When Krejza tumbled to the turf a few overs before tea, and the myopic, contacts-wearing Ganguly made his slow way back to the pavilion, a fan held out a placard that said "Even the Don scored a duck in his last innings."
The comparison might sound preposterous but Ganguly was as important to his generation in Indian cricket as Don was to his (and to all others succeeding).
Nobody who has seen him dance down the pitch to a spinner will grudge him his awkward and tentative pulls. Nobody who has seen the placement and timing on his sublime off-drives will grudge him his inability to follow the short ball all the way through with his eyes. And nobody who saw him ruffle the feathers on the green baggy cap in its own territory will grudge him his banian-clad antics blue jersey in hand.
Now that he will no more take the field as a batsman in Test cricket, post-mortem analyses will prove this and that, but even if he did not manage to end as he began, as his form in the series and the match promised, the moment surely is his. Even the Don faded quietly, and Dada, after all the kicking and the screaming before the series and all through his life, had to go for a first-ball duck, quietly, to heart-felt applause.
Showing posts with label Miscellany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellany. Show all posts
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Trailers and movies
I just realized this while making coffee at 5:30 in the morning to start off an early day: it is easier to make a good trailer for a bad movie than it is to make one for a good movie. The whole point is that those who make trailers are professionals and production values are always on the rise and it is obvious that there will be at least 2 minutes' worth of watchable material in every movie. Given that the trailer length is just about the same, the job of the trailer-maker is vastly simplified if the movie has not much more than that amount of watchable runtime - in that case he just needs to be a good editor snipping off precisely those good scenes to whet the audience's appetite. When the movie is significantly better, the purpose of the trailer is to present a good idea of the movie through a few scenes and this involves vastly more creative work.
What started off this train of thought? A couple of couple of hours spent at the movies in Chicago. The object was to visit the temple at Aurora for the good south Indian food available there and, that accomplished, we trooped to AMC-30, where Indian movies are screened, to catch Eklavya, the latest Vidhu Vinod Chopra-Amitabh offering. How many movies are they each involved in? Munnabhai-3, Cheeni Kam, Taalismaan apart from Eklavya and others. Anyway, it seemed a lot when we were watching the trailers.
The movie was a good 2 hours after we reached the theatre and so we actually settled in to watch Bridge to Terabithia in the meanwhile. A good movie and fantasy seems the killer genre these days but it left something to be desired. Of course that is what all good movies are about - to show us that better movies are possible. Entertaining nevertheless and well-made given the limited scope the story provides; though, as a friend remarked, not advisable for those who want to watch a 'fun' movie to pass the time as the movie dabbles equally in tragedy and fantasy/comedy. Aside: Zoey Deschanel has killer eyes and a killer bod - if only the sounds she makes from that nice throat of hers were more palatable!
The next movie on the double bill was Eklavya and, after the never-ending sequence of trailers - Cheeni Kam and the Ash-starring, feminism-spouting adaptation of a real-life story seem more than watchable, and Munnabhai seems risible enough, while Taalismaan reeks of Chandrakantha-meet-Tolkien a little too much and the slick silver and gray scenes in the trailer reminded me of nothing more than the pathetic Raiders of the last couple of seasons - the movie started off brilliantly. The initial scenes were just incredibly good, even with the rather lame rendering of Sonnet 18 by Boman Irani, the overdone hysterics of Raima Sen and the rather provocatively simple letter that Amitabh intones. Sharmila proves she is not the siren of the past any more with her wrinkled and puffed up cheeks pouting for Eklavya, and the murder that no doubt will out sets the ball rolling nicely.
The story to me seemed a rehash of some n tragedies of the past but the whole first part of the movie is worth watching for the beautiful cinematography. The colours and the contrasts and the racy scenes, the three little blackbirds on Vidya Balan's neck - the third movie of hers I am watching in the last couple of weeks but surely she was much more beautiful/attractive(!) in Parineeta than in all the rest of her offerings(!) - the almost glaucous eyes of the almost blind Amitabh, the furnishings and the lighting, Saif's somber mincing of his rather staid lines, a hundred other small things all to my liking. The movie itself develops out of control slowly like a child on a sugar-high and degenerates into the trademark meaningless dialogue-spouting nonsense we have come to expect of Amitabh movies, subsiding slowly into restful sleep - talk of crescendos and diminuendos - but on the whole, a movie well worth the 1h45m watch - when did I last see an English and a Hindi movie one after another, each competing for shorter runtime, I wonder. The flaws are numerous but I have realised that women with large eyes do not play madwomen in fear well - witness Jyothika's attempts in Chandramukhi and Raima's here. When their eyes widen if fear or anguish or general hysteria, it becomes rather painful to watch the whites of their eyes occupy a disproportionately huge fraction of face-space! Also, Saif might want to set his watch running the next time he sports a Rolex - it seemed to show 12:45 in each scene it exposed itself to the public view.
A long drive back home after midnight is not ideal in the Midwest cold and dark after an exerting day but all ends well and all is well, except that it is 6:30 and dark and I have an 8 o' clock class.
What started off this train of thought? A couple of couple of hours spent at the movies in Chicago. The object was to visit the temple at Aurora for the good south Indian food available there and, that accomplished, we trooped to AMC-30, where Indian movies are screened, to catch Eklavya, the latest Vidhu Vinod Chopra-Amitabh offering. How many movies are they each involved in? Munnabhai-3, Cheeni Kam, Taalismaan apart from Eklavya and others. Anyway, it seemed a lot when we were watching the trailers.
The movie was a good 2 hours after we reached the theatre and so we actually settled in to watch Bridge to Terabithia in the meanwhile. A good movie and fantasy seems the killer genre these days but it left something to be desired. Of course that is what all good movies are about - to show us that better movies are possible. Entertaining nevertheless and well-made given the limited scope the story provides; though, as a friend remarked, not advisable for those who want to watch a 'fun' movie to pass the time as the movie dabbles equally in tragedy and fantasy/comedy. Aside: Zoey Deschanel has killer eyes and a killer bod - if only the sounds she makes from that nice throat of hers were more palatable!
The next movie on the double bill was Eklavya and, after the never-ending sequence of trailers - Cheeni Kam and the Ash-starring, feminism-spouting adaptation of a real-life story seem more than watchable, and Munnabhai seems risible enough, while Taalismaan reeks of Chandrakantha-meet-Tolkien a little too much and the slick silver and gray scenes in the trailer reminded me of nothing more than the pathetic Raiders of the last couple of seasons - the movie started off brilliantly. The initial scenes were just incredibly good, even with the rather lame rendering of Sonnet 18 by Boman Irani, the overdone hysterics of Raima Sen and the rather provocatively simple letter that Amitabh intones. Sharmila proves she is not the siren of the past any more with her wrinkled and puffed up cheeks pouting for Eklavya, and the murder that no doubt will out sets the ball rolling nicely.
The story to me seemed a rehash of some n tragedies of the past but the whole first part of the movie is worth watching for the beautiful cinematography. The colours and the contrasts and the racy scenes, the three little blackbirds on Vidya Balan's neck - the third movie of hers I am watching in the last couple of weeks but surely she was much more beautiful/attractive(!) in Parineeta than in all the rest of her offerings(!) - the almost glaucous eyes of the almost blind Amitabh, the furnishings and the lighting, Saif's somber mincing of his rather staid lines, a hundred other small things all to my liking. The movie itself develops out of control slowly like a child on a sugar-high and degenerates into the trademark meaningless dialogue-spouting nonsense we have come to expect of Amitabh movies, subsiding slowly into restful sleep - talk of crescendos and diminuendos - but on the whole, a movie well worth the 1h45m watch - when did I last see an English and a Hindi movie one after another, each competing for shorter runtime, I wonder. The flaws are numerous but I have realised that women with large eyes do not play madwomen in fear well - witness Jyothika's attempts in Chandramukhi and Raima's here. When their eyes widen if fear or anguish or general hysteria, it becomes rather painful to watch the whites of their eyes occupy a disproportionately huge fraction of face-space! Also, Saif might want to set his watch running the next time he sports a Rolex - it seemed to show 12:45 in each scene it exposed itself to the public view.
A long drive back home after midnight is not ideal in the Midwest cold and dark after an exerting day but all ends well and all is well, except that it is 6:30 and dark and I have an 8 o' clock class.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Words - III
The ineluctable immediacy of the transient on the one hand and the inveterate ineffability of the eternal on the other - these are our essential concerns. Do we feed the starving child with the bread that our wallet buys out of the cornershop or do we teach him to fish and fend for himself? Do we succumb to the moment? Does it matter?
A woman was carrying her infant and a jungle of beads and trinkets, trying to interest a hundred tired, devout pilgrims to buy her child his breakfast milk. Car after car, person after person, could but ignore the steady stream of jabbering piteousness she could manage. The object was clear, and the price, but there is a hauteur in man that allows for kindness only in a known tongue. Besides the beads and trinkets were just as unpalatable as the woman and her child. But she wouldn't take charity - she was not begging. Would it hurt to take something from her and throw it away later? Lower the windows and ignore her!
Things can be kept simple - we all want everything simple; we do not like the effort that is demanded of us. Maybe it is a sign of the times when we hold the world in a grain of sand and spend an eternity in an hour that we cannot see heaven in a wild flower; maybe it is all the inherited fatigue of a thousand years of drudgery; maybe it is just wisdom. Forgive me, O lord, I know not what I do.
A woman was carrying her infant and a jungle of beads and trinkets, trying to interest a hundred tired, devout pilgrims to buy her child his breakfast milk. Car after car, person after person, could but ignore the steady stream of jabbering piteousness she could manage. The object was clear, and the price, but there is a hauteur in man that allows for kindness only in a known tongue. Besides the beads and trinkets were just as unpalatable as the woman and her child. But she wouldn't take charity - she was not begging. Would it hurt to take something from her and throw it away later? Lower the windows and ignore her!
