A quick poll on reading, aw shucks, the absence of reading in trains

I like to do quick polls when I am travelling. On the way back from work today I did a quick poll of what people did on the train back from work. I may be wrong but earlier a lot of people read something – the morning or evening newspaper – or if I am not too presumptuous a novel, perhaps. But habits have changed and I no longer see people reading anymore. They are either listening to music on their mobile phones or ipods, or playing silly snake games on them. Or, best of all they are dozing or just looking out through the window with a dazed expression, somewhat like they were just seeing their life flashing by.

Valiantly arranging the supplements and reading a newspaper - 2 persons
Listening to music on mobile phone - 6 persons
Playing games on the mobile phone - 4 persons
Dozing or looking out dazed - The rest of the train

Honest, people, why don’t you read something, at least, the newspaper? Why are there only two people reading a newspaper instead of a majority as I used to see in earlier days (Ah! those halcyon days when I watched with joy a newspaper or novel being devoured by hungry eyes)?

Or don’t they trust the newspaper anymore, which is bad news for the publishers. And before newspapers go on the defensive and try to prove to me facts about their readership and reach, let me say this: the modern all-glamour, all colour newspaper alienates rather than edifies. Before I get hauled by my newspaper friend here are a few examples:

1. Awards instituted by newspapers are only carried by them and not any other newspapers

2. If a newspaper sponsors a function, only they would give it coverage

3. Newspapers have started featuring paid editorial matter, also called “advertorials” which degrade their credibility

4. Newspapers have become like a business, and are run like a business to make profits. Then why don’t they buy their newsprint in the open market at market rates, not the subsidized rates offered by the government.

5. If newspapers are businesses first and not a social service for information dissemination why do they depend on government subsidies on newsprint and for postage (a newspaper can be posted for a subsidized postage of just 25 paise)?

6. I guess people are interested in reading news about common problems of common people. And too much news about this or that starlet, or who they are sleeping with, with colour pictures of them, puts the public off. They get nauseated by too much cleavage, thighs and heavy make up. Give them some hard news they will lap it up.

Newspaper barons, am I making sense, or what? Or am I too dumb to take on the bureaucracies that you have become? Sorry so-and-so, my friend, I couldn’t resist the temptation of saying all this here on my dear blog. I have been an admirer of your newspaper, but of late it sucks. I just glance at it before throwing it away, or selling it to the kabadiwala.

Some Fun with Names!

The morning cuppa and a bit of conversation. A colleague mentioned how all those working for a company named Kale (black) were white or fair. Then followed a discussion about Maharashtrian names, almost as if out of the blue.

There was this guy named Kale (black) who was in love with a girl whose surname was Gorey (white). Both weren’t either black or white but in between. But Ms. Gorey’s father arranged her wedding to a Mr. Phatarphode (stone breaker), who was neighbour of Mr. Waghmare (killer of tigers). It seems Ms. Gorey was secretly in love with Waghmare’s son, and not with Mr. Phatarphode’s. It seemed that Ms. Gorey was meeting the young Mr. Waghmare privately. Whence Mr. Gorey insisted that she go and live with Undirmare (killer of mice) who is her brother-in-law, being married to her elder sister. Now Phatarphode, breaker of stones smelled a rat and confronted Kale, who agreed that Ms. Gorey had indeed gone to Mr. Undirmare’s, the mouse killer, and that once the affair had cooled he would arrange Phatarphode’s betrothal to Ms. Gorey.

As chance would have it, Waghmare and Phatarphode had a fight over Ms. Gorey when they met in the nearby vada-pau shop and had it not been for the presence of Doiphode (breaker of heads) Waghmare would have broken Phatarphode, the stone breaker’s head. Then as if by a happy chance of fate Waghmare and Phatarphode became friends and Waghmare was the best man at Phatarphode’s wedding.

So we colleagues had a good laugh at the happenstance of Ms. Gorey’s wedding to Mr. Phatarphode, which was also attended by Mr. Khare (Mr. Truth) the maternal uncle of Phatarphode and Mr. Khote (Mr. Lie) who was the husband of Mr. Kale’s sister. All’s well that ends well.

Benazir Bhutto is No More

So, Benazir Bhutto is dead, so is the hope of democracy in Pakistan. The gruesome death was no different from that of Rajiv Gandhi: public meeting, an explosion, a stampede, and dismembered, naked bodies lying on the streets. The grief, the pain, the loss, a man shouting, “Loot gaya, barbad ho gaya,” another group attacking a vehicle, all so familiar now. Even the naked bodies with underwears exposed. Too gruesome for words, too simple a solution for a confused nation, too easy way of getting rid of dissent. Whatever we say, we aren’t ready to accept dissent. The world is too egoistic and undemocratic to tolerate dissent.

