What is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Reading These Days?

Yann Martel, if you don't know who, let me juggle your memmory a bit - he is the one who wrote a novel about how a boy makes it across the ocean on a boat with a tiger for company - is angry. And when he is angry his pen quakes with words, his thoughts spill out on paper, and this is his tirade against Prime Minister Stephen Harper who cut funds to the Canadian Council for the Arts.What is Stephen Harper Reading? (link courtesy: Swathi Sambhani). Sample this:

"On March 28th, 2007, at 3 pm, I was sitting in the Visitors’ Gallery of the House of Commons, I and forty-nine other artists from across Canada, fifty in all, and I got to thinking about stillness. To read a book, one must be still. To watch a concert, a play, a movie, to look at a painting, one must be still. Religion, too, makes use of stillness, notably with prayer and meditation. Just gazing upon a still lake, upon a quiet winter scene—doesn’t that lull us into contemplation? Life, it seems, favours moments of stillness to appear on the edges of our perception and whisper to us, “Here I am. What do you think?” Then we become busy and the stillness vanishes, yet we hardly notice because we fall so easily for the delusion of busyness, whereby what keeps us busy must be important, and the busier we are with it, the more important it must be. And so we work, work, work, rush, rush, rush. On occasion we say to ourselves, panting, “Gosh, life is racing by.” But that’s not it at all, it’s the contrary: life is still. It is we who are racing by."

Or, this:

"I, for example, was 1991, the year I received a Canada Council B grant that allowed me to write my first novel. I was 27 years old and the money was manna from heaven. I made those $18,000 last a year and a half (and compared to the income tax I have paid since then, an exponential return on Canadian taxpayers’ investment, I assure you). By comparison, the equivalent celebration of a major cultural institution in, say, France would have been a classy, flashy, year-long, exhibition-filled affair with President Chirac trying to hog as much of the limelight as possible. No need to go into further details. We all know how the Europeans do culture. It’s sexy and important to them. The world visits Europe because it is so culturally resplendent. Instead, we stood around, drank our drinks, and then petered away in small groups."

What Martell and his fellow artists did when the Canadian Council for the Arts budget was cut was to picket the prime minister and his hangers-on in parliament and tell them about their outrage. Over here, no one comes forward. Why should they when they are getting a few crumbs thrown in their direction?

Wonder how many young novelists in India have got a grant from the government to write a novel as Martel got (Canadian $ 18,000 = 7,22,808 Indian Rupees)? None. Wonder why India is not producing any novelists of the category of Yann Martels? What does an Indian writer get when he publishes his novel with much difficulty after risking penury? Rs 50,000 and a plaque is what Sahitya Akademi gives to Akademi award winners.

Yes I would like to find out what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is reading these days.

Ganpati immersion and dancing

Yesterday I stood and watched the procession of the elephant god in the street before our flat in Belapur. They were dancing! So many raucous groups dancing to accompaniment from loud drums, cymbals, Casio keyboards played with speakers tied to bicycles. The men and women were dancing, pirouetting, their bodies shaking, their hair filled with a saffron powder. In fact, a haze of saffron hung in the darkened streets, and the energy was obvious when the graceful women danced their traditional steps, including the “poogdi-phoo (at least that is what I think it is called)” which is a dance in which two women hold hands crossed over each other, circling round and round.

I stood by and watched this peaceful procession of the “God of removal of obstacles” as Ganesha is called by Hindus. Though there were several groups having their own politically sponsored identities, none of them clashed or interfered with the other. Incidentally, “Vignaharta” is what Ganesh is called, the God who can take away those nasty stumbling blocks from one’s life. And people have faith in him and love him, that’s the reason for the show of such fervor.

