Snippet

I think I was about 6 years old. They’d come down the road a little before 7 in the morning, when I was just about awake, and from the bedroom where I lurked under the covers for those oh-so-sweet ten extra minutes of sleep on a schoolday morning I’d hear them coming. They always sang the same song – Bhojo Gourango, koho Gourango, loho Gourango’r naam re”. “Sing of Gouranga, speak of Gouranga, take Gouranga’s name.” The tune that has been used by Chandrabindoo for the satire “Aaji ei Boshonto diney”.

An old man and a boy. The man seemed infinitely old to my 6-year-old eyes; when I review my memory, I realise he must have been about 50. The boy would have been a year or two older than me, or perhaps short rations made him look younger. But his clothes were always clean, unlike the draggled rags of his bearded companion. His voice was very sweet, soaring above the man’s tenor in a tracery of song. I’d run out to the balcony, lean over the railing to hear them. They always walked from the Raja Basanta Roy road crossing towards Lake Market, perhaps to sing for a cup of tea and biscuit before the tea stalls on Janak Road. The first few times, they’d look up at me, the boy would put out his hand with the palm upwards without interrupting his song. I went and asked my mother for a coin. She gave me 25P, a denomination that I don’t see these days and yet a fair amount for alms back then. The boy caught it deftly as I tossed it from the balcony, raised the hand to his forehead in salute and walked on, still singing.

It became a habit. Twice or thrice a week I’d hear their voices raised in song and run out to the balcony with a 25P coin, then watch them wander off towards the market. In the year or so before we moved to Delhi, I never spoke to them, never asked them any questions. They never broke off their song to speak to me. But it lingers in my memory like a grainy shot from an old film. Complete with slightly scratchy soundtrack.

The wisdom of the married man

It’s very difficult for a woman to stay mad when someone’s scratching her back just right, there, no just a little to the right no not so much yes THERE aaaaahhhhh …

Aftermath

So Democracy has Spoken.

I’m sorry, I missed some of her early lines because I was busy chivvying a supply chain. Of EVMs. May Cthulhu bless the Election Commission and their tech progress, 13 rounds of counting were completed between 8 a.m. and a quarter to 12. Unimaginable back in the day, I remember the counting in the Simultaneous Elections in May 1996 took THREE DAYS and most of us went into rehab afterwards. By the afternoon of the second day my voice was gone and I was giving orders in sign language; one of my major achievements was fitting an air circulator to the ass of just about every counting supervisor and assistant – not a luxury when the temperature was above 45 Celsius with over 90% humidity. Three of our counting staff ended up in hospital, in a neighbouring district one died.

And this time, although the first two rounds took nearly an hour in one Assembly segment, 10 more rounds and a bit were over in less than 3 hours after that. Yay for chivvying.

**** ****

Sometimes this gorment job is particklerly irritating because it would be against my service rules to discuss the election results on a public forum. Which leads to major restraint.

But I can discuss 'em with friends. Which I did in Delhi, from 3 in the morning on Sunday till it was time for my flight home. Other issues came up (along with coffee, cigarillos and a rather good toasted ham sandwich), and I place them here for comment.

1 – Tom Friedman is an ass. Not only because distances are actually greater in a flat world, but because every book of his goes beyond incoherent to inchoate.

2 – Women in the Punjab, or at least a specific part thereof, were observed to carry themselves very well. “Trod the ling like a buck in spring” and all that (or should that be “doe in spring”? Too many options). The men tend to slouch. (Subsidiary point – is there a real difference in ... ummm …tandrusti, or have ALL the women discovered the Wonderbra?)

3 – Every single country in the continent of Africa is FUBAR, governance as we know it is non-existent and only Alexander McCall Smith’s locale has a modicum of peace.

4 – Anthony McAuliffe totally rocked, and Panther Soup works well both as war memoir and travelogue. I’m reading it now and I agree. Sample quote – “To live a la Bourguignonne is to enjoy a life of red wine and cream, and to die at the age of 42 under somebody else’s wife.”

5 – When you have a possessive cat who hates it when you go away, and also pees on your luggage to show her disapproval, getting past sniffer dogs at airports is hellish. I mean, try out that explanation on any random copper

6 – Being arrested can be a surprisingly civilised interaction. This was a student demonstration in the aftermath of the Bhopal tragedy, the police had orders from on high to round up the demonstrators and hated it far more than the arrested people because they (the police) had to pull out records from the previous 30 years to charge these boys and girls (few of them over 25) with unsolved crimes. They kept apologizing to the detainees. The traumatic part was taking a dump while handcuffed to another person.

6a – “Well, if you count East and West Germany as different countries – which they were at that time – I’ve been arrested in 13 of them. Not counting India.”

7 - "I stand by what I said, that woman WAS naked when I walked in and he DID leave me to calm her down. Incidentally, she was Puerto Rican, not Cuban, and her name was Pagol. Just goes to show."

I do have interesting friends.