Things can be kept simple - we all want everything simple; we do not like the effort that is demanded of us. Maybe it is a sign of the times when we hold the world in a grain of sand and spend an eternity in an hour that we cannot see heaven in a wild flower; maybe it is all the inherited fatigue of a thousand years of drudgery; maybe it is just wisdom. Forgive me, O lord, I know not what I do.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Words
What does a good day feel like? A little warm feeling gushing up from the inside, choking up the late lunch in the intestinal tract maybe? Or maybe a funny fever that eats up the bad blood that muddies the clear tracks that we carefully laid through the mazes in our addled brain? Eleemosynary instincts need to be obeyed but more so the essential urge to the stupefaction of the senses and if that should hurt another, the prerogative is merely misplaced. Not our fault entirely; not our mistake one whit. Let the dead bury the dead, I say. We go to bury the living.
There is a providence that guides us, they say, and fold their arms across their chest, watching the sparrow fall and the child starve. There is a fate that is decreed to all and there is the mead that only the victors will partake of. There is a lot that our sciences don't understand but we all know the winner takes all. Is it possible to give to the many while denying the few indeed?
Africa is not just a far-off land, marked in black in the atlas of our childhoods. The neighbourhood slum did not always overflow with the refuse of our middle-class mentalities. There is hope even when there is nothing to hope for sometimes and then life is created. It is not easy to give but atleast it is easy to rant about it.
There is a providence that guides us, they say, and fold their arms across their chest, watching the sparrow fall and the child starve. There is a fate that is decreed to all and there is the mead that only the victors will partake of. There is a lot that our sciences don't understand but we all know the winner takes all. Is it possible to give to the many while denying the few indeed?
Africa is not just a far-off land, marked in black in the atlas of our childhoods. The neighbourhood slum did not always overflow with the refuse of our middle-class mentalities. There is hope even when there is nothing to hope for sometimes and then life is created. It is not easy to give but atleast it is easy to rant about it.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
A Commentary
"To be, or not to be..."
Choice makes man imperfect, my friends say. Give a donkey two piles of hay and he'll die starving before he can decide which he should eat first, Buridan says. Funny how this is reflected in so many of our everyday activities. A restaurant menu and a shopping mall's collection and a presidential election, for example. But we don't like not having choice either for all the obloquy we heap on choice. It is a complicated thing, this life of ours. And I don't pretend to understand. It is just that it would be easier if someone told us exactly what we had to do but they sat only on the advisory committee and not on a decision-making board. If the choice were offered to us, we can always choose not to be at all on the committee. But that is illegal if you don't succeed in getting out quick enough.
"...ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come"
My friends sometimes snore in their sleep. I think this indicates they are having a good, dreamless sleep. I wish I snored too. I don't. And I dream the most painful dreams sometimes. They are not nightmares but they are frightening. And then they wake me up at all odd hours of the night. If only I knew I wouldn't be rudely jolted awake by some painful nightmare, I wouldn't mind sleeping. As it is, I need to coax myself into sleep every night. It is a bitter, ironic, painful thing. But what can I do? I still am hoping to get the 'X marks the spot' dream so I can get rich.
"The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office..."
I am not a big fan of the institution of marriage. The social strictures are too much a strain. It is even more complicated when the Immigration Office is involved. A friend had to go to great lengths to prove his love for a woman to the Officer, who wouldn't accept they were married. Then the whole thing got delayed on some technicalities even though he had a plane to catch. Finally, when the visa did come it was pretty peremptory in tone. It is a commentary on the human social culture, I think. Human association below the seriously physical layer is bound to be a problem. In fact the list of wrongs owing to all the elaborate setup perpetrated ostensibly for man's good can be extended indefinitely and I sometimes just want to shoot myself rather than go through with the whole mess.
"...conscience does make cowards of us all"
I think I am too squeamish when it comes to doing what I want. It just does not do in this world and time. Only children and cowards can afford to stand by and watch with mouths agape while men, real men would toil. There is always something or the other that tries to hold us back, the truth even sometimes; but progress is not something we can compromise. There is only one way - ahead, and if we become all too worried about mythical creatures like the Winged Mortal Destructor, we will just stay put in our suburbian homes watching nonsense TV and reading maudlin poetry. What is needed now is action and not conscientious objectors who would ruin the whole show. All this he explained to me. But I ran away when he brought out his fiery red book with the obscene pictures in it.
"...Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd"
Madness has a natural claim over me, I think. I am not sure but it has been a while now since last I looked in the mirror. I fear what I will see. A shaggy beard and a head of unkempt, unruly, disheveled hair maybe. Sunken eyes and a shallow countenance. But that does not matter. What matters more is that I have forgotten to beg. That is more important. Everybody begs or needs to beg once in a while to remain sane. It requires courage to beg of other beggars and yet we find lots of people who do it. They beg and grovel and sometimes we don't even know they were begging and groveling. It has all been refined over time. Then there are those who, cowardly, beg in their private chambers, of imaginary beings. They cannot beg with a straight face or stand manly in the face of their weakness but have to go down on their knees and beg with averted face. There are other beggars even more deluded who use the wrong formulas, who beg the way they command, hoping nobody recognized them for what they were. They often beg of people who would not give, who would not condescend even to acknowledge their pitiable submission and they break themselves. But all these beggars remain sane. Begging keeps them sane. And I have forgotten how to beg and so I cannot beg. But I have always been forgetful and unassuming and so I think I was made for madness. I can only hope someone else goes down on their knees and begs for me to restore my sanity. But that of course is selfish of me.
Choice makes man imperfect, my friends say. Give a donkey two piles of hay and he'll die starving before he can decide which he should eat first, Buridan says. Funny how this is reflected in so many of our everyday activities. A restaurant menu and a shopping mall's collection and a presidential election, for example. But we don't like not having choice either for all the obloquy we heap on choice. It is a complicated thing, this life of ours. And I don't pretend to understand. It is just that it would be easier if someone told us exactly what we had to do but they sat only on the advisory committee and not on a decision-making board. If the choice were offered to us, we can always choose not to be at all on the committee. But that is illegal if you don't succeed in getting out quick enough.
"...ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come"
My friends sometimes snore in their sleep. I think this indicates they are having a good, dreamless sleep. I wish I snored too. I don't. And I dream the most painful dreams sometimes. They are not nightmares but they are frightening. And then they wake me up at all odd hours of the night. If only I knew I wouldn't be rudely jolted awake by some painful nightmare, I wouldn't mind sleeping. As it is, I need to coax myself into sleep every night. It is a bitter, ironic, painful thing. But what can I do? I still am hoping to get the 'X marks the spot' dream so I can get rich.
"The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office..."
I am not a big fan of the institution of marriage. The social strictures are too much a strain. It is even more complicated when the Immigration Office is involved. A friend had to go to great lengths to prove his love for a woman to the Officer, who wouldn't accept they were married. Then the whole thing got delayed on some technicalities even though he had a plane to catch. Finally, when the visa did come it was pretty peremptory in tone. It is a commentary on the human social culture, I think. Human association below the seriously physical layer is bound to be a problem. In fact the list of wrongs owing to all the elaborate setup perpetrated ostensibly for man's good can be extended indefinitely and I sometimes just want to shoot myself rather than go through with the whole mess.
"...conscience does make cowards of us all"
I think I am too squeamish when it comes to doing what I want. It just does not do in this world and time. Only children and cowards can afford to stand by and watch with mouths agape while men, real men would toil. There is always something or the other that tries to hold us back, the truth even sometimes; but progress is not something we can compromise. There is only one way - ahead, and if we become all too worried about mythical creatures like the Winged Mortal Destructor, we will just stay put in our suburbian homes watching nonsense TV and reading maudlin poetry. What is needed now is action and not conscientious objectors who would ruin the whole show. All this he explained to me. But I ran away when he brought out his fiery red book with the obscene pictures in it.
"...Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd"
Madness has a natural claim over me, I think. I am not sure but it has been a while now since last I looked in the mirror. I fear what I will see. A shaggy beard and a head of unkempt, unruly, disheveled hair maybe. Sunken eyes and a shallow countenance. But that does not matter. What matters more is that I have forgotten to beg. That is more important. Everybody begs or needs to beg once in a while to remain sane. It requires courage to beg of other beggars and yet we find lots of people who do it. They beg and grovel and sometimes we don't even know they were begging and groveling. It has all been refined over time. Then there are those who, cowardly, beg in their private chambers, of imaginary beings. They cannot beg with a straight face or stand manly in the face of their weakness but have to go down on their knees and beg with averted face. There are other beggars even more deluded who use the wrong formulas, who beg the way they command, hoping nobody recognized them for what they were. They often beg of people who would not give, who would not condescend even to acknowledge their pitiable submission and they break themselves. But all these beggars remain sane. Begging keeps them sane. And I have forgotten how to beg and so I cannot beg. But I have always been forgetful and unassuming and so I think I was made for madness. I can only hope someone else goes down on their knees and begs for me to restore my sanity. But that of course is selfish of me.
Friday, January 05, 2007
A Capital Thing
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster" - Nietzsche.
Executions come but rarely in our civilized world and not often does it involve a Saddam Hussein hanging by his neck. So it is but fair that we excuse all the hoopla that surrounded the day. CNN went to such lengths to cover the event and I am sure almost every network worth its salt anywhere in the world would have done its bit, that it all seemed for sometime a bit like the Letourneau marriage or something. I was not too interested; but the post-execution revelations that have surfaced all over the place have me really, really disturbed. Of course you can get the lowdown on all the uproar at bbc.co.uk or cnn.com.
I have never been one for capital punishment. It just doesn't make sense to me to arrogate to oneself the right to take life when we do not have the ability to create one. The debate is not so simply dismissed though, and I understand certain positions that the pro-capital punishment people take but I just prefer to lean to my own corner. Even if it is Saddam with his malice toward Kurds and kindness to none and all the Weapons of Mass Destruction he bought to fight the Iranians. But, even if this most reviled man of our times(of those caught) needs to be put away, it surely can be done without evoking the spirit of a medieval stoning or the stake or scenes from Braveheart and The Passion. Surely, a man, however evil and against the grain of popular and reasonable morality he has been, just because he is a man, deserves some dignity when the noose is being put around his neck. Shame on you, CNN and official witnesses, I want to say, but it is shame on us too. After all, CNN shows us what we want to see: the modern broadcast medium is just a mirror held up to the world. I am sure there is still the primitive urge for revenge in all of us and an offensive bloodthirstiness and Saddam's execution was just the right purge in quaint 18th century fashion. He is not the hungry Somali kid fooling around with a gun, whom we have to gun down with a tear in our eyes; he is not the Prince of darkness, a gentleman; he is not even the Marquis of A, we have to kill for our passion d'amour. Cheers to the guy! Down to hell! And save your prayers for when you are down there! And what now of the re-engineered Sunni-Shia split? What of the new breed of self-righteous, self-justifying mullas this whole episode has created? Outraged sentiments apart, did we really need to end the guy's pathetic life so pathetically? Mercy is over-rated but often so is revenge!