That makes me think whether we need more occasions for men and women to dance in a group and shake their bodies. Yes, dancing is a healthy exercise, besides being a remover of tension. Most Indian cultures have an ethnic tradition of group dancing and music, it comes naturally to man. However, these fine art forms are dying because nobody these days dares to express their joys in social occasions anymore except at weddings, dandia ras, and at ganeshotsavs, and that too a minority. The western civilizations have transformed their traditional group dancing into a wide variety of expressions at social occasions. However, in India, group dancing hasn’t progressed beyond the tribal and traditional, and when it has, it has been influenced by Bollywood “jhatkas,” or “hip thrusting.” And here, men and women don’t dance together in courtship, or expression of their love for each other, but dance in separate knots.

Ganeshotsav | CBD Belapur

This Blog Is in the 976,363rd Position on Alexa!

Whooopieee, this blog has done it, it has jumped from the 7 figure limit to the six figure one! Here’s what this blog has been thirsting, dreaming, pining for all this while. Its Alexa rank has been moving at a satisfactory clip these past days and I am now in 976,363rd position, from the 1,070,838th position a few days ago. That is a jump of 94,475 positions in the rankings in just a few days. And being a certified Search Engine Optimizer of sorts I have reasons to be proud.

This is what Alexa shows (Alexa rankings are based on Google, and so, Google, I presume, is also in concurrence with the figure mentioned below):

Traffic Rank for http://johnpmathew.blogspot.com: 976,363

India Uncut of Amit Verma is still India’s number one blog with a ranking of: 149,709. My Indian rank is in the 911th position on Blogstreet.com. Not to worry, I am progressing very fast and will be in the top fifty very soon. So watch out, here I come!

Alexa Ranking | John P Matthew

Of Festivals and Body Ka Badshah Kaun…

It’s rather disconcerting: the noise, the pollution, the cracker-burst-paper-litter, loud speakers, the pageantry, the buntings, the banners, the clanging of cymbals, and the cloying sweetness of it all. Another big festival in the Hindu calendar is upon us and there’s no respite from now to December, as festival follows festival in an inevitable procession.

Most disturbing of all is the three-wheeled rickshaw-wallah’s apparent reluctance to ply his much-needed contraption during the festival. Every day there’s a long and tired queue of commuters at CBD Belapur station waiting for the rickshaw-god to show his kindness. No luck! I don’t wait, I start walking.

Khushwant Singh, the venerable editor-writer once mentioned that he is rather disturbed by the show of religious fervor in recent times. Me too! Are we a people that don’t know moderation? I mean, um, when we do something, we do it in excess. If you don’t believe me, take a look at our Bollywood item numbers, and then I will rest my case (by the way, the latest item number is “You are mind-blowing mahiya”). Groups try to out-do each other in the popularity stakes, so, the more the better. Never mind the assault on a poor writer’s senses.

And then Star New went into feminine sexual fantasy in yesterday’s [September 18, 2007] news with their special feature “Body ka Badshah Kaun?” (“Who is the emperor of the Body [in Bollywood]?). The presenter vacuously went on and on about Hritik Roshan's, Salman Khan's, Shahrukh Khan's and John Abraham’s bodies and pectorals, or whatever is making them so popular at the box-office.

Well, hmm, if it was a comparison of their acting abilities, or, even dancing abilities, I would have understood. But “Emperor of the Body”? Come on, isn’t it pandering to the obsession for a six-pack tummy? When offering them a role, do they look at the actor’s muscles and then decide? People with a paunch (such as me) are already feeling so much uglier after the show. Is there nowhere to hide that protruding ugly belly? I won’t tell you who won, I don’t believe in such in-depth analysis of the ventral display of the actors’ gastro-intestinal systems.

