wonderfully. The naivety here is the instrinsic belief in the tenets of democracy. That democracy by itself is said to be free of guilt - that the proper functioning of democracy will remove inequality. Hence, a symbolic appeal to the president.
It is not democracy's failures but its very structures that foster inequality. Democracy's villians change from time to time - they are not forces that rise up and challenge democracy but in fact forces that have been targetted by the structures to strengthen themselves - the very fact that a film like this can be made today is a reflection of changing tides. Why is media suddenly more subdued in its coverage of Kashmir? Muslims are less of a villian for the Indian Democracy today than Maoists. The more privileged in the community are able to stand finally and speak up against tortures and are allowed to get away with it.
MNIK heralds a new hope in the landscape of political experience. Much in the same way Ab Dilli Dur Nahi did in 1957. Judging by the film it took only 10 years for cynicism to set on the surface of Indian democracy. Again it takes a child (not a child-like man) to actually see the merit of meeting the top executor of the democracy to set wrongs in his life right. Even other children make fun of his mission to see Panditji. That democracy was viewed with keen suspicion from its very inception in the country is underlined by the film. The structures live to keep hierarchies in place and only a utopic situation can save the nation (that's the child). The film exposes the paternalistic structures of oppression while ostensibly upholding it. The impossiblity of the child's dream-come-true is sufficient ground for critiquing the young democracy. Raj Kapoor while not celebrating older forms of governance successfully points out the problems with this one. As far as the experience as well as the practice of politics is concerned, this meeting with figureheads is much more subtle and powerful than the aggressive marketting of the one-point agenda in MNIK.

Kinship and kingship

2010-07-09T04:47:00.000-07:00

I have been forced out of my unenforced hibernation by repeated assaults by newspapers' oft-repeated Rajneeti and Raavan comparison. Comparisons are natural and expected and probably justified too. But something in me revolts when Rajneeti is dubbed as a masterpiece rightly judged by the masses while Raavan is said to be a Mani Ratnam's showpiece that fails to even glitter.

For starters, I love movies drubbed by critics but picked up by the masses. But I also like certain movies that critics appreciate but masses don't. And I don't like some movies both masses and classes like. In short, I am fluid - I fall between and beyond the masses and the critics. And like any biased, highly judgemental person my blood boils unreasonably when I read this verdict. Masses may have liked Rajneeti but it is not entertaining to me. Critics may have liked it but I think it is a particularly shoddy piece of work. Inconsistencies in dialogues, unexplained motivations and plastic characters are some of the criticisms already mentioned. But beyond specific cringe-worthy scenes, Rajneeti is a weak adaptation.

Rajneeti comes from the myopia that repeatedly frames and understands Indian politics in terms of the great epic in a way that does not do justice to the creative genius of the original or the complexities of the Indian political scene. Adaptation does not mean tailoring an epic to suit the needs of a contemporary setting. (Even this contemporary setting is vague for Jha couldn't decide if he was going for UP or Bihar. Hence, unlike Omkara this modern day 'adaptation' of Mahabharatha is not rooted in any regional specificity that we could relate too. It takes place, as if in an alternate universe where most members of one families pop off within the space of what looked like two months. Even the first family of the country spaced out their assassinations with quite a few years.) Anyway, adaptations are about interpretation methinks. We know what happened in Mahabharatha, we don't need Jha to give us a recap. And if Jha means that Indian politics is like a kurukshetra then YAWN again. We know that only too well. Rajneeti's success is not about masses getting smart but masses opting to see the only too familiar - the easily accessible film.

About 20 years back, Shashi Tharoor sought the same path. He fashioned pre- and post-independence politics after The Great Indian Novel. While he showed more ingenuity in fixing mythological characters on real life personalities, people about whom we had preconcieved ideas Rajneeti neither surprises nor engrosses. It shows scant interest in the literary work and less political understanding than I am sure Jha actually has. Most of earlier films that I have seen show a superior grasp of the political undercurrents (Mrityudhand, Gangajal). They are rooted in the region's realities and the actors have a kind of raw earthiness. In Rajneeti, Manoj Bajpai is a Bollywood villain while Ranbhir is the suave scoundrel or Bollywood anti-hero. They are Bollywood fixtures, rather than political entities. The one sly masterstroke in the whole game is locating Dalit politics as the "bastard child of communism". Though the point is debatable it is the only real political analysis in the film. Politics is not just about the people in it - it is over and above us. Jha is not interested in showing politics, only the politicians. They are just faces, Bollywood faces pretty, not so pretty, pained, demonic. That's why Ajay Devgn, the ideal choice for the role, is annoying to the last degree. His claims of being Dalit ring hollow since the film refuses to dig deeper into the political well. He is just a face to Karna. Arjun Rampal is devastatingly goodlooking and creepy as a murderer but nothing more.

Raavan is not about politics but it is overtly political. (In fact it ironically shows a political understanding missing in Ratnam's political films - Dil se, Roja, Yuva.) I need to own up to ignorance about how the film is in Hindi. I am sure not as good as it is in Tamil - Abhishek would have come out as a buffoon in that role if I have seen enough of his films to judge. To be fair Vikram as Ram does not look convincing either. The brilliance of Raavanan in Tamil lies in the perfectness of the looks of actors to the mythological role assigned to them and the inherent deception of the same. Prithvi looks every bit Ram in his fair Aryan arrogance made over with Raybans and khakhis. Vikram looks every bit Dravidian and that's the raw sexuality that Ash's Sita falls for. In Hindi, his passing off as Ram is doubtful. Appearances matter a lot and we grant that Ratnam was not able to pull off the casting coup he did in the Tamil version. I can only compare with confidence once I have seen the Hindi version on Tv but these are my initial thoughts.

Raavanan showed a greater level of engagement with the original text. It understood the original and understood what was the popular understanding of the text was. Rajneeti seeks to be THE plot while Raavanan is just a foil. He locates contemporary characters in mythological terrains - roots them in recognizable reality (if Beera can be found in laal maati then the affinity of Veera's name to Veerapan is not completely misinterpreted). He is then able to destabilise our preconcieved ideas about both the mythology and the contemporary character. For both purposes, he does not go out of the way - he assumes we know our Ramayan and we know (or we think we know) about maoists and a certain 'sandalwood smuggler'. He puts fwd the identity of the mythic characters a little too forcefully so that we have no confusion whatsoever. Ratnam's script probably didn't even cover a page - he narrated his de-constructed interpretation of Ramayan in a fitting abstract canvas. He probably did with more success whatever Sanjay Leela Bhansali tried with Black and Blue (sorry, cheap shot). He painted a breathtakingly canvas to a razor thin plotline. This was probably coz there is nothing really that can be added to the story that we don't know already. We are just given instances that prove what a jerk Ram is and how Raavanan is probably not that much of a bad guy. These broad character brushstrokes are interspersed intricate detailing of a seasoned artist (actually two, Santosh Sivan deserves credit for having shot scenes so picturesque that Ratnam kept showing them over and over again). He records minute details of responses of the mind juxtaposed against static physical expressions.

Above all, watching Vikram is a connoisseur's delight. Limited though he is by the director's obvious preference for sights and sounds his madness is as enchanting as his mildness. He is primarily a director's actor - lack of guidance leads him to don his Pithamagan garb in places but where he is given Suhasini's crafted dialogues to be delivered with calmness unbecoming of his character (his charming proposal to Ash from a boat full of children) you can see why the chaste Sita sways. And sways, she does. This Sita is not only grateful of the respect bestowed on her by the demon god, she lusts for both the gentler side of him and the brute who kidnaps and fights her in her quiet, dignified way. Ironically, it's Ratnam's expertise as far as romances and relationships are concerned that wins again (forget the pretty rainbow).

The pursuit of love

2010-06-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

What are these?

These hazy pictures of disembodied faces.

Whatever they saw, they only know.

They said they loved,

Others said they lost.

Still others thought they escaped,

took away a part of our soul as they left.

I wonder what kind of soul that would be,

for a nameless, faceless, bodily absent self.

2010-06-18T02:07:00.000-07:00

Why is your story like mine?

I wish I had thought of what you did.

I would have been alive today.

Hail and hearty,

In a safe haven,

rather than unsafe heaven.

It is fun being imprisoned, no?

Better than being free...

2010-04-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

I am not sure how many ppl are still glued to IPL (I know my dad is) but I know v few ppl who don't agree that it is not a good thing. I have a thing or two to say that are not in anyway related to cricket. But then most ppl seem to also feel that IPL is no longer about cricket.
I do think that Shashi Tharoor has been made into a scapegoat - not that I feel sorry for him. But if Dayanidhi Maran being Communications Minister was not a conflict of interest then I am not sure what grave error Tharoor must have committed. I refuse to believe that Sunanda Pushkar is clean and ethical as well but her treatment in media definitely rattles the feminist in me. But beyond these small sacrifices and the big one that we are all waiting for with bated breath my only interest in the whole episode is the ppl's responses.
In the neoliberal economics of the world, Indians still find it difficult to digest the blatant spectacle of greed and avarice. Hypocrites though we are, this shows that we are not ready as yet to go too far. If we learn to ignore the starvation of farmers and artisans, we also cringe at what's being offered at the other end of the spectrum - where an elite circle of business persons and Bollywood actors quote sums of money obscene even by 21st century standards. A world where Karan Johar's movies seem like model images of restrain and austerity.
Moving past the glitz and the novelty, we are not ready of the big dream yet - of base and aggressive greed.

2010-04-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

They left me for greener pastures, I know.

But I am not complaining anymore,

their loss.

Or was it mine?

The orbit of my amputed selves

are exploding themselves into a black hole.

In the midst of all the smoke,

I am feeling more complete now than ever before.

But inadequate too.

My failures are my memory.

I have lost my memories - my herstory...

Did I win or lose?

Refer back to:

The scattered pieces of my life,

they left me for greener pastures no doubt.

But something happened somewhere

in the cosmic chain of events.

They ended up hovering around me

the orbit of my amputed selves.

They won't come back,

and they don't move away.

Reminding me forever

of my incompleteness.

Damsels in Tamil cinema

2010-04-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

Satutory warning: I am not an expert in Tamil films. This is just an observation.

The popular misconception is that many of the women who make it in kollywood don't have the skills that go with the trade. So apart from Asin, who proved her worth, by crossing over to Bollywood the others are either stuck or even failures from elsewhere who found space here. I beg to disagree.
Many generations of women have found the same select number of men, who are actually male fantasy icons, irresistably attractive. I can't see any better proof of acting skills than Trisha falling for Vijay over and over again, Genelia finding Jayam Ravi attractive (???!!!). Maybe I am being unfair, so I will try blasphemy - vijaykant, sarat kumar, Dhanush? I am not being elitist, urbane or an age snob here.
I just find it unfair that Trisha, Reema Sen, Genelia and other actors not known for earning this qualifier haven't got their due. On the other hand, Asin had to romance Suriya to be seen and appreciated - she had it easy.
The larger problem is that Tamil cinema, to a much larger extent than Hindi cinema, works out a role for its women only when it is defined as a women-oriented film. And yet, it goes far beyond Hindi cinema in that the women are not only objects of male fantasy they are endowed with a gaze - they actively desire men (many of whom may actually be icons of male sexual hysteria).
Of course there are exceptions which even I know of - Genelia's fleshed role in the father-son contest that is Santosh Subramaniyam.

2010-04-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

Everytime I fall,

I think of you.

Everytime I dream,

you become my nightmare.

Every single failure of mine,

is linked to that success of one time.

You are where I begin

and the end is nowhere in sight.

Answers to 5 popular questions

2010-03-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

Brevity is a virtue one learns with experience. People are not going to read the loooong yarns you spin. Rather make it short and bitter sweet (I hardly think I can be real sweet ever).
So here we go.

1. Couldn't Sania find any eligible bachelor in India?
Will refrain from obvious jokes like Sania is luckier than Dimpy Ganguly or even Madhuri had to look elsewhere (not really. Who can help being corny.)I don't know how this Shoib guy looks and why he is so famous/infamous but I wonder if two uninspiring sportspersons can move the Samjota express forward. Here is to wishing more Indians especially women (I can't really rejoice at the sight of SRK applying sindhoor on Preity's forehead in Veer-Zaara) find love where we usually locate war.

2. Love, sex aur Dokha ... ?

I think the point of the movie is a truly radical sentiment of the need to forget men for our own good (or I'm I stretching things too far). A longer review will follow but this is my one line answer to a question that cannot even be framed!

3. Are you going back to India after the course?
The day I feel comfortable and confident (not a dumb outsider who drifted in by mistake) among a group of Indians, I will pack my bags and return.

4. Which son should Karunanidhi choose?
Azhagiri is a goon and Stalin (don't go by the name!) is a whimp. He actually has one successor true in every sense of the term. A poet, an activist at heart, very liberal and endearing. Kanimozhi.

5. 33% when we account for 51% of the population. WTF?

Lets look towards the future. The rate at which Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu etc are going we might end up with only 33. Our male leaders are not visionaries. They don't know we are going to have the last laugh on this issue.

2010-03-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

The scattered pieces of my life,

they left me for greener pastures no doubt.

But something happened somewhere

in the cosmic chain of events.

They ended up hovering around me

the orbit of my amputed selves.

They won't come back,

and they don't move away.

Reminding me forever

of my incompleteness.

2010-03-04T16:16:00.000-08:00

You are pissed with the deplorable situation in India. Who isn't. Your solution:

Get drunk
Decide that Manu Sharma getting punished is the greatest victory for Indian democracy and get drunk again (oh no, he gets out and gets drunk too *egad teeth clattering*)
You scheme like a dog, get power and hand it over to 'good-hearted' spineless old man.
Get a facebook account
Get on TV and go on offensive
Shun pvt news channels, back to DD (mile sur mera tumhara, yippee)
Hang in there, things could work out or not (it is all dialectic and all that jazz)
Get elected and act cool
Travel across the country, you don't need FB or news media (oh no but how will the world know you are awesome if you re not on TV)
Write a blog, tell the world how ridiculous all other solutions are, feel smug.

It is not eerie when the real world of politics follows bollywood prescripts. The films in their mediocrity capture the cringeworthy real world (if we agree there is one) better than fine cinema of our times. And that's why, after spending reams of e-paper and many hours of my waking life criticizing Rang de Basanti I am all set to reclaim it (Number 2 of my list). RDB is a fine film about the mediocrity of our political vision: The understanding of the past, our solutions for the present and our hopes for the future. It awoke the rebel in every young Indian, they said. (Ever considered how the young Indian is always male whether it is Yuva - number 8 - or Rock on.) Our rebel selectively usurps Bhagat Singh out of his context and his political philosophy and places it a Manu Sharma-meets-George Fernandes situation and basks in its glory.
The last 15 minutes of RDB seals our fate in the inevitability of senseless media images governing ours sensibilities. If people didn't find that cringeworthy then logically Paa's surprising attack on private media must have seemed a smooth ride. Balki's diatribe is not exaggerated but it is totally out of context in a film about progenia. He thought the child in his film could have a cool, genx politician-dad and, what more, give the latter the mission of redevelopment - itself an insensitive appropriation of a contentious issue. He neither knows or cares to study or integrate it in his script. The result in a mish-mash of things ending (thankfully!) with a hasty marriage thrown in to appease the dying child (not quite grateful after all). His politics is neither neoliberal nor socialist, not fresh or traditional, definitely not feminist. An apolitically political nation.
Given this context, My name is khan is neither an aberration nor a celebration. MNIK is a larger-than-life and yet microsmic view. It is a genuinely naive exploration of the post-9/11 context as seen as from the eyes of simpleton (autism is another story in itself - something Kjo has no time for) Muslim. By keeping it firmly focussed on the individual and his limited worldview, Kjo probably does more justice to his theme than New York or Kurbaan. Or, for that matter, any of the films mentioned above. Kjo doesn't know politics and so he wouldn't dig too deep. His urge (he is after all the creator of those K-films) for a large-than-life setting takes him elesewhere, away from the embarrassing gaps in political standpoint to his favourite theme in the whole world - worshipping shah rukh khan. You may cringe coz you like srk or coz you don't. But there is no getting away from the fact that Kjo has at least been honest about one thing - "muslims are humans too, don't ask me anything else. This should be good enough reason to treat them well." And it sure is.