But, wait, there is this other guy in the funny turban now, let us get him.
Executions come but rarely in our civilized world and not often does it involve a Saddam Hussein hanging by his neck. So it is but fair that we excuse all the hoopla that surrounded the day. CNN went to such lengths to cover the event and I am sure almost every network worth its salt anywhere in the world would have done its bit, that it all seemed for sometime a bit like the Letourneau marriage or something. I was not too interested; but the post-execution revelations that have surfaced all over the place have me really, really disturbed. Of course you can get the lowdown on all the uproar at bbc.co.uk or cnn.com.
I have never been one for capital punishment. It just doesn't make sense to me to arrogate to oneself the right to take life when we do not have the ability to create one. The debate is not so simply dismissed though, and I understand certain positions that the pro-capital punishment people take but I just prefer to lean to my own corner. Even if it is Saddam with his malice toward Kurds and kindness to none and all the Weapons of Mass Destruction he bought to fight the Iranians. But, even if this most reviled man of our times(of those caught) needs to be put away, it surely can be done without evoking the spirit of a medieval stoning or the stake or scenes from Braveheart and The Passion. Surely, a man, however evil and against the grain of popular and reasonable morality he has been, just because he is a man, deserves some dignity when the noose is being put around his neck. Shame on you, CNN and official witnesses, I want to say, but it is shame on us too. After all, CNN shows us what we want to see: the modern broadcast medium is just a mirror held up to the world. I am sure there is still the primitive urge for revenge in all of us and an offensive bloodthirstiness and Saddam's execution was just the right purge in quaint 18th century fashion. He is not the hungry Somali kid fooling around with a gun, whom we have to gun down with a tear in our eyes; he is not the Prince of darkness, a gentleman; he is not even the Marquis of A, we have to kill for our passion d'amour. Cheers to the guy! Down to hell! And save your prayers for when you are down there! And what now of the re-engineered Sunni-Shia split? What of the new breed of self-righteous, self-justifying mullas this whole episode has created? Outraged sentiments apart, did we really need to end the guy's pathetic life so pathetically? Mercy is over-rated but often so is revenge!
But, wait, there is this other guy in the funny turban now, let us get him.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
The Book of the Winds
Chapter 2
Whither the Winding Road
Phaeron and his companions for the evening reached the hamlet that was Balric's village just after dusk. People were returning from their diurnal occupations and, soon word spread of a royal stranger, a prince perhaps, walking with Balric to his place. There were gawkers aplenty and Phaeron soon felt uncomfortable under the shifty glances they bestowed on him. I have my sword, he thought, but what can I do against so many? I only hope they know their duty to the Emperor.
Of course he need not have worried: those who would slit throats rarely look their victims in the face. It was a short walk to the blacksmith's house through the neat rows of thatched houses that seemed to him to belong to an earlier and more barbarous age. He was surprised to see very little greenery in the hamlet situated in the heart of the great forests - nature had yielded to the destroying hands of a crude civilization and it would require culture and luxury to bring back the trees and birds and tamed nature to where they had been displaced from. The house was built adjacent to Balric's forge and Phaeron's horse was tethered to a short stump outside it. He saw little of the forge but it seemed so insignificant compared to the great fires that roared all day in the great Alley of the Smiths in the capital. What little work the village provided sufficed for Balric, for the villagers grew their own vegetables and hunted their own meat. Money was not a necessity in this remote hamlet, life and death persisted in spite of it.
The house was not a big affair either but Phaeron felt much safer within the confines of its walls away from prying eyes. The women soon occupied themselves with dinner and Balric attended to his forge, leaving Phaeron to amuse himself as best as he could. There was not much of notice in the dank, dirty, ill-furnished place and Phaeron was tired. He had no wish too to step outside into the chill air where there might still lurk a curious, hardy, imbecile soul or two. In the matter of minutes, he fell asleep, oblivious to the clanging of the pans and pots in the kitchen and the sound of the hammer on the anvil.
It is not an easy task to fall asleep on an uncomfortable stool and the physical discomfort disturbed Phaeron's dreams. He saw strange, wonderful things, frightening visions of dragons spewing fire over his home and blood and gore in the grand royal gardens in the capital. The princess, beautiful and elegant generally, was fighting a grim battle with a knight in black armour over the prostrate body of the king's, even as Phaeron rushed in headlong to save her. There was the Prime Mnister too, who seemed to be smirking even as blow after blow fell over his son's brows. And then the scroll he was carrying even now, appeared out of nowhere and its words were blazoned over the city walls in hues of blood: "Fear the wrath of the swift sword that waits not for slow justice; the Council of the Fifty is ready to meet." Strange words, words from a legend long forgotten, but what about the scroll, was it safe?
And he woke up with a start to see Amara looking curiously at him. Her eyes twinkled merrily even as she traipsed away blushing fairy-like to attend to some imaginary chore. Flit on cheering angel, nurse and balm to a bitter heart's dreams, he mused over her vanished form. It has been long now since I felt such fair hope, long since I wanted to be happy. There is but little left of youth in my heart but a long ways to go before my shoulders will tire of the burdens people will impose on them. This scroll, ah the scroll, it is safe now, I did not ask for it and I do not know what it means to me. But there is Amara now, kneading the dough and stirring the pot and I feel a stirring in my own heart.
Night had come swiftly while he slept, and, after a simple dinner of bread, broth and a jug of light beer, attended by the inquisitive questions Meara posed of life in the capital and the Far East, they all retired - the host family preferring to lie on the ground in the outer room, resigning to Phaeron the privacy and comfort of the inner bedroom. Inspite of the short nap he had had only a couple of hours earlier, Phaeron soon fell into a dreamless sleep but it was not destined to last long.
In the middle of the night, a shrill piercing sound woke him: the cry of a damsel, Amara maybe, in distress. Even as he tried to collect his senses, he saw that the house was ablaze and there was a clangor of arms outside, men and women shouting, and children and girls screaming. Balric, he realised as he crossed out into the courtyard with drawn sword, was already outside, hacking at the attackers with might and main. A dreadful little scene unfolded to Phaeron as he saw a sizeable number of horsemen, slowly and surely pushing the villagers back, breaking their resistance to pieces with their trained swordsmanship. He joined the small band of defenders but they could do little even as small bands of the attackers broke away to loot what they could from the burning houses. Just as Phaeron felt they should all be cut down mercilessly, a gruff voice from among the leaders shouted an order for retreat and the horsemen left just as suddenly as they had come.
Seeing the battle was over, the men ran to put out the fires that threatened to destroy the entire hamlet. Women and children were already busy throwing pails of water over the burning thatches, and dragging out of the conflagration the few articles of value that they possessed. Phaeron remembered the scroll and ran into the room he had slept in but it had been ransacked. He understood that this was no random attack and that the horsemen had come for the scroll. His horse too had escaped in the melee, shod in Balric's new shoe. Embittered and angry, he found that Balric and Meara had lost more than he had: the horsemen had kidnapped their daughter.
In less than an hour, the fire was put out and there was calm once more in the smouldering remains of the village. The men and women gathered near Balric's place and there was a general wailing and railing as people tried to come to terms with the dreadful and unprovoked assault on their peaceful lives. "Who were they," Phaeron asked Balric, even as they wiped the blood and sweat off their face after the heavy toil, "And what were they after?" He was not about to mention the scroll to him but he needed to get to them and retrieve the scroll by any means possible. "I dont know, milord," replied Balric, evasively, "I have heard of the robber-lords of the Northern Mountains, who pillage the villages around the Great Forest. But what they would want here, I have no idea." "Oh we knew, Balric, when the lordly stranger came among us that trouble was sure to follow. Dont ye know these are after the royal tribe - they have sworn dread oaths to kill anyone from the royal family," muttered one of the young men. "Shut up you Oric, master fool and village jester, this is no place nor time for your bitterness," retorted Balric, "I have lost more than you have but I wouldn't snivel like a girl." "Be strong all you want, man, but mark my words: this is not the end of our troubles," said Oric,darkly, "There is not going to be much happiness or peace from today." "Forget his words, milord, he has ideas above his station," Balric said to Phaeron loudly. He then addressed the general assembly, "Men and women, we haven't seen battle and death for some time now but that doesn't make us children. We have fought before and now I think we need to fight again. Let us get ready with our swords and axes and shields and helmets. I have been your leader for so long but now I have to leave. So I suggest you take Groth as your leader - he is wise and brave and will serve you well. In the meantime, I will find my daughter and return to you as soon as I can." Many in the assembly cheered and accepted Groth as leader but they also cried out, "But we will come with you Balric in your search, you shall not go alone," upon which Groth spoke up, "Men and women, I will be your leader while Balric goes after his daughter's kidnappers. I hear your love for Balric but we cannot all go with him. So I propose we send two of our best men with him on this hunt. What say you to this, Balric?" Balric replied, "Two men away from the village makes it two men less secure but I know I cannot do it alone either so I accept your proposal. But who will they be?" As Groth started, "Our best man is Oric, of course and the other man will be..", Phaeron interrupted and said, "I will go with Balric. They have taken something from me too that does not belong to them and I need to get it back for myself. We three can be traveling companions till we get to the bandits and then Balric and Oric will return to you with Amara while I will set off on my way." Balric was reluctant to take the stranger and nobleman with him to the heart of the bandit strongholds but Groth saw the point and it was immediately resolved upon. The villagers decided to give the little they could save from the fire by way of provision to Balric and his companions for the next day. They would have to hunt for themselves as they went deeper into the Great Forests to the foothills of the Northern Mountains.
At dawn, the three men, Balric with his sharp axe, Oric with his singing bow and swift sword, and Phaeron, trained swordsman and royal aide and messenger, set out towards the Northern Mountains on the three best horses the villagers could provide. They went along the same old road Phaeron had crossed with Balric and his family but now he had a purpose more immediate. What it was, he was not sure: was it the scroll or was it Amara that he was after? But now he wanted to get somewhere for a reason all his own, and when they reached the place where the Royal Highway forked, one road leading to the Northern Mountains and the other to the Western Outposts, he looked forward to going along the path he had heard was full of lawless bands of wild men, armed against any royal interference. Deep within the forests, on the long winding road that lay at his feet, inside some bandit stronghold, were Amara and the scroll and he needed to get there fast so he could complete his mission to the West and return to the capital. Or maybe that was not the reason for his hurry.