I love my India

A man has been in prison in Raipur since May 2007. He was charged under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2006 (CSPSA), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967), which was amended in 2004 to include key aspects of the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA), 2002. (POTA was repealed in 2004.) While in prison, this gentleman has won the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights in 2008. Reportedly, 22 Nobel Laureates have written to the Prime Minister of India on his behalf. Meanwhile, his bail petition has been twice rejected by the Supreme Court of India. Soli Sorabjee pleaded his case.

I didn’t know that Dr. Sen now requires an angioplasty. His friends and well-wishers are apparently concerned about the quality of treatment he may receive in a government hospital in Raipur and have petitioned both the government and the Supreme Court that he be taken to Vellore for treatment. I was told that this request has been turned down by the government and by the Supreme Court. I was also told that it has been moved again in the Supreme Court and the hearing has been deferred.

I called a friend who’s written a book on the Naxalite / Maoist movements across India. He’s also on a government committee set up by the Home Ministry to examine the issue of Salwa Judum. I reproduce here what he told me.

**** ****

Mining and logging in Chhattisgarh have caused not only ecological damage but also displacement of local populations. This is one of the major issues cited by the insurgents in the region. The primary focus of Salwa Judum is to retain control of the logging and mining activities.

Dr. Sen has voiced concerns about these issues and has also opposed the Salwa Judum initiative. He is viewed by the government as a trouble-maker. He is being held as an example to all those in the state who oppose Salwa Judum.

This case is not a political issue even during elections because the Salwa Judum was the brainchild of the present leader of the opposition in the state.

Over the last two years, several government officials have admitted, off the record, that there is no evidence against Dr. Sen on the charges brought against him.

Public opinion has not moved the government. Media coverage has not moved the government. Legal recourse has been sought and has so far failed.

Meantime, Dr. Binayak Sen’s health is failing. Apart from the heart problems, he is also reportedly wasting away.

**** ****

This is what I have been told by one man, albeit a man who has spent several years investigating the Naxalite / Maoist movement and also the strange case of Dr. Sen. There must be others out there who know more. There must be people who can adduce good reasons why Dr. Binayak Sen is a threat to Chhattisgarh and to India. There must be people who have a different point of view.

I’d like to hear it.

**** **** **** ****

Update:

I got a call-back in the evening. From a man whom I hold in the highest regard. Who blew me off when I called him in office earlier today. The conversation was a little strange.

“So why are you getting upset about this?”

“I’m not upset, just curious.”

“What do you think, the Supreme Court refused his bail twice without looking at the evidence?”

“Like I said, I’m curious. What IS the evidence?”

“Look, boss, I’ve seen enough to know that (they) have some very damning stuff on him.”

“Then why isn’t it made public? Why doesn’t the government put it out there?”

“Are you hallucinating, guru? Since when have the media seen fit to print anything positive about the government?”

“So you’re saying the internment is totally justified?”

“What’s the worst, boss? That he’s innocent? Fine, then there’s been a massive miscarriage of justice. Shit happens. Is that new to you? Why are you getting involved? You bloody Bongs all romanticize the Naxals. Okay, not you personally, you’re a bloody snob, your’s will be one of the first heads on pikes when the streets run with blood.”

“Hang on a minute, sir. Romanticise? I? This guy has said time and again that he is not for the Naxals, that he’s not involved.”

“Not involved? Right! I’m just this innocent man who’s carrying love letters from one man to another, letters I never open and read because they’re deeply personal. Only every time I carry one of these letters, 2 or 5 or 6 people get blown up or have their heads hacked off. Dear me, it must be a coincidence, I never saw any connection that way. Bloody *****!”

I didn’t push it any further. The conversation went on to other things. But this, somehow, is not the voice I know. Even a person who doesn’t know this man – and how far he will go (and has gone) to cover MY ass – can make out some inconsistencies in his side of the conversation. Or maybe I’m lacking in objectivity. You call it.

**** ****

Update: On 25th May '09, a vacation bench of the Supreme Court of India granted bail to Dr. Binayak Sen. His family plan to take him to Vellore for treatment.

Leaves a bad taste

Restaurants do not provide goods. They provide services. I don’t go to a restaurant because I can’t cook at home. I go there for the convenience, the ambience and yes, the quality of the food. Eating out is a combination of these three factors. When we’re really bushed, we order in. When we feel like hanging out, we go to some nice place where the food may not be all that great. When we have friends from out of town, we take them to some place where the food is awesome. And we accept that we are paying not so much for the actual food served as for the service, the surroundings, the pleasure of the senses and not just the palate.

So last night we went to Fire and Ice. I’ve been there once a couple of years ago and thought that it was not bad, but nowhere near good enough to justify the hype. Last night N* felt like a Med spread, so there we were. After some bread and antipasti (of which more later), we were served pasta Alfredo con prosciutto. And it was DRY. The pasta was beyond al dente, it was undercooked. (How can you get BOTH dry and hard unless you’re just terrible at cooking pasta?)