Here I am

2010-02-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

Yes Fear. Rama hasn't abandoned her blog yet. I recall that I haven't done what I do every year end/beginning - talk about films that released. Of course it is my thing now. I have to do it even if we are well into Feb now.

This time I thought I would write about films that nobody liked but I did. That's the theme for 2009 films, people. Hence, Kaminey, Dev D etc which were surprise hits are out of the picture. Firaaq and Luck by Chance are great first-attempts but everybody concurs with me on that. Also, films that nobody liked and neither did I are going to remain unacknowledged (What's your Rashee?, Ajab prem..., Kambaqt Ishq eeeks)

But maybe I should say a word about 3 Idiots. It was a passable film with some nice moments, and some really dreary moments too. I have always suspected films that have been critically acclaimed and have got boxoffice success too. It makes egoists like Aamir even more complacent. Aamir is not a bad actor or a bad ghost director but his better-than-mediocre skills should not be mistaken for inherent genius. Rajkumar Hirani has done better than this in the past and I wish he had made this film too. Now for my list:

1. Delhi 6 - The minute I mention this film people say bad climax. I have to point out again and again that Delhi 6 had a much shorter climax with fewer histrionics than his earlier Rang de Basanti (the 3 Idiots of its time - the film nobody likes to find fault with). Delhi 6 made fewer promises and delivered more. RDB can never ever hope to come near this piece of filmmaking.

2. 8X 10 Tasveer: Say what you will, I like this film. I didn't even mind Akshay Kumar in it. Oh yes, Nagesh falters somewhere in the middle but keeps us engaged till the end. He tries his hand at every genre and I think the point is not how well he succeeds viz-a-viz other experts in the said genre. We have to see what he brings to a thriller, using the top actor in the genre, and how he makes it his own.

3. Love Aaj Kal: Hirani may have succombed to the Aamir bully but Imtiaz Ali manages to save his film from Saif (he almost loses that battle with Deepika). People found it meandering and incomprehensible in places. I loved it for these very reasons. It doesn't have the universal appeal that Jab We Met had (though it did get boxoffice success) but it has complexity and substance as well as entertainment and relativity. You don't need to get it in its entirely and that is why you will never lose it completely.

4. Quick Gun Murugan: What can I say about this that I haven't said already? A Bengali uses a largely Bollywood supporting cast and a Kannada protognist to make a Tamil film. National integrity or creative nonsense? Political incorrectness is a hit with me.

5. Dil Bole Hadippa : This will probably be the most controversial in this list. Not only will I support this mediocre film but I will also compare it with Chakde India, find the latter lacking in places that the former fills in. Razor-thin plot, zero originality, zilch conviction and bad filmmaking - and yet DBH has something. While Chakde had the slap-in-the-face feminism and the cliched underdog-beats-all plot, DBH is about naivity and nativity. It threads the thin line between retrogressiveness and non-western progressivism. It can and does trip and therein lies its unrealised potential. In her last speech, Rani doesn't articulate any politicised feminist thought. Her question is a simple one - how can you stop one from dreaming? If Nandita Das seems to hint in Firaaq that unpoliticised women can be the only secular people in Gujarat, Rani comes close to this idea. The third world woman tries to speak in her own language - or am I seeing what I want to see here?

Just in time

2010-01-26T21:11:00.000-08:00

About eight years ago, I was told by classmates to stay on for the last concert of my college's cultural festival. It was my first encounter with the phenomenon that was Indian Ocean. How lucky I thought I was and how meaningful my life had suddenly become. The idea that I didn't know of the band's existence before then seemed ridiculous. I bought every album of theirs without listening to them even once. And I have never been able to choose my favourite Indian Ocean number. People like jimmy make fun of my devotion ... to their detriment.
But there weren't that many albums happening. They always seemed more interested in their live performances. But luck wasn't with me. I missed them in Mumbai and Chennai (for the Chennai one I would've actually got to write about them but it wasn't meant to be). As time went by, the prospect of seeing them again receded in my mind. But Nov 2009 was my lucky month - it was their last but one concert in US. It was a totally different setting. A small night club instead of the wide open sports field of my college. Older, gray-er but more alive than ever - the rockers. I felt like I had broken the jinx. I was finally back to the place where my soul rests in peace.
It was the last ever concert of Indian Ocean that I could ever attend, as it turns out. I know they will carry on without Asheem Chakravarty but it wouldn't be Indian Ocean as I know it. Maybe if they did more instrumental but I am not sure.
He is not my favourite. I like Rahul Ram's spirited renditions and Amit Kilam's enigmatic presence more than anything. But I will never want to hear anyone else sing "Das Kabir ne jatan kari.." in Jhini.
I'm glad I wasn't a miser and went to their Boston concert before it was all over.

Not today nor tomorrow

2009-11-18T19:38:00.000-08:00

I have miles to go before I wake up,

And so today I'll sleep.

After spending a lifetime in slumber,

I know there is nothing to hurry.

I will open my eyes when I see fit,

stretch a little or may be not.

We will see then what I'll do,

I have miles to go still

for today I shall sleep.

I am tired as of now,

and I will hit the bed.

2009-10-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

I don't want to be a rebel anymore.

Even by default.

If I have to keep trying, if I have to keep pushing.

If I have to be something that can be classified as rebel

I don't care anymore.

The demands are too high.

And the end product is too lame.

I don't want to be it,

the 'it' that can be caught, defined, limited

and not to forget condemned if 'it' falls off its high alter.

I am not a rebel,

not even by default.

I rebel against the category of rebels.

Politically incorrect sensitivity

2009-10-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

There is something radical about political incorrectness if the privilege is exercised cautiously. Political correctness, itself an inside joke in the women's lib movement to begin with, is institutionalised in a way that differences and discriminations continue to be perpetuated. But political incorrectness does away with cursory nods and goes straight to the heart of the problem. It will not sit well with your 'liberal' beliefs as well -- that's really the point. It does not adhere to any prescribed codes of behaviour, nobody and nothing is sacroscant. During the Iraq war, late night show with JLeno or whoever became the only source of real information coz he was not tied down by any laws or rules. The views expressed were his own but more importantly he was not serious. He was taken seriously though. The only US show that I took to in the last one year is Saturday Night Live.
India's poor attempt at this political incorrectness The week that wasn't is the only 'news show' that I used to watch and continue to watch now. I can't take the incessant analysis with arrogant experts and dismissive, presumptious anchors. News needs excavation from layers of moralising and reflections if at all the anchors' volume is under 180 decibels. Cyrus' distanced, cynical, satirical look at issues as against the suffocating closeness of IBN's own broadcasting helps. Cyrus is not the funniest man in India but I like his attempt. He is politically aware and sensitive at unexpected moments and he spares no one. In fact the jokes seem to be targetted at IBN itself on many instances.
These shows are different from stand up comedies like Russell Peters' videos though Peters is often very consciously political. The primary purpose of these acts is laughs and political incorrectness comes in handy. TWTW or SNL's primary purpose is political incorrectness -- a different way of interpreting events than mainstream media.
Recently I read a review of Quick Gun Murugan which made a case for nonsense cinema as a way out for the creativity starved Bollywood. QGM is definitely a worthwhile effort if that was the cause. Having Vinay Pathak, Ravir Shorey, Sandya Mridul all talking in Tamil was not the pt. We have had Ash, Genelia, Tabu among others talking in Tamil ostensibly. (And frankly it is an improvement on them. Ash and Genelia are screechy which makes their presence even worse while Tabu has beautiful expressions with awkward dialogue delivery so Revathi is a wonderful voice for her) I think this means a breakdown of language barriers. Language is not important anymore for communication in this film. What is communicated is one idea (literally just one -- which is why a full length film seems redundant) that there is a cacophony of voices around us which enmate from a weird mishmash of characters -- QG Murugan stands between different cultures, an amputated arm from Tamil cinema that was mocked cruelly through fetishisation for its difference. But with a full length film QG is reclaimed and restored as a whole. Reappropriated for the purpose of comedy, the film actually hits back at the mocking audience by pointing out that they now are watching a tamil movie for all their ethnocentrism. The nonsensical approach is not only a way out for Bollywood, which has highly stylised but hollowed products like Rock On and now Wake up Sid (which make me want to run towards Rab ne bana di jodi), where chaos and illegibility is the key. It is also a politically incorrectness that signifies the reconfiguration of power equations that has already happened in some ways in Indian cultural landscape. The film is probably as funny or even less funny than cyrus but I appreaciate the attempt.
The same goes for the emminently non-funny Raju Srivatsava. Of course a snob like me will be biased against him but his political incorrectness has a way of making points that normative though liberal people will shudder to make. He was apparently seen in Big Boss wearing a T-shirt that said 'nobody knows I'm a lesbian'. Way to go guy.

2009-10-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

The days are in a hurry,

they just want to finish up quicky and bolt.

Where do they go and what do they do there?

Are they sneaking out and living life kingsize elsewhere?

They know people there, I know they do.

Out of the blue

2009-09-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post badly, despite my hectic schedule, and this non-brainer idea popped into my head. My top ten Rahman numbers. They are by no means a comment on the merits of his individual songs. Possibly, some songs may just be ordinary or some other songs not listed here might be better representations of his talent. These are just some of my top favs.

10. Oruvan oruvan mudhalali - Muthu, Kaise mujhe - Ghajini
9. Noor un ala - Meenaxi; Kahin toh hogi woh - Jaane tu ya jaane naa
8. Snehidene - Alai Paayudhey; vennilavae - Minsaara Kanavu
7. Munbe vaa - Silunu oru kaadhal
6. Yeh jo zindagi hai - Earth; Aayo re sakhi - Water

5. Kannathil Muthammitaal, Vellai pookal -- Kannathil...
4. Pudhu vellai malai - Roja
3. Dil se re - Dil se
2. Tee Tee - Thiruda Thiruda
1. Rehna tu, Dil gira dafatan - Dilli 6

PS: Blue is his next release :P

2009-09-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

Fumbling, stumbling, never walking straight.

I realise I had an optimistic spirit after all.

I hoped I would be tall, calm, collected one day.

Cynic though I called myself,

I was shamming as well as anyone else.

The web of deceit that I was caught in like any other,

was laughing up its sleeve all the time.

Even in rebelling, I was supporting.

I thought I was walking out

but in reality I was helping it stretch itself.

Alas, I have stopped now.

Perhaps I did long back.

Thanks for the liberation, Mr Bush

2009-08-16T20:25:00.001-07:00

And Mr Obama for keeping up the good work. Within a few months of a brave protest by Afghan women against legalisation of marital rape, the men have come up with another solution -- they will starve the wives who refuse sex.
A Taliban without the sham of western democracy seems to be more decent every day.

All this I can only hope means that the men are more and more insecure about their position.

Yun hota toh kya hota

2009-08-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

I don't sit and dwell,

I move on and look back.

It is not a regret,

but a whimsy repetition

of 'what ifs'.

What if I had stayed a little longer,

what if I had not been on the margins,

what if I had moved closer,

not just looked through the gaps in the fence.

What if I had really been there?

I was scared then,

as I am even now.

What if I was caught trespassing,

what if I had threaded on unknown,

dangerously devilish emotions.

What if I had really known,

would there be any more need to linger?

What if life is just the wait to know,

and when it ends, we longer know anything.

Love today or yesterday -- How the hell does it matter?

2009-08-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

It is funny how Bollywood literally manufactures love, defines it, characterises it and limits the boundaries and then tells us how the approach to love has now changed. Alrighty, if you say so.

What reviews didn't have to tell me about Love Aaj Kal was 1) Deepika would be unbearable; 2) Imtiaz Ali dialogues and sense of humour will not fail you; 3) Imtiaz Ali dialogues in Deepika's hands or rather mouth will be pure torture.

Once you make peace with her presence and try to not get too bugged by Saif's wannabe coolness -- after all, we have seen that for 20 years now -- you can watch the movie for what it is. I know it is not easy but hey, what's the point of complaining about Deepika when you have already watched Bachna Ae Haseeno. I know LAK will never be the masterpiece Jab We Met was precisely coz of its miscast leads. But it would be rare for one director to deliver Chupke Chupke and Golmaal.

But let us get past these essentials and see what Imtiaz Ali is trying to do here. Jab We Met was never simple, its complex negotiations of the affairs of the heart were new and refreshing. For the first time the Bollywood audience was not thought of as dumb but people who were ready to engage more deeply with the cinematic text. But in many ways it was an unproblematic narrative -- a gradual and quite a speedy progression to the unevitable happily ever after. The only real roadblocks in Shahid and Kareena's unision were the innumerable songs, all pleasant but bit of a stretch.

In contrast, Socha Na Tha was actually deeper and problematic. (BTW, the then debutant actors gave a much better performance than experienced Saif and over-publicised Deepika.) At the throes of marrying a woman belonging to another religion after much struggle, Abhay suddenly discovers that he was after all in love with the woman his parents picked for him. Never has the realisation of being in love produced such horror on anyone up on the bollywood screen. His only supporter in the family, his sister-in-law, admonishes him for his flippancy and leaves him alone to grapple with the new complications. Love can change with time but will people understand?

Jab We Met had no such issues despite the presence of the spineless boyfriend, Shahid anyway came out as a better choice. But the realisation of love rather than just the practical aspect of 'who is the better man' took time. But it was coming and we knew it. We just journeyed along with Imtiaz to the end. In LAK, the practical aspect of a less messy life wins. The realisation of love is never an issue -- in a series of snapshots Imtiaz establishes the contours of the leads' amazing chemistry and easy companionship. It is probably this pleasant togetherness that makes the breaking up easy and even funny. But what if love does not change? Will people understand? I found the response to LAK in many ways similar to KANK. These are highly individualistic people and relationships. When people's brains think in million different directions, can you be true to the norm? Even if you are in letter, are you true in spirit? Are we resistant to these individualistic situations coz we can't understand? But then, are our relationships simple for that matter?

Imtiaz cleverly places Rishi Kapoor's unidimensional love story as a contrast. His 'pratigya' is melodramatic but isn't it just an aspiration of an uncomplicated, almost Utopian love viz-a-via a simple life that probably only existed in Bollywood or people who mirrored their lives after Bollywood images? The parallel story for me was not so much a difference in time zones as a difference between fact and fiction. After talking to generations of men and women, Bollywood still manages to keep a distance from the meanings people make of it. People who grew up on Bollywood and are still quite attached to it don't want to relate it to their lives. For them, love is something distant and juvenile.

Bollywood had (in some ways has even now) kept love on a high altitude whereas in real life people worry about geography and finances. In trying to take these complications into account, the B-town again gives us the upbeat, love-will-conquer-all ending. Imtiaz Ali's knowledge of love as it was seems to come from Bollywood just as the solution to Saif-Deepika's meandering lives is so Bollywood. Their confused, traumatised admissions (Saif's pre-marriage monologue and Deepika's post-marriage salvaging) are so beautiful in their vagueness. The high alter of love Saif finds himself in after being bashed up muggers brought back to reality by the simple question of his help at hand -- you have health insurance? -- is so reminiscent of JWM. Imtiaz's juggling of these two worlds -- the fact of life and the fiction of love -- is so fascinating.
The best part of LAK is the grey areas -- the leads are not themselves mean and selfish people leading their respective partners into loveless relationships. They don't intend to cause pain but they end up doing just that. The film wouldn't have clicked for me if Deepika hadn't married Rahul and left him in a couple of days. You were supposed to feel sorry for him but also to realise that the impossibility of the situation. It was totally unfair but that's how life is. What is love really? The confusion Deepika faces a couple of days after her marriage? Or the cup of black tea Harleen brings to Rishi Jr after he has travelled thousands of miles to just to see her once?
As Imtiaz put it in an interview it is just too confusing: "When young, I thought love was what Amitabh did with Rekha in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar. But now, I’m thoroughly confused. There are so many aspects to love. Soon, I’ll stop wondering what it actually is. There’s no point spending my time and energy over the same. I’d rather go on with my life."
The confusion shows so well and so beautifully in LAK. One may not enjoy the film as much as JWM (though some parts are just outrightly hilarious like the friends preparing themselves for the 'break-up party') but it is far more convincing. And yet it leads us up to the happy ending that melodramatically romantic Rishi Jr manages. How do they resolve their little geography problem actually? Imtiaz doesn't tell us that, it makes sense since he tells us it makes no difference whatsoever. They don't have an option but to be together -- how very sweet and how very bollywood. And thank god for that!