Whither the Winding Road
Phaeron and his companions for the evening reached the hamlet that was Balric's village just after dusk. People were returning from their diurnal occupations and, soon word spread of a royal stranger, a prince perhaps, walking with Balric to his place. There were gawkers aplenty and Phaeron soon felt uncomfortable under the shifty glances they bestowed on him. I have my sword, he thought, but what can I do against so many? I only hope they know their duty to the Emperor.
Of course he need not have worried: those who would slit throats rarely look their victims in the face. It was a short walk to the blacksmith's house through the neat rows of thatched houses that seemed to him to belong to an earlier and more barbarous age. He was surprised to see very little greenery in the hamlet situated in the heart of the great forests - nature had yielded to the destroying hands of a crude civilization and it would require culture and luxury to bring back the trees and birds and tamed nature to where they had been displaced from. The house was built adjacent to Balric's forge and Phaeron's horse was tethered to a short stump outside it. He saw little of the forge but it seemed so insignificant compared to the great fires that roared all day in the great Alley of the Smiths in the capital. What little work the village provided sufficed for Balric, for the villagers grew their own vegetables and hunted their own meat. Money was not a necessity in this remote hamlet, life and death persisted in spite of it.
The house was not a big affair either but Phaeron felt much safer within the confines of its walls away from prying eyes. The women soon occupied themselves with dinner and Balric attended to his forge, leaving Phaeron to amuse himself as best as he could. There was not much of notice in the dank, dirty, ill-furnished place and Phaeron was tired. He had no wish too to step outside into the chill air where there might still lurk a curious, hardy, imbecile soul or two. In the matter of minutes, he fell asleep, oblivious to the clanging of the pans and pots in the kitchen and the sound of the hammer on the anvil.
It is not an easy task to fall asleep on an uncomfortable stool and the physical discomfort disturbed Phaeron's dreams. He saw strange, wonderful things, frightening visions of dragons spewing fire over his home and blood and gore in the grand royal gardens in the capital. The princess, beautiful and elegant generally, was fighting a grim battle with a knight in black armour over the prostrate body of the king's, even as Phaeron rushed in headlong to save her. There was the Prime Mnister too, who seemed to be smirking even as blow after blow fell over his son's brows. And then the scroll he was carrying even now, appeared out of nowhere and its words were blazoned over the city walls in hues of blood: "Fear the wrath of the swift sword that waits not for slow justice; the Council of the Fifty is ready to meet." Strange words, words from a legend long forgotten, but what about the scroll, was it safe?
And he woke up with a start to see Amara looking curiously at him. Her eyes twinkled merrily even as she traipsed away blushing fairy-like to attend to some imaginary chore. Flit on cheering angel, nurse and balm to a bitter heart's dreams, he mused over her vanished form. It has been long now since I felt such fair hope, long since I wanted to be happy. There is but little left of youth in my heart but a long ways to go before my shoulders will tire of the burdens people will impose on them. This scroll, ah the scroll, it is safe now, I did not ask for it and I do not know what it means to me. But there is Amara now, kneading the dough and stirring the pot and I feel a stirring in my own heart.
Night had come swiftly while he slept, and, after a simple dinner of bread, broth and a jug of light beer, attended by the inquisitive questions Meara posed of life in the capital and the Far East, they all retired - the host family preferring to lie on the ground in the outer room, resigning to Phaeron the privacy and comfort of the inner bedroom. Inspite of the short nap he had had only a couple of hours earlier, Phaeron soon fell into a dreamless sleep but it was not destined to last long.
In the middle of the night, a shrill piercing sound woke him: the cry of a damsel, Amara maybe, in distress. Even as he tried to collect his senses, he saw that the house was ablaze and there was a clangor of arms outside, men and women shouting, and children and girls screaming. Balric, he realised as he crossed out into the courtyard with drawn sword, was already outside, hacking at the attackers with might and main. A dreadful little scene unfolded to Phaeron as he saw a sizeable number of horsemen, slowly and surely pushing the villagers back, breaking their resistance to pieces with their trained swordsmanship. He joined the small band of defenders but they could do little even as small bands of the attackers broke away to loot what they could from the burning houses. Just as Phaeron felt they should all be cut down mercilessly, a gruff voice from among the leaders shouted an order for retreat and the horsemen left just as suddenly as they had come.
Seeing the battle was over, the men ran to put out the fires that threatened to destroy the entire hamlet. Women and children were already busy throwing pails of water over the burning thatches, and dragging out of the conflagration the few articles of value that they possessed. Phaeron remembered the scroll and ran into the room he had slept in but it had been ransacked. He understood that this was no random attack and that the horsemen had come for the scroll. His horse too had escaped in the melee, shod in Balric's new shoe. Embittered and angry, he found that Balric and Meara had lost more than he had: the horsemen had kidnapped their daughter.
In less than an hour, the fire was put out and there was calm once more in the smouldering remains of the village. The men and women gathered near Balric's place and there was a general wailing and railing as people tried to come to terms with the dreadful and unprovoked assault on their peaceful lives. "Who were they," Phaeron asked Balric, even as they wiped the blood and sweat off their face after the heavy toil, "And what were they after?" He was not about to mention the scroll to him but he needed to get to them and retrieve the scroll by any means possible. "I dont know, milord," replied Balric, evasively, "I have heard of the robber-lords of the Northern Mountains, who pillage the villages around the Great Forest. But what they would want here, I have no idea." "Oh we knew, Balric, when the lordly stranger came among us that trouble was sure to follow. Dont ye know these are after the royal tribe - they have sworn dread oaths to kill anyone from the royal family," muttered one of the young men. "Shut up you Oric, master fool and village jester, this is no place nor time for your bitterness," retorted Balric, "I have lost more than you have but I wouldn't snivel like a girl." "Be strong all you want, man, but mark my words: this is not the end of our troubles," said Oric,darkly, "There is not going to be much happiness or peace from today." "Forget his words, milord, he has ideas above his station," Balric said to Phaeron loudly. He then addressed the general assembly, "Men and women, we haven't seen battle and death for some time now but that doesn't make us children. We have fought before and now I think we need to fight again. Let us get ready with our swords and axes and shields and helmets. I have been your leader for so long but now I have to leave. So I suggest you take Groth as your leader - he is wise and brave and will serve you well. In the meantime, I will find my daughter and return to you as soon as I can." Many in the assembly cheered and accepted Groth as leader but they also cried out, "But we will come with you Balric in your search, you shall not go alone," upon which Groth spoke up, "Men and women, I will be your leader while Balric goes after his daughter's kidnappers. I hear your love for Balric but we cannot all go with him. So I propose we send two of our best men with him on this hunt. What say you to this, Balric?" Balric replied, "Two men away from the village makes it two men less secure but I know I cannot do it alone either so I accept your proposal. But who will they be?" As Groth started, "Our best man is Oric, of course and the other man will be..", Phaeron interrupted and said, "I will go with Balric. They have taken something from me too that does not belong to them and I need to get it back for myself. We three can be traveling companions till we get to the bandits and then Balric and Oric will return to you with Amara while I will set off on my way." Balric was reluctant to take the stranger and nobleman with him to the heart of the bandit strongholds but Groth saw the point and it was immediately resolved upon. The villagers decided to give the little they could save from the fire by way of provision to Balric and his companions for the next day. They would have to hunt for themselves as they went deeper into the Great Forests to the foothills of the Northern Mountains.
At dawn, the three men, Balric with his sharp axe, Oric with his singing bow and swift sword, and Phaeron, trained swordsman and royal aide and messenger, set out towards the Northern Mountains on the three best horses the villagers could provide. They went along the same old road Phaeron had crossed with Balric and his family but now he had a purpose more immediate. What it was, he was not sure: was it the scroll or was it Amara that he was after? But now he wanted to get somewhere for a reason all his own, and when they reached the place where the Royal Highway forked, one road leading to the Northern Mountains and the other to the Western Outposts, he looked forward to going along the path he had heard was full of lawless bands of wild men, armed against any royal interference. Deep within the forests, on the long winding road that lay at his feet, inside some bandit stronghold, were Amara and the scroll and he needed to get there fast so he could complete his mission to the West and return to the capital. Or maybe that was not the reason for his hurry.
Friday, October 20, 2006
The Book of the Winds
Prologue:
The smoke always clears slowly. It does not hurry for the historian in haste who wishes to record what the moment after a great victory looked like; defeats of course do not matter - only the victors record their battles. And, on the fateful day when a hundred thousand and more perished on the Great Plain, the smoke loitered, picking its way daintily through holes sewed in the blue hearts of dead men, seeping out red and yellow and ugly grey. It smelled of gunpowder - not the nice, clean, fun smell that attends a fireworks celebration, that brings to mind picnic blankets and family outings; but the poor, dirty, grimy smell of a charwoman at a munitions factory waiting for the certain news of a lover's death, a most uncomfortable smell. But the smoke was comforting too in a sense - the survivors saw in its insane shapes the forms of departed friends; dying men saw their families bidding them goodbye or welcome; and, in irritating the eyes of those who were too ashamed to cry, it gave an excuse for tears on the field of manful toil. And it was almost tangible.
But, as with all things, the smoke passed too and bared a hundred thousand entrails and groans to the naked, hungry eye and ear, eager to record for posterity the particular deaths of an anonymous hundred thousand in the cause of great words and great men. How many pitiful lives have been lost in the name of all that is holy and uplifting in the human condition? How many men have toiled bitter sweat and tears for what is most sweet in man's thoughts? How many cries and groans and terrible deeds that laughter and happiness and goodness be more than mere words? But soft now, there groans a man in pain.
