Urban Shots - Bright Lights Will Be Out in January 2012

Urban Shots - Bright Lights in which my short story "P.K.Koshy's Daily Routine" will be featured is coming out in January 2012. This is the cover. The competition was organised by Greyoak Publishers.

I can't wait. The publisher intends to do a 5 city launch for Urban Shots - Bright Lights, where it hopes to cover Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore (possibly even Chennai) to launch this book.

Friends, just look out for this book on the shelves of your favourite bookshops.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Poem: Lest We Forget the Night of 26/11

Lest We Forget the Night of 26/11

(Written three years after the attack on Bombay in 2008)

I

Night of 26/11

Lest we forget the night of 26/11

When sleep didn't crawl into our eyes,

We lie vacantly staring at the television,

Playing, playing, playing footage of burning Taj,

Trident exploding in gunshots and fire,

Stories of bravery and treachery,

That came from across the seas.

Lest we forget what happened that night

Washed away in a burst of tears in the gloomy night

When the sky above the Gateway was a smouldering black

And over Marine Drive hung the smell of death

Rich men paraded to their untimely end

And a child left without parents

And parents left without son

We mourned all this; still we forget

Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we? Can we?

II

Victoria Terminus

The blood that stained this floor

Its sanguine past

Has been washed away

The huge cavern of V.T. station has been sanitised

The bullet-chipped granite has been replaced

That bloody night has been erased

From memory

From consciousness

From priorities.

Amnesic we plod

On granite floors smelling of disinfectant

Wondering where bombs will explode next.

Where will shrapnel enter soft flesh?

Where will cries echo in the night?

Where will the men and women be carried:

In trucks,

Handcarts,

Plastic sheets,

Stretchers,

Blood oozing from fresh wounds?

Could the surgeons stitch together?

The wounds inflicted by nails, ball bearings,

In the hearts and minds

Of people like you and me?

Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Flash Mob at V.T.

There was this flash mob at Victoria Terminus (V.T.) on November 27, 2011. This is the link to the flash mob dancing to the song "Rang De Basanti" from the film of the same name. The film is all about teenage angst and, presumably, it was selected for that reason.

So, hm, what to say. I watched the video with mouth open, jaws not yet falling to my ample bulging tummy. Those girls danced naturally, without inhibitions and they were well choreographed and managed. How did it happen? How did they dance with such synchronicity? They were pouring in from all sides. I guess it got on the social media (Facebook, Twitter and others) and went viral. It was picked up virally and young people joined in from everywhere. Natch.

When I asked a friend what form of dance they were gyrating to, I was told it is called "Indie-pop." What's that? It's an Indian dance, I am told. Ergo, it seems we are masters in the world of the synchronous dance, the shake of the pelvis, the thrust of the breasts.

Great show! Loved it!

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Harini Calamur: Three years on, 26/11 has been reduced to just another ritual - Analysis - DNA

Three years on, 26/11 has been reduced to just another ritual, says Harini Calamur in this article in DNA. She further writes:

"And finally, everyone knows where the terrorists came from. Everyone knows who funded them, trained them and deployed them. They also know that these weren’t non-state actors. So why does India persist in this delusion of ‘we need to be friends’ with Pakistan? They aren’t our friends."

I think she is right. The issue has dragged on with the government incurring a lot of expense to protect a man who has unleashed terror. We don't feel safe anywhere in the country. We are always looking over our shoulders when we walk. We are startled by sudden sounds, we don't extend a helping hand if someone is suffering on the street. I could go on.

Thanks Harini for pointing this out.

The Writing Scene in Nigeria

Here's Felix Abrahams-Obi on The Unsung Nigerian Writer in a Hip-hop World and about how writers should appeal to readers instead of to other writers. A lucid and frank look at the writing scene in Africa where one of my writer friends Onyeka Nwelue (met him on FB) resides. I think there's a lot we Indian Writers in English can learn from this, so posting it here.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

The Perfect World, a Novel by Priya Kumar

Received The Perfect World by Priya Kumar in the post. I have merely glanced through the novel as I don't have the spare time to go through 315 pages of what seems to be a layered narrative that has many of the aspects I love about magic realism. It's a handsomely produced book and I wish I had more time being as I am in the midst of writing a novel myself.

However one put downer, if I may call it that, is the cover says, "Internationally acclaimed motivational speaker and best selling author" which makes you think the book is a self-help book, which I avoid with all my heart. Confession: I used to gorge on them in an earlier avatar, one of misguided optimism. Sigh! Yes, it's quite off putting and spoilt the mood to go further into the book. I would advise aspiring novelists not to declare thusly on their covers.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

The Immensity of Anger Spilling into the Streets

Many things running through my mind at the same time. Some stories crystallising and other just evaporating into a vaporous haze, irretrievable, like clouds on soft winds.