But we were tired. Hungry. So (after some effort) we managed to flag down a waiter. Asked him (very nicely, especially considering my level of fatigue, starvation and consequent irritation) to take the pasta back to the chef and have it tossed with some more Alfredo sauce. He looked bewildered. Then said he’d get back to us. Vanished. All this, mind you, while the pasta congealed and our tempers simmered. Shortly, one numbers Shorty arrived. We explained again (still nicely, but I counted to 20 first). He said (with Big Fake Smile) “Of course, sir!” We smiled back (happy non-fake smiles). THEN he said “But we will charge you extra for it.”

THUD.

Are you for real?!

Yes, we will charge extra.

Go away and do what you like. Just do it fast.

So, this Fire & Ice, which sundry friends have praised to the skies, serves BAD pasta. Even if it was a one-off, it would mean they do not have consistent quality.

Then, they have the immortal rind to tell you that if you want your food edible, that costs extra. I mean, what are they smoking?! (They actually charged FORTY per cent extra for tossing it up with sauce)

I am Not Happy. So here are all the wonderful things I noted about Fire & Ice.

1 – They’ve jammed in too many tables. It’s a fairly large space, so they must be really greedy to make it look crowded. I couldn’t lean back with my hands behind my head for fear of bumping into the pony-tailed ex-pat at the next table and giving him the Wrong Idea. (Fear because my gaydar beeped. Very loud.)

2 – The waiters need a LOT of training. They also need baths and laundry. And breath mints. And those chequered bandannas, the ones they wear to look like cool Latinos? They make them look like engine stokers. Grimy engine stokers.

3 – The menu is limited. Only two kinds of soup and one risotto? They do, however, have some variety in the pizzas and pastas. But no farfalle or fusilli, no gnocchi. Unless the waiters are clueless, in which case refer to Pt. 2 above.

4 – The so-called focaccia was more like pan pizza crust. Just about OK when slathered with melted mozzarella (what, you didn’t know I’m on a healthy eating trip?), but the insides were NOT soft and there was no discernible flavour. It’s supposed to be the same dough as pizza, but surely it shouldn’t have the texture and character of a pizza base? The jury’s out on the olive oil.

5 – The antipasti platter was mostly good. Decent salami (though sliced too thin for my liking), really good bocconcini and fresh tomatoes. No feta cheese, no lettuce or indeed any fresh greens, now that was a disappointment

6 – The pasta supposedly “con prosciutto” didn’t have prosciutto. Standard ham does NOT qualify as prosciutto. Especially if it's barely discernible to either the eye or the palate.

7 – I wanted to speak to the manager. He was not in the restaurant. Where is he, stuck between a pair of headphones down in Bangalore?

8 – They did not have a complaint book. I was given a sheet of paper, where I explained my dissatisfaction at some length. But I don’t know if it will reach management (or whether they will respond).*

Value for money? Well, this place is not cheap by Calcutta standards, but it’s not hideously expensive either. Except that bad food is bad value no matter what the price-line. Maybe I’m more critical because people have praised it to the skies. But really, this is no better than a neighbourhood joint that happens to be in an up-market location. The food is indifferent and the ambience is indeterminate.

And we could have overlooked all of this if their attitude hadn’t sucked big time.

I’m never going back there. Druther check out Café Toscana. And there’s always La Cucina.

* - I mailed them. It bounced.

like angels on a Saturday night

Half past six on a Monday evening, back in office, trying to clear three weeks’ backlog in two days. Piles and piles of files, check-lists, reminders, the usual.

Then I realise that if I’m charging my iPod, I might as well play something off iTunes. A new friend on Facebook posts a link to Masiakasaurus playing an extended version of my all-time favourite guitar song.

And as if on cue, the heavens open up with a roll of thunder. A window flies open and the earth-slaking skin-waking breeze reaches in to chill my fingers.

Wake up, chillun. It’s raining into the city, it’s raining into the night.

Epiphany

Shorts, tee and towel. Sweat from every pore (do NOT ask). My stomach roils, my head hurts. And I've realised Terry Pratchett's contribution to natural science and taxonomy.

I am a Troll.

Look it up. Terry says trolls' brains don't work too well at high or even normal temperatures. But send them to Alaska in mid-winter (or the Rimtops, as the case may be) and they start to sparkle and fizz. Is it a coincidence that I've been reading Colin Thubron's In Siberia?

And a pox on the friendly souls who make wisecracks about not being able to tell the difference.

Ms. Draupadi Mokrashi and the price one pays

Polls over, report mailed, tickets confirmed. Some time tomorrow evening there should be a teeny pair of arms round my neck, accompanied by the truest possible outpouring of love - “Papa, did you get me some sweeties?”. At which point arms-round-neck stage will cease and investigation-of-pockets will start. Ah well. She might as well be a teenager already for all the conversation she has for me. Except when she’s been punished in school. THEN she importunes me on the phone (in between loud offended howls), “Papa, you come home right NOW!”

