To Write or Not to Write

To write or not to write. To be or not to be. Eternal questions, no answers. Especially the things that you consider could become controversial. A little controversy is inherent in a writer’s life, but have you thought of violence against writers, journalists, how it has been occurring frequently of late, of this sort? I know one should be fearless about opinions and thoughts. Writing, as I am the final chapters of my new novel, I am beset with these doubts.

But silence is the resort of cowards and fools. So one braves on valiantly, pen in hand, no fingers to keyboard, though the shoulder refuses to co-operate. There’s pain and the pain should be overcome. There’s Yoga which I do as a palliative, but the pain returns in the morning, on waking up, then it subsides.

Of Shahrukh’s Bollywood Quotient and a Lazy Sunday

It’s a lazy Sunday, I have promised to work on the novel and nothing else. Except for writing this post. I would do anything to see it through to THE END. Well, some sins are forgiven as the sinner doesn’t know that he is sinning. So got up at the usual time, read the Bible (as I couldn’t attend church), went for a walk, had a bath and sat down to work in my study on the top floor. Hm. The newspaper, I didn’t do the mistake of opening, or, I would have been stuck for another hour, the television is blaring downstairs, Ronnie is watching some show. There is plenty of hammering going on, and I can see the blinding blue sky and the Parsik Hills from where I sit. The days are turning hot though there is a cool breeze now and then. The coconut palms nod and quiver playfully, and the barking of dogs echo dully.

Here’s one more thought on what I said yesterday about My Name Is Khan. I have these moments of clarity as afterthoughts, quite a few of my posts are written thusly, I confess. Obviously it (the movie) is an attempt to ape Forrest Gump. So, why can’t Shahrukh say “Mamma says, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates’” simply like Tom Hanks says? See why can’t we be more simple and not totally Bollywood-like? Why does he have to turn his head this way and that and look blankly, as if he is mentally retarded and not suffering from Agoraphobia, which is a common enough malady? I am not blaming the actor, I guess the director should have thought along those lines and watched enough of Forrest Gump before filming. A good film and storyline has been ruined by something trivial and mawkish.

About originality and all that, why do we have to imitate Hollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood, etc., with such regularity?  I guess it is the Bollywood Quotient that is speaking up. 

My Name Is Khan – What’s Your Bollywood Quotient?

Saw a part of My Name is Khan before I had to leave, because some relatives were coming home. I am not saying it’s a bad movie, but it does strike a chord, you go into sympathetic mode a la Forrest Gump – of which it is surely a copy – and it is technically superb, well co-ordinated story, but the little, little things that bother.

If it was to be like Forrest Gump why didn’t Shahrukh study the role played by Tom Hanks? Why did he have to make Rizwan into such a caricature like he does? He makes him into an unbelievable mentally disturbed person (Then, how many mentally disturbed people look with unfocussed eyes, walk his funny walk?), when he could be shown with the understated character of a Forrest Gump as essayed by Tom Hanks? May be, I am saying this with some optimism, he missed the subtlety of the original. Come to think of it, I also observed Hritik doing that in that movie, name of which eludes me.

Well, well, Shahrukh did play the role as he was expected to play by Bollywood. Guess, we all are Bollywood people. We have a Bollywood quotient in all of us – even I do – and that quotient is more in the kings of Bollywood. Well Shahrukh since he is the uncrowned king has a bit more than average of it, Navneet Nishan has lots of it. The only two people I found adorable have been in the industry for long times and they have matured so well I am still in awe – Kajol and Zarina Wahab. My God! I am still in a dither as to the huge talent of these two women, who with their charm carries the movie, for the time I was watching it. The make it bearable.

Well, I have to state this: Kajol and Zarina both have the least bit of Bollywood quotient in them. If King Khan is 60 on the Bollywood Quotient, these two actresses are 5 each, both of them. Some things will never change.

My Name Is Khan – What’s Your Bollywood Quotient?

Saw a part of My Name is Khan before I had to leave, because some relatives were coming home. I am not saying it’s a bad movie, but it does strike a chord, you go into sympathetic mode a la Forrest Gump – of which it is surely a copy – and it is technically superb, well co-ordinated story, but the little, little things that bother.

If it was to be like Forrest Gump why didn’t Shahrukh study the role played by Tom Hanks? Why did he have to make Rizwan into such a caricature like he does? He makes him into an unbelievable mentally disturbed person (Then, how many mentally disturbed people look with unfocussed eyes, walk his funny walk?), when he could be shown with the understated character of a Forrest Gump as essayed by Tom Hanks? May be, I am saying this with some optimism, he missed the subtlety of the original. Come to think of it, I also observed Hritik doing that in that movie, name of which eludes me.

Well, well, Shahrukh did play the role as he was expected to play by Bollywood. Guess, we all are Bollywood people. We have a Bollywood quotient in all of us – even I do – and that quotient is more in the kings of Bollywood. Well Shahrukh since he is the uncrowned king has a bit more than average of it, Navneet Nishan has lots of it. The only two people I found adorable have been in the industry for long times and they have matured so well I am still in awe – Kajol and Zarina Wahab. My God! I am still in a dither as to the huge talent of these two women, who with their charm carries the movie, for the time I was watching it. They make it bearable.

Well, I have to state this: Kajol and Zarina both have the least bit of Bollywood quotient in them. If King Khan is 60 on the Bollywood Quotient, these two actresses are 5 each, both of them. Some things will never change.

