Filler

Around the time Mr. Amitabh Bachchan started a blog, I visited it a couple of times. And on one occasion saw a spirited (and verbose) defence of Sarkar Raaj, which I found awful. Not least because the Queen of Equine Giggles featured in it.

So I commented on his blog. Except that he (or his Blog Manager) did not see fit to publish it, let alone reply.

Today I found the comment in an obscure folder. It has no relevance any more, since the film in question is long gone. So in keeping with my dictum of irrelevance, here goes ..


Mr. Bachchan

We grew up on your films. 30 years on, "Daawar Saab, main abhi bhi phNeke huey paise nahin uthata" or "Saala nautanki" are phrases we use in conversation. Is there one line in "Sarkar Raj" that is as memorable?

Most of us have our own selection of favourite scenes from your films, scenes that have stayed in our minds so clearly we can tell you the colour of the wallpaper on the sets. Is there one scene in Sarkar Raj that deserves such recall?

Ram Gopal Varma has made some very good films, from "Rangila" to "D". "Sarkar" was a decent take on "The Godfather", mainly because it didn't try to fix what wasn't broke and did a fairly straight riff on the original. "Sarkar Raj", sadly enough, has no template or plot to carry it through the interminable backlit shots and the endless pans across silent faces. Not even your eloquent eyes, Mr. Bachchan, can carry a film which doesn't know what it wants to say. The denouement where your character Subhash Nagre lays out the plot seems very contrived, something like the forced "surprises" in Abbas-Mustaan's "Race". The plot - such as it is - just does not hang together.

Even the area that has been RGV's strength hitherto, the delineation of the characters, sags in this film. Why would Shankar Nagre suddenly let Anita so completely into his life? And why would the rest of the Nagre family accept it? Why would a man-manager as good as Shankar totally alienate Chandar? Why would he need to differ with the father he idolises?

It doesn't work, Mr. Bachchan, it doesn't fly.

Sadly enough, RGV underestimates his audience's intelligence. He makes the characters spout long justifications of their actions and explanations of the plot. This is such a sad contrast to his earlier films with their tight editing and minimal dialogues.

In the final analysis, much as I have admired some of RGV's earlier work, I cannot forgive him for the criminal waste of resources, to wit, you and Abhishek (1). Even Tinnu Anand made better use of your persona in "Shahenshah" though that had an even weaker plot premise.

Your audience deserves to see you in better films, Mr. Bachchan.

J.A.P.

(1) - Yes, if anybody actually reads this, I might catch some flak for mentioning Bachhua there.

Does size matter?

I like some things about the USA. The size of their helpings, for one. The down side is that I usually have to leave some food on my plate, thus missing out on the satisfaction of a plate wiped clean at the end of the meal. My mum was always big on “FINISH what’s on your plate!”. Yes, the usual line about ‘Think of all the poor children who don’t get enough to eat”. And no, I never did see the point of that. For one, I was never sure that there were children poor enough to want my left-over spinach or neem begun (fried aubergine with bitter leaves, very much an acquired taste). Furthermore, where was the supply chain that would take the left-over spinach to the poor hungry kids? As far as I could see, it went into the fridge or into the lady who cleaned the floors (and she didn’t take it home, she ate it ALL right there right then. And stayed reed-thin. So much for justice, thought a fat kid)

It IS nice, however, to be served a humongous platter of dead animals. (Even though Americans seem to serve fries with EVERYthing. Any day now, I’ll get tiramisu with fries on the side.) Except that the American fixation with size (no, you smutty-minded brats, I am NOT going THERE) applies to other aspects of life too. Case in point, the New York Times.

Consider this. A newspaper that has more sections than most other papers have pages. A newspaper where you’re not even expected to take the whole paper, just the sections you want. Or just the sections you can read and finish. Basically, you’re expected to leave stuff on your plate!

I’m OK with that. I only get some selected feeds from the NYT (yes, that’s the way they plan it). But what do I do when Indian papers go the same way? At home, I don’t have to read too much of my two daily papers because 75% of their matter concerns either the Kolkata Fashion Week or the Lakme Fashion Week or the Alternative Fashion Week or … well, SOME event or the other which involves men with make-up and malnourished women. Neither of which interest me. So I usually get to office with the satisfaction of Having Read the Papers. (What, the front page and the sports section DO count as the whole paper!)

But now, in Delhi, a bulging bag hangs on my door handle. ONE paper? Item, the Hindustan Times, Delhi edition. It’s like a young telephone directory! (And less informative? Well no, it’s getting to be a good paper. With some notable lapses, but hey, this is Delhi.) Four sections. Or is it five? How do I even begin to read this? (I know, in the smallest room, but don’t be facetious!) I give up. I’ll watch the news on television!