So tomorrow morning I have to get in a car at 6 to go catch a train at 7:30. Then find somebody in Delhi to have lunch with before I take a 3:30 flight back home. The whole bleeding day. If anybody needs venture capital for a teleportation project, I’m on. With an idea, even. If some molecules get lost in the process, it could double as a slimming cure. What if those molecules were from the brain, you ask? Considering my 98% theory (what, you don’t know that 98% of the world’s population just don’t USE their brains?), it wouldn’t make any difference to most of the users. Bound to be a winner. Any takers?

The point being, now that the polls are over and I’ve Done My Bit, this place, this room, the entire set-up seems to bite me in the ass. I want Out. I want Back. Home. In MY armchair with my feet up on the table, putting aside my laptop to accommodate a small projectile that makes loud demands to be cuddled. WITHOUT the bloody 3-stage travel schedule. Gah.

Meantime, a few photographs of the home-coming of Smt. Draupadi Mokrashi (from Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel ... D-mocracy, capische? One wonders how Mr. Tharoor himself will fare)

This man carried his grandmother to the polling booth. Touching. Inspiring. Intimidating.

Colours of democracy. I loved the sight of children playing on the lawns while their parents waited in line to vote.

Polling parties depositing EVMs and materials at night. About 2000 people in a gymnasium / stadium. Situation normal, utterly chaotic.

****

Meantime, Amit Varma and GreatBong, who obviously read the news with unwavering attention, link to a story about our Mallu with the Mostest. I’ve always said that the fakeiplplayer’s biggest strength is the nicknames, and this story vindicates the one he’s made up for Sreesanth. Though I wish he hadn’t used “Boy George” for my friend JB. The height matches, but JB’s mane of white hair is bad enough without the mental picture of mascara, lipstick and that net veil thingy. Major mental kazoomba.

Persistence pays

Science advances. It has been determined that a physicist’s beard takes about 58.8 days to grow an inch. Assuming the physicist shaved at 7 a.m. on 1^st May, it would be 12 minutes past 2 in the morning on 20^th June before each hair in his beard was an inch long. Okay, maybe 11 minutes past 2. Such a long wait. Physicists have it tough (Tough? Enter stage left, the Gillette Mach III ..).

If this is true, we can also posit that a civil servant’s beard grows faster than a physicist’s. Now to collect the data.

I can foresee some fun with the tests, oh dear yes.

The writing on the ...

If you can read this site without laughing out loud, give me a shout and I'll send you a year's supply of laxatives, you obviously need them.

Heads-up - I got the links off blogs I check, but what with clicking off Bloglines and getting some lunch and taking 294 phone calls and checking on the despatch centre, I have NO idea which blogs they're off.

So if you posted them first or think you did, yo da man. Or, as the case may be, woman.

The pied crested cuckoo

I saw the fan-shaped cloud around half past 2 yesterday. A shadow of hope, up there in the vault of a blazing sky. So I asked the ‘gunman’ (because he was nearest, see?), ‘Looks like there’s a chance of rain, eh?”

To which his considered answer (after first clutching his gun tighter, in case the cloud was a security threat) was ‘That’s a cloud’.

Quite. Very helpful, with the temperature up in the mid-40s (that’s Celsius, Mr. Y Doodle) and the furnace breeze lifting lazy clouds of dust from the roadside. I was out from 7 in the morning to beat the heat. Fat chance. The sun was a hammer well before 9 o’clock, regardless of shades and hat and wet towel and regular sipping of water,. By the time I got back at 4 in the afternoon the back of my neck was throbbing and my skin felt like it had been toasted.

But that was yesterday. When I woke at a quarter to 6 this morning, the room was unusually dark. I ran (well, almost. Cut me some slack here) outside. Oh blessed day! Clouds from one side of the horizon to the other, shades of grey, birds quieter in the trees, that little hush that comes before it pelts down, and faint upon the air the smell of wet earth.

And the added pleasure of being proven right on my prediction yesterday, of knowing Things About Weather even though I'm a city slicker.

But only a faint drizzle so far, the kind that barely darkens the earth and leaves an inverted shadow of the trees upon the ground below where the diffident raindrops cannot reach. Bring it on, Rain Dude! Don’t give us a teaser and a no-show! Come ON!

Update: 24 hours later, it STILL hasn't rained. Haven't these guys heard of Truth in Advertising?

* The pied crested cuckoo is known in North India as the 'chaatak', which, according to Indian myth, sits with its mouth open waiting for rain to alke its thirst. Silly twit, but then, it IS a cuckoo. Me, I've discovered Red Bull with watermelon juice. And a spot of Old Monk.

In the belly of ...

The beast snorted, slewed sideways. It paused for a moment, dipped its head, then took the slope at the charge, a storm of dust spiralling from its tracks. Its roar filled the field as it topped out, then died to a rumble as it lurched forward over the ploughed earth. A cloud of chaff rose from the stubble of the harvest, whipped into our eyes with the wind of our passage. The horizon danced. Sunlight and hot air mingled with the tumult of our progress.

Sprawled on a blanket atop the beast, I held on to a convenient spike and pulled the trailing edge of the headcloth tight across my face.