Benazir was attractive, no, I would term her beautiful with a skin so mooth and blemishless. (Fatima Bhutto, her neice and writer, whom I saw from up close at the Kitab festival, also has smooth skin, and some of her aunt's charisma.) Come to think of it Rajiv too had a very good skin. One a handsome man, the other a beautiful women, killed by the most ugly of recent social upheavals - terrorism - both blown up by suicide bombers. Not for nothing did the poet say, "beauty deserves the beast in all of us." I guess I am more than a bit grumpy, and I need sleep, so I will end this post here.

Why Are Christmases So Predictable?

I wonder why Christmas has been so predictable over the years. Frankly speaking I would love to go somewhere for Christmas, but it never happened. So we spent time at home, a few friends dropped in, we had cakes and a glass of wine, and that’s Christmas all nicely wrapped up like a present and forgotten.

This Christmas wasn’t any different. We weren’t invited, even to my sister’s place. So we decided to spend the day at home, a few friends dropped in unannounced, made them eat cakes. For lunch the same old chicken curry and I had bought some white wine and since I like white wine, sipped it ever so slowly, and, ah! the tangy taste of white wine was just divine, more like a poor man’s champagne. Felt so nice and peaceful during my afternoon siesta that I lazed on bed till 5 p.m. By that time another predictable Christmas had already gone by, or most of it. At night it was another chicken and fish curry, another tipple and off to bed for I am working today, which is boxing day.

And Rochelle since you asked what Anthonybhai would say, I am going to inflict on you what our Mack-speaking Anthony D’Souza would say:

You know men, Christmas, no men, like season for joy only, agree, like ole man Father Santa says. But I think Christmas is also season for giving dem poor people some warm clods, and eating stuff like cakes, no, men? What da people are doing is disgusting, men. Anthony not liking at all, the drinking and eating and dem becoming, becoming like pigs no?

Modi Wins Gujarat Election, What Next?

And he won… I mean Narendra Modi. And many parts of the country will weep as many other parts will rejoice. What our founding fathers had seen as a unique experiment of building a nation lies in tatters, its ideologies trampled by the likes of the above-mentioned person.

I weep for the many who have not yet got justice after the Gujarat carnage, they never will. Modi’s victory is symptomatic of the rise of religious intolerance that pervaded ancient Europe and tore it asunder. Killings and persecution followed until the fundamentalists were overthrown by the Protestants with their liberal theological concepts. But here who will reform religion as the protestant reformers did? The only result will be a hardening of positions along the trenches between Hindus and Muslims.

I weep for the many communities who think they are part of the Hindutva bandwagon, but really aren’t. I guess the victory was fuelled by money than muscle. Religious zealots do not have an in between ideology. Their aim is not rapprochement but their own megalomaniac quest for glory. Many would die, and many would be cast aside without a voice to speak out their frustration. The voice of reason is stilled, and reason sleeps a serene and dazed sleep.

I know I am being a bit cynical here, but that’s what happened to Hitler’s Germany. When he was in his ascendancy he was acclaimed as a hero, a liberator who would rid the racially pure Germans of the Jews. But look what happened. And I weep to think that even an expose of the sort that Tehelka unleashed couldn’t dent the margin of his victory. Many people talked openly about the cruel atrocities that were perpetrated. Do we people have a conscience?

मैं जिसे चाहता हूँ वो चाहती है किसी और को !

This another joke from the below mentioned annual day. It's so funny, I want to share it badly, or I will burst. The compere was such a zany and mad character and he kept an unending flow of jokes and shayaris to keep us engaged. Another one of his witty blank verses here in my bad Hindi:

मैं जिसे चाहता हूँ
वो चाहती है किसी और को
खुदा न करे जिसे वह चाहती हो
वह चाहे किसी और को

Translated:

The one I love
Loves another
Oh God, don't let it be that the one she loves
Loves another

Ha, ha, ha... That's the mad circle of love, that Elton John sang about, poets have cried themselves to sleep about, writers have written copiously about. That's the magic of poetry and love. Hope you like it. Leave a comment if you do, and even if you don't.

Nach Baliye and an Annual Day

What’s up with the climate? It’s cold one day and warm the other day, and sometimes during the day it gets suddenly hot. The company annual day went very well. There was a dance show called “Nach Baliye” in the television reality show mode complete with judges and a rather feisty compere. Here’s one of his jokes:

Gujaratis are so well-mannered and soft spoken. A Gujarati was travelling on a plane and a man came and occupied his seat. The Gujarati came back, saw the man, and didn’t fly into a rage immediately. He sat in the seat on the other side, asked the man his profession, his native place, and his name. “Mel Gibson” the other man said proudly. “Par ha tho Mel Gibson ni seat nathi che! Ha tho Babubhai Parekh ni seat che!” The Gujrati told him ever so nicely. “But this isn’t Mel Gibson’s seat! This is Babubhai Parekh’s seat!” How sweet!

