Pinched Bottom: Hazard of Journalism!

This video of a journalist's ass being pinched as she is reporting on a story appeared in a site specialising in media jobs in an article titled "Journalism Hazards, War Reporting & Pinched Bottoms". An apt warning for those wanting to take up journalism? The article reports that journalists suffer twice as much from post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) as policemen. Not to dissuade budding journalists, it's a career that prepares you to be a writer, much more than anything else.

Train Injuries - to All Ye Injured People

Train injuries. Today I have decided to concentrate this post on train injuries while commuting to work. Around five million people commute to work on the Bombay suburban train network, out of a population of 14 million. There aren’t enough trains for so many people, who push, stomp, wriggle, stand in odd positions, and generally endure many indignities on the way to work.

I commute by train. The other day, as I was dozing, a heavy bag fell on my head from the rack above, taking me completely by surprise. The portion of my skull still aches. A colleague twisted her ankle, another almost broke her leg, a woman slipped under the train but was miraculously rescued, a boy was electrocuted while sitting on the roof (fool that he is, he touched the high-tension overhead wire), I hurt my shoulder while entraining (it still pains me), so on. Each day around ten or fifteen fall and kill themselves against the jutting steel stanchions holding the overhead wires, there are accidents and mishaps. It adds up to a lot of misery. Life is so cheap, or, has become so. Why aren't they finding a solution to the commuting problems? Hovercrafts were started, then stopped, bridges are constantly being built, obstructing existing traffic, but still solutions remain elusive.

Around one-and-half hour is the time I take to reach the office. That means I spend around three hours each day commuting, add to that nine hours of work, which means I am out of home for twelve hours a day. Eight hours go in sleeping and all I have is four hours to get ready for work, read the newspapers, watch television, talk to son and wifey, if at all. The last statement, rather ironic since work stretches, sacrifices have to be made and all I have is time to sleep, take a bath and go back to office. No wonder people get injuries on the way to work and burn out so fast. 

To All Those Who Have Lost Their Mothers and Are Reading This….

For those who have lost their mothers, recently, or in the recent past, this eulogy by Ru Freeman for her own mother, on her website, which would strike a loving chord. I for one didn't realize what a big loss it would be to lose one's mother. More than anyone else in our lives, we take our mothers for granted. My mother was obsessed with death, a real necrophile; she talked to us in glowing and somewhat exaggerated terms of the many deaths she witnessed: the father she had nursed in his last days, her sisters whom she cared for in through her ultimate days, the neighbor whose death she witnessed (she breathed her last with "a big burst of breath, then nothing"), the caring she had done for her father-in-law, my grandfather, the many, many services she had done for the dying. But when it came to her own death, I am sad to say she didn't recognize me, she looked at me with unseeing eyes, didn't speak words of blessings (which she said she had received from the many dying people she served), didn't take the Lords name or sing a hymn and died with a few huge intakes of breath, with me and my sister beside her, nobody else. Immediately thereafter, as if on cue, the ants started attacking her, and I shifted her to a mortuary for her other children and relations to see her remains, her lifeless body.

Clinically, it was the passing of a phase in my life when I felt there was someone, somewhere, who will always be there, a presence which I will miss, an attachment like no other, a feeling of connectedness like no other. My loss. Our loss that is, to all who have lost their mothers and are reading this.

Information Overload in a Schizoid World

What we see today is an information overload. Emails, short messages, phone calls, call centre solicitations, forwarded mail of jokes and anecdotes, what not? Yes, I have checked all these this morning. I checked two email inboxes, removed a lot of spam mails, deleted a lot of redundant facebook notifications, cleaned the computer of forwards, images, replied to mail I thought was important, wrote just "hahahaha" to a friend's joke (so he knows I have seen it), etcetera, etcetera.

But have I sifted the chaff out of this harvest of information? How much of this information do I trust? How much of the information I read is fake and make believe? There used to be a time when I could trust the editorial sanctity of newspapers. Today I can't open a newspaper and believe the sanctity of what I am reading, much more, otherwise, lose my sanity over what I am reading. So, I skim the surface, looking for false notes, searching for standard phrases written by public relations people to plug their product or personality as the case may be. I can't trust the objectivity of even writers anymore. Rogues exists in all professions, I know, I know.

The world we live in is a schizophrenic, there are a lot of harassed and harried people out of make a fool out of you, and we are arrant fools to believe them. Even once. Albeit, we do believe them and buy health policies that are only partially enforceable, products that breakdown after the first month of use, gadgets that sit in a corner rotting away. Says Anthonybhai, "This world's a merry place. So, enjoy!"