*** ***

It weighs nearly 50 tons when fully loaded, carries more than a ton of fuel and almost a ton of ordnance. Scaly with armour round its bulbous head and shoulders, swollen with the racks of fuel tanks, bristling with guns and aerials and stippled with smoke grenades, the most obvious analogy is a modern dinosaur, a crouching T Rex that mangles the earth it passes over. These are seriously impressive machines. Those tons of metal are driven by a V- ** engine that generates close to 1000 HP with the turbo-charger, enabling the tank to take 30 degree gradients uphill and travel at up to 60 kmph on a paved surface. 50 tons at 60 kmph. Although braking distance is short on a tracked vehicle, think of the momentum.

Yet when I saw the row of garages waiting in the sun, the snout of a barrel poking out of each archway, I was most forcefully reminded of the stables in Mussoorie. Mounts eager for a morning gallop. Not for nothing are the old cavalry ranks still current in the Armoured Corp – enlisted men are still sawars and the JCOs are rissaldars. They have a similar relation with their machines, too. The young Major who took me around said that the same men are assigned to the same tanks throughout their time in the regiment. They had to abandon a couple of tanks recently – stuck in mud while fording a river during a field exercise – and the crews moped for weeks. The fresh-faced Lieutenant with us obviously loved his tank, too. On a couple of occasions when the Major was trying to get a gadget to work, the youngster could barely keep from showing his impatience, like a teen who can’t understand why his parents’ generation can’t handle a patch for the computer.

(I’ve been asked not to mention any details of the unit or the particular make of the tank. Security concerns. For the same reasons, no photographs.)

A tank regiment doesn’t have companies, they have squadrons of 12 to 14 tanks, backed by a HQ squadron that handles all the rest during active ops – supply, reconnaissance, repairs, the works. Every man in HQ squadron, the cooks, the clerks, the technicians, they’re all fighting men, only they don’t fight from tanks. They have some A-vehicles of their own, armoured personnel carriers that can carry a section of force apart from the 3-man crew, but a significant difference is that they carry carbines and SLRs. Tank crew carry only pistols. Simple reason – there’s no space inside a tank to stash a carbine, let alone swing it.

Space. Who would have thought that the innards of such a huge beast could be so cramped? When I managed to clamber down into the gunner’s seat I could barely turn around to look at the magazine behind me. The equipment is interesting – night vision scope, aiming screen, the actual gun controls like a submarine periscope – but any incautious movement brought me into contact with hard sharp surfaces. I tried to imagine the belly of the beast during desert ops. Outside temperature 50 Celsius, inside closer to 55. Noise level above 100 decibels, plus the report of the gun. Bouncing like dice in a shaker. And through it all, acquire target, select ammo, load, track and bear, range in, centre, fire. Rinse and repeat. While the tank commander next to you handles his radio, a machine-gun and directs the driver. Who sits in a separate compartment out front in the hull of the vehicle (commander and gunner in the turret). And this could go on for hours. 72 hours, says the Major. Three friggin’ DAYS in there. Whew. And I thought the definition of hell was an old jute mill on a night in June!

After the tour, the ride. My bald top was first encased in a headset, then came the swish part - getting to wear the black headdress. That thing is so uber-cool, even an old fat man looks kind of dude-ish in it. It isn’t swagger, though. Both headset and bandanna are essential to keep out the noise and dust. (Wonder what it was like 60-odd years ago, outside Alamein and Tobruk?) I offered to stand behind, but the Major smiled and firmly waved me up. I was placed atop the turret, a blanket under me for padding against the sharp edges of the body armour.

The giant started up with a snarling roar. As it moved forward over the cobbles, I still had no inkling of what was to come. Then we wheeled out of the garages and … out of focus! A lurch, a change of gear, a roar, a pivot. Thrown one way and then the other, holding on for dear life, I understood why standing behind would have been a Very Bad Idea. Down a muddy slope, up again onto an embankment, the barrel tracking left to stay clear of the hedges. I looked fearfully at the ditch beside our path and hoped the driver was competent. A fall in there would be bad enough without 40-odd tons of tank following me down to nestle lovingly between my shoulder-blades.

Despite the roar, once we were on the track our progress was almost peaceful. With the height and the occasional pitch and sway, it was like being in an elephant’s howdah. Babul branches whipped across us, a terrified buffalo calf ran mooing to its mother, the sun glinted off a pond. Then we went off-road, into the exercise area, and again the world fractured into a series of jerky frames. The Major, kind soul, offered me the chance to drive. I firmly declined. An 8-speed gearbox and 2 steering levers could be interesting, but not when a million dollars’ worth of machine is involved.

Back in the stables, I clambered down (stirred, not shaken), untied the headdress and whipped the thick layer of dust off my jeans. A bird trilled in the sudden silence after the clamour. More experiences lay ahead – trying out the gun simulator, seeing the various mechanical systems in tubular (stripped-down) versions, three sequences of shooting practice (9 mm. pistols, which I’m normally wary of, but by the 3^rd round I had a very nice grouping, yay!), checking out the maintenance vehicle – but for me the high point was that headlong rush through the countryside astride the roaring snarling pitching behemoth.