And thanks to Imtiaz for taking my few criticisms of JWM seriously:
1. The songs are not roadblocks but complement the script well.
2. The lead is not a filthy rich businessman as he was in both his previous films but a regular guy, who has to wait for years to have his dreams realised.
3. And my most important problem with his films -- let me replay:

In Socha Na Tha, my main problem was that he didn't give Ayesha a character to speak of, something that Abhay gains as he works with his father towards the end of the film. But here (JWM), he concentrates primarily on what happens to the persons during the course of the film. It is not so much about their careers (though I do wish he doesn't make his third film on a filthy rich chocolate boy -- that would be one-too-many) but what kind of individuals they end up being. Ayesha's confusion (like Kareena's) in life is whom to marry. But that is not the all and end all of life. In his second film, he manages to show that.

In LAK, finally he has a heroine who has a career, one she is passionate about -- one for which she will leave her boyfriend and move to another country. She is also someone who says and does the right thing -- even if it doesn't really seem right, she will leave her husband rather be stuck in marriage while loving another. He was never really sexist but now he is able to comprehend a gender other than his own -- even if it leads him to the conclusion that nothing is comprehensible as far as human beings and their affairs are concerned. Else, why would he choose Deepika to play such a wonderful role????

Essentialised identities or essentially just that

2009-07-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

Snide/predictable comments on how many times I will write on this topic are anticipated and the counter is given beforehand. As a student one seems to be circling around the same issues even while working on different continents, contexts, sites. Questions about self keep resurfacing and every time the reflections acquire a different dimension. What is the point of theory if it has no relevance to our immediate lives?
I always wondered how rigorous education in sociology or psychology could leave your personal life so unaltered. For that matter the great, pathbreaking technological innovations, which have not been so remarkable by the time I have discovered them (facebook, for example) will not make you more adventurous or have you think that values/early observations you started out might not mean anything or not what they used to.
I was ignorant of the willpower of the human brain to cling to things that mean little or anything at all. If you give up on things you started out before you began to have an idea about who you were (and of course after that you were left completely clueless) then what do you have really?
I used to be deeply traumatised by the impossibility of shedding the tam brahm identity. I tried to criticise it more as the years went by to hide my continuing association with many things Tamil and brahmin in nature. I listened to criticism directed to me as a tam brahm, which were always personal and direct. But then 'we' did piss people off, I reasoned.
I still hold on to my criticism, which comes from the inside and is immediate. But what is an identity really? Is it immutable? Can you just stop being something, anything (let alone something that has issues of class, race, social privilege all so intricately woven into it)?
Identity is far from being static, it changes with you, it is sometimes the change and at others it changes the contours of the 'change' itself. So you can oxymoronic identities like Atheist Hindus or non-queer gays.
But what I am still fascinated about is how one can be say, tam brahm, without having anything tamil or brahmin about you. How can you want to be with other tam brahms when you A) Don't speak Tamil. B) Don't subscribe to brahminism. Add to that, the very visible practices of tam brahms which you don't care two hoots about -- but I will come to that later.
There was time in my life when I was told that the problem was not with religion but with rituals that surrounded it. I have now come to believe that rituals, those things which are so conveniently expendable and adaptable according to schedules, occupations, weather etc, are the ones that really matter. We can do what we can with them. They are dynamic not sacrosanct. I would anyday choose rituals over religion.
But if you stick to a dead or at least inert identity, what do you get out of it? Is it still an identity -- it must be if you call yourself that but it doesn't really mean anything, does it? If you don't care for Tamil (whatever run-down delhi/bombay/NY version that you have heard), tamil movies are not classy enough for you, Carnatic music (admittedly with all its snobbery and colonial lineage) doesn't appeal to you -- then what identity are we talking about? Don't get me wrong -- I am not saying there was only 4 or 5 things you can and compulsorily should do to be a tam brahm. Tam brahminism is above all stupid blood line. I am not denying that.
What I am trying to decipher is how you can be 100 different things and be fascinatingly multi-dimensional in each one of them and then be so static when it comes to community affiliation. When an integral identity of yours is for all practical purposes dead (you don't care about the contours of it even if the purpose of learning to just reject) what does it tell about you as a person?
I think sometimes fanatically insular individuals who do the whole rigmarole of communityhood are perhaps better off because at least they are growing in some way. They are not stagnant. The inability to embrace and unwillingness to not conform is basically being stranded. The card-bearing tam brahms are unbearable to me -- they essentialise about everyone around them, think they are god's gift to humanity. But at least they are not essentially just that.
I will get along better with namesake tam brahms no doubt but I do find it deeply traumatic that one could be just namesake anything -- community or sexuality or race. A Delhi tam brahm is not anything like a Chennai tam brahm (and so the twain shall never meet they say!) and I think that's fascinating. The incredibly dynamic potential of individuals to mold, subvert, transform identities. To make it essentially just a community/pure blood affiliation is a waste of the multiple roads it opens for us to tread, feel, just be.
Not only political questions of caste inequalities need to be addressed by first accepting the reality of caste, but questions of culture and society, its progress, its liberal or non-liberal nature depend on it being a living reality. If we treat caste as just blood line, we can hardly hope to make it an equal world. But more tragically, the burden of an identity that means nothing to you might be too exacting and unnecessary.

Well, so now I am not sure where I am!

2009-07-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

There are times when my cynicism gets the better of me. Ok ok there are those rare moments when my cynicism doesn't cloud my thought process.
So I was looking at the list I made in May when Congress won the elections -- agenda for the next five years. Let us recap:
Free Binayak Sen, Rescue Afzal from the gallows, Save Niyamgiri, Save olive ridley turtles, Condemn Narendra Modi, remove Armed Forces Special Powers Act from Northeast, counter right wing forces (their moral policing, attacks on women) in Karnataka, Remove section 377, Ensure fair trial for Kasab

Binayak Sen is out now and Article 377 has been humbled with very muted responses from political parties. A SIT will interrogate Modi (!) and PM has acknowledged that an issue relating to the Dharma Port (of some silly shelled creatures) exists. These by no means great victories though the first two does give me some hope. There are others that have been included in the list -- Justice for Prof Sabharwal.
All these are issues relating to Nationalisms at some level. Nationalisms are the starting point of great injustices which are accompanied by little impunity. Nationalisms demand so much and give back so little, if at all. A vague idea, an unformulated, ever-changing concept. We just think that we could tinker, smooth out the rough edges and someday we will have a near perfect idea. This list here -- the list of causes most close to my heart -- what does it even mean? If we were achieve these goals, will the world be a better place to live? Or let me sleep peacefully at least? We all know that nationalisms like many many-headed monsters will sprout other grave injustices -- more evil perhaps than what we have seen already.
Then why are we fighting these battles? Sometimes I am asked specifically why these losing battles? I am fighting nationalisms of all kinds and so, though it matters whether we win or lose, we are looking towards a world where these stupid, illogical ideas, all of one variety, will matter less and less.

On why

2009-07-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

One question any desi will be asked at regular intervals in a marked whisper is: Will you go back?

And I suppose most, like me, will say yes, of course. When? Well, that's the question ain't it? Desis here keep complaining that life here is tough, especially with children. I don't get it. You can't want to endure something that's tough. Like Anu told me about Jung philosophy, you only always do what you really want as opposed what you want. You want to make it look like you are suffering this isolated, technology-heavy, family and kinship-free existence so as to get over the guilt of chucking the tough life back home. Of course one can't admit that one is happy to have got rid of clingy family, after all it is all about loving your family.

That's human beings, especially those who believe in religion. Being happy and comfortable, having desires and even the audacity to have been fulfilled, is a crime. You got to suffer, you to got tell yourself and then make yourself suffer artificially to feel better.

About me. My life is the same everywhere. I make myself suffer, and that's how I find solace. Guilt of pleasure is too heavy a burden to bear. So, I am more religious than all the non-atheist people I know. In fact, I am more conventional than most card-holding desi community members I know. I take family responsibilities seriously though I know it is beginning of all gender inequities in the world.

I came here for simple reasons that everybody else has. I wanted to see the world but I was too much of a middle class person to spend a lot of money travelling abroad when there is a lot to see back home.

I wanted to study, really study. Not for the degree but the vocation of studying. I couldn't bear to be a stagnant cesspool of resentment and persecution complex. And most importantly, I wanted to stop feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to know that I was good at something. The only university in India where I could really study told me I was not good enough for it (literally, verbally, in my face). I never got over it. When I applied abroad all the places I wanted to get into offered me a place. I felt guilty rejecting them -- no one had offered me something so willingly, of course for a price. But it was probably worth it I got to open my mind in more ways than one and I was told that I was good at something, at last.

Lastly, I am a misfit, I function well in an environment alien to me and I don't even have to try to be an odd ball. I know my accent is laughed at, my presence is tolerated and my absence is not marked.

So will I come back? The hill house awaits me. The Himalayas never really leave my mind. I know they are not my natural home. I am a person whose culture and breeding, whose childhood and education, all comes from tropical heat. Himalayas is not my home, thank god for that. Like Boston, it shall always remind me that I cheated somehow. Cheated the harsh sun and the people who match its temper. I shall be in a place I don't quite understand the local dialect, where my Hindi will be laughed at. Where I shall not belong or be fully accepted. Where I shall be myself like I am over here -- a misfit.

The Quiet, Dead End Street

2009-07-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

About eight years back, something marginal happened to me on an eventful day. As a day carved out in Indian political landscape forever, it marked out for me the first time this psychosomatic-chemico-biological reaction that we can simply call crush happened. Even then the brain (the cynical and highly judgemental brain) used to call the shots -- it was picky and made me wait for so long a time that it happened when I was beginning to think it would probably never.

Over the years, that spontaneity and thrill no longer seem to factor into anything. I am sure everybody wishes they could go back to being young just to live out their lives differently, make different choices, feel different emotions. In my case, of course, I wish there had been emotions to feel, there were choices to make and there was a life to live. I can not want to do things differently; I have start living altogether. And that is daunting.

Maybe I could begin from there again, from that cold winter afternoon of December 6 where the political and the personal converged. Let the enthusiasm and optimism of the people I met that day seep into my vegetable life, my politics, my convictions, my work, my ambitions, my emotions -- like some kind of slow pervading music that gets under your skin and makes your nerves throb in a rhythmic vein.

Ain't this fun

2009-07-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

I love all the rich and ready-to-exploit the literature that is coming out after Delhi High Court ruling. So here is an article that tells us that religious heads are not reacting all too badly to the ruling. So it has Christian and Muslim heads saying it is a sin but not a crime and as a Hindu representative they have Deepak Chopra, who but of course praises the judgment. Should I read conspiracy into this? What makes it easier for us to assume we stand for liberal ideals while the rest are still grouchy? Where are the RSS and the Ram Sena and VHP?

Of course we got to make it clear to them that it also applies to women. They are probably reading Gay ruling everywhere and getting muddled. RSS' relationship with homosexuality has always been anything but clear except when Fire and Girlfriend released. We should probably hand it down to the Christian and Muslim heads for at least not being hypocrites.

How truly fascinating

2009-07-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

Even as we celebrate homosexuality being decriminalised (not necessarily 'legalised', in my opinion), we have state govts wanting the CID to investigate Muslim boy-Hindu girl marriages. It is a perfect reminder for us of the fact that laws or court rulings can sometimes only go that far.

If people cannot understand why in the name of god a Hindu girl would want to marry a Muslim boy, it wouldn't matter in the least what the Special Marriage Act or any other piece of paper says. When Nehru brought in Hindu Marriage Act (1955) and progressive director like Guru Dutt hit back with Mr and Mrs 55. He again could not understand why a woman would ever want divorce.

We can and should rejoice in yesterday's ruling but laws find their legality in the society they operate. This society will not understand a woman wanting, actually wanting, to be with someone, anyone. It will read conspiracies, terror threats, and try to defame those they want to be with. A major reason why yesterday's ruling has been treated catiously is coz it refers to men as well as women. Though 'gay' can refer to both sexes it is primarily associated with men. And this ruling being increasingly been referred to as 'gay ruling' is beginning irk me. In the days to come, the divisions will possibly become clear and then we will know when the ruling is acknowledged and when it is not. In whose case it applies and in whose it does not.

I am not trying to deliberately break the LGBT community -- in fact the divisions are already there. An activist once told me that it is only Art. 377 that is ironically keeping them together. Now that the common enemy has been humbled, I don't know what the future holds for the alliance. But I do know that the society will selectively accept and accord legality to the terms of the ruling.

2009-07-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

It poured all night,

and drenched the city.

But I was still left

curiously dry.

Cold and limp,

I must be stark naked,

for I know everyone can see right through,

Here lies the heart that knows no emotion.

I am happy that now I have the right to love anyone,

But I also know that now I won't have an excuse

for not loving, ever.

Rahman and spirituality

2009-06-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

My favourite kind of music is Sufi/qawali. 'Off-beat', 'different', niche and earthy -- as a teenager I suppose these were very important reasons. I was busy trying not to fit in because I was not fitting-in in the first place.

The commercial Bollywood and pop music scene that looked promising at that time was discredited as I put on this pretense. When the pretense became a real fascination I don't know. Neither do I know exactly when I returned from the classes to masses. Bollywood and its rummy mediocre tunes were back defiantly and unapologetically. In the end, I settled for a adulterated version of sufiana (though I still quite enjoy the 'pure' versions) -- Rahat rather than Nustrat Fateh Ali Khan (I know this is blasphemy in certain quarters), Junoon's Laal Meri Pat rather than Abida's (I know this is blasphemy in certain quarters). It also helped me appreciate other forms of mystic music -- Turkish, East European (I have mentioned the Macedonian band Anastasia before, right?), Celtic (?).

I know it is pretty incongruous for an a diehard atheist to be taken up by mystical strands but I know many such odd people. Perhaps it is an effort to fill in the spiritual gap in their lives or just that we have a taste for good music :D

While there are many Bollywood composers now (RD Burman was a whiz with qawali -- but then what was he not a genius in?) who make the best of our sufi tradition (there is even a band is Delhi which calls itself electronic sufiana or something) Rahman gives me the goosebumps.

What is really interesting about Rahman's work is that he has composed for specific spiritual sites and managed to capture the spirit of the place in his works.

1. Haji Ali: Who remembers Anu Malik's music in Fiza (you may remember gyrating Sushmita)? If you have been to Haji Ali you will know what Rahman is talking about.

2. Jama Masjid/Chandini Chowk/Old Delhi: Delhi 6 has so many breathtaking songs that some people may not remember Arziyan very well. But just like the movie, this song captures the feel of the city and the neighbourhood beautifully. It's interesting because the music is sufi and the place is a Masjid.

3. Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti dargah: Again a movie with many beautiful songs, including a Hindu mystical bhajan. While I didn't get up and perform darvish (?) like Hrithik, it is one of the best adaptations of Sufi music that I know of. I have got to make it clear that I haven't been to this dargah -- either the song is a fiction or it takes us as close to the place as one can possibly go without making the journey.

Rahman is supposed have started career making Tamil spiritual cassettes. There are links on youtube that claim to be his first, non-film works -- I don't know how authentic they are but I am pretty hopeful of compositions on Fatehpur Sikri, Nizamuddin dargah, maybe a symbolic ode to Wali ki dargah that was razed to ground during Gujarat riots.

Hope Floats

2009-05-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

Should we be thankful to CNN-IBN for at least taking up Binayak Sen's release passionately or criticise their crappy interviews. I don't know. But they seem to be so insulting even while appearing appreciative of the man.