------
Book 1
The Council Meets
Chapter 1
A Village in the Horizon
His cloak billowed out wildly behind him as he rode the horse hard into the wind. Evidently in a great hurry, the green colour of his cloak and the imperial diadem on the horse's forehead intimated that this was a royal messenger on an urgent errand. The few hardy men who still walked the dangerous forest road muttered harshly under their breath but gave way with a grudging salute. The man on the horse noticed the sullenness but he had been seeing it all these four days as he travelled out of the capital into the countryside. There seemed to be an increase in discontent with distance from the capital, he mused, an interesting observation worth some serious consideration; but he had his assignment now and it seemed to gain in importance as he approached his destination. The border forts were not too far off and it was imperative that he reach the capital of the province by nightfall - travelling through the outer regions, especially the wild forests, had become unsafe even for the king's messengers in these dangerous times.
But as luck would have it, just as he turned past a narrow bend giving both his thoughts and his horse free rein, his horse stumbled, stuttered and fell in a heap on the road. He was not hurt in the accident, thank god for the small blessings, but his horse had lost a shoe on his leg. He tried riding him without the shoe but the horse started limping after a while. With no choice now but to find the nearest village or hamlet, any place where he could get a horse or a ride to the capital of the province, he started walking down the road, in much more haste than would have helped the poor horse's unshod leg. An hour or so before dusk, would there be bandits around soon, he wondered, would he have to fight for his life or merely for the little gold and that precious scroll he had, so important to the fate of the kingdom, of so little meaning to petty thieves? I will find out soon enough, he decided, but this wretched luck that has been following me ever since that fateful day, when, instead of being selected to the General's guard, I was asked to become the Prime Minister's attendant, this whole foul fortune is still running its course in my life. I wonder if I'll ever be rid of it.
An hour's walk had not brought him much hope and it was almost dusk. The road was deserted and even the occassional straggler who seemed to him a bandit in his filthy rags, leading an old mare or leaning on his wretchedly crooked staff, even the hardiest of these were no more seen in the path that seemed to stretch deep into the forest with no end in sight. For the first time in his life, he saw the forest as an extension of the city or maybe the origin of it; a place men could live and work and walk in, and not merely a place one passed through and had to tolerate only because it was too difficult to destroy altogether. It was like a garden on a larger scale with the trees and bushes and the occassional bird and animal, untamed but not violent. It was also a shelter protecting him from the emptiness that would have dismayed his already depressed spirits. The road assured him that man had been here, and the forest, that there were things beyond and behind all this, that he was not alone. The forest was also particularly interesting that evening when he wanted a rather diaphanous solitude - he wanted to be left alone but not feel his loneliness; or, rather, he wanted a reason to be alert and ready for conversation but only on his own terms, when he wanted it. The rumours had made him edgy and he did not know what message he was carrying now, what it would mean to the country in what was rapidly becoming a fragile future; he knew, of course, that it was important but he did not know where he stood in the whole situation - he had set out to become a soldier and now he was a Minister's page.
Just as he was sinking into a deep reverie, the sound of a cart hobbling along the road behind him jolted him out of it and, soon enough he found himself facing a boisterous peasant taking his family home on a battered ruin of a cart driven by a miserable old nag. The man seemed to want to pass him in a hurry, having evidently seen and known him for who he was, but was forced to stop when the authority of the green cloak and the diadem on the horse asserted themselves in a rather rude gesture to halt. The wife seemed not to have noticed and started grumbling from the back of the cart while the girl, tired of her mother's company, hopped down to see what had caused the interruption. He was struck by her beauty immediately, not a wonderful pretty thing of gold and blue and flimsy lace, but a soft, radiant, healthy nature that was girl and woman at the same time. The cartman at once began apologizing and explaining his hurry, "Bandits around you see, so we were hurrying up. No offence, milord, at your service always". But he had no ears nor eyes for this man. "Phaeron," he said, "page to the Esteemed Prime Minister and member of the Royal Guard, at your service," and performed for the girl one of his most expansive court-bows. "Balric, milord, blacksmith and ...," the man started saying when the girl started laughing uncontrollably, causing great confusion to both the cartman and Phaeron. Balric was dismayed beyond words but his wife stepped in, and pinching the girl hard, introduced herself, "Meara, wife of Balric, milord and this is Amara, our daughter. She is young and bold, don't you mind her, sir, she hasn't seen noblemen except those that strut about on the stage for tuppence. Is there anything we could do for you, noble master?" Phaeron was mortified by the girl's laughter but it was rather musical and made her look even prettier, bringing the red to her cold cheeks and tears to her deep blue eyes. Hard for a man not to like even if he was the cause of the mirth. "Peasants of the outer provinces, I am on my way to Pandor on a royal mission. I was to get there before nightfall but my horse took a fall and has lost a shoe. Direct me to the nearest village where I can borrow a horse and proceed on my way and I will reward you well". The girl was about to burst out laughing again but the mother intervened and said, "Of course, master, we will take you to our village. It is not far from here and my husband is the blacksmith - he will do his best for you and get you going early tomorrow. If you don't mind, you can also stay at our humble inn and eat our bread this night". "Very well, lead on. And I promise your husband will be well-paid for his efforts".
They walked for the better part of an hour and the sun had almost set. Phaeron was getting impatient but there was nothing he could do. The sky was becoming a deep orange and the road was beginning to get wider. They started up a short climb where the woods seemed to part around the road when Amara exclaimed, "The village! the village!" and jumped out of the cart, running up the road. Phaeron watched as the orange danced off her hair and face and the happy smile that spread across her face as she got to the top and shouted, "The village, Father, we are home finally." Balric and Meara exchanged a look of happiness and Phaeron felt a little uncomfortable - they seemed to be too simple and too happy at things too small. Did they not know there were greater things than merely getting home? Were they still children to believe in such bromides as the 'sweet home'? Were they innocent or merely ignorant of the big world outside of their humdrum existence? But Amara was taking his breath away and he knew these people would not understand. The three of them slowly made their way up to Amara and stood silently with her, gazing at the small clearing in the woods where a small village was visible with smoke from the chimneys and little boys playing around. "There she lies," said Balric, "That is home and a lot more, sir". "Yes, a lot more indeed," muttered Phaeron but little did he know how much more.
The smoke always clears slowly. It does not hurry for the historian in haste who wishes to record what the moment after a great victory looked like; defeats of course do not matter - only the victors record their battles. And, on the fateful day when a hundred thousand and more perished on the Great Plain, the smoke loitered, picking its way daintily through holes sewed in the blue hearts of dead men, seeping out red and yellow and ugly grey. It smelled of gunpowder - not the nice, clean, fun smell that attends a fireworks celebration, that brings to mind picnic blankets and family outings; but the poor, dirty, grimy smell of a charwoman at a munitions factory waiting for the certain news of a lover's death, a most uncomfortable smell. But the smoke was comforting too in a sense - the survivors saw in its insane shapes the forms of departed friends; dying men saw their families bidding them goodbye or welcome; and, in irritating the eyes of those who were too ashamed to cry, it gave an excuse for tears on the field of manful toil. And it was almost tangible.
But, as with all things, the smoke passed too and bared a hundred thousand entrails and groans to the naked, hungry eye and ear, eager to record for posterity the particular deaths of an anonymous hundred thousand in the cause of great words and great men. How many pitiful lives have been lost in the name of all that is holy and uplifting in the human condition? How many men have toiled bitter sweat and tears for what is most sweet in man's thoughts? How many cries and groans and terrible deeds that laughter and happiness and goodness be more than mere words? But soft now, there groans a man in pain.
------
Book 1
The Council Meets
Chapter 1
A Village in the Horizon
His cloak billowed out wildly behind him as he rode the horse hard into the wind. Evidently in a great hurry, the green colour of his cloak and the imperial diadem on the horse's forehead intimated that this was a royal messenger on an urgent errand. The few hardy men who still walked the dangerous forest road muttered harshly under their breath but gave way with a grudging salute. The man on the horse noticed the sullenness but he had been seeing it all these four days as he travelled out of the capital into the countryside. There seemed to be an increase in discontent with distance from the capital, he mused, an interesting observation worth some serious consideration; but he had his assignment now and it seemed to gain in importance as he approached his destination. The border forts were not too far off and it was imperative that he reach the capital of the province by nightfall - travelling through the outer regions, especially the wild forests, had become unsafe even for the king's messengers in these dangerous times.
But as luck would have it, just as he turned past a narrow bend giving both his thoughts and his horse free rein, his horse stumbled, stuttered and fell in a heap on the road. He was not hurt in the accident, thank god for the small blessings, but his horse had lost a shoe on his leg. He tried riding him without the shoe but the horse started limping after a while. With no choice now but to find the nearest village or hamlet, any place where he could get a horse or a ride to the capital of the province, he started walking down the road, in much more haste than would have helped the poor horse's unshod leg. An hour or so before dusk, would there be bandits around soon, he wondered, would he have to fight for his life or merely for the little gold and that precious scroll he had, so important to the fate of the kingdom, of so little meaning to petty thieves? I will find out soon enough, he decided, but this wretched luck that has been following me ever since that fateful day, when, instead of being selected to the General's guard, I was asked to become the Prime Minister's attendant, this whole foul fortune is still running its course in my life. I wonder if I'll ever be rid of it.
An hour's walk had not brought him much hope and it was almost dusk. The road was deserted and even the occassional straggler who seemed to him a bandit in his filthy rags, leading an old mare or leaning on his wretchedly crooked staff, even the hardiest of these were no more seen in the path that seemed to stretch deep into the forest with no end in sight. For the first time in his life, he saw the forest as an extension of the city or maybe the origin of it; a place men could live and work and walk in, and not merely a place one passed through and had to tolerate only because it was too difficult to destroy altogether. It was like a garden on a larger scale with the trees and bushes and the occassional bird and animal, untamed but not violent. It was also a shelter protecting him from the emptiness that would have dismayed his already depressed spirits. The road assured him that man had been here, and the forest, that there were things beyond and behind all this, that he was not alone. The forest was also particularly interesting that evening when he wanted a rather diaphanous solitude - he wanted to be left alone but not feel his loneliness; or, rather, he wanted a reason to be alert and ready for conversation but only on his own terms, when he wanted it. The rumours had made him edgy and he did not know what message he was carrying now, what it would mean to the country in what was rapidly becoming a fragile future; he knew, of course, that it was important but he did not know where he stood in the whole situation - he had set out to become a soldier and now he was a Minister's page.