Body ka badshah kaun | Indian Festivals

The Indian Clerk - David Leavitt - Books - Review - New York Times

Here's Nell Freudenberger writing in New York Times about David Leavitt's new novel "The Indian Clerk" about the life of Indian mathematician and genius S. Ramanujan (The Indian Clerk - David Leavitt). Excerpts:

"Once Ramanujan arrives in England, he becomes a Cambridge celebrity: there is competition among the dons for proximity to the “Hindoo calculator,” as he’s called in the press. Another mathematician, Eric Neville, takes Ramanujan into his home; his wife, Alice, becomes obsessed with their guest’s comfort, catering to his dietary restrictions, albeit in a very British fashion (a “vegetable goose” is one of the more appealing attempts). There are various justifications for the impulse to save Ramanujan: Alice claims to be easing his culture shock, while Hardy hopes to develop his mind. In both cases, however, their fascination has a sexually predatory edge: Hardy “cannot deny that it excites him, the prospect of rescuing a young genius from poverty and obscurity and watching him flourish. ... Or perhaps what excites him is the vision he has conjured up, in spite of himself, of Ramanujan: a young Gurkha, brandishing a sword.”"

"“The Indian Clerk” is loosely structured around a lecture given by the brilliant English mathematician and Cambridge don G. H. Hardy. In 1913, as Hardy is engaged in trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis — a mathematical problem involving prime numbers that Leavitt (the author of a brief biography of the mathematician Alan Turing) seems to understand deeply."

Must tear that book to shreds! To the occidental eye all Indians are either turban-ed Sardarjees or Khukri-wielding Gurkhas. Ever heard about Tamilians (S Ramanujan was one) and Malayalis (me!)?

Million Monkeys on Million Laptops

Fact is people really, really believe a million monkeys on a million laptops can write a best seller. So they buy a laptop huddle over it like monkeys do and, scratch, scratch, click, click, whatever keys look attractive and catch their fancy.

A recent conversation made me think the above as the person I was talking to was in no way aware of the realities of the publishing world. This person was, what shall I say, oozing confidence that all she has to do is to find time to finish the novel for the hungry editors waiting in publishing houses. It goes without saying that millions of mutinous hordes are also waiting at bookshops for her creative output to hit the shelves, a la Julianne K Rowlings. And, here I am having contacted several publishers, submitted my novel and waiting for that email or phone call. Oh, misery!

Apparently aspiring authors nowadays say, “Yeah, when million monkeys can scratch their keyboards and come out with a bestseller, just like that… what’s her name… then mine is far better and it’s definitely going to be published.”

The whole thing about writing now has become: buy a laptop or desktop for that matter, and then go on clicking at random, whatever, I mean, whatever comes to mind in a disjointed, self-pitying effusion. Everybody has some slight, some bitter experience that would shock somebody, and it’s the shock value authors are hell bent on making them a success. After all, literature dwells on the forbidden realm of human experience, and it’s from this obscurity that the brilliance of serendipity strikes.

But then think of the millions right now pounding their laptop keyboards just to be a shade better than those imaginary million monkeys! Oh, god, it’s so awful, I just want to scream, “Why didn’t I choose some other path to success and fame?” Mumble, mumble, scratch, scratch!

All this when there are a million other authors [not monkeys] more talented than I; who have fallen into the huge cracks within the submission-rejection cycle.

UPDATE:Poet David Raphael Israel said...
John, the tone of voice, rueful view, self-irony, etc. -- all these elements make this a very appealing piece of writing . . . indeed, I would even hazard saying, this could be incorporated into a work (the millionth-and-one submission that indeed manages to attract the yearned-for approval); there is a pleasing novelistic quality here, in short. Please proceed!
cheers, d.i.

John said... Hi David, You make my eyes go moist man! Thanks a million. Yes, I will proceed, as suggested by you. Tearfully, John

million monkeys on laptops | aspiring authors |

VS Naipaul on Writers and Their People

Here's what Chandrahas Choudhury writes in his blog The Middle Stage about VS Naipual's new book A Writer's People (The Middle Stage):

"The path leading up to VS Naipaul's A Writer's People is littered with a writer's rubble: the debris, that of canonical figures knocked off their pedestals. Henry James: 'that dreadful American man…the worst writer in the world actually.' Thomas Hardy: 'an unbearable writer…doesn't know how to compose a paragraph.' Ernest Hemingway: 'didn't know where he was, ever, really.' EM Forster's A Passage To India: 'it has only one real scene, and that's the foolish little tea party at the beginning.' Jane Austen: 'If the country had failed in the nineteenth century no one would have been reading Jane Austen.'"