So I shall have to leave for work with a sneaking suspicion that I am Not Informed about the World. So be it.

But is there any way we could persuade these guys to Give Us Less?

Like a blessing come from Heaven ...

"... for something like a second / I was healed / and my heart was at ease." An epiphany? The menu proudly states that the steaks are made “specially in our modern Electric Griller” (said menu having been largely unchanged in form or content for the last 45 years). The fish meuniere melts in the mouth at the precise moment one reads that line, the two stimulii catalysing a smile that must surely fit the popular concept of “beatific”. So I knelt there at the delta / at the alpha, at the omega / I knelt there like one who believes.

Suddenly, all the niggling irritations dwindle. The parts of the world that were out of focus fit together with a discreet click (imagine a Rolls Royce door shutting. Imagine, furthermore, that the man shutting it is Reginald Jeeves).The brow, suddenly realising that Life is Not Half Bad, that in fact it would be not entirely incorrect to claim that Life is (taking it by and large, seeing it unalloyed and seeing it whole) Quite a Good Thing, becomes rapidly unfurrowed. The wolf at the door and the ghoul on the shoulder slink away to pack their bags and consult their Bradshaws.

Good my ladies and gentles, for some months now I have been sore beset by life in general and by one Nazgul in particular. I have been foolish enough to let aforesaid Nazgul and his Dire Machinations prey upon my mind. But I have now triumphed over my woes (and foe) in much the same way that Truman won over his critics, to wit, by outliving them (outliving professionally, that is). It may be premature to say that I shall now step high, wide and plentiful, but my general outlook is now far closer to that of Frederick Altamont Cornwallis ( the Earl of Twistleton to the adoring populace Uncle Fred to his favourites) than to that of Marvin the Paranoid Android. My hat is quite distinctly cocked on the back of my head and I would, if I could, Scatter Largesse to the Multitude. Right. Time to cast the eye (now more measuring than beady) over what the world has been doing while we were not around to console it.

****

Roger certainly needs consolation. Poor mutt, he cried when he lost. Not Done, in my book, but I can see how Rafael Nadal-Parera can have that effect. Poetic justice in a way. FedEx now knows how Andrew Stephen Roddick must have felt for all those years when only one man stood between him and the title of best tennis player on Planet Earth. The sad part is that despite Nadal’s incredible athleticism and accuracy under pressure, Federer didn’t lose on the court. He lost in the mind. This was most evident at the French Open last year. It happened again in the fifth set at Melbourne. Federer cried out of frustration, not disappointment. Sweet Kerrist on a fibreglass kerrutch, how many times does one have to beat this man before he admits he’s beat? The problem is that Rafa never accepts that he’s beat. Not for a single point, dammit, not for a single shot. In the second set, he ran past his backhand corner to retrieve a Federer forehand that would have been a winner against any other tennis player in the world. Then he ran back to his forehand AND RETURNED the put-away from Federer. Fed had to play a third shot to win that point. That sums it up. Ole, Rafa!

****

In other news, I have narrowly escaped death or at least dismemberment by the simple expedient of never having been to Mangalore. I’m normally peace-loving, discreet and prudent to the point of cowardice. One thing that really irritates me, however, is women being hassled. If this gets to the point where they are physically assaulted, this mouse will roar. Fat lot of good that would do anybody, of course. I’m not the kind of chap who looks good wearing his undies outside (spandex) pants, so if I reacted in that kind of situation, all I’d achieve would be my own rapid spifflication. Still and all … I sadly fear that if Mangalorisation becomes a widespread phenomenon, Pureed Babu might be on the menu of some not-too-finicky canine. (I’d like to think I could take a couple of them down with me, but life rarely follows my story-lines)

(Update: apparently Mangalorisation happened today in Gangotri Bar in Madiwala, Bombay. The sweet smell of progress. Maybe in a few decades we’ll even grow to like it.)

(Data point: There’s a blog purportedly by Dr. V.S. Acharya, Home Minister of the State of Karnataka in the Union of India. This is the gentleman who reportedly said that the parents of the girls attacked should have been more careful. We could all express our regard and appreciation on his blog, but I fear his innate modesty might cause him to "moderate" our comments)

****

Some Indian bloggers have their knickers in a twist over a legal action that didn’t happen. (Does that make it a legal inaction or an illegal action?) Quite pointless, like a number of televised debates. So you think the TV channels shouldn’t have shown the security operations during the Bombay attacks? What were the security bosses doing, then? As I see it, with the possible exception of the NSG, EVERYbody - and this, let's face it, includes most of US - had their heads up their rectums to some extent (perhaps because the shit had hit the fan?) I think we all agree that some of our elected representatives were well past their own (presumably, respective) colons and may even have crossed their oesophagii. It’s not fair to single out Du-h Dutt for special criticism.