But I’m glad I never have to work within the belly of the beast.

Thirst for knowledge

Some things about Blogger that we haven’t worked out and want to know. Kind souls in the (sparse) audience will please put up their hands before they answer, volunteers will pass you the cordless mikes.
Does anybody else have this problem about Blogger rejecting formatted Word documents? I copy, paste, hit publish – then there’s an error message and about 5000 characters of code in the box before the real post starts. How do I get around this? It’s a pain highlighting and deleting every time.
The other thing – I shut off my blog for a while, made it by-invitation-only (and invited no-one - to the few blessed souls who actually asked for invites, I love you all and you can rest assured there was No Discrimination). SiteMeter showed zero hits. Fine.
But now, there’s this blog I read on Bloglines. And there was something I wanted to comment on, I clicked on the title link, and I get this message that I’m not invited. How does that sync with what happened on my blog? Because SiteMeter shows visits from feed-readers and there were none while my blog was fenced off. Or does SiteMeter only work for Google Reader? Will some wise soul please explain?

Travels with a voice recorder, Pt 1

Half past ten on a Friday night in Delhi. Just finished two helpings of soup – I was sick as a kitten in the afternoon – and crawled into bed atop a pile of pillows. I’ve been upgraded to a room in the corner, which means windows on two sides, and these two sides are like two different worlds. The front looks out on Sansad Marg, Parliament Street, and there’s a buzz and rumble of traffic on that side all through the day and most of the night. When I last parted the curtains the building opposite was lit up even at half past nine, floor after floor of neon-lit desks visible through the glass like those cut-away doll houses in museums. Must be either news or IT.

The other window … in the afternoon when I checked in, the sky was bronze turning to silver in the heat, the trees were washed-out skeletons in the glare and a group of kites wheeled in tight circles high high above the NDMC building, almost in a different dimension. When I woke from a healing sleep the fading sunlight struck through the branches of the jacaranda outside, creating an orange picture-frame on the wall above the bed. The lawns of the Jantar Mantar turned an unreal dark thirst-quenching green as the headlights came on in the traffic below. Now, late at night, the floodlit Samrat Yantra looks like a huge red shoe, the one where the old woman lived in the nursery rhyme.

A mile beyond the pool of light, a group of buildings stands against the night sky, transplanted from the Krypton landscape. All it needs is a hologram of Marlon Brando as Jor-El. The stairwells are lit up like fluorescent spines, but the huge neon sign on top of Le Meridien just reads “Le MeI”. Correction, if I tilt my head to the left I can see “Le Mer”. The sea? In THIS city? The building that blocks out the rest of the sign is also the darkest, so the illusion is (if not complete) pretty good. But the view palls after a while, especially when Al Pacino and Johnny Depp are waiting for me (you know which movie that was?). Good night.

* * *

I wake for a while around 3 a.m. and can’t see the lights any more, Le Meridien has switched off the neon sign, the buildings are a mass of Ice Giants against the night sky. A surreal moment when the blinking lights of an international flight glide down the sky and … vanish behind the dark mass. Sleep-fuddled, I count ONE thou-sand, TWO thou-sand, THREE thou, all the way up to seven before the lights appear again, closer to the tree-line, maybe only a minute from touch-down.

The dawn comes surprisingly early. Padding around in my bare feet (the hotel’s bathroom slippers are really slippery on the wooden floor), making coffee, popping things into the suitcase as I go to and fro, I haven’t really noticed when the sodium vapour lamps perched 60 feet high have faded. But morning has broken well before 6 and I can see a strong breeze bending the tree-tops. All except one tree that’s still bare like a candelabra, rooks’ nests in its armpits as it pushes out the first green shoots of the year. Stupid tree to wait till April when it’s pushing 40 Celsius, all your shoots of spring will soon turn from salad to crispy noodles. I can see more of the Jantar Mantar now, and a lanky man doing contortions on the grass.

Suddenly a flight of pigeons erupts like a puff of gunsmoke across my line of sight. Drawn to the window, I can see an avian promenade at eye-level. Even the kites from yesterday are stretching and doing warm-up flights below my window, making those ridiculous mewing sounds that no self-respecting bird of prey should admit to. Lazy bums, too. I saw a pair of seagulls in Barcelona make a light snack of a fat pigeon, and here these kites are like ineffectual traffic policemen elbowed aside by the bumbling streams of pigeons that all but crash into the mass of the NDMC building. I try for some shots of the fatties in flight, but of course they must choose this moment to sit on my window ledge and look smug. Well, I have news for you – I have a train to catch and you aren’t Aamir Khan, I can get shots of a zillion other pigeons. Time to call the front desk to have my bill ready.

Kicks ass too!

I found THIS today. I’m not sure how to categorise it, but it is the sheerest delight. Why didn’t this guy teach us history?!