One-day Cricket Match Near Me

Today's one-day cricket match is at Wankhede, Bombai, and I am sitting here from where I can see the stadium through the window. That close. I have never seen a live cricket match, seen the excitement, the hype and hoopla of it, the fans going crazily fanatical, the scores ticking, the fortunes made and lost, the careers made and relinquished. So I wonder, really wonder, what it's all about. Why the country is going crazy like spectators in the Roman coliseum, why are they hollering like raving lunatics, what are the stakes of the people whose fortunes are made and broken in stadiums? All this happening within earshot, within walkable distance. Can't believe it? I can't.

All this and more, I would like to witness - poor man - who has faced rejection as blogger of an IPL team. The problem was: all friends who visited the site of Royal Challengers to vote for me were technically challenged and didn't know how to vote. Dang. Even then I had a few votes. Amen, to that. Hallelujah!

This Issue of Reservations – Teach Them How to Fish

I am against all reservation. In fact, I have great reservation against reservations. So the news of 33 per cent seats for women in parliament and legislatures comes as a sort of, what to say, a right step in the wrong direction. Before you brand me a misogynist, let me explain. When I say "right step" I mean women should be given more legislative powers, they should come into the mainstream, and all that tropes being regularly dished out by parties running out of genuine issues to champion. But why reserve a constituency for women. This move is like reserving seats for women in buses and trains. Give them a seat, give them an allocation, and forget about it. Go about abusing women in buses, in trains, and just because you gave them a seat in the bus, "aren't you happy?" that sort of thing, you know.

No. No. No. The right way of uplifting a weak section is giving them positive incentives to excel. Uplifting a weak section is giving them positive incentives to excel. Even after sixty years of independence reservation hasn't uplifted the lot of the scheduled caste and tribes. In fact discrimination is rife, the same perception and stereotype have been – quite unfortunately – reinforced and institutions are suffering because they don't have the requisite number of people to fill in the reserved seats. It's like reserving seats in buses for women and strictly enforcing it, not allowing men near the seats at all. That means if there aren't women to occupy the seats, the seats won't be used at all, it would rot and fall into disrepair and the agency running the buses would run into a loss.

In my native state of Kerala, many seats are reserved for women in the village panchayat and are actually managed by dummies (their husbands). So instead of empowering women, it is reinforcing the already existing stereotypes – that of women not being empowered. So if this legislation goes through it will expose another chink in the armour of an already bullet-ridden governance system. So I am not much impressed by the lobbying that is going on. Lallu and company are for reservations with a difference. He says actually 33 per cent seats should be reserved for OBCs.

What's better – giving them fish or teaching them how to fish?

Glad to say I am ranked number 3 on Indiblogger for the tag "Writer" and number 5 for the tag of "poetry." Feeling good about it.

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Where’s the Age of “Pehle Aap”?

Most of my anger happens inside trains. It's a vile place, as it happened today, where people would do anything for a seat – push, hammer, kick, physically assault. Today I had some work in my bank at Nerul, and took a place near the entrance so that I could get down easily at Nerul, being two stations away from Belapur. When Seawoods station came a vile mob literally assaulted me as they climbed in. I had to literally push each one away from me, as they barreled in, cornering me between in the narrow space forming the corner of the door and the seat-divider.

Then when Nerul station arrived, I tried to jump out before the assault of well-fed bodies full of aloo-paratha began. And idli-sambhar, I might add. Too late! The aloo-parathas and idli-sambhars mobbed me, assaulting me, tearing at my clothes, pushing and shoving – for a place to stand, imagine! – something so selfishly narcissistic, I couldn't imagine what they would be like in their workplaces. Okay, okay, this is the age of the "I" and "me" generation, but where's the era when two Nawabs missed their train saying "Pehle aap", "Pehle aap" to each other? (To the uninitiated this is an apocryphal story where two Lucknowi Nawabs missed their train saying "After you" "After you" to each other.) I was left feeling upset, angry and disoriented.

Guess this is the age of say "Pehle aap ko mar doonga" rather than "Pehle aap." Hm.

Sorcerer Sachin and His Magic Wand

That diminutive man deserves a word of praise. Sanchin Tendulkar is the man I am referring to. I have seen him batting, and I have seen flashes of his genius today, in the news, of course. The best impression I have of him is when he bounds forward, a tense ball of muscle, poised and ready, eyes narrowing on the trajectory of the ball, bat describing a huge wide arc, behind him parallel to his small body, then the whoosh of the bat through air as it describes another arc, a flash the eye cannot see, and then the “thwwwwaaaccccckkkk” as it strikes the meat of the bat, and the ball flies as if it has connected with a giant machine, one that can reverse the flight of the ball coming at a fearsome pace, and send it careening into the air, as if fear itself has been nullified, and victory has been established in a few seconds of sheer beauty and grace, of man and his instrument of precision.

That’s Sachin when he drives the ball over the bowler’s head into the stands, I am mesmerized, I am speechless, my eyes goggle, my hands itch for the hold of a bat, to ape him, imitate him, and try out the magic which is so effortless in his hands. Alas, not to be mine.

Congratulations Sachin on scoring 200 runs in a single one-day cricket match.

Nirmal Pandey R.I.P.

I don’t know if I did the right thing by applying to be chief blogger of Royal Challengers. I feel like withdrawing. Guess, it’s not for me. So I won’t be let down if I lose. Anyway, I find that online friends don’t fall over each other to support you. Rest easy, since it’s something you knew – all along – that you won’t have.

Knew from this obit by Shekhar Kapoor that Nirmal Pandey is no more. Here’s his profile on imdb.com. I have seen bits and pieces of his acting, now I find I haven’t watched any film of his in its entirety, a shortcoming I will redeem soon. Nirmal Pandey R.I.P.