When all the channels were culpable to some extent, why do so many people love to hate Ms. Duh-tt? (When I last checked, there was no Facebook group titled “Can u please get Rajdeep Sardesai / Arnab Goswami / Srinivasan Iyer off air?”) Could it be because she was the only Managing Editor who rushed to the spot, planted herself in front of the camera and shoved her mike in the most places? Do they not realise that she leads from the front and cannot allow her juniors to go to dangerous places (like In Front of Guns or In Front of the Camera)? Could it be that, despite her acumen and her objectivity and her succinct analysis (“As you can see, there’s a person in white at that window on the 9^th floor” – would we ever have worked that out for ourselves?), despite her (gasp!) Padma Shri, there are some Indian television viewers who just don’t like her? Strange concept that, well-nigh unbelievable, of course EVERYbody loves her, but perhaps it’s worth investigating, psychos are everywhere, they could even be dangerous, one might be well-advised to get gag orders against them, it’s all in the interests of a free press and we know how much we need THAT.

One school of thought holds that the central character is more about the gag reflex than about gagging free speech, but what do I know. In any case, how many people in this country READ blogs anyway, let alone any single specific blog? You think it would make an iota of difference if ALL of us spewed venom about her? Get a life! What I can’t figure out is why she bothered. She should be serene in her superiority, knowing that her Padma Shri places her in the exalted company of Hans Raj Hans, Sania Mirza and of course Pa’s Favourite Girl.

think twice ... another day for you and me in Paradise

Two days in Goa, but I didn’t get to the beach at all till afternoon on the second day. If only my friends would believe I was running around for meetings all that first day. Airport to hotel, one hour. Check-in, hate room, change room, unpack, wash – 45 minutes. Drive back to Panjim for meetings – an hour and a bit. Meetings – three hours. Check on retail outlets – an hour. Drive back to hotel – one more hour. So all I had time for was a sambucca lime – mixed to perfection by Gladwell – and a very mediocre dinner. And it rained buckets the next morning. So much for jogging on the beach to a mental soundtrack of “Eye of the Tiger”.

But …
Back of Calangute beach there’s a little neighbourhood with little roads and little houses and little sleepy Sunday afternoon noises. Thing is, they have these Sunday noises all week long. And trees. They have trees like Delhi has Marutis. One of these little houses – half hidden by trees, of course – has a name on the gate. “Mrs. Villa”. Now I haven’t quite figured out whether the house is married, hence the “Mrs.”, or whether the lady of the house is … well, as big as a house.
But this isn’t about Mrs. Villa. Right across from that interesting address … No, let me tell this the Goan way, which is nice and easy. And often backwards. So this little house is down a little lane. And if you’re travelling in from town, you have to go down past the Newton Arcade. Only you take the turn before you reach the Newton Arcade, OK? Go figure. A hundred metres down the turn-off, there’s another turn-off to your left. You park your car under the nearest tree and walk through the open space in the wall (across from “Mrs. Villa”), and you’re at Literati.
Which is where I’d love to be, any given Saturday. (It’s closed on Sundays, alas.)

It’s a bookshop. In an old house in Goa. Near the beach. Under the palms. You walk up the tiny garden path (which is also a tiny-garden path), step across the verandah (first taking off your shoes if it’s muddy outside. It was. I did. Once the Lady asked me to) and you’re in Divya Kapoor’s dining room, which may be her living room as well. Large but cozy, you get the idea? And inside, there are three more rooms lined with books. The big hall has all the swank stuff, the new releases, the books awaiting signing, all in neat stacks. The other rooms don’t do neat. They have books in glass-fronted cupboards, books on any available furniture, books on window-sills, on top of the computer. Everywhere. No discernible order. Weird Scandinavian names on books about Buddhism, a couple of Harold Robbins, travel books, an Aurelio Zen (Cosi fan Tutti, which I am liking muchly, thank you), Julian Barnes, Drucker on management (people still read him?), you name it. A most pleasing disorder. Made more pleasant by the fact that these books are all second-hand, hence cheap. I browsed. I pondered. And decided that it was well worth investing in an even cheaper bag for checked luggage. (Oh, not entirely full of books – I planned to buy two large packs of Goan “port”. I have friends who say my balcony is made for cheap plonk and cigarillos on late autumn evenings.)