Well jokes apart, the staff did admirably well and danced like there were no tomorrows, bathed in the pale glow of strobe lights, and laser luminescence. The chairman was so happy that he awarded all the participants of the dance around 20 k each. Oh, misery, misery when wilt thou forsake my shadows! Imagine 20 k in my pocket for just shaking a leg. Why didn’t I shake a leg and collect that amount? Sure thing, I wouldn’t mind being laughed at for that amount. I didn’t even have to win, just participate. Oh, another thing, who would dance with me, eh? I know I can shake a leg when it come to “freelance dancing” but any form of organised dancing has me “all toes.” Is that the right expression?

A colleague pair moved so gracefully and effortlessly that I was envious. I guess the wonders of this world would never cease. My mundane colleagues were transformed with some make-up and some flashy dressing into the likes of Bollywood heroes and heroines. Well, it’s not your stuff Johnny-boy, you are too old for that sort of thing.

The Non-resident Political Radical (read: Extremist)

Ramchandra Guha writing in Outlook (Dec 17) [doing a great job, Vinod Mehta] mentions the startling and steady growth of influence of the non-resident types, he calls them extremists, “Few have noticed the steady growth in influence of another type of diasporic extremists, Non-Resident Political Radical (NRPR). [Yes I have seen this type; too, the sort that wears Indian they are virulently communal and abhor anything remotely secular in their outlook.] NRPRs are located in American Academia, as students and professors. They are fervently against LPG (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation). This is despite being the beneficiaries of L, P and G themselves. Some NRPR offer socialist Cuba as an alternate economic model; some others offer the Gandhian ideal of the self-sufficient village economy. The NRPRs are prone to support, and influence, these social movements which share their distaste for their state, the market and the establishment.”

While agreeing with Guha that there are many who become extremists of one type or the other after they cross the borders, I do not know anyone offering socialist Cuba as a model economy. Considering as to how un-travelled and uneducated this blogger is, it is no surprise that the blogger doesn’t find any merit in the Cuban sort of socialism. Cuba has descended into poverty because of its socialist revolution. It used to be a prosperous country before. Whether Guha got this stereotype wrong remains to be seen, and why should these errant children of globalisation be against liberalisation and privatisation has me stumped. Oh well, some people are really very ungrateful, like they say, “Khaneki thali mein ched.”

On Being Taught to Write

About writing I say this: you either can, or, you can’t. That’s it. Finito! There are no in-betweens that say: He can write a little, or, I can write a little. And one more thing, if you don’t write very early in your life, then you probably never can in your adult life. No teaching course, or degree can teach you how to write. They can teach you to put words together as in a scrabble, but you can’t make absolute sense of it all, you still can’t write, but you would go on thinking you can, because you paid them, those rascals! For the rest of your life you would say something like, “I did a course in creative writing, and they say I am quite good if I can apply myself to serious writing.” Say this with a “can do” smirk and you will sound credible.

This leaves the hacks, such as me, who write for a living. This type can’t do any other job, but can write commercial stuff that can be passed for acceptable writing. Writing for a living can get very tiring and boring at times, as I have learnt. I can’t enjoy the writing I do to make the home fires burning. In other words, I don’t enjoy the writing I get paid for. I wish with all my heart that I could, but things didn’t work out. So if someone says, “Write me a great article and I will pay you $ 1 million,” that would make me very nervous and unable to write. I would sweat a lot on my keyboard, and the keys would all be submerged and I would panic. But I can hold on to a writing job because, a job is different. It’s a job. Well, er, um, you see, you know, by the time they find that you can’t write, you would be out of the organisation and well-ensconced in another job, with a better salary to boot.

And, oh, yeah, in this system-addled world of today, where systems are supposed t rule the way you eat, drink, and, well, do it (what? I didn’t say it, did I?), there is an increasing need for people who can write. Because, all those systems, workflows, algorithms and programming abracadabra require documentation. Not that anybody reads such documents, but documents are needed to, at least, re-assure people that some semblance of order exists. Brilliant, isn’t it? I still have a cupboard shelf full of manuals I haven’t yet read, which I keep thinking I would one day. Well, what I do is tinker with the keys of my latest obsession, and – lo and behold! – through blind faith or familiarity, I can figure out how to operate it. Who the hell cares for manuals, anyway? But there are standards the company has to comply with, and that requires that you have everything in writing, and therefore they employ duffers like me.