Apparently VS Naipaul (never known to mince his words) is out to mangle a few literary reputations. I am just waiting to get my hands on a copy of the book!

My Train Rage, and Sridala’s Reading from “Reluctant Survivor”

The purpose of this blog is to look into everyday happenings in my life and relate it to people with a bit of frankness, thoughtfulness and rationality. Maybe, the visitor (such as you) would or could be tempted to come back to read more and enjoin in a friendly conversation of sorts, which can better be done through the “comments” interface. I am giving you, and your profile on Blogger, a bit of exposure, too, as you will appear in the “Recent Comments” box on the right hand side of this post.

So I am writing this with a bit of trepidation, because I want to be frank with you, my readers. Not that I want to be all goody, goody with you, I am human, I have my faults. And one of those faults surfaced very badly this morning.

Yesterday was a late night as I attended Sridala Swami’s poetry reading from her first book “Reluctant Survivor.” It was nice meeting Sridala and other poets at the PEN-sponsored reading at the Theosophy Hall in New Marine lines, near where my sister used to work, and near the US Information Service, which is now the American Center, a favorite haunt during my college days.

I met for the first time the well-known Rashid Irani (about whom Suketu Mehta has written one and a half pages in “Maximum City”), whose movie reviews I enjoyed in the Times of India. Later at the beer valedictory in his Irani restaurant Brabourne, near Metro Cinema, he refused to let us pay for the beer. Hehe, he would be out of business if he does that. But we prevailed over him and he reluctantly relented.

I digress. I will un-digress and come back to my Train Rage story. Usually, you see, I am a calm and collected person, easy on the draw, reluctant to take umbrage, make a scene, unless severely provoked. So even if there is provocation I am calm and dismissive, and a bit abstracted.

But I lost my cool this morning and badly at that. The reason: Train Rage. So picture this: the compartment is crowded, there’s not a centimeter space to move even to breathe. I am standing on my toes to get some fresh air and people around me have formed a tight knot of flesh.

I have heard people fighting loudly in the train compartment on the way to work. I have all these days nurtured contempt for the sort who can’t adjust their personal spaces for a few minutes considering that most of the others are also undergoing the same torture in Bombay’s crowded trains.

Usually from CBD station a tacit understanding is given that commuters getting down at Vashi (the major center in New Bombay) are given the area of the right side of the entrance. Now this area is sacrosanct for commuters to Vashi such as me, and we all know this as our territory. So this man gets into the train in the wrong side of the entrance (meant for us Vashi disembark-ers) and plants himself squarely in front of me.

Now, poor me! Vashi is fast approaching and I don’t have space to maneuver myself towards the door. Panic strikes! What if I have to go all the way to the next station which is around five kilometers away? Will I be late to work? I lose all self control, as if some infernal demons have been let loose.

That’s when the shouting match started, all of it in English:

“Will you go inside or not?” I asked.

“No, I will stand wherever I want.”

This is rudeness and stubbornness magnified. As 20-year resident of New Bombay I had got used to the easy-going nature of my co-passengers. But the old order has changed and I was now facing more aggressive new residents from far, far away with their sense of what is right and wrong. And, with their own rages, and provocations.

“I have to get down at Vashi and you are blocking my path.”

“Arre you are talking as if you own this train.”

“There is a rule [I don’t know what rule I am talking about] in these trains that states that people who disembark in Vashi occupy the right side of the entrance and those embarking should, through the left side. Don’t you know that?”

We were shouting by this time and I had lost it completely by then. Rage had taken over me, I was virtually, no, really shaking. The words of my rage came from my mouth without restraint. He called me names and I called him names and I thought it would end in a scuffle in the less than few inches boxing ring. Fed up of the whole thing I said:

“You don’t talk, just go in.”

He disregarded this and started off again. I shouted again:

“You don’t talk, okay, get inside or else…”

Then it went in the usual unending, “or else” and “or else, what?” dialog.