Kiss and Make Up – the 3 Idiots Controversy

Here's more grist for the mill in the 3 idiots controversy. The latest celebrity to join the bandwagon to further fuel the fire is Vir Sanghvi who writes thusly on his blog. Guess everyone had his/her say now, including me. Excerpt:

"What does it cost the makers of 3 Idiots to give Chetan Bhagat his credit in the space where a writer's credit is traditionally placed in the international movie business? It would make no difference to the movie's massive box-office performance. We would not think any less of Rajkumar Hirani, a fine director with a great track record. And Aamir's reputation as the most consistently successful star of our times would remain intact."

But Chetan wants to move on and in this article he says he wants to move on and requests the director and producer of the film also to do likewise.

Slamming Poetry at the Blue Frog

Entered the wonderful world of slam poetry performance, and didn’t proceed beyond the first round. Ugh! I never imagined I would do that. Found out it takes guts though as I stood on the state of Blue Frog’s aesthetically designed performance space, bathed in the sharp circle of laser lights last Sunday to deliver my elegy to my dead friend Manoj Rane before an audience of diners and fellow poets. It was a nice experience.

The mill district where Blue Frog is situated is still run down, still the festering centre of the city, decaying, though the multinationals and media companies had moved in in the last decade or so. Hm. As if I expected something else from an area I kept away from, because of its sheer nightmarish decrepitude and lack of civic infrastructure. The night spots are situated inside dark mill compounds, un-tiled, littered, and every bit like it used to be. They seem not to care, Bacchus is worshipped in the night spots, revelry and drinking go well into the night, but people don’t care about the garbage that lies un-cleared on the streets. Gangs of jobless youths wearing shorts and tee-shirts loll around looking dangerous and unconcerned.

Blue Frog is lit in a soft suffusion of lights, and the effect is one of awe and quiet dignity. Shivani Tibrewala is in charge, adding life to the atmosphere of serenity and the capacity to indulge in whatever is ones intoxication – poetry or spirits. Woody on the flute (both Indian and western) and a percussionist (sorry, I forgot his name) lend the right miasma to submit oneself to something wild, like singing one’s poem, which I did.

I know I sounded flat. I don’t know why. I did. I stood before a mirror and performed the usual rehearsals but sounded flat nevertheless. Next time I am going to learn by heart my verses before I go on stage. Makes a lot of difference to know your poem. If you don’t have your poem on your lips, you tend to appear flat. I guess my rivals did better and deserved to win. As for me, I didn’t get past the first round. Hm. 

Three Idiots – a Contract Only an Idiot Would Sign

Here's the contract between Chetan Bhagat and Raju Hirani for Three Idiots which is at the centre of the controversy over the film which has Chetan claiming that he has been deprived of the proceeds of the success of the film. But reading the contract, one would feel (in fact anyone would feel) that only an idiot (a general observation, no offense, not aimed at anyone) would sign a contract that would handover all rights of his creative work to a production house without reading the fine print, which afterall is what a writer should do before signing any contract. But writers are human, in fact, more human than others, one agrees.

Writers and authors are the sole owners of their work under the Intellectual Property Act. I guess Chetan trusted the other party enough. This is a lesson for all writers to be more careful before signing and giving away their babies to any second or third person.

A Malayalee Redfined - According to Vijayaraghavan, M.P.

Yesterday was Kairali’s, Belapur’s malayalee association’s, Christmas party. The entertainment was all rip-offs of Bollywood and western pop. As if being a Christian means following things western. Oh, there was a Bharatnatyam performance too. I was transfixed by the dancer’s movements and the rhythm her feet made on the wooden floor matched so wonderfully, so fluidly, so effortlessly with the rhythm of the drums. Truly a wonderful performance.

The chief guest was Mr. Vijayaraghavan, member of Rajya Sabha, the Indian Senate, who gave a very correct description of a Malayalee (to be taken in the proper Malayalee sense of humour), which goes thusly:

“A Malayali (I am referring to the feminine gender to avoid a lot of “his/her” from cluttering the text) is one who wonders which school her child will go before she is born. A Malayalee is so committed to bringing up her child that she will go to any extent to secure the best for her. She researches all the schools, then carefully prepares the girl for interviews. The school should be good, even if the teachers don’t have any brains. A Malayaee doesn’t mind if the girl brings home a lot of home work, and sits down to do the homework herself. She also sends her to coaching classes which takes three-four hours of the child.

