Ron MacLarty

Ron McLarty was so convinced hewould never succeed as a novelist that after years ofobsessively churning out book after book in his basement, hesought the help of a shrink to make him stop.

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FBI rates animal rights and environmental activists as the major threats of domestic terrorism

Tilak and Jinnah worked together: "During the year Tilak had worked closely with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, one of the prominent young Muslim leaders. As a matter of fact, when the government tried in 1916 again to convict Tilak of preaching seditious doctrines, it was Jinnah who represented him before the court and won his acquittal. Tilak knew that a united India, Hindu and Muslim, could best promote India's cause, and through his efforts the 1916 Lucknow session of the Congress witnessed the development of a common programme with the Muslim League. It is because of Tilak, the organised Muslim community worked with the Congress and demanded equal position to India in the British empire. "

Section Two: "'All I wish to say is that inspite of the verdict of the Jury I maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of things and it may be the will of the providence that the cause which I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free.' "

White, pristine, unblemished
They say it is not a color
I love white mists, clouds
Lingering on blue mountains.

White, no shades
No off white, cream
Pure as snow on shimmering peaks
Is my favorite sight.

Nurses, priests, politicians
Are bound, chained to white
White nebulous clouds
evoke deep nostalgic thoughts.

They swaddled my father in white
As he lay in the black coffin
His best shirt was white
His loin cloth was white.

The paper I write is white
White is holy, pure
They say light is white
Because it combines all colors.

So white is the mother of all colors
The churning of all yellow, blue, green
Colors sacrifice their egos
To the eternal white.

They say they are "white"
The purest of all races
I think they aren't white
But pink, beige and red.

Why can't colors of people
Merge and become white
Would people called "white"
Allow their color to merge?

Is white a color?
The matriarch of all colors
The fountain of all extent colors
Yes, king white reigns supreme!

(A poem written for caferati)

WEEKLY RANT – Oh! Those contests!

Yesterday again I watched another one of those crazy contests going on the idiot box. I say crazy for various reasons I give below. This was titled “India’s Best” and they were selecting a team, a hero and a heroine, for a forthcoming film.

Tears, disappointments, smiles, joy, and ecstatic hugging later the couple who would set the screen alight were selected.

It seems the entire Indian entertainment industry is set for a revamp as Priyanka Chopra very kindly informed us. Sorry, not Priyanka, it was Amrita Rao, who announced this. She said our established heroes and heroines are old so the industry is in need of new faces. Ergo, this contest. How brilliant!

Some weeks ago I had written about “Indian Idol” and had raised a groundswell of protests on this very forum. This time I hope to raise some dust and fury about “India’s Best.” Seem these people are India’s best actors. But are they? I have my doubts.

All they were tested to do were hackneyed scenes from Hindi films. They imitated Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, etc., all very mannered and typecast actors. They danced and contorted their bodies until, I suspect, the dance floor had holes in it.

Didn’t they have any originality in them? Instead of judging them according to their emoting power in novel situations, they were judged for how they could imitate some hackneyed actors.

So much for originality and innovation in Bollywood. The same old scripts, love stories, stupid comedies, costume dramas repeated again and again, and the same type of actors in formulaic roles. Yes, we need such talented people, as we need Dev Anand clones!

Think of the people who lost in the competition. They were heart broken, crying, hugging each other. Do we all need this melodrama to be shown on television? It brings tears to our eyes, but do we need more tears after all the melodrama shown in our films and serials?

Makes me think about the publishing business. I guess the time when the publishing companies stopped recruiting talent to write for them and appointed agents to look after their need for original works must have been the time when the death knell of publishing was sounded. Something similar seems to be going on in the Indian entertainment industry.

Sure novels and works selected by literary agents sell many copies, indeed millions. But who reads novels with the devotion and ardor there was in the heydays of the literary renaissance? Then editors spent time with authors discussing their work and spent time editing them. Books then had perfection written all over them. Now, all editors are pampered to accept only completely edited works from agents. The result? Mistakes and bad grammar that turns one off easily.