What they don't underline is that he is not only the victim of State oppression but a symbol of our right to dissent. It was great injustice to keep him prison for 2 years and we don't know what is going to happen but it was great to know that the SC freed him in less than a minute. It is one think to get hope. It is quite another to get to point fingers at an adversary and smirk.

2009-05-16T22:17:00.000-07:00

Forgot to add:

I want to compliment Malika Sarabhai for coming third in her contest against BJP PM candidate Advani in BJP-terrorised State Gujarat with her message for communal harmony and true democracy. I am not a big fan of hers but I have to acknowledge her for fighting for something I really believe in. She made a difference.

Here is the proof:

http://ibnlive.in.com/politics/electionresults/constituency/6/06/gandhinagar.html

Left not left behind

2009-05-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

Please don't write obituaries. Please don't gloat the last supper. We are not done yet.

It is the CPM which has been done in -- not Left. Indian Left parties are pathetic and they have done badly. Left is a ideology, even a way of life. We think Left, therefore we are.

Some of us are actually happy with May 16 verdict, you know. The left parties lost out, but the Right did too. Every single time I have spoken out against BJP, I have had to counter defensively the accusation that I am a Congress supporter. I am jolly well not! But it is always either/or. If you are left, you have to be party left. If you are not party left you are a traitor to the cause of revolution.

There is a thriving Left outside party politics. It is this New Left (including civil society organisaions, NGOs, activists, academics, bloggers, Face Book activists...) which will set the agenda for future, work tirelessly for it, push/fight/struggle/ally/dissent with Congress for some small, little change.

This hope we have lost with the CPM. It is a Left that has become more Right than the Right itself. Like phoenix maybe the party left will die so that we, the new left, can rise from the ashes for the many challenges ahead -- Free Binayak Sen, Rescue Afzal from the gallows, Save Niyamgiri, Save olive ridley turtles, Condemn Narendra Modi, remove Armed Forces Special Powers Act from Northeast, counter right wing forces (their moral policing, attacks on women) in Karnataka, Remove section 377, Ensure fair trial for Kasab ... You get the picture, the big picture.

This is not a mandate for Congress governance but a rejection of Right Wing politics (Karnataka people -- you have joined the Gujaratis in being aberrations). BJP only formed the government when someone acceptable like Atal took on the leadership. Here is hoping that if Advani is not appetising enough, Modi and Varun Gandhi don't stand a chance. By the time Modi becomes a PM candidate, BJP may not be a party to reckon with anymore (what high hopes!).

When the Left and Right parties perpetrate great horrors in the Eastern and Western coast of India, the Indian people stick to centre. But this is not to credit the centre party with qualifications it doesn't possess. But they are our best bet. If not anything they will sit quiet and not do anything (like they did not hang Afzal) and let us get on with our work -- they might even help us once in a while. Just wishing!

Congrats, everyone. We have done well -- again, disclaimer -- well in not electing Congress, well in rejecting BJP.

King ... and I?

2009-05-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

(Warning: spoilers ahead but I guess those who watch films for entertainment won't touch this one anyway)

I watched The King finally. I have heard so much about it -- and anyway a Gael Garcia Bernal movie does not require much recommendation. I waited for exactly 2 months for the library network here to get it for me. And the only thing I could say was -- this is soooo f**ked up!!

The writer duo give individual explanations on the cover -- it would require that -- of how and why they came to write something as explosive as that. Their reason is very simple, the families they grew up in were so messed up that they couldn't help destroying its sanctity in every measure possible. And the film does as much -- relationships are shown as so instrumental, so opportunist that betrayals are taken as matter-of-fact. The strongest attack is though saved for God with a capital G.

Very simply, imagine Trishul. One of my favourite films, it is so typical of its kind and yet so superior. Yash Chopra had reached his peak with this movie and he couldn't match that level of excellence again. If say in Trishul, Vijay had directly gone up to Raj Gupta and got thrown out instead of going thru the long, circuitous road of infiltration. If instead of the pavithrata ki chaap that Kusum leaves by calling him bhaiya (that dialogue comes when her beloved Ravi is kidnapped), she had been actively seduced by Vijay. And when Shekhar goes to Vijay's house for his jo baat mein kehna chahta hoon uske liye yeh jagah bahut choti hai fight (yeah yeah, I can quote every significant dialogue in this film -- never has a Hindi film had so many dialogues with punch), Vijay ended up killing him. Raj Gupta opportunistically snaps up Vijay as a replacement for the lost son -- how much more f**ked up can it get? Well, King also appropriates the mera hi khoon hai sentiment with a sinister meaning when Gael, after confessing the murder to his half-sister, kills a mosquito and jokes "look that's our blood." It is creepy in so many ways -- she is also pregnant at the moment.

Vijay is no longer a wronged, wounded hero with smouldering passion. He is creepy to his very core. Shekhar is arrogant and self-centred, he not only controls his sister but has no love whatsoever for her. And most importantly, creating a great injustice which is appropriately punished in the classic kadwa sach moment gives us enormous pleasure -- there-is-some-justice-left-in-the-world feeling. The King is nothing like that. It is gory and deeply discomforting. And it still finds an audience who find pleasure in being shocked and disturbed. What do people get out of it? An affirmation for the cynical worldview or probably the "thank god, my family is not like that" feeling. Admittedly, I am suspicious of the feel-good endings. You really want me to believe that apart from Raj Gupta everybody in the family has a heart of gold? By putting everything we take as given (religion is debatable but family?) in crisis, it makes us think how these f**ked up institutions come into being in the first place.

I kept waiting for the time Malerie (our Kusum) will realise the truth. What will she do -- pick up a knife and stab him? I was further confused when she takes her bro's death so easily, of course he had been beastly to her. But she placidly looks at Gael and says in a seemingly toneless voice, "we are going to hell, you know?" What are we supposed to make of it? You can neither reject it as timid nor call it caustic. What the hell!

Terror of the unknown

2009-05-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

India is at precarious crossroads. Just one chance turn, one piece of bad luck and we would live to regret. India could a PM who stands for hate, divisiveness, violence, opportunism -- you name it and that person would invoke all these negative feelings, make you cringe and detest the very idea of it.

If some of you (Jimmy, maybe?) thought I was going to say Narendra Modi you won't be really wrong. But I am referring to someone who is despised by a substantial part of the country, definitely readers of this blog (not only English-readers but readers of the convoluted mess I generate). I am referring to the person who stands for (not so much is) for all those things. I am talking about Mayawati.

The last post I wrote supporting the candidature of Mayawati I got the goat of some of the English-speaking, upper-class for whom nothing could be more unthinkable than Mayawati becoming the PM of our country. If it was a light-hearted endorsement, the strong sentiments (expressed in person) has made me think seriously of Mayawati means -- not only to us (snobbish and privileged) but what she could mean for the country if the unthinkable became the reality.

Narendra Modi and Mayawati have somewhat always been on the same page for me. In 2007, I wrote:

2002 Conversation with Cousin 1 (16, quiet, gentle boy):
Annoying politically-charged up Me: What the hell is happening in Gujarat? This Narendra Modi...
Eager Cousin: Yeah, and this Mayawati...
Moral of the story: Never talk politics with family.

Never mind that you don't understand why a power-wielding corrupt (woman) CM is more offensive to someone than a man who sits prettily on top of a machinery that picks up and slaughters a certain group of people.

Mayawati kept turning up like a bad penny every time I pushed my anti-communal political agenda forward. Yesterday, it happened again. My mom was getting ready to vote (I can't believe I missed again!) and I sent her off with the parting shot -- do your bit to ensure Narendra Modi never becomes the PM of India. Or Mayawati, she replied in an anguished tone.

The ultimate authority for Indian audience these days is News Television. People it props up as experts are taken in as such. Add to this was this particular person's credentials as my sister's PhD supervisor. When she says Mayawati might become PM then it must be so. Never mind that I have been saying so myself :( :( But who am I?

Exactly, who am I? A misfit in my own class-caste, an 'intellectual' (okay anu, I won't flatter myself) snob pitying the unknown terror people feel for Mayawati. Why it should surpass the hatred for Modi -- who supervised over the beastly slaughter of 3,000 people, something even the Supreme Court wants to investigate now. Even the stamp of SC's suspicion cannot erase the preference for Modi over Mayawati.

Mayawati has not been known to discriminate against any set of people. Even as the number of cases under the atrocities against SC/STs rise, she openly woos Brahmins. She has already threatened SP's hold over the Muslim population. She is seeking to bring together a coalition of groups while Muslims in Gujarat still live in terror (some still in refugee camps -- the last I heard). It takes an MP's wife to rattle the administration (it is funny that so many significant people who take on Modi are women -- Teesta Seetelvad of course; Mallika Sarabhai, who is standing against Advani in Gandhinagar by the way; Geeta Johri, who was a Special Investigation Team officer which probed a fake terrorist encounter case).

I haven't heard anything from Mayawati on Modi, at least not in a long time (maybe someone can help me here). I have feeling that she's biding her time. Right now she is setting the stage -- Modi wannabe Varun Gandhi, who succeeded in becoming BJP's candidate for his mother's constituency by giving a virulently anti-Muslim speech, was thrown into prison and set a precedent of.

The 'power', a very real 'power', that lies in the hands of a woman is the reason for her negative image. We would sooner have Sonia Gandhi than Maya. Sonia is a lady. If she has power she will hide the fact. She will maintain a dignified silence to personal attacks. The media (which is primarily upper caste-middle class), once wavering over the anti-foreigner stand, was comfortable with a lady. The jokes about reading from a paper have subsided.

The terror of the female is not isolated to India (most recently, Hilary Clinton was despised. Before her, France's Royal was rejected not for her controversial policies but her increasing brazenness). Actually, it was introduced to India by our colonisers.

According to Ann McClintock's Imperial Leather, the white male colonisers of the East established their rule by the symbolic control over the native women's bodies. The novelists and explorers of that era, demonised the body of the 'native' women -- something that could devour the white men, making the colonisation and control necessary. That is why we find land being talked about in terms of a women's body -- Bharat Mata. It is Bharat Mata that the colonised men sought to liberate and establish their own control over. In post-Independence India, the rhetoric of women's empowerment constantly came up against the idea of Indian men's legitimacy over the land -- if the women were not controlled, how are we suppose to rule the country?

Gayatri Spivak in her annoyingly difficult essay Can the subaltern speak? rejects the idea (I am not able to decipher much) that the third world women can ever really speak in their own voice -- we continue to be colonised by the language and ideology of Colonial Rule (British Raj in our case), which their successors (the visionary India men) have adopted. More importantly, it is not political parties but our very social psychology. Why do we dislike someone like Mayawati, Jayalalitha and Mamata Bannerji instantly? Maya and Jaya have the touch of nativity in them. Maya as the Dalit woman and Jaya as an offspring of the Dravidian movement.

They are not ladies -- the way colonised women fashioned themselves after the white women. I am not saying they were not educated. If you by any chance think Maya is uneducated , she is most definitely not. She was supposed to be very bright student, all set for a great IAS career when Kanshi Ram spotted her. But she was not groomed as the successor of the colonisers. She continued to be colonised. Indian leaders felt that lower castes needed to be led rather than be given power. A psychology that continues to float in our subconscious. The fact that Mayawati (Dalit and a woman to boot) can actually lead all the other castes/classes is an idea that is torturous to us (Macaulay's brown in colour, English in thought and taste population).

Modi has the touch of the native as well -- Gujarati asmita, he calls it. But he is celebrated in the media for his infrastructure development and 'corruption-free' (yeah right!) administration. The media does not have one good word for Mayawati. Her display of raw power (not unlike Modi's) clouds our imagination to such an extent that we cannot see what is behind it -- what is she doing in her state. I don't know much myself -- except for what media allows me to see (Varun Gandhi's arrest, the cases of atrocities against SC/STs -- all positive). Chaff the negative propaganda and there is precious little that we know of Maya as CM. My mom said uncertainly that she is a 'goonda'. Goonda means bully means display of power.

It is as simple as that. The terror of the unknown colonised woman resurfaces in the hearts of the English Indians that we are -- a threat that needs to be contained and controlled. The threat of Modi (some 3,000 people were killed under his benevolent eyes, big deal?) can wait.

I will again admit that I am not endorsing Maya for what she can do for the country -- I don't know much about what she has done. But then if qualifications are what mattered -- Advani's leadership in Babri Masjid demolition and riots that followed, Sonia's silence, Rahul's lack of personality, Modi's admittedly strong credentials as mass murderer and Manmohan's ineffectually despite great academic career -- I wonder who is the right choice. I like the idea of Maya precisely coz it is an idea I am uncomfortable with.

Secondly, if she is going to keep coming up in my career as an anti-Modi propagandist then the message is really clear. I didn't make her the contender that she is. She was already pitted up there in our political discourse as the counter to Modi. The only one who can match his personality, his popularity, the threat -- the clear and present danger, the revenge of the native on the coloniser (long gone and forgotten). And what is more -- she has not got 3,000 murders on her doorstep!

Expect the unexpected

2009-04-30T18:28:00.000-07:00

When I read Tiger moaning about the weight of expectations some eons ago, I was a bit annoyed. What's better, people around you to have expectations that you try to live upto or not have any at all?

I supposed the latter is a trifle better. Growing up like Ishaan in Taare Zameen Par did, I was free of expectations. My parents hoped and prayed and almost dared not to expect that I passed every year without that abominable stain on a tam brahm soul -- of failing one's exams. I managed somehow not to repeat any years and came off free -- from expectations. I had the relative liberty to make mistakes, take wrong career decisions, regret them and amend my life's course. No one expected me to do better; advices were half-hearted, though well-meant.

Then last Fall all that changed. I came to US, not to an Ivy-league university but a small liberal Arts College. And then the trauma started -- living up to expectations. How and where (and does it even) stop? The sense of power that they give you and the liberty they take away from you is so clear and present. Am I romanticising failure? Or am I condescendingly looking back at a younger self -- tormented and yet somehow free of bourgeois notions of success?

Going two steps backwards

2009-04-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote that I was pleasantly surprised by Obama's interaction with other leaders from the American Hemisphere. The law of nature has it that Obama goes two steps backwards, even as he goes a step forward. And I am back to being as cynical as ever.

In one of the biggest ironies of our times, the Obama administration refuses to be part of the UN race conference!

David Theo Goldberg has this snappy line in his article The Racial State: Race stated is the state raced. By calling Obama the first black president of US, we have already acknowledged that he is a black president of a white state. For US is 'white'. So are Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Israel and Italy. They have all refused to attend the conference. The official stand of the State that race is a thing of the past rings hollow immediately. To refuse to attend the conference is to acknowledge that racism is clear and present.

US is apparently worried abt the Israel-bashing that will happen. "I would love to be involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe," Obama is quoted as saying.

A discussion around Israel's actions does not constitute a 'useful' dialogue? I am not even getting into my views on Israel. Why don't Israel and US want to be there to answer criticism on their middle east policies and their perceived anti-Islamic stand. Are they afraid of not being able to offer a proper justification or, as Obama says, they consider it unnecessary? There is enough justification for both -- these six countries (along with UK, Spain, France) will finally be overwhelmed by their victims from past/present. The numerical strength will temporarily overwhelm the military might.

US can throw its weight around in the security council (and supersede it like it did for Iraq invasion) and G8 summits (with Bush saying carelessly that Hezbollah should stop its shit even as Israel pounded Lebonan mercilessly). It cannot and does not feel necessary to have a dialogue and patronisingly calls it 'useless'. There is fear, arrogance yes. There is enough justification -- what there is no justification for is Obama refusing to talk about race. Except perhaps that he accepts his role as the president of a white state.

Officially asexual

2009-04-18T01:15:00.000-07:00

India will not have any sex education -- it will make kids promiscuous.

Well, I have been so stressed lately that this gave me a laugh. Trust Indian MPs to not know the head from the tail. If you don't want kids to be promiscuous the first thing you should do is start de-sexualising them. These chumps of yesterday really give me the creeps. I feel like a conservative, old hag when I sit back and tell my aging buddies, we were not like this. We didn't have much exposure. We didn't know our bodies, our selves, our sexualities. We struggled in closeted spaces for tidbits of information that we were collectively able to procure. Compare to that these oversexualised, sensual teenagers of today make me nervous. I don't know if it is my conservatism or my midlife crisis but there it is, I don't like what I see.

