Shakespearean Globe Theatre, still alive, and performing!

Those who have seen the movie “Shakespeare in Love” would remember that the audience were shown standing and watching the plays. The Globe Theatre was at that time built by a consortium of actors, including Shakespeare, in 1599, and performed his plays. Building technology wasn’t very advanced in those days and the thatched roof caught fire and the theatre perished.

The present reconstructed Globe Theatre in London is a faithful duplicate of the open-air playhouse designed in 1599, where Shakespeare worked and for which he wrote his greatest plays. The theatre season starts in May and ends in September with productions of the works of Shakespeare, his contemporaries and modern authors.

And for trivia lovers, yes, there still is standing space in the center of the auditorium. And the fees? Pound 5!
Tags: Shakespeare in Love, The Globe Theatre, London, United Kingdoms, Theatre Season

Dear Dictionary, what is "Preventative"?

Terribly vexing can be the vagaries of American English. Yesterday I chanced on “preventative maintenance” on a website. “Preventative”? Could it be “preventive”? Then I stumbled on “orientated.” What is this obsession with “tating” about the Yankees? Or is it a case of the dyslexic taking over linguistic propriety?

Dictionary.com does give the same meaning for “Preventative” as “Preventive” while at the same time warning that the word is a variant of “Preventive.” My next stop Rhymezone.com and “Onelook.com” didn’t accept the word but gave me the idea for the following variants. I must warn it is not language purists, though.

How about abbreviateted, abductated, activatated?

Tags: American English, Yankees, USA, Rhymezone, Onelook, Dictionary

More Discussion on my Poem “Communally Hated” on Caferati

My poem “Communally Hated” has received a very interesting mix of feedback from Caferati members. Here’s another rejoinder, a clarification, rather, from me.

First of all let me confess that the idea for this poem was in the back of my conscience for a long time, and it just came to me one day and I wrote it down. As such, this is a first draft and a work in progress.

Please bear in mind that this is the voice of a distraught son-of-the-soil lamenting the fact that foreign migrants have taken over his land, his job, and are threatening his very existence. This happens in places as diverse as Bombay and Timbuktu as migration of people — for better life, and more pay — is like liquid finding its own level in scientific-speak. In short, minus the jargon, it is a phenomenon the world has to deal with and live with.

Also, this is the most virulent of all hatreds. It is also the hatred the indigenous people have for the conquerors, the marauders, and the pillagers. It has happened in the past when India was repeatedly attacked and conquered by invaders from Central Asia, it is happening in Iraq, it happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and many, many years ago it happened in the USA, and Anglo-Saxon England.

Now, a knee-jerk reaction to this hatred is, violence towards the migrant. We see instances of this every day. Some time back migrants who came for interviews to Bombay were blocked at the railway station and asked to go back. This is a stray instance, but an instance nonetheless.

Migration is a phenomena faced everywhere around the world. An increasing number of people from villages are migrating to cities for jobs and this is a process that cannot be stemmed. Around a quarter of the world population live in cities and this figure is steadily creeping up, putting governance of cities under severe pressure.

My poem is a depiction of, what shall I say, the adrenaline-squirting rush of hatred that goes through the mind of an indigenous person when s/he sees her/his land being occupied by strangers.
Tags: Communal Hatred, Central Asia, Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, USA, Anglo-Saxon, England, Bombay, Migration, Poem

More on Street Harassment, Sex-Ratios, This Time!

This is an extension of the blogathon on “street harassment,” in which I gave some gyan (wisdom) not long ago. More gyan or zen came my way, so I am sharing.

Most women in India are disconcerted, no, offended that men look at them, sometimes even stare at them at times when they least want their attention. Are we some “endangered species?” they ask chagrined by the eyes ogling them at bus stops, train stations and other public places. But a look at this map which shows sex ratios throughout India will show that in the vast hills and plains of the north and north-east, the female ratio is very low, around nine-hundred females for every thousand males. Female infanticide is no longer the topic of hush-hush discussion in closed rooms; it is a reality.