These youngsters in "India's Best" may have a direct entry into the celebrityhood that Bollywood promises. As the girl-band “Viva” had some time earlier (by the way, where are they these days, after all the tears, laughs and hugging?). “Viva” is no more because the sponsors lost interest in them.

This boy and girl pair will be dumped at some time after their movie/s are released. Then they are on their own to fight and God alone knows if they will survive in this dog-bite-dog world of entertainment.

I guess television channels have become richer because of the viewership such programs receive. Television rating points must have climbed upwards like anything, isn’t it? They just love such “reality television” for the melodrama it generates. All those genuine tears and emotions without many rehearsals are good, man.

But be prepared for a lowering of standards, good acting abilities aren’t the ones put on display at such contests. How can even talented actors perform when they know what is at stake? Don’t those rigorous elimination rounds tire them and exhaust them? Is this the correct measure of their talent, this imitation of mannered actors of yesteryears? Many a talent that cannot stand the rigorous process of elimination may be left out in the process.

Who said contests are fair?

Musings on the Readmeet at Manisha’s

Manisha and Mahesh have what I have wanted all my life. A home by the sea and a balcony looking into the sunset. Some day I would like to retire to a house like that by the sea and gaze into the sunset sitting on a cute wicker chair.

The fiery sunset and cool wind blowing just overwhelmed me at yesterday’s readmeet! I had read about Manisha complaining about the smell of drying fish near her home. I said I would endure fish smells and the loss of my right limb to see such divine sunsets from my own room. So I thought I would attempt a little reporting, though I guess the detailed one will be posted by Avi Das, the coordinator of the readmeet event.

“Gold Mist” it said on the nameplate. When I was directed to the entrance, I saw Basu Bhattacharya’s name written beside Manisha’s and Mahesh’s names. I knew I was in some distinguished company. Seeing Manisha in her gown and hair clipped on top of her head, I thought she was getting ready for the event. I said if I were early I would loiter around the seashore and then come back later when all was set. I didn’t realize from her posts on caferati that the lady was so charmingly and delightfully informal. She remained in the gown the entire evening, this good “bad” girl!

Indeed the golden rays of the setting sun had caused a mist to rise over the Arabian Sea when I watched it standing in the balcony with Vijay, Ratna, Manisha and Avi. We were the early birds except Manisha, of course, who was the hostess of the event.

6:30 no sign of people. The wait irritated Ratna who in her best schoolmarmish tone said later that we should all be present on time or not come at all. The problem with us Indians is that after several on-time appearances where we find the host having a bath or a harassed servant running around making arrangements we take it for granted that 6:30 means 7 or 7:30. So thank providence for people like Manisha and Ratna who, when they say 6.30, mean 6.30. I guess one should mention “Time 6.30” and “Reporting time 6.15” so that people do not assume they can saunter in by 7.

Aside from the four of us, the first to arrive was our “Zorba the Fenugree” Ajit Jani. Whipping out something that looked like a scrapbook he read his minimalistic poem “Etlo.” “Etlo” in Gujrati means, “that is.”

There was a longish short story, haiku-like poems about mobiles, a poem about a journey on the Bombay-Pune expressway, engineering-sounding poems, poems about seashells, my own short story, and the grand finale, a play reading by Manisha, Peter and Vijay.

Participants came from as far as Jaipur and Pune. There was Vincent who is an intelligence officer in the revenue department who wants to open a chapter of Caferati in Jaipur. He came with his wife who is a forensic expert specializing in genetic coding and their 28-day old daughter who never even once made a noise and was rapt in a world of her own throughout the event (talk of early initiation into the readmeet culture!).

That makes me wonder, why people meet to read an almost dead art form commuting long hours when they could have sat in front of a television and enjoyed inane recycled serials and skimpily dressed girls dancing suggestively? Why do people like Manisha open up their homes and their hearts to kindred souls who need a refuge from the overpowering cynicism of the world around them?

The answer is we humans have an innate need to communicate, as the ancient cave dwellers did. After a hunt they would gather around a campfire (remember, we have a campfire event coming), eat the cooked meat and talk (mostly in grunts and sign language) about the hunt and visualize about the future where their future generation would gather in a largish drawing room, sit on stylish mats and listen to others read their delicately created works. Have a heart writers, poetry or prose will never die with people like you around!