But I know I am wrong. Every being is sexual -- according to Michel Foucault even a child is.Denying its very existence instead of understanding is shirking responsibility. Meanwhile, these promiscuous, sexed bodies without context are bouncing off roofs and walls. It makes me think of the wonderful line from Monalisa Smile: You don't even know anymore who is protecting whom from what. This dialogue came from a college nurse who was sacked for providing students with condoms.

The pressure to be privately horny (come on now, explain our population) goes hand in hand with the obligation to be officially asexual. I wish preserving Indian culture didn't mean previleging Victorian morality over Vatsayan's legacy.

2009-04-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

I have been writing non-stop these days. Sometimes this helps the cause of the blog, sometimes it just means death.

It is almost a month since I last filled up this space. Elections are ever so close and Varun Gandhi needs whipping. I have already given my prediction of how things will turn out and I hope I am not way off the mark. In short, I stick to the part-wishful, part-analytical stand that advani will not become PM.

I was just thinking about how people in bad marriages keep telling young ones to tie the knot. If you have realised that marriage is not a bed of flowers then what is there in it for you to have others enter your garden of Eden? I sometimes think marriage must be a skillful despot. It keeps you unhappy but brainwashes you into thinking that it is the best thing to happen to you. And it dangles these brownie points in front of you -- each new recruit that you bring in for the despot to feed on will give you a temporary oasis in your desert.

Even if there was no planned conspiracy there is a pathological streak in all this. The sadomasochist wants you to endure what he/she has endured/is enduring. It is a bit like ragging: my seniors did this to me, I'll have this done to you.

Also, a rejection of marriage for most people means (a totally misguided contention) unfettered sexuality. A married person probably thinks, if I'm not getting any action and how dare you. It is quite funny that the single person thinks the same. And yet the frustration is in the anticipation. Marriage is not wistful but vengeful and repressed.

Heteronormativity actually aids and abets capitalism in keeping you unhappy and blaming you for your miseries. You think that if you worked better, were more productive, your life would get better. And meanwhile you work towards pulling others down with you. I have just been told, after all these years, that asexuality is as much a valid orientation as any other. You don't have to be celibate (actually a celibate is probably as frustrated as a married person) with blinders on your windows. You can just be. :)

Last man sits down

2009-03-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

This post should have happened eons ago but I'm behind schedule as always. I wanted to make a note of the fact that one of the few politicians I admire, I mean actually admire, has gone home. Somnath Chatterjee has retired. For I think 30 years he was one of the few CPM leaders who actually faced elections and returned to LS every time. He had a sense of humour apart from all the good vibes he gave as the politician.

He belonged to the old school which was loyal to the party even if it disagreed with the leadership decisions. Though Gauriamma, who kicked the leadership when despite being a top contender for Kerala CM job she was sidelined, is more my type I can't help admire the man. When he did defy the leaders finally it was again to do the right thing. I wouldn't care to be the stickler but then there is something moving abt it.

His political career was by no measure finished. He had respect across party lines and had earned kudos for being such a proactive speaker. But of course to join another party would have been quite the wrong thing to do.

His exit from CPM was preceded by CPM's exit as my preferred party (I mean just that it used to be better than the rest) in Indian politics. But good people quitting politics and lack of options is not end of the road. India has a thriving political scene outside the world of parties and elections. Participation in that is what matters to me. India's 'new left' is alive and kicking.

Meanwhile, let us meddle with these mainstream ambits for our amusement. Actually, survival. If BJP comes back to power I may have to just leave all my jeans behind in US.

I wish I could vote, just to ensure that there was my one vote against Advani (AND ALL YOU PPL WHO CAN CAST THEIR BALLOT, PL DO -- COZ IF ADVANI HAS A HEART ATTACK, MODI MIGHT BECOME OUR PM!!!).

Who, if not Advani, does become our PM eventually is of course a matter of secondary importance to me. Take your pick, post it in the comments section. If it is modi, pl don't give me a heart attack by commenting. Mine for what it is worth -- Mayawati. Yeah, I know no one is going to agree with me -- but when I said let us mess things up, I really meant that.

PS: Watch out for sachin pilot (rajesh pilot's son) and supriya sule (sharad pawar's daughter). Thumbs down for Rahul and Varun Gandhi. Better Sonia than Manmohan. Ok, ok I'm going.

2009-03-13T17:19:00.000-07:00

I see you now as I have never seen you before,

I see you as you would never imagine I could.

I see you with hope, love and longing

I see you ... just beyond the horizon.

Here's wishing barkha sues me

2009-03-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

I have been really out of sync it would seem. I missed this entire cotroversy about NDTV/Barkha Dutt suing a blogger who dared to criticise her reporting during 26/11. (See here).

Many TV news channels have come in for criticism about those three days and I think it reflects comfort level with the medium, audience maturity. TV channels have been let to run amok for quite some time now, so this is a great development. Lots of ppl consider Barkha a great journalist and seem baffled by her "shoddy reporting" during 26/11 but me thinks she has always covered news this way. She hasn't improved one bit or probably I should say she was decent when she started out but went downhill with fame. One of my worst memories of Barkha was when she asked a professor whose house had been attacked by rioters during Gujarat riots, how he feels. Placed somewhere in the horror of the riots, I found it difficult to digest. I still do. You may say many TV reporters ask that question but this particular journalist has won many accolades for her job. If she liked all the praise she should learn to handle criticism.

I don't find her good at her job but I have never bothered to say this before. She repeated "history being made" some 50,000 times when the bus service between the two Kashmirs was started. I don't like abusive criticism of the kind this blogger indulged in but those were the few days when everyone was charged up and not really themselves -- and TV reporters did all they could do to keep us excited. If Barkha's (or the other reporters') passions were running high I don't why anyone else's shouldn't.

But it is not really about her. TV journalism demands hyperbole not indepth coverage. I don't want to personally criticise Barkha when the industry demands that she give a performance. But industry also individualises when it comes to appreciation. To that extent, personal attacks on Barkha are inevitable and this browbeating of a blogger is terribly unfair. Blogging world gives ordinary ppl a voice, something Barkha has in plenty. To silence it in what seems to be a fit of megalomania is not good news for the blogging world. Right to speech is used and abused by TV media, but seems like they are not in the mood to share.

Being woman

2009-03-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

I can't help it that my name is rama, I didn't select it. But then I didn't select so many things in my life. I didn't select to be a Hindu, tam brahm, second child, dyslexic, myopic ... and I wouldn't have known that I am these things if I had not been told I was.

Identities are curious things. They are dubious and yet they have a reality -- a fictional reality (a la edward said). I said many eons ago that though I am an atheist I am still a Hindu. Just coz you don't believe in a thing doesn't make it go away. Being Hindu and being tam brahm made me who I am -- a fairly privileged upbringing, a modest education, complacence and a headstart in life. I realised that to discount these identities is to turn blind to reality. Being a high caste person in a Hindu majority country is like being white in US. Just coz you don't believe in racial differences doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When you control the whole economy, when you retrospectively reap the benefits of 100s of years of slavery, when you decide who lives in which neighbourhood you make race matter. To say race doesn't matter anymore is to neglect the privileges that it accrues to some at the expense of others. To say race doesn't matter is to willfully refuse to understand one of the reasons US wages wars in the world, to understand why many indian men and women invest in fairness creams.

To acknowledge one is Hindu or tam brahm is not to subscribe to it. It is to accept one's history, the position of power it gives one in a society. Likewise, I could any day say it doesn't matter whether you think I am a woman or not. Indeed, I have said that in the past. Apparently there is just 3% physical difference between a man and woman. 3% on the basis of which you assigned to a position of privilege or otherwise. 3% on the basis of which you expected to perform roles (a la judith butler) assigned to you for the rest of your life, performance which will always fall short and leave you to face the consequences. To acknowledge that you are woman is not to subscribe to femininity but to acknowledge your history. Just like you acknowledge the disadvantages and advantages histories of other identities have given you. Women's day is not about buying diamonds (please go ahead and buy some if that makes you feel better about yourself) but about the injustices that accrue to you coz of the role you are required to perform (men suffer on this account too and they can have a day to talk about that ... but then aren't all days, all times dominated by men talking about themselves!).

Being a woman for me is not about being proud of who I am. It is about not accepting the hegemony of the ideology that assigned me the role. Being woman is, for me, to acknowledge my herstory before I let the identity dissolve into a myriad of confused, fluid identities with no fixed roles and required performances. Calling myself a woman is a step towards freeing myself from the bondage of the role.

The return

2009-02-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

They went for the Sikhs,

I was too young then.

They got miffed over my infancy.

They went for the Muslims,

I didn't get it then.

Pissed, they tried again.

This time I got all rattled.

They smugly teased my helplessness.

They went for the Christians next,

looking over their shoulders,

gleeful challenge in their eyes all the time.

I was wary and tired.

I knew it would happen, wise people always say so.

In the end they came for me alright.

There was no surprise there.

My home, my country.

My very own Taliban.

Troubled homes

2009-02-25T23:06:00.000-08:00

Here is a quiz for you.

1. What is common between Abhishek and Aishwarya as actors (using the term loosely)?

2. Name one movie in which Atul Kulkarni didn't played the role of a Hindu fanatic with caste/community bias.

3. Will the angrez ever know that Rahman was freaking genius even before they discovered him?

4. What is wrong with Sonam Kapoor?

5. Will I go to Parathewali Gali in this lifetime?

Answers:

1. They are both bearable in movies where they don't have many dialogues.

2. Page 3

3. No freaking chance.

4. I don't know, she is weird somehow.

5. It may not even be worth the eternal wait.

The world is an unfair place. You make a larger-than-life film with inflated emotions and a totally misplaced conception of rebellion and people will lap it up. It won't matter if you were self-contradictory, over-the-top and way out of line. And then you go on to make a subtle, understated film -- analysing the world instead passing a harsh judgement, not so much wanting to change the world but making a difference by just being there, not seeing the world in black and white but as confused by layers and layers of contradictions -- and you get roundly criticised.

For once Amitabh was right: the world judged Slumdog and Delhi 6 by different parameters. Slumdog, backers say, showed a mirror to society. It probably did. And just that. Where Slumdog was just a spectacle, Delhi 6 was an exploration, possibly archaeological. Abhishek digging into layers of the society that the Indian race makes up. Hypocrites, self-contradictory, insane yet logical Indians -- it is not so much celebratory as an existential exploration. Though the cinematography is wonderful, this is not the story of an Indian American discovering how beautiful India is. I was stuck by the trip to Agra particularly -- he is not crooning over how pretty the monument.

Delhi 6 is not about Abhishek unlike the popular perception. In fact, Rakyesh Mehra, in probably the film's weakest or strongest link, doesn't even tell us what he does in life. He looks every bit his 30 but apparently has no profession. Even photography doesn't seem to be a serious hobby -- or else he would've bought a fundo camera instead of using his phone. Any possible sources of personal biases are eliminated from the beginning. He is just a mediator through which other stories get told -- he has the camera's gaze and yet he is not active for most of the film. He sees cyrus sneaking out of a place he shouldn't have been but why doesn't he tell anyone? Because he has a grudge against the cop or coz he doesn't want to get involved in minor scandals? We never know. We are not asked to identify with him so much as asked to assume an outsider's view of our society.

For me Delhi 6 works coz I too have an outsider-insider position. I belong to Delhi and yet I see its problems. I see its potential and its weaknesses. It is at once disillusioning and encouraging. Communal biases are always just below the surface and yet it is possible for them to blow over quickly. We haven't had a full-scale communal riot since 1984. It doesn't make us any better that Gujarat or now Karnataka but keeps us from losing all hope.

Critics saw Abhishek as the reluctant messiah from civilised west trying to save us from ourselves. I didn't see it that way. Abhishek embodied the contradictions of the society, which as long as he was in his safe haven world of NY did not seem to matter. The apparent effortlessness with which he prays in a temple and mosque seems to hark back to a Utopian world of bhaichara that India, unconvinced itself, hoped to build. His dual identity lets him identify with both the Muslim and Hindu parts of Chandini Chowk instantly. He is seemingly embraced with open heart by all but Sonam and her father. But the crisis to his contradictory self is inevitable and it comes. In the scene where he asks his grandmum whom to believe -- dad's ram or mum's allah - and then promptly leaves for temple seems to contain so many signifiers.

1. Is he telling us his mom and dad subscribe to ram and allah respectively? I don't think his dad really gave a damn from what the rest of the film tells us about him. His mom uses khuda and only in terms of lingo. But the fact remains they got their son to practice both religions religiously. Any normal human being would have found it impossible to live up such high expectations but then Abhishek is not a person but a narrator as in a play. 2. Is he telling us that regardless of what his mom and dad think they are attached irrevocably to ram and allah? Possibly, society doesn't support individuality. 3. He is going to temple to tell us he has made up his mind or that he, like many of us, keep our radical ideas at bay at times to make our elders happy? It seems that Abhishek now has a more ambivalent relation to religion. He is no longer the goody boy trying to live up to his dual identity. Pressed to make a choice (not really a choice since Hindus won't except him and to be a Muslim would denote becoming the cornered mouse), he further retreats into his shell.

He goes to the temple to appease his grandma, possibly coz he yelled at her, but there of course he encounters his moment of truth. In that moment, his personal misgivings (which will always remain with him) gives way to political expediency. Predictably, the goody boy suddenly becomes a rebel -- it doesn't matter what he believes in anymore (it matters but that is no concern of the society, relation to religion is personal), he wants to make political point now.

The difference between the sham of Rang De Basanti, which pretends to be radical but ends up not questioning anything at all, and the steady western liberal attitude of Abhishek, suddenly pushed to become radical is stark.

RDB's rebellion was hallow while Delhi 6's was intimately personal (yet who is Abhishek really?). It is as I said earlier about hanging in there rather than doing something. If Abhishek was the civilised westerner changing everything that scene would have been larger-than-life like RDB was or just plain stupid like a similar scene in Bombay. Abhishek doesn't manage to bring any radical change by his lecture, change doesn't happen overnight. It can be inferred that Delhi 6 too assumes that this hatred would surface again and again, one has got to be there and face that many-headed monster again and again in a frustrated, never-ending battle.

He managed to avert the final riot unintentionally, though of course he would have always liked to. Rather than seeing him as a messiah, I saw it again as a merging of personal and political -- his primary interest is to stop his lover by wearing that ridiculous costume and he inadvertently stops what he had tried in vain to do before with heavyduty philosophy.

For a film that takes the visual medium to another level -- talking through its frames (clothes, loose brick in a wall, artistic whims like fusing Delhi and NY) -- Atul's final speech was way out of line. Delhi 6 till its climax (which most ppl say was stretched out, but if we have to talk about tight editing I would like to ask what those melodramatic NDTV interviews were doing in RDB?) was reflective, referential -- most things implied rather than being said. Kala bandar, its biggest metaphor, had every potential of trivialising the film but with Mehra it is in safe hands. Even as makes a strong comment on one of biggest urban legends of our times, he doesn't use it for cheap, vulgar jokes of Priyan variety. Humour too in implied in Delhi 6 rather than being shouted out from rooftops -- the cow in labour gets sick waheeda on her feet, octogenarian prem chopra's young wife is blessed "sada suhagan raho" (and no one is uttering snide remarks in the background -- thats ur job), cyrus originally planning to elope with sonam makes a quiet getaway with another girl.

There are just two things that irked me: it was so damn predictable that Atul would end up with Divya that I was disappointed when he did. Where was the subtlety -- in contrast Atul and Kunal have a totally understated and for that reason beautiful relationship in RDB (I am not saying homosexual, Ranju). Secondly, why are Abhishek and Sonam in love exactly? I think part of the problem was Abhishek's non-active protagonist position -- if you are supposed to be an unbiased, objective observer, how can you have such a subjective emotion like love?