Just as he was sinking into a deep reverie, the sound of a cart hobbling along the road behind him jolted him out of it and, soon enough he found himself facing a boisterous peasant taking his family home on a battered ruin of a cart driven by a miserable old nag. The man seemed to want to pass him in a hurry, having evidently seen and known him for who he was, but was forced to stop when the authority of the green cloak and the diadem on the horse asserted themselves in a rather rude gesture to halt. The wife seemed not to have noticed and started grumbling from the back of the cart while the girl, tired of her mother's company, hopped down to see what had caused the interruption. He was struck by her beauty immediately, not a wonderful pretty thing of gold and blue and flimsy lace, but a soft, radiant, healthy nature that was girl and woman at the same time. The cartman at once began apologizing and explaining his hurry, "Bandits around you see, so we were hurrying up. No offence, milord, at your service always". But he had no ears nor eyes for this man. "Phaeron," he said, "page to the Esteemed Prime Minister and member of the Royal Guard, at your service," and performed for the girl one of his most expansive court-bows. "Balric, milord, blacksmith and ...," the man started saying when the girl started laughing uncontrollably, causing great confusion to both the cartman and Phaeron. Balric was dismayed beyond words but his wife stepped in, and pinching the girl hard, introduced herself, "Meara, wife of Balric, milord and this is Amara, our daughter. She is young and bold, don't you mind her, sir, she hasn't seen noblemen except those that strut about on the stage for tuppence. Is there anything we could do for you, noble master?" Phaeron was mortified by the girl's laughter but it was rather musical and made her look even prettier, bringing the red to her cold cheeks and tears to her deep blue eyes. Hard for a man not to like even if he was the cause of the mirth. "Peasants of the outer provinces, I am on my way to Pandor on a royal mission. I was to get there before nightfall but my horse took a fall and has lost a shoe. Direct me to the nearest village where I can borrow a horse and proceed on my way and I will reward you well". The girl was about to burst out laughing again but the mother intervened and said, "Of course, master, we will take you to our village. It is not far from here and my husband is the blacksmith - he will do his best for you and get you going early tomorrow. If you don't mind, you can also stay at our humble inn and eat our bread this night". "Very well, lead on. And I promise your husband will be well-paid for his efforts".
They walked for the better part of an hour and the sun had almost set. Phaeron was getting impatient but there was nothing he could do. The sky was becoming a deep orange and the road was beginning to get wider. They started up a short climb where the woods seemed to part around the road when Amara exclaimed, "The village! the village!" and jumped out of the cart, running up the road. Phaeron watched as the orange danced off her hair and face and the happy smile that spread across her face as she got to the top and shouted, "The village, Father, we are home finally." Balric and Meara exchanged a look of happiness and Phaeron felt a little uncomfortable - they seemed to be too simple and too happy at things too small. Did they not know there were greater things than merely getting home? Were they still children to believe in such bromides as the 'sweet home'? Were they innocent or merely ignorant of the big world outside of their humdrum existence? But Amara was taking his breath away and he knew these people would not understand. The three of them slowly made their way up to Amara and stood silently with her, gazing at the small clearing in the woods where a small village was visible with smoke from the chimneys and little boys playing around. "There she lies," said Balric, "That is home and a lot more, sir". "Yes, a lot more indeed," muttered Phaeron but little did he know how much more.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
KANK - Never Say Bye-Bye
I was planning to write a long review of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna studded with long and funny-sounding words. I wanted to, really. Only the movie wasted more than 3 hours of my time and all I can say now, in appreciation of it, is that it sucks big time. For the benefit of posterity, however, I will attempt a short sketch of it, in the manner of the high school essay of old that so often is seen in the film review columns of the newspapers, and try to purge myself of all that the movie might have imbued me with.
Karan Johar is a marvellous director and I am sure he makes no bones about it either. I even distinctly remember reading that he has a personal philosophy and original opinions on love and marriage. An intellectual no doubt and it shows in his work. I also seem to have heard that he has a penchant for the dramatic and an exceptional skill wielding the megaphone. An artist of the highest order and it shows in this, his work. In fact so many things are evident on the most perfunctory viewing of the movie that it makes me wonder why he decided to show his abilities over a much longer timeframe. A conundrum but nothing compared to what is on offer from Dev and Maya and Ria(or is it Rhea or Riya) and Rishi and the rest of 'em all.
The movie starts off originally enough with SRK landing a $5million contract in the MLS and Rani trying her best not to spout out the title-line in an intricate dialogue sequence filled with the most sentimental nothings culminating in the title song. Dev(SRK) and Maya(Rani) part ways as friends, one loses his leg and the other her shot at holy Mohabbat and of course fate has to intervene but that is only 4 years and a short flashforward later. By then, the characters are well-etched - Rani likes vacuuming, AB Sr. likes some form of light bondage, AB Jr. does not shave often, Priety powders herself pale, Kiron Kher is very conscious of her big butt and SRK is a terrible football coach. Add fate now gently, taking care not to spill too much of it on AB Sr's garish attire, and there is confusion leading to reconcilement leading to friendship between SRK and Rani. By the way I did mention their names, right? It is so easy to get confused as there is too much name-calling and too many people around all the time.
A wise man once said a man and a woman can never be friends and Sooraj Barjatya stole it for Maine Pyar Kiya. No wonder Rani and SRK decide to rent a hotel room. As for me, I have no idea they have anything in common except a liking for the colour blue, which seems a random afterthought for a dialogue and song sequence - I never saw them wear blue in the movie till then - and a confused attitude towards their marriage - the other partners seem to want the respective marriages to survive but these two seem to be exclusively worried about saving it from themselves for the sake of the other two who do not understand that the marriages are failing but these two are concerned they might be causing it. If you are confused by now, time for the intermission but oh! that came before the hotel room was rented and after a few deliciously inane dialogues were spouted.
Anyway, the point KJ is trying to put across is something beyond such trivial concerns so we wont stick to the merely chronological either. So let us hurry ahead and see the marriages fail and then some. There are scenes added purely for completeness' sake - the idea seems to have been to make as stupid and unpalatable a movie possible and the product approaches its objectives closely. Witness the scene where Priety walks by Rani without seeing her only for Rani to get back by passing her without seeing her and then Rani turns back and neither see each other and all this of course while crossing a road in downtown New York. The subtle exchanges between the 2 AB's and the misunderstandings would do Iago proud, as roses are scattered and what-not. Suffice it to say it is all as well-done as the poor director's goose that gets cooked all this long while but don't tell him that!
And the ending is of course sublime and bold - Priety slaps SRK, AB dirties his house, the older guy dies, Rani leaves for Philly, 3 years pass, things change, old hurts mend, sacrifices are made and accepted as a matter of course, more dialogues that seem to have nothing really to do with the movie(like "Zindagi mein Mohabbat aur Maut dono bin bulaye mehmaan hote hain" - "Both Love and Death are uninvited guests in life") and then the grand finale where SRK hugs a Sardar on a park bench and goes to prison for 15 days for coming out too soon off of an Amtrak train when the Laws of Physics and Common Sense seem to remonstrate. Then, just so those who prefer the healthy, bracing dosage of the Hindi tele-serial to the frivolously rational whatever-else do not feel it all ended too soon, there is some more uninteresting stuff but to deal with it here is well nigh impossible.
And so the movie ends and those of us who were fortunate enough to learn the massage trick and the naughty tips to keep our spouses happy; those lucky few who did not miss the 'Sexy Sam' in the background; those who really, really understood the deep insights into love and marriage and parenthood and life and quantum physics; indeed all those who saw the movie for what it is, are left with that magnificent feeling that such an experience comes but once in a lifetime; that if one were left with nothing else but just this one would learn what manly toil is; that if KJ did nothing else in his life after this, still one would be grateful to him. All that and the rest.
But of course we need to end with THE line - so Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna!
Karan Johar is a marvellous director and I am sure he makes no bones about it either. I even distinctly remember reading that he has a personal philosophy and original opinions on love and marriage. An intellectual no doubt and it shows in his work. I also seem to have heard that he has a penchant for the dramatic and an exceptional skill wielding the megaphone. An artist of the highest order and it shows in this, his work. In fact so many things are evident on the most perfunctory viewing of the movie that it makes me wonder why he decided to show his abilities over a much longer timeframe. A conundrum but nothing compared to what is on offer from Dev and Maya and Ria(or is it Rhea or Riya) and Rishi and the rest of 'em all.
The movie starts off originally enough with SRK landing a $5million contract in the MLS and Rani trying her best not to spout out the title-line in an intricate dialogue sequence filled with the most sentimental nothings culminating in the title song. Dev(SRK) and Maya(Rani) part ways as friends, one loses his leg and the other her shot at holy Mohabbat and of course fate has to intervene but that is only 4 years and a short flashforward later. By then, the characters are well-etched - Rani likes vacuuming, AB Sr. likes some form of light bondage, AB Jr. does not shave often, Priety powders herself pale, Kiron Kher is very conscious of her big butt and SRK is a terrible football coach. Add fate now gently, taking care not to spill too much of it on AB Sr's garish attire, and there is confusion leading to reconcilement leading to friendship between SRK and Rani. By the way I did mention their names, right? It is so easy to get confused as there is too much name-calling and too many people around all the time.
A wise man once said a man and a woman can never be friends and Sooraj Barjatya stole it for Maine Pyar Kiya. No wonder Rani and SRK decide to rent a hotel room. As for me, I have no idea they have anything in common except a liking for the colour blue, which seems a random afterthought for a dialogue and song sequence - I never saw them wear blue in the movie till then - and a confused attitude towards their marriage - the other partners seem to want the respective marriages to survive but these two seem to be exclusively worried about saving it from themselves for the sake of the other two who do not understand that the marriages are failing but these two are concerned they might be causing it. If you are confused by now, time for the intermission but oh! that came before the hotel room was rented and after a few deliciously inane dialogues were spouted.
Anyway, the point KJ is trying to put across is something beyond such trivial concerns so we wont stick to the merely chronological either. So let us hurry ahead and see the marriages fail and then some. There are scenes added purely for completeness' sake - the idea seems to have been to make as stupid and unpalatable a movie possible and the product approaches its objectives closely. Witness the scene where Priety walks by Rani without seeing her only for Rani to get back by passing her without seeing her and then Rani turns back and neither see each other and all this of course while crossing a road in downtown New York. The subtle exchanges between the 2 AB's and the misunderstandings would do Iago proud, as roses are scattered and what-not. Suffice it to say it is all as well-done as the poor director's goose that gets cooked all this long while but don't tell him that!