So what if an unkind word was said in criticism, an unguarded comment, or offense taken over a misinterpreted meaning? Let the writers of the world sink their differences and be bonded as one. After all when they need to write content for a website or copy for an advertisement or script for a play they have to depend on us. Writers today are paid well by the technology freaks and they had better do that or we would sabotage their software programs and dollar-dreams of BPO bliss!

As a people we no longer have the time to sit together and tell anecdotes, or read carefully written and edited stories and poems to each other. Our lives are like one long succession of routines where we do what others expect us to do. We do the obvious routines, even writing for a living, quite easily. But the challenge comes in writing with a purpose, to discover the beauty of nature, write about interesting people we have met, to encourage and to enlighten and to break barriers and experience the writer’s words as our own. The creative urge takes us away from this stereotypical life and makes us think, dream and discover new worlds. I think that objective was achieved at yesterday’s readmeet.

Later we dispersed to the dining room to feast on samosas, cutlets, and brownie cakes (mmmm!).

“Indian Idol”

I sat down to see Indian Idol on television. My son tells me it is a copy of an American program of the same name called American Idol.

A pretty young thing, a participant, walks in. Agreed, she isn’t a great singer. The judges, celebrities themselves insults her and says she should give up singing. The girl is almost in tears. We are shown background material about her preparing, her expectant parents encouraging her, the jitters, and her ultimate debacle. I wonder what right the judges have to insult her like this. Just tell her she doesn’t make the grade and let her go.

“But it is like that in America,” My son says. So what? Must we ape the bad qualities of those Americans? The celebrity judges must remember they are on national television and they themselves are celebrities, and it reflects badly on their standing as celebrities.

Will every one of these participants take this lying down? No. One brash type, a participant, objects and says, “You could have put this in a better way.” The judges instead of apologizing and saying sorry, say, “You put on star airs when you walked in.” Meaning, it is star airs they were watching and not his singing style. Hello! Are you there to judge their clothes and appearance or their singing?

Another one, a scared looking man, is told, “You are a timid man. You will never make it.” He goes back crestfallen. What right do you have, celebrities, to insult a man like this. This is what I find objectionable about “Indian Idol.” But my son says, “Papa, it is like that in America.” I say “So what? If they are bad should we also be bad?”

We are obsessed by America and whatever is done in America cannot be bad. Who says so? Some of our youngsters think talking bluntly like the American working class in their slang is cool and fun. No it isn’t. It doesn’t suit our Indian sensibilities and please don’t tell me, son, “It is like that in America.”

It also raises questions about this great unchecked, un-critiqued medium of television. I think we are crossing the limits somewhere. Aren’t we? Do we have to impose the moral standards of America on our unsuspecting viewers most of whom are our youth who are in the most impressionable stages in their lives?

Raises questions, I don’t have answers. Maybe I should put that to Anu Malik, Farah Khan and Sonu Nigam.

caferati

Musings on the rain!

It is raining as I write this... pearly drops are falling with the rhythm of sibilant whispers...

My friend and colleague tells me it has been raining continuously for the past one and a half month. The road I travel to work is full of holes of varying sizes and shapes. Some are deep some are shallow and all are full of water. The bus lurches through it as we hold on for dear life.

There is no respite. The umbrella is a flimsy toy for the gusts of strong wind. They blow water through the think jacket I wear to keep away the wetness.

The weather bureau, where my sister used to work and now has retired, had predicted deficient monsoon but now I think we are having more than enough. Who needs all this water here in Bombay while elsewhere farmers are committing the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives because of the lack of it.

Well, it is feeling chilly with the air-conditioner on and I have downed my 'n'th cup of tea.

Has anyone heard of El Nino and El Nina. Well, one should. When my dad died there was such a deluge and the water almost cut us off from civilization in good old green paradise of Kerala. We had to keep his body in a mortury for almost a week to be able to give him a decent funeral.