That’s the reason my friend Raj wants to learn writing. He asks me how long it will take, one year, or, maybe, two? I tell him he needs to read a lot of books if you wish to write. Now, Raj looks like the sort of chap who is addicted to 64-paged “Chausatiya” erotic stories sold on railway bridges in Bombay. So, I rather expect the next stupid question, “How many books should I read?” That quite flummoxes me. Is he serious? Does he think writing is something like typing, learn to type and you can keep on typing, and typing and typing any damn rubbish. Would he understand what it means to agonize over commas, semi-colons, full stops, and colons? Would he know what it means to tear hair, rack brain, and bite nails for an appropriate word or sentence. Oh, God! What is this world coming to?

Then he tells me that he knows of an institute that teaches writing, that too, within a year. Yes, they are there by the dozens. Beware of them and their sage advice, and their spiral-bound book manuals. They would be so sweet about your great and dormant talent that you would be tempted to sell the shirt off your back to pay them, because, “Hey, I am going to be a great writer, and the cheques should start coming soon”.

Poor, poor, Raj, I feel sorry for him. He thinks he can learn to write by doing a six-month crash course in writing.

The Art of Tying a Lungi

Today’s walk in CBD Belapur’s Nature Park was glorious, as being a Sunday I could sleep late and dawdle a bit before the walk, and indulge in some frippery. The sun was up as I climbed the steep gradient that led to the park, the birds chirping high above me in the boughs of the trees lining the walk. There were only a few walkers now, as most of them are early risers and would be home by now.

I walk a steady pace, neither fast nor slow, since Henry my walking partner, is not with me today. He is a fast walker and usually I have to struggle to keep up with him. So I took it a bit easy, walking, breathing steadily, swinging my arms, and enjoying the bird sounds. The sun filters through the trees, and the walk is deserted except for a few regulars, seemingly retired people, having a leisurely walk. One man sits on a parapet wall above a dry rivulet and is talking to his wife in low tones.

Then I see this man in a checked lungi, walking his dog. I couldn’t but admire the way he was wearing his lungi and managing his dog’s leash. There’s great skill involved in just keeping the lungi around your waist, honest! I had tried wrapping a lungi around me and had failed to keep it safely tethered to my waist. (I was brought up in Bombay, so actually I wasn’t initiated into the ritual of wrapping a lungi, something I regret.) I wonder how C Chidambaram and AK Anthony both ministers in the Indian government can manage their ministries so effortlessly wearing the mundu, the formal version of the lungi. Actually it’s their skill in holding on to the mundu that makes them such expert managers and negotiators.

It takes great skill, will power, and individuality is all I can say. Try it. Try keeping a lungi wrapped around you, you will find it slipping within a few seconds. If you have a belly then it’s even harder, because the laws of physics militate against it. The knot won’t stay put. But for a Keralite and the South Indian, the lungi is an attire of great comfort. It offers complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree mobility. Convenient, when it comes to scampering up a coconut tree, or, descending into a deep well. Well, try climbing a coconut tree in trousers, a sure disaster, I have tried.

So, this man was walking his dog and the lungi stayed firmly on his waist. And that is a miracle of training, skill, and will power. Makes me wonder if it is why we Keralites are known for our well-rounded personalities and our will power. Because when it comes to sheer determination and grit, Malayalis are on top everywhere. See any corporate ladder and there will be more than a fair share of the Nairs, Menons, and Gopinathans. Attribute it to their skill in delicately keeping the lungi wrapped around their waist, the absolute zen and will power of keeping things anchored, the will to see that the lungi will not come off even when you are managing a frisky dog on a leash.

That’s what I saw the man doing today, something that I could identify with, something that I could take pride in. After all, my father wore mundus at home and my brother can manage one. So what if I prefer the loose track suit pants at home, I can always count on my fellow Malayalis to teach me how to wear a mundu, and the delicate art of throwing one end up, catching the tip with the other, and wrapping it folded around the waist. I hear that scores are settled in this fashion in Kerala. If the adversary nears, you just have to fold your lungi thusly, a little above so that your knees show, and you are ready for battle, if at all. Mostly, if you do it confidently enough, the enemy will take off in the other direction. Practice it watching Mammooty and Mohanlal doing it on screen and you will surely become an expert. All I need now is a lungi and some Mammooty and Mohanlal movie DVDs.

“Chetta, can I borrow some Mammooty DVDs and some lungi-tying expertise from you?” I ask the abovementioned dog-walking wearer of the lungi in Malayalam, my voice trembling at the prospect of this great giver of wisdom denying my request.

“What for?” He asks suspiciously eyeing my track suit pants.

“I want to learn to tie the lungi like you.”

“Than poyi thante karyam nokkado.” Hey you, go and attend to your work.

Didn’t I tell you about Malayalis having great will power and individuality attributable to the tying of the lungi? Well that secret is not to be shared easily with those who do not have the basic skill of being a Malayali, i.e., the art of tying a lungi.