“Then when the child is old enough, she is put through entrance tests for engineering, medical colleges. When she passes, she is married off to someone from the U.S. The best of the best should go to the U.S., so also her darling girl should go to Texas or Chicago. Then comes the call from the U.S., the much anticipated call. She thinks she can visit the Niagra Falls, the Statue of Liberty, the Yellowstone National Park. But, it’s for midwifery and baby-sitting she is needed, as these two duties are very expensive in the U.S.

“കുട്ടിയെ ഇടതും വലതും കൊണ്ട് നടക്കും, കുട്ടി ഉ.സ. ഇല പോയാല്‍ പിന്നേ പട്ടിയെ ഇടതും വലതും കൊണ്ട് നടക്കും.

“Before the girl goes to the U.S. they will escort her on both sides – left and right – and after she goes they will escort the dog – left and right.”

Apropriately, as Mr. Vijayaraghavan correctly surmised, it’s a sad reflection of what a Malayalee’s life has become. The trouble parents undertake to get their children in professional colleges is sometimes pathetic, no, phenomenal. Today a Malayalee parent is considered a failure if one child is not somewhere in the U.S. of A.

What’s needed? A change of attitude perhaps.

The Resurgent Religiosity of the Indian

William Dalrymple is good at spotting trends. He writes here that there is a resurgence of religious sentiments in India. I agree. Every morning I see the RSS conduct its drill in the neighbourhood, the Jehovah Witness is becoming more aggressive, the Muslim women all wear burqas, or, hijabs. On new year eve a family in the Belapur had a Pooja which involved sounding the conch shell and beating on utensils for the post part of the day. Afternoon siesta of this blogger was spoilt. A friend went to a temple on new year eve, and new year eve isn't even a Hindu festival. Navratri is more lavish, Diwali even more so, and so is the keeping of fasts during Shravan, Navratri and Margashish. The Hindu calendar is full of such rituals and they are keenly observed. Friends of my childhood have set the Gayatri Mantra as their ring tones, and a committed communist has a Shiva Linga in his bungalow. Says Dalrymple:

"As India is liberalising and globalising its economy, the country is experiencing a rising tide of popular Hinduism which is leaving no social segment and no public institution untouched. There is a surge in popular religiosity among the burgeoning and largely Hindu middle classes, as is evident from a boom in pilgrimage and the invention of new, more ostentatious rituals. This religiosity is being cultivated by the emerging state-temple-corporate complex that is replacing the more secular public institutions of the Nehruvian era . . . a new Hindu religiosity is getting more deeply embedded in everyday life, in both the private and public spheres."

I was just wondering, what if we harness the energies and efforts expended in stereotyping a particular class or religion and channelize it into something creative, or constructive. For example, building really nice smelling toilets so people can crap in peace, or, create a green and peaceful environment? There I go again, into my fantasy world. Dhansukhbhai Jethalal Shah thinks the resurgence of religiosity is a good thing. At least people won't do harmful things like destabilize the economy and fuel speculation. But he only knows the meaning of what he says.

Meeting at the Mithai Shop; Happiness 2010!

Happy new year, and all that. 2009 - the year that Michael Jackson died, Barack Obama became president, Tiger Woods was disgraced, 86-year-old ND Tiwari was allegedly caught in a sex romp. A lot of expectations for the new year, a lot of expectations of the year that ended. Wanted the year to end on a good note and it did. Wanted to make significant progress on the novel before the year ended, so got up early, worked, worked, worked, had lunch, worked, worked. Then the cupboard that was sitting like a shapeless elephant in the drawing room had to be shifted to the bedroom on the first floor and the sturdy labourers came and put paid to my literary endeavours. But I did make good progress on chapter 11.

Then went to the nearest mithai shop to buy some desserts for dinner, as I was celebrating new year at home, even wanted to go to bed early, as I am working today. Hm. Saw a familiar face in the mithai shop, I won't say names, for I don't have her permission. I wasn't sure. But the hairstyle, glasses, a certain air matched with pictures I had seen on FB. I was sure it was her. We were in online contact close to more than five years and had never met. We are members of an online literary group. Then I hit on an idea. I SMS-ed her. "Are you in Belapur." No reply for almost fifteen minutes. Ergo, damn, wrong surmise, I was glad I didn't barge in and ask her.

Then comes the reply "Yes!" So I go back and meet her, first time after almost five years of online messages. She was on the way to Lonavala for a new year party. Thanks friend! That's how the old year ended. As decided earlier (resolution!) did some more writing and went to bed at 11 p.m. Son, Ronnie, partied the night away at a friend's place in Panvel. The neighbor decided to keep us all awake with a raucous party on their terrace. That's how the old year ended.