And the ending is of course sublime and bold - Priety slaps SRK, AB dirties his house, the older guy dies, Rani leaves for Philly, 3 years pass, things change, old hurts mend, sacrifices are made and accepted as a matter of course, more dialogues that seem to have nothing really to do with the movie(like "Zindagi mein Mohabbat aur Maut dono bin bulaye mehmaan hote hain" - "Both Love and Death are uninvited guests in life") and then the grand finale where SRK hugs a Sardar on a park bench and goes to prison for 15 days for coming out too soon off of an Amtrak train when the Laws of Physics and Common Sense seem to remonstrate. Then, just so those who prefer the healthy, bracing dosage of the Hindi tele-serial to the frivolously rational whatever-else do not feel it all ended too soon, there is some more uninteresting stuff but to deal with it here is well nigh impossible.
And so the movie ends and those of us who were fortunate enough to learn the massage trick and the naughty tips to keep our spouses happy; those lucky few who did not miss the 'Sexy Sam' in the background; those who really, really understood the deep insights into love and marriage and parenthood and life and quantum physics; indeed all those who saw the movie for what it is, are left with that magnificent feeling that such an experience comes but once in a lifetime; that if one were left with nothing else but just this one would learn what manly toil is; that if KJ did nothing else in his life after this, still one would be grateful to him. All that and the rest.
But of course we need to end with THE line - so Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Miserability Coefficient: A Mathematical Theory of Misery
After great thought and deep research I have decided to finally publish my insights into the as yet unexplored field of human misery from a mathematical standpoint. While there have been quite a few books and articles on misery[Sophocles-Hugo, Burton-Beckett etc], there has been a painfully inadequate mathematical development of the subject and this has been felt a pressing need[XYZ Grad Student's life and a million others]. This work will attempt, in the restricted space allowed it, to demonstrate, first that misery needs to be quantified, second that it can be measured and, third that this field is ripe for the publication of a few hundred graduate theses.
Human misery is a well-understood and well-observed phenomenon. Human history documents that the world was begun in misery[Big Bang]. As the world developed and man started finding his voice, it was the cry that came most naturally to him. Even literature began with the tragedy[Greece, Valmiki's shloka]. In fact, a famous poet went to the extent of saying good literature dealt with human misery exclusively[Shelley-Ode to a Skylark]. So the first question that bothers any self-respecting grad student scraping away at the edges of existence is, "How well is the Science of Misery understood? How mature is the mathematics in the area? And how easy is it to publish papers in this field?" Well that was three questions but we have already said the questioner is a grad student. Anyway, the answers to the questions are quite obvious to any unbiased onlooker. Misery has never been studied scientifically, the mathematics is as mature as a teenager with pimples falling for the first girl with a dimple and it is just as easy to publish papers in the field as it was for Einstein to walk away with the cake in Relativity.
Given these answers, it would seem insisting too much on too small a point when we say we still have to justify our claim that misery needs to be quantified; but we still intend to do it given it is our first big result. So, misery's importance has been established and now we find ourselves faced with the task of trying to distinguish between the various forms of misery[Burton - Anatomy of Melancholy]. Pain has its own units[Dols] and we know pain is but a very dilute form of misery and all pains are included within the big superset Misery. And anybody knows how irritating it is when, in the midst oif a deep depression, we find someone else who claims he is even more depressed. A measure will alleviate the need for all this and to measure misery, we need to quantify it. Thus follows the first thing to be proved -
MISERY NEEDS TO BE QUANTIFIED
Now, any rational person worth his salt knows that it is never enough to show the need for a thing but, more importantly, we need to show that the need can be fulfilled, not partially or in full measure, but atleast substantially[Nehru]. And given all the literature that math has afforded us over the course of its existence, we know that a measure is defined only on certain things and that we have to be careful what we measure or the cup may overflow[Lebesgue et al with apologies to the Bible]. So, can misery be measured? At first sight, it seems a very daunting task - trying to measure misery. Everybody always claims he is more miserable than anybody else whenever he is in the mood to say so. There even exist some who believe misery is the sole cause and bedrock of our existence, and as such pervades us all, making it an immeasurable quantity, which we partake of every now and then[Cioran, Schopenhauer et al]. But, a closer examination using the most subtle glass of Common Sense, that we have managed to grind successfully after 25 years of constant and unflagging perseverance, has shown that the view hitherto held is flawed as it overlooks quite a few distinctive features that make up the sum of misery. For example, consider the washerwoman[Gandhi - the movie of course] who has to bend down and strike the white cloth on the jagged slab of stone in a polluted river - that is a miserable job blow by blow. On the other hand, imagine a grad student sitting up past 3-4am and hard at work on his laptop, all alone, with no possibility of ever getting to see the sun that beats down on the sweating washerwoman ever, nor ever to be seen by a Gandhi as he squats nearby admiring her whatever, just imagine and you can see that the misery levels are vastly different. This is a rather good analogy, but to be mathematically rigorous, we still need to show that the measure exists on the field of real numbers and that it satisfies a host of conditions[Vague Math Literature]. This, I assure you, has been done, and will shortly be submitted to a prestigious journal. So we will skip the troublesome details and go on to define the measure of misery - the miserability coefficient - while we take for granted that the second part of the paper is established too -
MISERY CAN BE MEASURED
The miserability coefficient that we propose is a simple measure that maps human misery to the reals(chuckle at the pun). After all, most miserable people only imagine their miseries while misery is thrust upon others. The coefficient is defined thus -
The miserability coefficient, denoted by :(, is the sum derivative of all the distillable pain that can be obtained by imagining the worst possible outcome to the most enjoyable event, in the mind. The amount of pain itself is calculated as the logarithm of the squared pain added to a miserability constant that is given to all men at their birth and changes with time according to environment, character, experience etc. Its unit is pains and can take all possible values from the negative infinity to positive infinity, the more negative pains one has the happier one is, with -infinity corresponding to infinite bliss and +infinity corresponding to total despair[Milton's Devil].
The miserability coefficient can be easily measured for simple scenarios and we calculate some. The miserability coefficient of God(if he exists) is -infinity and that of the Devil(again if he exists) is +infinity[any amount of religious literature]. The :( of a grad student typically hovers from between -5(if the said person is hazaar over-enthu) to about +1786.23(this is the highest recorded but is no upper bound and increases with the number of years one spends on research). The Buddha had a :( of +50 pains after seeing four random guys but brought it down to -1234234525.232 after sitting under a Bodhi tree somewhere(the treatment of this subject is an open problem - how to optimally adjust the :( of people). Almost anybody's :( can be calculated quite easily given the past history and all details of their lives and this is left for future papers in the field by enterprising grad students. Further studies will be published shortly.
In conclusion, we note that we have justified our first and second claims and the third claim has been self-justified by the wealth of open problems still left in the field like - How to determine the miserability constant? How to find the happiness coefficient? What is the maximum/minimum achievable :( given a particular set of incidents in one's life? How can the :( be optimally changed to suit one's mood? etc etc. We intend to work on these problems and, for now, accept the thanks of a large community of people for having thrown open a whole exciting field of research and amusement.
Human misery is a well-understood and well-observed phenomenon. Human history documents that the world was begun in misery[Big Bang]. As the world developed and man started finding his voice, it was the cry that came most naturally to him. Even literature began with the tragedy[Greece, Valmiki's shloka]. In fact, a famous poet went to the extent of saying good literature dealt with human misery exclusively[Shelley-Ode to a Skylark]. So the first question that bothers any self-respecting grad student scraping away at the edges of existence is, "How well is the Science of Misery understood? How mature is the mathematics in the area? And how easy is it to publish papers in this field?" Well that was three questions but we have already said the questioner is a grad student. Anyway, the answers to the questions are quite obvious to any unbiased onlooker. Misery has never been studied scientifically, the mathematics is as mature as a teenager with pimples falling for the first girl with a dimple and it is just as easy to publish papers in the field as it was for Einstein to walk away with the cake in Relativity.
Given these answers, it would seem insisting too much on too small a point when we say we still have to justify our claim that misery needs to be quantified; but we still intend to do it given it is our first big result. So, misery's importance has been established and now we find ourselves faced with the task of trying to distinguish between the various forms of misery[Burton - Anatomy of Melancholy]. Pain has its own units[Dols] and we know pain is but a very dilute form of misery and all pains are included within the big superset Misery. And anybody knows how irritating it is when, in the midst oif a deep depression, we find someone else who claims he is even more depressed. A measure will alleviate the need for all this and to measure misery, we need to quantify it. Thus follows the first thing to be proved -
Now, any rational person worth his salt knows that it is never enough to show the need for a thing but, more importantly, we need to show that the need can be fulfilled, not partially or in full measure, but atleast substantially[Nehru]. And given all the literature that math has afforded us over the course of its existence, we know that a measure is defined only on certain things and that we have to be careful what we measure or the cup may overflow[Lebesgue et al with apologies to the Bible]. So, can misery be measured? At first sight, it seems a very daunting task - trying to measure misery. Everybody always claims he is more miserable than anybody else whenever he is in the mood to say so. There even exist some who believe misery is the sole cause and bedrock of our existence, and as such pervades us all, making it an immeasurable quantity, which we partake of every now and then[Cioran, Schopenhauer et al]. But, a closer examination using the most subtle glass of Common Sense, that we have managed to grind successfully after 25 years of constant and unflagging perseverance, has shown that the view hitherto held is flawed as it overlooks quite a few distinctive features that make up the sum of misery. For example, consider the washerwoman[Gandhi - the movie of course] who has to bend down and strike the white cloth on the jagged slab of stone in a polluted river - that is a miserable job blow by blow. On the other hand, imagine a grad student sitting up past 3-4am and hard at work on his laptop, all alone, with no possibility of ever getting to see the sun that beats down on the sweating washerwoman ever, nor ever to be seen by a Gandhi as he squats nearby admiring her whatever, just imagine and you can see that the misery levels are vastly different. This is a rather good analogy, but to be mathematically rigorous, we still need to show that the measure exists on the field of real numbers and that it satisfies a host of conditions[Vague Math Literature]. This, I assure you, has been done, and will shortly be submitted to a prestigious journal. So we will skip the troublesome details and go on to define the measure of misery - the miserability coefficient - while we take for granted that the second part of the paper is established too -
The miserability coefficient that we propose is a simple measure that maps human misery to the reals(chuckle at the pun). After all, most miserable people only imagine their miseries while misery is thrust upon others. The coefficient is defined thus -
The miserability coefficient, denoted by :(, is the sum derivative of all the distillable pain that can be obtained by imagining the worst possible outcome to the most enjoyable event, in the mind. The amount of pain itself is calculated as the logarithm of the squared pain added to a miserability constant that is given to all men at their birth and changes with time according to environment, character, experience etc. Its unit is pains and can take all possible values from the negative infinity to positive infinity, the more negative pains one has the happier one is, with -infinity corresponding to infinite bliss and +infinity corresponding to total despair[Milton's Devil].