El Nino my online dictionary tell me is:

A warming of the ocean surface off the western coast of South America that occurs every 4 to 12 years when upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water does not occur. It causes die-offs of plankton and fish and affects Pacific jet stream winds, altering storm tracks and creating unusual weather patterns in various parts of the world.

Al Nina is something similar. Weather like the unpredictable lover is becoming too much moody these days. The world is growing warmer by a fraction of a degree centigrade every year. What is fraction of a degree? It all adds up into several degrees over the years. So be prepared to sweat it in summer.

That means you and I would be sweating like a pig in summer and warding off a deluge in monsoon and near freezing in winter. Yes. That's most likely to happen.

Who is at fault. All of us. The world has less and less tree cover these days. Acres are cut down every year to make way for farming and habitation. We are losing 86,000 hectares per day: an area equivalent to New York City.

Forests are needed to condense clouds and bring down rain uniformly. In the absence of this it will rain cats and dogs and rats in some parts and nothing in other parts. Witness what is happening in India today. Bombay and the north-east are having abundant rain and floods while places like Vidharba are still dry and rainless.

We have filled our airconditioners, refrigerators and aerosol cans with a chemical known as chlorofluoro carbons. These chemicals rise in the atmosphere and destroy the ozone layer, the precious protective shield against cosmic radiation. So the earth is partially naked now... I was typing fully naked... but that will happen not long in the future if the trend continues.

But all of us are not bothered... we are happy with our jobs making more and more money forgetting that the process we have set off is irreversible! Our grand children may be better than us living in fully airconditioned bubbles and working in fully climate controlled offices.

But what of their children and their children? And what of the poor?

I am sorry to seem so negative and pessimistic but that's the way things are... I feel we have crossed the limits somewhere and need to correct it and set it right.... But who will bell this cat? Who will undo the knot we have tied around our own ankles?

Wonder what will happen when we are gone and our grand children go through many more El Ninos and hard summers! Would they applaud us or curse us?

Remains to be seen....

caferati
"'So much is being written in India now, every mail brings me manuscripts to look at by Indian authors. It has suddenly become a craze. It's not much to do with writing, it's to do with celebrity culture. Because a few like Rushdie and Arundhati Roy have become celebrities, it's encouraged others to try writing.'"

Now I find what Anita Desai has to say very objectionable!

Why?

Published authors, at least in India, never lend a helping had to struggling authors. A crab mentality prevails. Now that I made it why should I help someone else?

Agreed. You have made it against the odds, had to struggle, was rejected, etc. etc. But helping someone come up, saying a good word about something you really like. No way, we are Indian.

One billion people and no Olympic gold? Only one measly silver? Why?

Because our social system and structure is such. Along comes a talented person who wants to do something and vicious gossip is circulated, insults are hurled, character assasination is ready to be circulated, everything is done to make the person feel small.

"Who does he/she think he/she is?"

"Big writer eh?" Smirk! Smirk!

So now that Ms Desai has made it, Ms Desai can thumb her nose at those struggling to make it. Same with the writers who have had "god"fathers abroad to promote them.

Is there any doubt why most talented youngersters (writers, painters, sportsmen, actors) get disillusioned and give up? We are not a society based on merit, we are a society based on cronyism. If you don't like to be a crony then go jump into the well. Ask the sportsmen who has no talent to suck up to the officials. How can you ask if you won't even find them?

Now what makes Anita Desai crib in front of a foreign audience? Perhaps she thinks she has arrived and is now on level with the "goras" so the brownies who struggle in India can suck their thumbs and descend the depths of desperation.

Anita Desai says we Indian writers want to be celebrities... who doesn't? Doesn't she want to be a bigger celebrity than Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie? Doesn't she want the TV cameras, the interview, the book launches, the paid book tour, etc.

She does, but she wants it so seriously that she doesn't want the 10 million or so people in the sub-continent who can afford a computer to catch up with her. So she would rather subvert their prospects and criticise them in public than say a good word.

Is it any surprise that a nation of one billion cannot produce a gold medal at the Olympics. All we can do is a silver when unknown countries in Africa (imagine Africa with its malnourished millions!) can produce more than one medal. All our medal prospects gave up long ago!