And the final credits are just amazing -- how does one look at the mirror? One thing that I love about RDB and Delhi 6 is Mehra's unabashed dislike for BJP. The right-wing leader not quite being able to look at her own reflection was an idealistic twist I loved.

Oracle in crisis

2009-02-24T14:01:00.000-08:00

It was with much delight and embarrassment that I read 3ione's post describing me an oracle as far as elections go. Sadly, the oracle doesn't have any clear-cut answers this time. But if I was confident many a times and went to town with my pronouncements I need to be frank this time around too.

So what does our coming general elections look like? I sometimes worry that uprooting myself with fellow voters and the mood of the nation has probably led to my indecisiveness. I note this with a pang (watching Delhi 6 has increased my sense of dislocation).

Congress is quite unpopular right now and yet can BJP make it? (we are accepting that the third front is a no show -- even if CPM comes back with a similar number this time around, which highly unlikely, it will eventually have to support Congress to prevent BJP from coming to power. These rules have been set and cannot be changed.)

Despite its good show in the recent state elections, I don't think BJP can really do the trick. Part of the problem is BJP's greatest strength and weakness -- Narendra Modi. The most popular figure and crowd-puller in the camp, he has been aggressively marketed outside his state and made to say mean things about Rahul (bitching about Sonia has become boring now. And even though Rahul still doesn't have Sonia's pull he has been marked down as the future and hence the enemy by BJP even if India is not ready as yet -- nor is he).

When a leader takes sectarianism to an extreme level, he/she gets more and more limited in his/her region. Though he is popular is many parts of the country, Modi can and will only control his fiefdom, Gujarat. He will hold on it for some time to come but he will not become a national leader. Before him it was Bal Thackeray, now thankfully reduced to a joke, popular in many parts of the country and yet limited to Maharashtra.

To go national, you have to acknowledge and appease diversity. India is not monolithic and though religious passions run high in many areas, other identity-markers factor in. It is easy to accuse Congress of appeasement when you are in the right and it is easy to accuse it of patronising when you are somewhat in the left. But the fact is you got to be ambivalent of difference if you want to be national. At the cusp of assuming power, BJP had to shift from popular leader Advani to acceptable leader Vajpayee. Advani made a footnote of it and kept it for future use. Early on in his role as the leader of opposition he made what seemed an 'out of the blue' statement: Jinnah was a secular leader. He was discredited and ousted from party leadership but his long-term goal was to become the moderate BJP man. And he somewhat succeeded: compare to Modi, he looks like an angel -- his past conveniently forgotten to support this myth. But can this myth and Modi's popularity clinch the deal for BJP?

I am not sure. BJP has all but lost UP. Congress knew it didn't stand a chance and snapped up Samajwadi Party well in time. BJP's hope is Mayawati, which given their turbulent affair in the past, is not the first option. BSP, till recently the only party with a growing base, itself is slowing down with anti-incumbency. Still it will get a fair share of the seats but in order to be a useful alliance BJP needs seats too.

Of other states in the Hindi belt, Chattisgarh and MP seem to be with BJP but in the former this is only as long as the rebels stay out of the democratic process. MP is not as simple either -- will Uma Bharti return? She hasn't found it useful in the past to return (and then return again) and it is not necessary that she will have a positive effect. So BJP is still stumbling in the dark though from a position of advantage. People don't vote the same way for state and general elections -- I know I am partly saying this to console myself but then there is a point in it. Congress lost in MP coz there was no leadership, it might get things somewhat in order.

BJP has messed up Rajasthan big time and it will not return for some time now.

Finally, it is working overtime in Karnataka, exposing its insecurity. It is an important state for them and they can't afford to lose it. It is a new conquest and hope for future. And here again, the extremist values are both its weakness and advantage. Ram Sena appeases the moralists but it is also discomforting to a society which cannot become the laboratory that Gujarat was. Modi is popular and yet not the leader a culturally different state would easily accept. To admire and to embrace are two different things. The south would always less readily accept a man who understands India primarily from the perspective of the North. In the south, biases and differences (between caste, community groups) are whispered rather than declared to the world. The people (some) find it fascinating and yet uncomfortable. Modi doesn't mince words and the people down south are often hypocrites. Holding on to Karnataka would be make or break for BJP and for India (what's our future -- Ram Sena or Pink Chaddi :D).

One state that presents no challenge to oracles worldwide is Kerala. Congress will win hands down (any mallus out there who disagree with me?). It will gain where non-BJP opposition parties have run incumbent governments. Lalu is popular again I hear and will stick to Congress.

So in effect what we have here is a fractured verdict, where I suspect the undecided allies won't be of much help. And this election is make or break for me as well -- oracle lost her touch? :P

History will be kind to me coz I intend to write it

2009-02-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

Have you seen Akira Kirosawa's Roshomon? It is highly recommended no matter which field you are in. It has a relevance for every one, for every event. It is a simple enough story of an event: a tramp attacks a husband and wife walking through a forest. He rapes and kills the wife and is consequently brought to trial. The story is told through the eyes of a witness, the husband, the tramp and then as an epilogue, the ghost of the dead woman. I am sorry if I am missing something -- it has been a long time since I saw the film.

It is a mandatory text for not only film studies but also history and other social science subjects. No two people can see the same event in the same light. And even a ghost can have a hidden agenda. If you hear all sides, you will no longer know what really happened. It can be at once liberating (you are free from all preconceived notions and frustrating (are we never meant to know the truth?).

Well, what started as quick-fix blog entry has become a Roshomon in itself. You might remember The unfairness of it all. Well, of course the person I primarily referred to in my post didn't agree to my interpretation of the event, though she doesn't deny that it ever happened. I egged her on to write her version of it and she hit back at me with The Reason of it all. Needless to say, I don't endorse it but I find the parallels fascinating. I would urge the third silent participant to write her own version. It is a pity that our grandmum cannot speak like the ghost in Roshomon did. Anyway Enjoy!

Pedigree and Power

2009-02-20T19:01:00.000-08:00

Often enough have we considered the whole unfairness of this thing called social capital. The boy in delhi university who graduated a year before I did for example. He got some 74% in History -- literally making History -- while we looked on in admiration. Our job was to admire, not to hope to get there. Son of two of the leading historians of our times, it was practically a given. In journalism again, there were if not children of top journalists at least other forms of patronage. Is it really unfair? You can't really help where you are born, are you? If I wanted to be a engineer and not a journalist, I would have been fine, you think? (Actually, I don't really know about that either -- you can't really afford it anymore.) But then that is caste system all over again, isn't it?

Though technically everybody can chose their professions these days, access to them are severely limited. Doubly so, if you are a woman.

Though not overtly feminist, Zoya Akthar's luck by chance sees this difference. When an acting school student interrupts her teacher's speech on how difficult it is to be a Bollywood hero and asks what about heroines, the teacher has the grace to drop his eyelids and murmur indistinctly: "very difficult, very difficult indeed." That could be true for any profession. Though, the number of women in all professions has increased (in journalism, there are more women than men), the top positions, the decision-makers continue to be men. And they decide whether to have women in the organisation, in what positions to place them in and what responsibilities they think women can handle. I am not even getting into the sexual favours part (casting couch in Bollywood) and their nature (it doesn't have to be sex per se, the man in power determines what kind of relationship he will have with his junior and one can then speculate how sexual and gendered it is).

While not everybody is desperate to be a journalist (unless it is a news reader or TV reporter -- it is hardwork I will admit), and even less a historian (!), Bollywood has a kind of pathological effect on people. Apparently, a study shows that one in three people in India want to have something to do with films. When I was in Goa for a film festival, a straggling youth desperately clung to my documentary fimmaker-friend claiming to be a lyricist. I myself nurture a secret desire to make films but the lack of social capital issue keeps me at a safe distance.

Luck by chance is in no way a remarkable film. It is cliched and has not one suuprise to anchor it. Dialogues by a legend like Javed Akthar are insipid (check out SRK's advise) and even shankar-ehsaan-loy threatened to disappoint before sapno se bhare naina happened (lovely picturisation by the way).

The question that I would like to ask Zoya (though I don't know how to) is if she meant her film and its own casting to be part of the commentary. Check out the list of people involved in it:

Farhan Akthar (Lead) -- Son of Javed Akthar (writer-lyricist) and Honey Irani (writer-director) and even step-son of Shabana (now why not?)

Konkona Sen-Sharma (Lead) -- Daughter of critically acclaimed and celebrated director Aparna Sen

Zoya Akthar (director) -- Same as Farhan (you can include sister of director-actor Farhan too)

Hrithik Roshan (special appearance) -- Son of Rakesh Roshan, grandson of Omprakash (was a mover and shaker in his time I hear)

Rishi Kapoor (supporting cast) -- Oh I don't need to go into that. But notice the inside joke of Ranbir Kapoor: "You are like a father to me". Like hell it irks, why else are you up there on screen you joker?

Sanjay Kapoor (supporting cast): Brother of Anil and Boney. But quite a cruel joke he helps Zoya on himself -- he is the exception to the rule like Rishi's own brother (whatever his name was). The failed actor despite brother's backing, he is playing himself in this film.

The only person who doesn't have family-backing is ironically the girl who plays the star-brat -- Isha Shravani. She curls up gracefully to moan to Farhan how she is going to be compared to her mother (media has written reams of sob stories about the unfairness of being Abhishek Bachchan) after Konkona and Farhan's friend have struggled to get two-bit roles in the hope of something bigger and one can't remembering that this girl was relegated after her debut film to play third lead in U, me aur Hum and now dimwit "parallel" heroine to Konkona. She is cleverly given another failed star-daughter's (Tanisha) quote -- acting is in my genes-- when she can barely deliver her dialogues let alone get some expressions. Bollywood is now a caste and you can only be born into it -- you may not be any good but if you do it for five years you get a hang of it like Kareena did.

Pedigree and power are crucial and fly in the face of liberal economy and society which thinks you are an idiot if you didn't make it.

Zoya will never have that problem and though she does a decent of portraying the pathology it comes from a position of privilege. SRK is told to advise Farhan not to forget those knew him when he was a nobody when instead he should be telling him, "I was the last the one, it was a different time." There was only family -- the first family of the kapoors -- now there are a dozen. Children of the stars of the 70s and 80s were not old enough then to compete with SRK. He took up roles rejected by other stars. Though Farhan actually does that in Luck by Chance, it is not exactly representative of contemporary Bollywood. If one star (who is also a star-son) rejects a role there is a star-son (who is not a star) who will do it. It is actually the women who are the outsiders (some of them models who can't act but then they don't say it is in their blood, do they?).

The only part where the film gets disconnected from the subject is Konkona's reply to Farhan's apology and it shows that Zoya has her "thinking cap" on. When I separate Zoya's own pedigree from her film which is a difficult thing to do, I find her a feminist though she doesn't parades herself as such. Even as she takes pity on him, she throws that biting remark: it's not your fault, some people born selfish. For her love is not about forgetting the self and caring for the other, which is what women are expected to do in Bollywood and elsewhere. Where Bachna ae Haseeno hesitates, in having a happy ending where there is not a couple getting together, Luck by Chance ventures.

Rumination

2009-02-19T22:23:00.000-08:00

Soumya was a lonely woman. Married very young, she had lost touch with all her school and college friends. If she could call them friends, that is. She had gone out with her friends for a movie only once in her life. It had to be hidden from her father, who hardly knew anything anyway, and her brother, who knew almost everything there was to know.

Once she was married, she had made some real friends. Friends -- young wives such as herself. Even if that was the only common thread among them, marital status didn't really change did it? So friendships needn't change, she thought.

But she was wrong, they did change as did marriage. Or was she ever really married, she sometimes wondered. They weren't together somehow. If they were, why was she lonely? Her husband said everyone is bound to be alone at the end of the day. She didn't get all this new-fangled philosophy. She was not conservative, just limited in her worldview, and she knew it was not her fault. Yet, here she was. Her children had all move on to the abstract neverland of self-consciousness and self-discovery where her husband had already been all his life. It was not that they had more accomplished lives, she knew they were as lonely as she was. She minded not being left alone but being left out.

She wondered if they even cared, if they ever did, if they would in future. They were young, unstable, highstrung. She knew they will be alright after some time. Yet, she feared losing them, she fear for them. And the world was not a nice place. She would never want them to be holed in like she was, and still didn't want to let go. They were sensible but what if they got undesirable friends? Friends ... What if they never married? Married ...

Well, if they cared and were there till the end, what more could one ask for? They cared ...? She wished she could sleep. Instead of thinking the same thoughts every night. Just like she saw the same scenes in her soaps everyday. They didn't like her to see soaps. At least there was no philosophical entrapments in them. Emotions, relationships, people everything was in your face. You knew where you stood with them. But here she was ... never knowing where she was.

Who was sending her a text message at this time of the night? She picked the phone up eagerly and read. And then reread. She wondered if she was in a melodrama herself. She couldn't believe her eyes. What could have led to this? She started getting worried. Why had she sent this and that too at this time? Was she in trouble? Was she ill, unhappy, bankrupt? Why oh why?

She woke up in the morning and read the message again. Her suspicions subsided. It was alright, she told herself. You need to say it once in a while. Not to often but you had to say you loved your mother and you were sorry for whatever you did at least once ... to know it for yourself, to let your mother know it too.

She herself had never told her mother anything like that. Did her mother ever feel that she had not cared? She hoped not. She really hoped not. She never knew when was the right time to say something like that. There was no right time, you had to just do it. Like her daughter did. She still wondered why ...

She didn't ask her daughter when she came back. Both of them avoided the topic of the message as if it had never been sent. And oh, she did not change, she never grew up. She wanted her mom to search for something. That left her strangely comforted. It was like a blast from the past -- of a time when she had not drifted away. What did she want now? An underwear? And an old one? What was this now? "Yes, one of my old, discarded underwears, a pink one. Where is it now?"

The unfairness of it all

2009-02-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder about the origins of my various traits -- traits that define me, make people smirk -- oh that is so rama. Even though, these things are so me, there was a time when they were not in me or probably there was no me -- I don't know what comes first -- the chicken or the egg.

Anyway, the story I am going to narrate today is an old, old one. It is a tale of pure spite, meaningless persecution and a singularly opportunist mindset.

Well, there I was sitting innocently and playing cards with my cousins. Still aged in single digits, I think. We did get together quite a bit and lazily slouched, gossiped and played these non-educative and definitely non-healthy games (when did we ever go out in the open and ran about like our parents nagged us to do). Anyway, there we were playing our game -- memory*, getting unnecessarily competitive sometimes, getting distracted from our game by our idle chatter at others. All was going well, not really, since I have had bad luck and bad memory since the day I was born, I am sure.

Anyway, we had wiped out a good part of the cards from the bed when our grandmum walked in to check if the room was in one piece and that we were not biting each other's head off. Needless to say, we had been angels -- or so I thought. Suddenly, without any warning or any apparent reason my younger cousin started howling as if it was end of days. The other two, including me, looked on surprised -- we were slow, unassuming children, we didn't know the bewildering ways of world.

My gradmum, wizened with age, gathered up her sari pleats and assumed a stern, uncompromising posture. "What the hell have you been doing to the child?" she demanded indignantly. It struck us then, still slowly but surely. Our innocence had been rudely shattered, not by someone older and more experienced but by someone years younger but definitely more advanced in the clever manipulations of the world. Simple yet effective, she used this tactic many times. Whenever she had a grudge or even if she was just bored. She got my grandmum (smart enough to manipulate her dictator-husband) dancing to her tune for many a years. Even as our mothers tried to make her see sense, she held on to the belief that we, who wouldn't hurt a fly, bullied the little one.

As I say, this pure spite and opportunism was probably the reason I grew up with a deep sense of persecution complex. Why did the world want to make things difficult for you???

*Memory: You lay out the cards face down and take turns in opening just 2 at a time. The idea is to make matches. When you open, say, an Ace of Diamonds you try to remember its location.

One pink chaddi coming up

2009-02-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

I know I am prude, have always been, and I don't talk about underwears and such things. But neither do I talk much about my 'spirited' side. I am a hypocrite who enjoys her drink (and considerable quantities of it) but appears to have heard no evil, seen no evil and of course gulped down no evil.