In between browsing, I made a trip down to the beach before Souza Lobo stopped serving lunch. A barely competent sorpotel, but superb chorize and lovely soft poi bread. It was hard to decide whether the bread was better plain, for mopping up the nice fat gravy of the sorpotel, or juicy and dripping in a garlic bread avtaar that complemented the chorize-with-onions. I debated the dessert, then decided against it. There is such a thing as too much bebinca.

Back to Literati for another hour of browsing, but now the house was quiet in siesta. I sat in an armchair in the inner room ad listened to the punctuated silence of a holiday afternoon (Anjan Dutta describes it best – mone aan chaan kora shei dupur bela), smelled the smell of old walls and old books co-existing happily, browsed and mused a while before I slipped out to the verandah for a cold coffee and a smoke. When I was about to leave, the Lady of the House appeared, quite obviously arisen from a Good Siesta. I asked for the wash-room and was directed to an outhouse. Which was very interesting, because although it looks like any other shed from the outside, inside it has rough-plastered walls set with a zillion glass bangles, mauve fittings and even a potty-shower. And it was so cool inside. I felt sorry that I did not have reason to enthrone myself there with a book, it would have been so peaceful.

That was, more or less, the high point of my two days in Goa. Oh, I got back to the hotel before dark, even went barefoot on the beach, splashed through a little creek and wandered a mile across wet sand with the tide going out, walked until the holiday crowd were specks behind me and the hotel’s lifeguard tower had faded in the horizon haze. By the time I turned back, dark fat clouds had gathered and I had to duck under a beach shack for vestigial shelter. When the rain slackened I ran back across the beach. The raindrops blurred my glasses, the wind whipped in my face, I was running blind across a suddenly alien landscape while the pain in my lungs and legs grew to a roar. But I couldn’t stop. Very liberating, somehow.

Later, after a swim in the huge irregular pool, the loneliness of the hotel dinner and the routine of packing for an early morning start, I went out on the balcony and listened for the sea. Couldn’t hear it, not at all. All I could hear – faintly, thank the fates – was a couple singing old Hindi duets very badly in one of the banquets. So I went back in and curled up under the comforter and read myself to sleep. This trip was like that only.

Awld Tom goofed

He was wrong. April is not the cruellest month. March is. At least in India, where the fiscal year runs from April to … right, March. Peter Finch in Network was a model of restraint compared to how I feel now. Factor in the infinite wisdom of a system that demands weekly reports on a 5-year project. Oh Death where is thy sting etc.

Coffee breaks don’t work either. Because Bloglines has lost its charm. There must be more than 50 blogs on my list and I can’t bring myself to read any of them. Well, most of them. Which is why I don’t comment either, not that any of you would have noticed. Yes, I’m feeling very Eeyore at the moment. Or Marvin, depending on whether you read Milne or Adams.

What I am reading is The Wind in the Willows. In good company. Mostly on the way to school or at bedtime. (Not my school or my bedtime, thank you. Though I HAVE been known to fall asleep before the person-being-read-to.) Due to severe critical analysis, we have not made much progress. Apparently the passage on the first page where Mole “scrabbled and scrootched and scraped” is the most riveting piece of prose ever. Despite my very high regard for the critic in question, the passage palls on me after the 7^th or 8^th reading.

Then she laughs in delight. And it’s all quite all right again.

Sunday, I had an epiphany. Lunch at the new Mainland China in the South City Mall. (Food not great but quite acceptable, the starters were actually quite good. In any case, where on earth would you get a spread like that for about 300 bucks a head? They probably charge that much for a soda in Bombay! AND the guys know how to pamper regulars, we always get a tasting platter of some new dish.)

Lunch was followed by a long browse in Starmark. Now if they would only put up a counter that served Irish Crème coffee … Problem – I desperately need to buy new bookshelves. Or at least a couple of trunks.

Well anyway, the Starmark expedition required a trip to the car to cache the loot. While the rest of the expedition wandered off to other floors. (It’s a HUGE damn mall, specially by Cal standards.) Follow closely here, boys and girls. Big mall, many floors, reportedly 160,000 people passing through after 4:30 on weekends … so easy to lose people there, innit? Whereupon I retired to the car with the Sandman. Very nice.

Two niggling points. Amid all the glitter and the admiration for the vast atrium, my usual guilt about a comfortable life resurfaced. How many kids could you send to school with that kind of investment? Oh well, at least the mall isn’t built with public money.

And the other … as I left the washroom I complimented the attendant on keeping it spotless. He smiled a big smile and said thanks, feels good because nobody bothers to appreciate it. Which made me feel all cheery and benevolent until I thought, would I ever be able to do a job like that? Dear gods, eight hours of that could drive a man insane. Day after day after day. Damn.

**** ****