Mercifully it ended when the train stopped at Vashi station and I found myself still shaking with indignation. No, it didn’t go away, and stayed with me most of the morning, and only post-lunch did I find my hands stop shaking.

No, I am not justifying myself. On hindsight I was trying to enforce an unwritten rule that even I knew was tenuous. But how did it all happen to someone who is content to let things be, as I see myself mostly. But I must admit I have anger inside me, which must have been made obvious in my writing, my rants.

So here I am, helplessly ranting about my Train Rage.

Anthonybhai would have said: Why men, kalipili, khatkhat doing, no? Let it go like that only, kya men?

UPDATE: Rochelle writes: I think anger sometimes can't be helped. In spite of good sense and commonplace wisdom, we can react in a manner that is startling in hindsight.

...and when we go over this event like a scene in our heads to see if we could have acted it out differently, there may be no better way than the one we already chose.

I also think that uncontrollable situations like anger immediately expose well-concealed thinking patterns and self image.

MY REPLY:Thanks for being on my side in the scuffle. I had sort of polarized the compartment into supporters and opposers when the fight happened. Rage was in everyone and I could sense a riot-like situation happening. Actually what you say is right, I couldn't think of an alternative way I could have reacted in the situation.

Yes, anger can expose concealed thinking patterns and self image. Also, ahem, I don't know if it was the beer of the previous night, as I am drinking after a long time and had sort of forgotten what it means to be hung over. Yah, right, maaan, a hangover makes you very testy. What?

Today, another day, another fight in the compartment I was traveling. "Know who you are talking to, till date nobody has been born who can fight me," a man was saying to another in a filibustering voice. The thickly packed compartment broke into laughter as one, embarrassing the man. Subash Desai in his column in Times of India equates this with a class thing. No, it isn't. Everyone is equally vulnerable. Heard of road rage? That's what I mean. I blame technology. Technology has made us into furtive, impatient beings seeking instant solutions (even at the cost of others' freedom, like the blustering man who shouted "till date nobody has been born," et al) and gratifications instead of investing time in finding longer-lasting solutions that would be more permanent. Well, if New Bombay is bursting and we need more trains, it's the leaders we have to fight to provide us transport and not fellow travelers. Makes sense?

Death at the railway station

It was a heart-wrenching sight. The man lay bleeding on the stretcher at Vashi station, the ambulance came and took him away. (Since Vashi is a big station ambulance was available what happens if it is a small one?) The first thing that struck me was: he is someone’s child, someone’s brother (there was a rakhi thread on his wrist), someone’s husband. Center for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT) has fought to implement several guidelines which were, sadly, not in evidence at the site where the man lay with blood spurting from his nose.

And I notice several things: the stretcher isn’t clean, there is no cloth to cover his body, no first aid is available, helpline numbers aren’t displayed in compartments and stations, etc. Thousands die in Bombay in railway accidents (because trains are thickly crowded and a man can look back and can be hit by a column in no time), and most of them die because medical help isn’t readily available. And the directives to the railways read thus:

“The entire purpose of this exercise is that the victim gets immediate medical help within the period of one hour (Golden Hour) from the point of accident.”

More than one hour must have passed. His body had a yellowish pallor.
accidents | Railway Accidents | Bombay Railway Accidents |

Terror Mini-series

The mini-series on terror being shown on Zee Studio is an engross saga of the terror network that led to the 9/11 incident. I was so engrossed that, how should I say this, drifted into sleep. I woke with a start to realize that it was still on and my son said they were showing the second part.

I am surprised how they did it. They even have look-alikes for Madeleine Albright and Condoleeza Rice. I thought they have gone and asked both Maddy and Condi to act in their film. But no, there are subtle differences that I could make out with some effort. And the dialog and the presentation are worth watching. One special doubt: How do they merge a recreated (in short, acted) scene with original television footage so effortlessly?

Watch it if you can, when it returns. Will it ever?

terror | Zee Television