The reason I am now coming out in the open, scandalising various generations of tam brahms and those with benign opinions of tam brahm girls (ooooh surprise rama is actually not a guy!) is of course for a cause. My weakness is the activist in me -- been a rebel without a cause all my life.

Well, I'm not very keen on pubs ... though I like the pubs in Boston when it is not the Red Sox season. They are not crowded and the music is not very jarring. You can take a book, order a drink and settle in comfortably. Not that I have done that a lot.

Anyway the Mangalore incident really got me ... too bad for you. I have woken up again. I endorse the pink chaddi campaign with my heart and soul (and my liver).

And as I said, it has woken up this dormant blogger. To be forwarned is to be forearmed -- one pink chaddi coming up (whenever I have time).

Zero hour

2009-01-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

She looks straight into the lens, almost condescendingly. A slightly crooked smile and a twinkle in the eye. She believes the camera person is grateful for the time she has been able to spare.

This photograph I'm looking at is around 23-yrs-old. I don't know this girl, I have never met her. She doesn't exist anymore. The easy reassurance of her significance, the confidence exuded by her persona and the good-humoured expression are all alien to me. I could never be like her.

I hate being photographed and I hate my own photographs. I think I know why. I am awkward when the focus is on me, when people are looking or listening to me. It makes me nervous. When I look into the lens for unavoidable needs like application photos, I blink about four times before they can get one right. But this gal is a natural; she looks into the lens, almost telling the viewer: I know what this is all about.

You could say people are made different and you will be absolutely right. Except that I have been told I grew out of her. I cannot believe it. She is ... you know ... suave.

2009-01-26T21:35:00.000-08:00

The sky is turning a pale shade of orange,

the snow on the sidewalk has stopped melting.

I have to look up coz the horizon would never be so beautiful again.

The ice under my feet gave away just then.

It was its revenge against the setting sun.

Getting carried away

2009-01-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

Between midnight and twilight, usually the time I sleep, I have thoughts that have nothing to do with my immediate existence. Over the years these have gained control over imagination, blurred reality, sharpened fictional images. I have done very little to contain these thoughts, they overspill into the rest of day waking moments, commuting moments, even at times working moments.

But sometimes my nocturnal thoughts are subjects I have no wish to pursue in real time. These are from reality, not inspired by real-life events but in fact impressions.

There are impressions one draws from things that are long gone, memories that seem to rot due to lack of use. Even if the memories are faded, impressions come sharper and more confident. What I saw and heard when I was young has an entirely different texture to them now. Events, dialogues and mannerisms came to me from different time zones a couple of days back. I was really pissed off at something that had happened on that day but in my own nocturnal hour, the immediate life faded from the horizon. In front of me was a picture, a picture of great (for technical purposes) aunt. She was true to a type -- kind and voluble, a great cook and chastiser. The contradictions in personality were nothing new. Nor were the 101 mannerisms that I could list here were any different from any other aunts. But it is her alone from a sea of aunts that I see now and reflect on.

For much of my early life, a trip to this aunt's house was treat. There was nothing aspirational about this though. The house was small and modest (you could see Qutub Minar from its balcony though). But for some reason it was sheer fun. There huge gap in the wall between two rooms and we used to jump from one to another countless times, heedless to our aunt's warnings (roughly translating to): you will get hurt where you don't (why not shouldn't we wondered. And sometimes, in my macabre mind I tried to guess exactly where...) I think Tiger has written about this somewhere. Years later when I unwillingly talked to her daughter after her death I couldn't help feeling callous when I said I was thinking of this house. To my surprise, she replied that everybody associates her parents with that house.

I can't help feeling that it was possibly coz it was a happy house. In it was the triumph of the middle class -- a kind of fairy-talish situation where small was beautiful, probably enough. I am not sure its occupants felt that way but for me, with my modest upbringing, it was kind of perfect. Looking back, I am struck by the possibly perfect partnership of my aunt and uncle and their children that we (I say we loosely, as a reflection) probably hoped to grow into. They had a huge collection of music and knew about all things I thought were cool. It was with her daughter that I learnt that it was okay to gossip. She once said to my aunt something to the effect that: do assume when you are going to gossip we will be around with our mouths slightly open.

My aunt used to gossip. But with her I felt that there was no malice. They were uttered in a matter-of-fact manner and I felt no guilt in straining my ears to catch them.

When I was older, I met them in their new homes and during their visits. Somehow out of that house they never seemed the same, quite complete. She still spoke 19 to a dozen but the vigour (probably the zest for life) was not quite there. It is disillusioning now that I think back that happiness, even if presumed from outside, didn't come to stay. The modest living is not a mantra for a good life.

In her new huge apartment, she gave me a place to stay for a few days. I know I inconvenienced her a great deal with my odd journalist timings and personal habits. But I knew that she would never resented let alone complained. And being super sensitive about what people think, I am pretty sure about this.

She was unique and probably the only relative I can think of writing a personal account. Still it took me two years to think about what I wanted to say. As I started writing this I realised there was not much either. I was not close to her, it was a kind of lost, disconnected link from all that was bright about my childhood (and there wasn't much). I felt her loss from a distance, temporally. I think it was the vitality and vigour of the person I moaned about, the way she became a focal point in a gathering of 50 people under one roof in our village house. And it hurt to see it fade, as if unravelling layer-by-layer before it finally dissipated. The tragedy of her death, which still runs a shiver down my spine, is even more pronounced when I look at what I took from her life. The quiet, almost unnoticeable thrill of simple living.

2009-01-18T13:48:00.001-08:00

The trees look pretty with snow on their barren branches. I suppose then that I would seem pretty to myself if I looked at a mirror once in a while

I still see them

2008-12-30T22:20:00.000-08:00

Indeed it is strange that I have not written any movie reviews this year. Well, considering that half of it was spent in near non-existence and another half in existential dilemma, I think this omission should be excused. As a compensation, here is an end-of-year summary.

Last year I did a simple countdown but back then there were more likeable films. This year, the films tried to do something interesting even if they were not that great. Here are a few examples. (I will start with my most favourite plotlines.)

Oye lucky,lucky oye: I vaguely remembered this sensational news story of a delhi thief who hoarded up material possessions with no apparent pattern or proportion. It was a tempting plot for a racy film. We have been endowed with many movies about thieves in the recent past, which give ample opportunity for cars crashing, hereos performing generic scenes of dare devilry. These stories (Race, Cash, Tashan) with moral-less characters (played at times by actors pumped up on steroids) and razor-thin plot-lines might be more "fun" than multi-layered Oye lucky. What I like about this movie is it does not make just its protagonist moral-less but the entire society. The crucial difference between Lucky and waylaid Amitabh Bachchans and Dharamendras of yesteryears is that Lucky was not treated unfairly in his childhood but was essentially a product of a materialistic society that knows no moderation. Lucky is not a sensational alien but a representation of our post-liberation era. I know Delhi, where the story is primarily located, to be a city that accrues its class consciousness from these material possessions (I don't know much about other cities but I don't find Bombay or Chennai to be so immersed in this culture of hoarding up possessions.) The very immediacy of a person wanting the best cell phone, car, home appliances (home theatre when you don't like movies so much or like the 200-buck PVR ticket better coz it happens to be located in a mall) in that order -- the very acceptability of the insanity of this consumer culture finds best expression in Lucky's character. He derives his desires from others whether it is wearing a suit to enter a disco or going to Manali coz he has seen a picture of snowfall in a house he is looting. He has as little personality as those wanting to change their cell phones every two months. If the director's first movie Khosla ka Gosla represented the triumph of the 'common man', Oye Lucky is about degeneracy of the same.

Lucky's incredible charm hides the very fallacy of the city I belong to -- there is nothing below the surface. If the director had made his love interest saintly or shameless (like most of the characters in the film) the film would have lost its honesty. Lucky's girlfriend is neither the symbol of hope nor hopelessness of human society. There is no moral dilemma in accepting his money but there is a basic dignity accorded to the relationship. Oye Lucky is engaging but far too complex to be an out and out entertainer.

Sorry Bhai: In contrast, Sorry Bhai is riddled with moral dilemmas. Can you fall in love with your sibling's fiancee? Hindi films have dabbled with loving one-sibling-and-marrying-the-other concept but this one has been left largely unexplored coz it is deeply problematic. At the core lies not just the unenviable position the three people are placed in but the very fact that a woman can change her mind at the throes of marriage without a strong enough reason. Unlike Dil Chahta Hai or Jaane tu ... the bride doesn't marry the groom coz he is nothing short of a brute. Sanjay Suri is instead an affable young man whose only fault, if it can be called that, is that he is a workaholic. That alone would not have sealed his fate. If it was not for the fact that his fiancee loves him but not passionately. That all-consuming passion she experiences for his loser of a brother (apparently, coz there is just no chemistry between the two). Sorry Bhai is not only brave but also delightful in its treatment of this plot-line. Though Sharman is perfectly cast, the movie consciously chooses to belong to Shabana, the mother. Even if she is not to be seen in more than half the frames her presence is never missed. And this could not have been possible if she had not established her character so well, from the very first scene. I admired My Brother Nikhil's sensitivity, Bas Ek Pal's intensity and with Sorry Bhai director Onir has displayed his whimsy self. His usp is his narration style -- he always finds a way to surprise. Not in any way an unforgettable film but unique, yes.

Mithya: You may prefer SRK to Ranvir Shorey. But is he capable of a Mithya? SRK is too full of himself and his directors are too busy celebrating him to produce a film like this. Mithya requires total dissolution of self -- Ranvir was practically reduced to nothingness. Replacement of a don with a look-alike was a masala winner for AB, turned slick by Farhan for SRK's benefit. But what both films never attempted to understand was the very crux of their plot-lines. What is identity? And what does it matter really? This is probed thru under popular Bollywood concept -- memory loss. Ranvir's pining for a wife who was never his and his neglect of a lover he cannot recall asks us to confront the deeply uncomfortable frailty of identity. Mixed doubles may not be all that it pretended to be but with Mithya Rajat Kapur enters uncharted territory. The lack of a story may be of not much consequence after all.

Khuda Kay Liye: Forgive the clumsiness of style and technique and this Pakistani film will present to u a very nuanced view of complexities of a third world nation, especially an Islamic one. The director takes no sides coz there are none. The scathing criticism of post-9/11 Islamophobia is matched by the discrediting of religious extremism in Pakistan. And he knows that the worst sufferers of the latter are women. The course of events are cliched yet the characters are layered. The human conditions are real. And he doesn't present any solution, just a road ahead for each of his three protagonists.

Jodha Akbar: Gowarikar is true to his style. Good intentions, larger than life situations, few charming moments and a faltering film you can't quite appreciate and you don't have the heart to reject. Lagaan, Swades and now Jodha Akbar. His leads are magnificently regal (Ash not only with her looks but passable acting too!) but the movie is painfully long for its two hours. The loves story is fairly engaging since it belongs to 2 incredibly unromantic people but the paraphernalia that comes in the form of political intrigue and personal betrayals are so dreary that it was only so much I could do to keep awake. Yet the director gives us moments that may belong to any reticent couple, for example the spot of swordplay Hrithik puts up when he senses his wife checking out his well-toned warrior body. At once intimate and endearing unlike Dostana's flaunting of John's frame.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na: If Shabana and Boman displayed more chemistry than Sharman and Chitrangada could even hope to ignite, this story of puppy love had a more interesting parallel in the volatile relationship between the hero's parents -- ratna pathak and her dead husband naseer's portrait. This off-screen couple has been cast previously as an unusual couple: in paheli as the voices of puppets. There too they were the only couple worth hooting for. Not a new concept but still endearing.

Bachna Ae Haseeno: In 1992, Aditya Chopra made DDLJ. It informed the romantic sensibilities of my entire generation and of course I had to be different from the rest. What I like about this film is that it undid whatever damage DDLJ caused. If DDLJ defined romance for my generation, BAH (ha ha) successfully rebukes it. If the first half of the film is action-packed with Ranbir going thru more than his deserved share of love in a heady rush, the second half seems to be at a more leisurely pace -- almost giving a sense that nothing is happening. But in fact it is Ranbir who is slowing down, understanding people, emotions -- delving below the surface level. BAH overturns the superficial DDLJ. It gives character and dignity to his jilted lovers, which Ranbir himself cannot aspire for (whereas DDLJ was all about SRK and what he thinks is right). The climax shows the weakness of a filmmaker unwilling to go all the way in tearing down the farce of love as Bollywood knows it but the attempt is worth an acknowledgement.

Rabe ne bana di jodi: In 1992, Adita Chopra made DDLJ. Mohabatein made DDLJ look like a classic. Rab ne makes it look entertaining! The problem with Rab ne is it is not quite fun to be a Yash Chopra production. Yet there is something unique about it (wholly unintended I like to think). SRK deserved to be treated like that not for being boring (good heavens, as someone belonging to that category I can hardly advocate maltreatment), but for being such a sucker for romance. Unlike what the reviewers say (he was an unromantic husband to his loverlorn wife), for me it seemed to be the other way around. It was SRK who pines for the love of his practical wife. And really, if someone did all that in real life (pose as a cool dude in front of wife who apparently cannot recognise him), I would send him for counselling. Spouse related disorder or something.

Well, some people are losers but it is endearing all the same. I vacillated between wanting to slap him to senses and well, giving him a lollipop. I didn't care for the hum dil de chuke sanam triangle (you taught me how to love, he taught me how to persevere -- no one taught you any sense) but I didn't mind it either. It was interesting to see (alert: spoilers ahead) him breaking up as she confesses her love for the bf and cheering up when she tells the bf to take a hike. Probably not a good enough reason to watch it.

Maan Gaye Mughal-e Azam: Okay, this may not be one of my classy choices but it sure has some punch. It mocks every lofty patriotic sentiment that Bollywood espouses periodically with a wonderful comic timing. Rahul Bose and Kay Kay do a good job of portraying stereotypical characters in this bizarre spoof. It is as funny to see the former in a macho image as to see critically acclaimed Kay Kay bafooning around -- it is intentional casting with very satisfactory results. It is a silly film but still entertaining and that's the point really.

2008-12-19T17:22:00.001-08:00

I got caught in the snowstorm,

but it let me go

2008-12-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

For the beer vending machines,

that were never to be.

The techno-savvy moving library racks,

that can crush the body by mistake,

and uplift the soul by default.

For the predicted snowstorm,

so close, yet so far.

For all that I loved and lost,

and gained and internalised.

For everything & everyone,

who helped me grow,

making me more incomplete than ever.

And for Harold lee who said he wanted that feeling,

that feeling a guy gets when he has what he has wanted.

That feeling, for some could be a cheesecake.

Is it about all that I had lost,

or that life was not much more than this.

When she slept

2008-12-11T17:39:00.000-08:00

IT hadn't been difficult to pick up a fight with her parents. She had been letting the opportunities slip through hands for ages. On that day she had pressed on, proved what her parents had been alleging for ages -- she was as stubborn as a rock. Oh yes, she was. She had made up her mind and nothing could dissuade -- not that there was anything stopping her.

She had been uncharacteristically meticulous in her planning. She had applied for vacation way in advance, raved and ranted and finally got what she wanted. She had picked up a well-timed fight with her folks, they had practically played into her hands -- "we got you a new hutch ... oops vodaphone plan," they chirped happily. It was too cruel to even act on it. They had been ready to relent quickly enough. She felt something die inside her as the phone clicked. But her experiment could not be sacrificed for anything. Actually, it was better this way.

She set up the automated email responses mechanically. She locked her phone (what did the plan matter anyway) in her desk and swept over the nondescript faces in her office. She was 28 and this was the first time she really felt excited.

She almost gave her landlady a heart attack when she tried to pay the rent in advance. "I am going away, aunty," she tried to reason. "Then why pay at all," the middle aged woman said, narrowing her eyes. At long last, she pressed the notes in the shaken woman's hands and went back home.

She wondered if anyone would try calling. He wouldn't.

She ate a delicious but hardly substantial meal that night. She felt content. Then she started filling up bottles, thinking about the only amicable conversation she had had that day.