Overheard in Delhi

Green Apple went down well, up on the terrace garden with four of us sprawled in wicker chairs inside a ring of green leafy things, but the Twist came later. The Punj way of life is known for a certain boisterousness, joie de vivre, changiya si, but I don’t think GK-II was quite ready for three off-key voices. In chorus. Loud chorus. VERY loud chorus. At a quarter to one on a week-night. Singing the “Blacksmith’s song” (you know the one? Long claimed as an IIT-K original, but “surprisingly” found in one of the books of Rugby Songs? “There was a woman with … ” Yes, THAT one.) With a sobbing urgency as they speeded up on “Round and round went the great wooden wheel”, pathos even, the note of true emotion that lifts performance to the level of art. Accompanied by foot-stomping and a cougar howl at the very end.

The Host was conspicuous by his lack of participation. He sat there with his head in one hand, morosely clicking at his Blackberry. Upon questioning, he said he was looking for the number of his realtor, since he expected to be evicted within the week. He was promised help in finding digs in Mahipalpur, but did not vocalize any appreciation of the offer.

We discussed a case study in innovative negotiation. Early ’80s, a well-known drugstore on Rashbehari Avenue opposite Triangular Park. Along came the Pujas and the local Mr. Fix-It rolled around for his chNada. Nix, nyet, nada, says the drug-store owner. Sad, says Fix-It, and vanishes. The owner pulls down the shutters on his store and trundles home to sleep the sleep of the just. Cometh the dawn. The store owner finds the locks on his shutters in a state of some ordure. Not to put too fine a point on it, they’d been crapped upon. After the obligatory fuming, the discussion of the finer points of the perpetrator’s genealogy and the sad lack of intellect among his lady loves, the store owner got around to rigging up a hose and cleaning the locks and opening the store some hours after the usual opening time. Only to be greeted by the same odoriferous situation the next day. And the next. Round about the fourth day, the penny dropped in more ways than one. A message was sent to Mr. Fix-It, a meeting arranged, crackling paper exchanged hands and the store owner basked in the new-found role of Local Philanthropist. Needless to say, the Phantom Shitter did not strike again.

Cut to Cape Town, South Africa, 2003. A*, one-time resident of Rashbehari Avenue, is now COO of __ Steel. His company is facing a singular problem. The exit from their stackyard at the docks is regularly locked by the containers of his rival steel company. Nothing blatantly illegal, just inconsiderate enough to hamper the movement of A’s consignments. The matter came up at a meeting of the board. After the formal discussion, melodious popping noises were heard and levels of froth were observed, At this stage of the proceedings, A’s memory threw up the Curious Case of the Crapper. He mentioned it, offhand, as a fitting response to the Inconsiderate Containers. Not possible in this country and on this scale, of course, just saying. That kind of mention.

The Chairman put down his beer. Slapped him on the shoulder. Effused. Mentioned innovation. Mentioned genius. Wherefore it came to pass that the honest toilers of __ Steel, yea, e’en a full hundred of them, were summoned by the COO to the dockside stackyard. One hundred of them feasted full well on all manner of good things, till they could eat no more. Several of them were Bantu and Shangaan and Shona, scions of races led by Shaka Zulu and M’zilikaze . Were they to be worsted by a bunch of gantry operators and fork-lift drivers? In the depths of the night did they sally forth to battle, a battle of strategy and stealth. And shit. One hundred large well-fed men can produce an awful lot of solid waste.

The container jam was not repeated.

Pumpin'

In my armchair, feet up on the table, morning sunlight through the lace curtains. And the hoarse drone of a pump.

A morning sound that reaches back through the years. A squat aggressive Kirloskar in its grooved casing, under the stairs in the first house I knew. A seemingly effete Tullu in its own barred alcove behind the kitchen in Salt Lake, the object of my father’s anxiety. A mysterious and temperamental machine in an outhouse in Purulia. And now this one that used to choke and hiccup like an asthmatic, till Mr. Handyman came round and transformed it into a boringly predictable monotone. Continuity made audible.

And oh ...

Did I mention that I loved “Luck by Chance”? No? Well let me tell you I loved “Luck by Chance”. Like just about every other person On The Blogs.

(Is there a distinct Blogger Sensibility? Is it a Mutant Gene? Perhaps one day the Alien Power that Rules The Universe from its Haunt in A Far Galaxy will trip a ginormous switch, and the Blogger Hordes will Emerge From Their Lairs, eyes glazed with fixity of purpose, laptops fraught with menace, perhaps even uniformed in pink chaddis. And some of them will be singing Joan Baez – you know the one I mean? Come from the shadows? – and of course there will be ONE who thinks she’s SUPER at Don’t cry for me Argentina and she’s sulking because she can’t get to sing it with all the grand gestures. Only it will not be a Dangerous Movement, because like all Blogger Movements, it will be peaceful and law-abiding and maybe even Libertarian, so after they have Saved the World in Five Easy Steps, all the bloggers will go home and tap out long earnest posts about the Importance of Participation.

And the next day they will find that all this Never Really Happened, because the Main-Stream Media will have Ignored It Completely.)