Still wonder why men stare? I am told that men in the states of Punjab and Harayana go to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to buy their women, as they don’t have hopes of getting anyone in their own state. Yes, they pay money and buy women. Talk of genetic engineering and other, deeper, gyan, which I wouldn’t go into here.

Still wonder why men stare? Because they can’t get any women, no, can’t even get near those beauteous creatures. Therefore the clichéd stereotyped image of the repressed and rakish Indian male, with their wolf whistles and sexist comments.

What now? If things won’t improve then there is serious threat of increasing atrocities committed against women. Something needs to be done, but what?
Tags: India, Street Harassment, North India, Female Infanticide, Indian Women, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh

Some Gyan (Zen) forThis Weekend!

According to my friend, the famous adman Gangadharan (we were in primary school together), "zen" is actually "gyan" which was actually corrupted to "chan" by the Chinese and since the Japanese can't pronounce "ch" velly well, they transcreated it into "zen." So as one who poses as a "zenwriter" besides being "Johnwriter" here's a few gyan for this weekend to you all beautiful people, well, er, um, am working today (Sunday), so count me out.

Considering that all age-old wisdom or "gyan" originated from India and traveled past the Himalayas into China and then to Japan, I guess the Japanese have the Indians to thank for their present prosperity. Oh, well, Indians ideate the best "gyan" and then pass them on to others to implement. Wasn't the "zero" our creation? Well, then everything should come to naught and we must, rather unluckily, be content with "shoonya" or "zero."

Just yesterday I saw a beautiful power point presentation about how we should keep our egos out of our professional lives. The gist is we bring a lot of emotion into our professional lives and everything becomes a tangle of feelings, hurts, innuendoes, miscommunications, unintended slights, and feelings of victimization. In short, we do react with the heart, that is, we are emotional rather than cerebral.

So that's "zen" for today from your "zenwriter." "Don't be emotional in your work, rather be cerebral."

Tags: Gyan, Zen, Zenwriter, India, China, Japan, emotional, cerebral, Zero, Shoonya

Garbage Collection New Bombay "Ishtyle"

Recovering from a mild attack of the fevers. That’s why I didn’t post yesterday. Um, what to say, today is bleak as bleak can be. The rains are finally here. I like the rains in the countryside that is in Kerala. But the rain in Bombay is depressing.
The road to the place where I work is depressingly slushy. This place is called Turbhe Naka. It is central hiring place for laborers in New Bombay where I live. Several puddles of water accumulate. Someone remarked that this road is as it has been for the last twenty years. Yet nothing has been done. Flies breed, garbage lies uncleared, people – the sort who don’t look as if they have slept for days – walk about in a trance. There are poultry shops, hotels, barbershops, and grocery stores all in a nightmarish accumulation of dirt and filth.
One of the reasons for the filth is garbage clearance. When New Bombay started as the twin city of Bombay they had mechanical garbage clearance with garbage compaction and all those gizmos. Then suddenly they decided to employ what is know as “ghata gadis” or “bell trucks” to collect garbage. The idea is for a truck to come to doorsteps and collect garbage by ringing a bell mounted on the truck. The garbage bins have been dispensed with since uniformed workers collect the garbage directly from homes.
The problem is people had got used to the old system of garbage collection and refuse to follow the new – and immensely outdated – system. They dump the garbage where the old garbage bins used to be, though there isn’t a bin there anymore. Most areas of New Bombay have this problem and I see mounds of garbage everywhere.
And what was the reason for changing over to an antiquated and arcane system of collecting garbage from every doorstep? Because, according to unconfirmed sources, the man who runs the garbage collection trucks happens to be the father-in-law of a politician who wields considerable power in New Bombay.
Tags: New Bombay, Garbage Collection, Turbhe, Trucks, India

NASA Trying to Muzzle Opposition?

Close on this blog post about this article that the White House has decided to cancel or delay most of the forthcoming NASA earth science missions that were supposed to study Global Warming comes news reported by the New York Times as follows:

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Bravo doctor! We are with you on this.

Tags: Global Warming, Nasa, Space, James E. Hansen

Communally Hated!