"And you are going to ...?"

"Die."

"Oh. I will miss you."

Yes, she knew it to be true.

She took the bottles to her bedside and wondered why she had no thoughts whatsoever. After what seemed like an eternity, she woke up from her reverie suddenly and slumped into her bed noisily. She then waited. Why wouldn't sleep come to her today? Was her body fighting back? It would get tired of the fight and eventually give up, she thought savagely.

But actually, this happened everyday. She would wait for sleep to come till wee hours of the morning and then refuse to get up, scold and eventually drag herself to work late -- everyday. And on off-days, she didn't wake up at all. That's what gave her the idea. It should work ... it was logical.

Some days she had thought boredom would kill her. The emptiness in her life would make her stop living eventually. Maybe she would just dissolve into the vacuum that surrounded her. But that was not to be.

She fell asleep eventually but not very soundly. She tossed and turned, skipped from one bizarre dream to another. It seemed like the moment her life made crystal clear sense, obscurity had taken charge of her dreams. Eventually, things settled. With no thoughts, the dreams had no raw material to feed on. She woke up on the third day suddenly with an excruciating pain in her stomach. A moment later she realised she had a parched throat. She had some food around but she didn't touch anything. Over the next few days, she had woken up a few times, just to wet her throat. Some days she didn't.

At times, she would feel like sleep would never come back to her. One day a craving for chocolate brownies slithered up the area between her nose and food pipe like a snake. She crushed it and slept on with a defiance she had never known before. Then it happened, she didn't exist anymore.

About 20 days after she had ostensibly left for a vacation, a thief broke into the house. He knew the occupant was not in -- he had made sure. As he cleaned up the surprisingly meagre material possessions of this supposedly hi-fi woman, he sensed that something was wrong. The house was stuffed and had a distinct odor. With a jolt, he catch sight of the lump on the bed wrapped up in a sheet. It didn't seem like it was breathing. Had she been dead for some days and no one had known? He started panicking now, not only coz he had broken into a dead woman's house. It was too creepy. He steeled himself and decided to poke the lump with his knife.

After many deep breaths he managed to do the deed. The lump didn't steer. He lost all reason then and left via the front door, and ran straight into a neighbour.

It was but obvious that she should raise her dulcet tones to a crescendo, staring stupidly at the door the thief had left open in his wake. Out walked the tenant, half-dazed, to see what had caused the commotion. She was hardly prepared to see her neighbour (whom she had spoken to only twice or thrice in her life) collapse headlong.

But of course, she thought later as she lay in her bathtub. She had looked ghastly. Hardly alive. I should change my house, probably the neighbourhood, she thought grimly. As she lay in her tub for what seemed as long as her hibernation, she composed an apology to her parents. She must call immediately, she told herself. Well, what's a few more hours when they have waited for 20 days. If her plan had worked she would have felt no guilt. But now it was all different. She had been so sure for once in her life. And yet, it wasn't to be.

Next day, she surprised her boss by turning up more than a week before her break was officially over. No one comes before time! But then if she was here she might as well start clearing 20 days worth backlog. "Hope you got some rest. And your mom had called," he added off-handedly. She sighed in acknowledgement. It hadn't escaped her parents that she had applied for vacation well before their trivial fight. She would have been happy if she had really been upto some mischief if she was to be punished for it anyway. After the relief of her call, they had acknowledged her apology very gruffly. What would follow, she knew, was a lifetime of stabbing remarks and professed grievances. They didn't know, she thought vengefully, that she had handed them a weapon they could wield anytime.

She switched on her phone and opened her mailbox. They were both flooded but not unduly so. He had mailed but nothing special. A couple of fwds, a note or two about interesting things that had happened (of course he knew my life was uneventful, she said to herself), that was it.

She didn't reply to any of them. Instead, she opened a new mail and wrote: "I tried to sleep myself to death. You know what, it doesn't work."

Two days later, she got a reply: ptooey

PS: This is not an autobiographical or biographical work.

2008-12-10T22:51:00.000-08:00

The mind is now made up,

No deep seas, no shallow trenches.

No waiting that added meaning,

to listlessness of my being.

There is no beauty in this, yes,

but nor is there the trauma,

of knowing

that one would never know.

It snowed today

2008-12-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

And I read Pamuk's Snow yesterday. It had reminded me of last february when it did snow relentlessly like it does in the book. I wrote then:

As I got used to the settings, loneliness enveloped me. Yes, I have felt lonely many times but this was different. When you have your most cherished desires fulfilled is when I think you feel most lonely. Because your dreams are your own and no one can feel the way you do about them.

When I was taking those long walks in solitude, spotting only a human being or two all the time, I was at peace, for the first time I was sure I could do this for the rest of my life.

Pamuk wrote Snow in 2004 and I read it this december -- it is surprising how 430 pages were filled with the story of Ka's (yeah, that's the name of the sap) lonely life. Does that mean I am on my way to a Nobel Prize? Ha ha. But I sure protest against the mandatory frock!

Well the point really is, today I was again enveloped by the loneliness that is a product of my own choices. This is the life I made for myself and this is the life I am going to accept. I am not going to be Ka, going over the hill and desperately clinging on to an idea that does not even make sense. Since I already know what the snow means to me -- a metaphor for the loneliness that rises inside me in fits and starts -- all I want to say is, just let it snow man.

Don't feel free to feel fear

2008-12-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

In times of terror, we say,

but I don't know what we mean.

It's a short-term existential dilemma,

which stretches long enough, till eternity.

And beyond, for what we love most,

is to be scared, and scared of the most

is love.

The fear comes from inside,

and takes the form of things external.

If we have to rid the fear,

it won't be without moving into non-existence.

And that's the most scariest thing of all.

Love fear, fear love.

What is love, that which we fear.

I don't know, so I don't know what I fear.

I can't be afraid of losing

what I never had.

I can't be sure if I have loved,

for I haven't feared its loss.

And I don't think I am ready,

not as yet, at least.

To know what scares,

the living hell out of me.

PS: After reading Orhan Pamuk's Snow I feel even more silly about spouting poetry. But this is not what I want history to remember me by, so I guess this too shall pass.

From a corner of the academic field

2008-12-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

To put it mildly, he is nauseating in his steadfast defence of gandhi and nehru. He sits up there, high above all of us, comfortable in his knowledge that he is probably the best or best-known Indian historian of our times.

He makes controversial/revolting statements like, "Arundatti Roy is the Arun Shourie of the Left" or "his/her is cumbersome to my style". Well, basically I don't like his attitude or his politics very much. But he is the most beautiful writer I have ever read. There is a kind of lyrical quality to his thoroughly academic material. Maybe it is that I read a biography, which was very personal and conducive for creativity. But I think not. Even his Sunday Magazine articles on some stray letter Nehru wrote to Patel used to be such sheer delights. I have always wanted to read India after Gandhi but been intimidated by its size. Now it doesn't matter. I could flow with the wind and blow with the stream of his language.

It is difficult to believe how you can have such little affection for some one and such great admiration of his/her writing skills. If only I could write like him, if only.

As we move on

2008-12-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

In retrospect, I think Clinton was a better choice than Obama. The only direction I think progressives can take is towards right. When you are already centre-right there is not much disappointment you are capable of. It is obamas of the world we got to be careful of. You don't know when they would turn right and how far they will go. He used a ticket most easily available to him -- creating a sense of fear, alluding to the never-ending external threats US faces and how he will crush them.

He was whipping up passions that were struggling to die down, he was creating fears we tried hard to extinguish. The modern nation's favourite game is the threat to its security. The measures taken after 9/11 were rigorous and hard-hitting, it also made US a more vulnerable place than before. Ironically, that's what pays politically. As long as US is threatened by living or mythical men, there is no end to the powers its prez will have.

India loves to point out that it has faced terrorism from long before US was hit. From 1980s, we say passionately. That's totally wrong. The threat to Indian nation has existed as long as the nation itself existed. The first group to claim independence from India were the Nagas -- they did that in 1947 when they realised they were going to be ruled by India. The Indian state didn't care and sent the army in -- where the latter still is, exterminating Naga militants, 61 years after Indian independence. Several other groups in northeast, ethnically and racially different from the mainstream rose up against the reified Indian state (and sometimes against each other) over the years but the latter doesn't discriminate. It has one common answer for all demands of self-determination in this huge country of ours: a tough show of military strength. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) has ensured a perpetual and overarching military presence to keep the naughty children at bay. 61 years on, we still haven't managed to "clean up" the region. Yet, we have to credit the Indian State for its excellent PR work -- after all the tortures, murders and rapes that have been going on in the region since those early days, it is still regarded as a 'soft state'.

It is a meek victim, while terrorism the beast continued to spread its wings. It swept over punjab and kashmir, aided conveniently by our neighbour. At the height of punjab terrorism, the Indian state decided with won't take shit anymore. In a poignant scene of the film maachis, gulzar captures this tough act of our cops. They come looking for one jimmy in raj jutzi's house, find out the only jimmy out there is a dog. They take his master anyway, torture and force him to commit suicide. They had to clean up the state na? And they succeeded, didn't they? In their zest they wiped off thousands of Sikhs in Delhi -- good riddance, wasn't it? At least, the terrorists are gone. And viola, we are still a soft state.

But I wonder why, these terrorists never really go away. More you clean up, the more they crop up. Like a many headed monster against the poor, misjudged, overarching Indian state. Now they are muslims, so what. Terrorism is terrorism, it knows no religion. Let us wipe all the bearded men, just in case.

Will we wipe out those spreading terror under the garb of AFSPA? What kind of society would we need to clean these uniformed terrorists? Can we even envisage a platform to call for their extermination? No, they are the State after all?

Let me lower the stakes. The nation's hero of the moment, Karkare, was investigating cases of hindu terrorists -- those who are said to have conducted blasts in Malegaon, on Samjauta Express among others. Should we round up all the vhp, bjp types who look like they could kill and clean the country up? After all, we don't want to appear soft do we? Now, why not?

The truth is, Indian Nationalism is so closely aligned with Hinduism (since Gandhi/ Congress days) that to condemn the rightists to death is to condemn nationalism itself. And no one is ready to do that. Even as it produced its own demons from its very inception, it doesn't learn. But it never claims to be perfect. All it wants is perfect devotion -- to the idea of India that is a mainstream Hindu society, defined by the culture of north india. We have to strive to be that ideal state.

If the people of the northeast, punjab, kashmir, tamil nadu disagree, it is a blatant act of anti-nationalism, which knows no mercy, forgiveness. The Indian States ploughs on, clearing up the differences, killing the dissidents. If these acts create new, more fierce rebels, it looks on temporarily lost -- of damn, if only we were not a soft state, if only we had been more tough. How much more tough can you be without killing off entire races I am not sure. Modi tried it, struck fear in the hearts of his secondary citizens. He succeeded in quelling the voices against injustice -- now that's what we want right? A tough nut, razing to the ground every human who happens to be different.

And when an attack of such proportions takes place suddenly it is the undecided progressives who turn their heads. Go rightwards, not only to clean up the city but also give up their own rights in exchange of an illusion of security. But illusion only it would be -- for the State to have more powers, they need more fear. I read this guy Donald Pease for one of my classes, he talks about American citizens who give up their rights to become a participant-observer to the spectacle of Guantanamo bay. In the absence of any human rights and the torture of bodies, Americans find a satisfaction of having been part of something -- not their own nation, which is exclusively in the hands of a few people, but in the casual comfort of being a spectator for now you can't be anything else.

All this must seem jargon in the face of real attacks, losses of lives (even if they are unknown to us). I have no excuse for it. I think activists in India waste way too much energy trying to give the undecided Indians facts and figures, suffering and pathos of those who, not even by their own choice, were different. We should conserve and redirect our energies towards the Modis and Sudharshans, Ashok Singhals and Praveen Togadias. Respect them for what they are -- our enemies -- and carry on our fight. No more wasting of energies of intermitents coz in times of crises one can only go right. Bring on the Modis or be ready to attack when the time is ripe. We shall lose for we will always be outnumbered but we would have put up our best fight. We, who chose to be different, we in some ways terrorists.

PS: Again, non-violence as a credo is taken for granted, if not sacrosanct. But why am I giving these explanations? Didn't I just say we got to move on? If you think of me as a supporter of violence, non-griever for those who lost their lives, that is your choice. Just like I am considered a guy all the time, I will make my peace with that identity too.

2008-11-29T21:56:00.000-08:00

Leave me to my means.

For though they are meagre,

it works out fine.

Don't show me the glitter,

for gold really isn't my thing.

Swayed from time to time,

I fall back hard.

The floor is made of stone,

cold and hard but I snuggle up anyway.

It is my tryst with destiny,

my experiment with truth.

It doesn't exist, I come to realise,

still I seek answers,

out of habit, more than anything else.

Cycle of violence

2008-11-28T15:22:00.000-08:00

The terror attack on Mumbai has gripped the imagination and momentarily transported me and the other Indian here away from the immediate reality of US. We glued ourselves to the the cnnibn's live stream and it was not before a good couple of hours that i suddenly got up and said I am getting back to work. I was accused of "walking off" and being "too academic, divulged from the real world". The latter provoked me immensely.

But now I think it is probably true. The more people give in to passion, the more one ignores the existence of ideological constructions that surround our judgements of events as they unfold. I want to know what's happening just as anybody else does but the ease with which we move from fear/grief for the dead, to demonisation of the villains to the perceived evil backers leaves no room for considered opinion. It is all to easy to forget that we live in violent times, we speak in violent tongues.

One of the first things that comes to my mind when I consider violence is a scene in Main Hoon Na. A thoroughly madcap film where the politics and action were just incidental to the plot. But even here when the hero shoots a guy, he shoots directly on the forehead, without reflection, without guilt. The tragedy of our times, is that at a very trivial level too we take in such images without blinking. And then suddenly, there is a siege of unprecedented magnitude and we give in to horror and disbelief. The construction around these images are clear -- vile Muslims probably from Pakistan hold an entire city by ransom, what injustice!

Six years ago, 3000 vile muslims were slaughtered to death at the behest of the state -- the images, the stories, the trauma immunised me to violence. The reason I keep going back to this episode is that it changed the very person that is me. I looked on in disbelief when only about half the nation thought it was ghastly. The rest, many to this day, believed muslims asked for it. Yet, there is near unanimous anger attached to this incident. I am not saying there shouldn't be shock, after all we proving that we are human. But we are human selectively. We are not shocked when a large number of people die or kill themselves due to starvation. We are not human when violence of such magnitude take place quite frequently on the streets of kashmir and are undertaken by these very ATS guys. What were the demands of these pathological creatures? That killings of kashmiris is stopped? Mumbaikars have nothing to do with the other killings yes, they were chosen coz they count -- their losses creates an impact. There is so much pathos in this country of ours. Disposability of certain bodies viz-a-viz the nationwide mourning of some.

Maybe I am in an academic cocoon coz I have this detached viewpoint, the most insensitive attitude that all human lives are sacred and that as long as we don't root out injustice, violence is inevitable. Yes, probably I don't belong to the real world.

I have a dream too

2008-11-26T10:58:00.000-08:00

A successful life is defined as one where you get what you want. A 'life' is much more. Experiences may not be fulfilling in their monotony as they may not be complete in their versatility. What makes a life is these half-realised experiences, exasperating in their shortfalls and nauseating in their non-utilitarian stage.

If I were to think change of air and water would be liberating and would deliver me from all the ills plaguing my life I couldn't be more foolish. While I could be foolish (yes, anu), I know more than to value geographical and temporal changes. The journeys of the mind are vast and limitless, they are not encumbered by distances of land or time. And I love travelling.

The capitalist world would say all that you hope for is possible if you have the ability, the so-called traditional world would warn you against all you hope for. Both constrain by giving you hope to hope, letting you dream a dream, and telling you are not meant to have it. I have a hope, a dream, but no hope for its fulfillment -- for me that's liberating. In life, one is defined by what one wants. You are not what you have done but what you are trying to achieve.

My life is an accomplishment in progress.

PS: Sorry for all that bullcrap but specific occasions evoke specific responses