LbC isn’t the only recent movie I liked. Delhi 6 is pretty good too. In fact, I loved it. All but the last 20 minutes or so, which was … well, crappy. Sad. So few Hindi films can wrap it up nicely (LbC being an exception – nice wrap-up, no incredible happy ending that throws the film off-kilter). A review here doesn’t make much sense because both Baradwaj R and Pratim DG have reviewed it (and after ages, BR has a review I agree with! Jai ho!). Like they both said, the music and the screenplay and dialogues are superb, Abhishek Bacchan does a (surprisingly) good job, Sonam Kapoor sheds her blues, but a couple of points they missed. A “dream sequence” in a Hindi film that really has the almost-there, almost-rational quality of a dream. Great graphics, too, with Times Square in comic-book colour. And the other sequence I loved was the parkour interlude across the rooftops of Chandni Chowk. Fun came. But (spoiler alert here) they really should have killed off Roshan (Abhishek’s character). Would have driven home the “Message” much more forcefully.

In other film news, I was on a 1960s desert trip. Andalusian. Sergio Leone and the Dollar series. Some interesting sidelights. That the man who possibly made the most money from the first – A Fistful of Dollars (the ‘A’ isn’t there in the opening titles) – was one A. Kurosawa. Because Fistful is obviously based on Yojimbo, and he sued the pants off Sergio Leone. Which might seem like justice well served, except that Yojimbo itself was based on Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest without any acknowledgement. Reminded me of the time when Vishwa Bharati sued Rajesh Roshan for lifting the tune of ChhNoo kar mere man ko (Yaarana) from Tomaar holo shuru (music and lyrics, R. Tagore). They were chuffing along all self-righteous and indignant, guardians of Bangali kaalchaar, until one Burman, R.D., pointed out that Mr. Tagore himself had appropriated the tune from a Scottish folk song. Exit Kaalchaar Brigade, stage left, as if pursued by a bear.

Reading up on the Dollar series also threw up an interesting trivium about Roger Ebert. Back in 1966, when he reviewed The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on its release, he only gave it 3 stars because he was young and pretentious. Later, when he had become rogerebert.com, he saw it again and gave it 4 stars. Quentin Tarantino, bless his determinedly unpretentious low-culture soul, said in 2002 that it was the greatest film ever made. I can’t entirely agree, but Yay all the same.

So then I went looking for More Sergio Stuff and found a little gem (thank you, Dhaka). Not so little either, it runs for close to 4 hours. But just think, Sergio Leone directing Robert de Niro in a gang epic. With Elizabeth McGovern looking lovely. And an appearance by a young(er) Joe Pesci, who has always been a personal favourite (if he could only have pulled in Jean Reno as well - what a waste of a casting coup with both of them in Home Alone). The usual lavish visual delight one associates with Leone. Dry-eyed hard-nosed depiction of the way morals are a dispensable luxury when one is poor. De Niro must have felt a bit of déjà vu, there are parallels to Godfather-II (so far the only sequel that equalled the original by winning the Oscar for Best Motion Picture) in the way it traces the back story of the hoods from childhood. I love it. And I’m rationing myself to half an hour at a time. In fact, time to get back to it now.

Once upon a time in America (1984). If you haven’t seen it already, go get it. now.

There but for the grace of ...

This is a totally chilling interview. (Link from Thejaswi Udupa)

Not because of the picture of Guantanamo. Not because of what it says of the subversion of justice by the US Govt. and army, not because at one time we still thought of the USA as a supporter of fair play.

But because the kind of torture mentioned here is child’s play compared to standard practice all over India. It makes us realise how inured we are to the reality in our own country.

Some of my colleagues used to make gentle fun of me because, on the occasions when I got involved in the process, I used to stop the “interrogation” from getting violent. On two occasions within my first few months of field service, I was able to get information by scaring the person/s being interrogated. Play-acting, hard-man-soft-man stuff that probably would invite censure in some countries, but at least the person on the other side of the table was not beaten up. I compare that to the stories from a man who used to be a very good friend. “F***er, do you have any idea how difficult it is to break a human bone?!” He broke his hand during one such interrogation. “That’s why the lathi is indispensable.” This from the man who used to lecture me on ethics in the days when we were mugging for the exams together.

Pvt. Neely in his interview speaks of slipping into alcoholism because he couldn’t cope with the guilt of what he had done. And I think of the reality in India. Of the 8 year old girl who was brutally beaten by a UP cop on suspicion of theft. Of a man who is now mentally and physically crippled because he was suspected of rape. And I wonder, do these people never think of how the man at the other end of the lathi feels as it swings into his stomach? Does it take a special kind of insensitivity to be able to hurt another human being in cold blood? And if it is so common, perhaps the insensitivity is the norm rather than the exception?

And I am very afraid.

Update: Another Kafkaesque story of persecution (link from Sanjay Anandram). This was posted on the Tehelka web-site, so I’d like to see some cross-checking. But I don’t remember any of the a-v media following up this story. If true, this is terrorism too. Are we going to do anything about it?

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.

Statutory warning

The light at the end of the tunnel will remain switched off until further notice.