Posted this poem called "Communally Hated" on Shakespeare & Co. It has received an interesting mix of reviews and feedback. Do take a look. Here's something I wrote about the background of the poem:

The context is the intense dislike the son of the soil has for migrants, a subject that has fascinated me enough to write a novel about. I am a migrant in Bombay, you know, though I spent most of my life here. So, I have been listening to the voices of the sons of the soil describing the migrants.

We do make sterotypes of immigrants be it the locality, the city, and in a wider sense the country. Thus we seek to make common cause with people like us to dislike and hate these new people who bring with them their own cultures (as most of us do).

In some sense the context is also the communal flare ups we see now and then. It seems we have a tendency to target a community by their defining characteristics and then rain abuses on them, which is reflected in the words I used in this poem.
Tags: Migrant, Bombay, Communal, India

Doomsday? Armageddon? Deluge?

Reading this cover story in Time, I smirked thinking, "Hey, you disbelievers you were wrong." But then I sat up and read it again, this time with my heart slowly creeping towards my mouth. For one traumatized and still recovering from the last deluge on July 26, 2006 (spent the night in office, was totally cut off from the world, the trusted cell phone went into hibernation when I needed it, didn't have news of what was happening to family), this is alarming. And this being June and the month of rains in Bombay, I - and, I am sure, most of my immediate friends and family - am on the brink another rainy Armageddon, and this is definitely not good news!

The gist is, the world, our world, may be tripping into an environmental catastrophe of great magnitude. Can you imagine, ice blocks the size of whole countries are falling off and melting in the Arctic and Antarctic? If the entire polar region melts, that would mean the level of water would rise by four meters all over the world. Ergo, the whole of Bombay would be submerged to a few islands (as it was before the Brits reclaimed it from the sea). No, I am not joking, go read the article. Remember the ice age and how the dinosaurs were wiped off? Something similar. Only this time we humans may be the ones to be wiped off.

The article, in all earnestness, says all is not lost. The process can still be reversed and the earth saved from calamity. But that requires the will and efforts of several people, like you and me for instance. This is what you can do, in India.

The Time cover story says it all. Read this, and this, and this, and this, and this. Sorry, registration may be required. So if you aren't a subscriber of Time beg, borrow, or, steal the April 3, 2006 issue of the magazine. There is also this article on how India and China can save the world or destroy it, since, we neighbors, are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world.
Tags: Doomsday, Armageddon, Time, Global Warming, Bombay, Mumbai, India, China

MacKenna's Gold on Surround Sound

Bought, after much persuasion from son Ronnie, a surround sound system. Now I have near orchestral sound within the house, good to relax with when I want to watch a movie or listen to my favorite music. I am the type of person who goes with the times and do like the latest teenage sensations except for some rap singers who, methinks, are c(rap)py. I like Michael Jackson, whatever anyone says, of whom my son is a great fan.

Yesterday, I watched my favorite movie of all times – MacKenna’s Gold – on the surround sound system. And my, what sound effects, the sound of the bullet shot ricocheting around the hills, and the most cinematic moment I will cherish all my life, i.e., MacKenna (played by Gregory Peck) appearing from the diagonal slope of a rock and surveying the deserted landscape, eyes narrowed, just a bit cynically. How we all imitated him in the seventies, long shirtsleeves, broad belt, ramrod straight back, slow walk! Alas, Gregory Peck is dead, now!

The goodness of MacKenna, the badness of Colorado (played enigmatically by Omar Sharif – oh, Omar Sharif – how much I craved to be like him in those days, despite his badness, saying he looked more Indian than Egyptian, darkly handsome and all that!) were all stuff of schoolboy enthusiasm in those days. His dialogue, "I make the jokes, compadre," was a favorite. So also was the eye of the eagle that filled the entire 70 mm screen at Basant Talkies in Chembur (now seen in the small screen in the privacy of home, half reclining on the sofa!), the rock on the cliff that, um, just rocked, and rocked, and rocked, before it fell in the climactic scene!

This is one movie I can never forget. It was and still is, a giant of a movie. Go here if you would like to buy it on Amazon. Disclosure: I am not an Amazonian, I only buy books from them, sometimes.
MacKennas Gold|Gregory Peck|Omar Sharif|Amazon|Michael Jackson