Beg your pardon, I was trying to describe the general feeling of a few days ago. What do we do when we are confused? We do things that confounds us more. What do we do when the friends/partners don't talk? We respond by not talking. But rationality and a sense of fairness demands that we be civil and level headed. What do we do when we apologise for standing on the toes of the man nearby in the crowded Panvel local train. This is what happens:

"Sorry, boss, for standing on your toes."

"Sorry will not do."

Ouch! I almost said that word. several answers came to mind. "What will do?" "Then will fighting like dogs do?" "Then screaming like banshees will do?" No. I shouldn't add to the anger that already exists. There's tremendous anger. When anger spills out to the streets arson happens, looting happens. As happened in Egypt recently as is happening today. I won't mention any specifics except that a leader was slapped and his followers are on the streets. Google it, you will find it.

We live in a world that is angry, upset, frustrated. We don't need to add to this anger. We need cool, soothing words, words of wisdom. But who will offer these words considering all are lost in the nether regions of selfish enterprise. I mean immersed in the petty grouses, lost in their iPods, immersed in their addictions, angry in their trivial quarrels, reveling in their own demons.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Steve Jobs and the Momentous Changes Computer Technology Underwent, for You Son, and Your Contemporaries

Dear Son,

Since the last week I have been wading through Steve Jobs' biography by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon and enjoying the flow of events and the rich details contained therein. So, here's my take on his life and his days, as we were contemporaries, well, sort of. The book provides a ringside view of the most momentous developments in computer history. I am much more involved because I was there to witness most of the events mentioned in the book: the transformation from Microsoft's operating systems (OS) to Windows and the evolution of computers from clunky boxes to the sleek ones you see today. So here's a gleaning of a few thought for you son and your contemporaries.

Let's get the scenario right. Here's what used to happen when I switched on a computer in the 1980s when I started working for the first time on computers. Windows hadn't made its advent (which you and others of your age take for granted) and what we got on switching on the computer was this (remember, there were no mouses or mice in those days, so everything was typed):

C:\_

The underscore (_) after the C:\ used to blink and we had to type the following:

*.* (star dot star)

That would display all the directories in the computer. Then I would search for a directory I had created that contained my file. I would press "ENTER" and the directory would open. Then I would select the file and press "ENTER." This would open the file in the accompanying program.

The display wouldn't be the colourful pixellated ones we have these days (as you are wont to see on your computer these days) it was sheer black with the characters in white. Above the text would be a set of short cuts including:

^S - Save
^N - New
^D - Delete

So on and so forth.... Remember, all these happened before you all were born. Hopefully, you were a mere happy thought in your parents' minds.

Remember, if you forgot to save, the data you had typed would vanish leading to panic and frustration. Also when you closed a file it wouldn't ask you to save it before exiting. So, next time you open the file, you cross your fingers, then cross your eyes, and hope the changes were saved.

The mouse or mice came later in the nineties. The windows came also at the same time. Before that there were no windows to look at and move your mouse or mice across.

I and Steve Jobs and people of my generation lived through these times, son. Computer were clunky things, not the sleek laptops with colour screens which we see these days. Whatever his failing Steve Jobs took his companies through the momentous changes in computer technology, animation technology, and a lot more.

Yeah, music technology. Because those days we didn't have computers, ipods, mp3 players, and the like, son. Now that you are a computer scientist who has all these gizmos, let me tell you about those days. All we had were clunky cassette tapes and gramophone records. All I had was a cassette player with a mono speaker that issued Beatles and The Doors songs with a squeak. And when the cassette jammed we had to eject it, put a pencil through the wheel which was causing all the trouble and wind it to the end of the tape and try again on the other side of the tape. Yes, the tape had two sides.

Today what you take for granted, son, seem like great revolutions to us oldies. You take all this as given while we didn't have all these luxuries. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and the lot were the men who plodded through these technical cataclysmic changes and made their companies into some of the behemoths of electronics technology.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Jim Morrison's - The End

One of the most poignant songs of Jim Morrison is and will remain "The End." I have heard it several times and I sing it often. The lyrics manifest Morrison at his poetic best - unpredictable, exotic, charismatic. It's rather ironic that a few hours before he died, he listened to "The End" in his hotel room in Paris with his girlfriend for company.

This is revealed in this account by Rainer Moddemann's account "Jim Morrison's quiet days in Paris," which appears here.

It appears that Jim was tired and frustrated with his life as a rock star and wanted to write poetry and live as a poet in Paris, a city he loved. But dreams are dreams, right? All our dreams don't turn out the way we dream, do they?

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

Another Literary Festival - Times Literary Carnival

There was a time when I used to thirst for some literary activity, anything. Anything would do so long as it has something to do with books and literature. My great hungers seems sated now as there is a plethora of exhibitions in my diary these days.

The Mumbai Literary Festival, which just concluded, is now followed by Times Literary Carnival (TLC). TLC seems filled with a mix of Bollywood, media, sports, and glamour personalities. A literary dumbing down after Mumbai Litfest? I don't know. The latter will be followed in February by my own favourite, Kala Ghoda Literary Festival. This time too I intend to participate in the poetry slam, win or lose.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.