The miserability coefficient can be easily measured for simple scenarios and we calculate some. The miserability coefficient of God(if he exists) is -infinity and that of the Devil(again if he exists) is +infinity[any amount of religious literature]. The :( of a grad student typically hovers from between -5(if the said person is hazaar over-enthu) to about +1786.23(this is the highest recorded but is no upper bound and increases with the number of years one spends on research). The Buddha had a :( of +50 pains after seeing four random guys but brought it down to -1234234525.232 after sitting under a Bodhi tree somewhere(the treatment of this subject is an open problem - how to optimally adjust the :( of people). Almost anybody's :( can be calculated quite easily given the past history and all details of their lives and this is left for future papers in the field by enterprising grad students. Further studies will be published shortly.
In conclusion, we note that we have justified our first and second claims and the third claim has been self-justified by the wealth of open problems still left in the field like - How to determine the miserability constant? How to find the happiness coefficient? What is the maximum/minimum achievable :( given a particular set of incidents in one's life? How can the :( be optimally changed to suit one's mood? etc etc. We intend to work on these problems and, for now, accept the thanks of a large community of people for having thrown open a whole exciting field of research and amusement.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
New York City
I did not know I liked large, fast, cosmopolitan American cities until I visited New York City last weekend. Went to meet up with a few hostelmates from my undergrad years and enjoyed almost every moment of the two days I spent in and around the city. The trip was planned in the thirteenth hour and, on the appointed day, I duly overslept, paining the cabman who had simply driven away by the time I came out 15 minutes late. A roommate thankfully took us(me and a friend, Krishnan) to the airport; but in Detroit I missed the connecting flight, ambling along peacefully and expecting Krishnan to hold the plane up for me. And, after spoiling the afternoon plans my friends had by landing a few hours late, I made sure there was more tearing of hairs as I got off the Metro on 33rd Street, Queens, instead of 33rd, Manhattan, where we were supposed to meet. Funny how there never can be enough logic and organization for some people who just don't get it. But it was quite some fun for me as I got to see the 'real' New York, moving around in buses and the subway, watching schoolchildren and grandmothers and people of all kinds of description and dress and nationality and what-not going their daily way, helping each other where they could. Nice to see the self-organizing behaviour that seemed somehow to create order in spite of all the chaos that promised to take over any moment. There was always some commotion, restlessness, lots of life and a fire truck to be seen every five minutes and much of this I had missed as an Indian living in a quiet, neat, backwoods town in the Midwest the last couple of years.
Anyways, the little time we had that evening, we spent in Times Square, lugging about our luggage, entering sundry shops and clicking away to glory on a camera borrowed from a friend, all typical 'Desi' activities. Dinner was at Dosa Hut, a nice place in Little India, New Jersey and off to Edison, NJ, for the night. The next day was spent in visits to Mme Tussaud's, the Rockefeller Center, Central Park and lunch at Saravana Bhavan. Also managed to squeeze in some time to lose some money in Atlantic City casinos, and eat dinner standing at a Domino's pizzadeliveria. One more day to go and that was used up in seeing Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, a botched visit to the Statue of Liberty(yes I went to NYC and didnt see the Lady with the Torch) and some random rambling. Met some friends of a friend for dinner and by the time we had walked a few blocks, it was time to get back as we all had flights to catch early Monday morning. The return back was peaceful except for the curious propeller-driven excuse of a plane that took us from Detroit to South Bend. It was a thing to behold from the ages, complete with an airhostess who refused to let people exchange seats because 'everything was computer-generated and it was critical that we sit in our appointed places'. Wish there were more like her.
It was nice to get away for a while and the loud and anonymous sights and sounds from a million people busily engaged in ignoring one another were very comforting. There was private space aplenty and enough solitude without loneliness and the possibility of drifting in and out of time every now and then. Mechanical life at its glorious freaking best, coupled with the expanse and calm reassurance of Central Park and the Hudson shoreline; bright brilliant signboards contrasting every third block with a quiet roomy museum or gallery or just a simple alley where few people walked. A city I would love to live in for a few months at least but not now - now back to work.
Anyways, the little time we had that evening, we spent in Times Square, lugging about our luggage, entering sundry shops and clicking away to glory on a camera borrowed from a friend, all typical 'Desi' activities. Dinner was at Dosa Hut, a nice place in Little India, New Jersey and off to Edison, NJ, for the night. The next day was spent in visits to Mme Tussaud's, the Rockefeller Center, Central Park and lunch at Saravana Bhavan. Also managed to squeeze in some time to lose some money in Atlantic City casinos, and eat dinner standing at a Domino's pizzadeliveria. One more day to go and that was used up in seeing Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, a botched visit to the Statue of Liberty(yes I went to NYC and didnt see the Lady with the Torch) and some random rambling. Met some friends of a friend for dinner and by the time we had walked a few blocks, it was time to get back as we all had flights to catch early Monday morning. The return back was peaceful except for the curious propeller-driven excuse of a plane that took us from Detroit to South Bend. It was a thing to behold from the ages, complete with an airhostess who refused to let people exchange seats because 'everything was computer-generated and it was critical that we sit in our appointed places'. Wish there were more like her.
It was nice to get away for a while and the loud and anonymous sights and sounds from a million people busily engaged in ignoring one another were very comforting. There was private space aplenty and enough solitude without loneliness and the possibility of drifting in and out of time every now and then. Mechanical life at its glorious freaking best, coupled with the expanse and calm reassurance of Central Park and the Hudson shoreline; bright brilliant signboards contrasting every third block with a quiet roomy museum or gallery or just a simple alley where few people walked. A city I would love to live in for a few months at least but not now - now back to work.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Rang de Basanti
Watched Rang de Basanti in Chicago this past weekend. A good movie to watch with decent performances from all involved. The story is typical of the Yuva Bharat Jagran theme that seems to be a solid formula for success the last few years and, apart from a few minor blemishes, plays its way neatly to the end. Tight tanktops, Aamir Khan, patriotic pilots, sacrificing mothers, apathetic and fun-loving youth, fiery and innocent patriot, college atmosphere, Delhi, Bhagat Singh and the revolutionary drama in the backlights, tight tanktops - pretty much all anyone could ask for to start a neo-Patriotic movie. I even shed my usual weekly quota of 30 teardrops all in one sitting and am not too sad about it. Just that it all had to come to an end.
It is a movie that raises questions and that is always one good thing about any movie. Only the questions that this movie raised shamed and frightened me. And the one question that has remained with me is: Why are such movies made? And the only answer I could come up with is something that Aristotle talked about all those long years ago: To provide a catharsis of feeling. In more understandable terms: So I can go about the next whole week without shedding any tears for the thousands who will die in India of the same irrational causes that they died of last week; so I can earn my comfortable living in a land a few thousand miles away and attempt to bridge the gap by attending Bhangra Dances every third Friday night instead of the usual disco; so I can wipe off the debt I owe certain individuals and institutions back home by calling India 'Home' and sending a few dollars every other month and purge myself of pity and kindness; so I don't feel bad about myself for doing all this and feel good that I sympathise with the patriotic and the good who throng theaters in Chicago and New York to watch the premiere.
Of course all this does not mean the folks back home are not without their share of patriotic feeling. They drive the production of these movies after all. And what do they do? They feel happy they did not go to America; they feel satisfied and smug knowing they are contributing to the growth of a resplendent India by the mere fact of their six-figure salaries; they feel their struggles and woes are what makes them Indian: their Indianness in the face of adversity and their perseverance inspite of their Indianness. Solid lumps of popcorn gets stuck in their throats and that is true feeling; the Cokes they drank in the interval leaks out of their eyes and that is true feeling; an indignation rises up at the people cracking obscene jokes near them and that is true feeling. What is not true feeling indeed?
Are we to believe that there is no patriotism except that engendered by rhetoric? Are we to believe that a few hours of big-screen entertainment will make better people of our youth? What history do I know? Who was Bhagat Singh? Or Azad? Or Bismil or Ashfaq? What did it mean to them: this idea called freedom, all this talk of revolution? What was India in their eyes? What have I done that I shake my head in appreciation and wonder at what the actors do?
In every sense of the word, RdB is a very necessary movie, no mistaking that; but the question is about how it is perceived, how ingested in the age we live in. When a country starts hating itself, it destroys itself; but when it starts loving itself too much, it forgets itself. RdB is an offering at the altar of a country that loves itself so much it does not know that the apathy of its children is the harbinger of skepticism or, worse, hatred; a country that believes every passion expended for her sake is an expression of love; a country that is yet to realize the fact that if last year was Bhagat Singh at Bollywood, next year will be the Rani of Jhansi. And India is happy with her youth, with people like me, who merely write and talk and spout nonsense. Right she is to be happy for she has forgotten herself but there still are the millions who need to be fed and clothed and brought to the theatre to watch RdB and others of its ilk.
Questions abound and one way of answering them is to turn the other way; another is to try and make the best out of every situation. So I will try and learn what it is Bhagat Singh attempted to do; learn what the characters in RdB mean to me and to that nebulous, glorious thing I call my country India. And then to act on what I have learnt and that before it is too late. There are people who have appreciated the movie better than I could and who took more out of watching it than I have and I hope I will learn what it means to empathise with people who find purpose in life greater than personal profit.
All in all a movie worth the watch.
It is a movie that raises questions and that is always one good thing about any movie. Only the questions that this movie raised shamed and frightened me. And the one question that has remained with me is: Why are such movies made? And the only answer I could come up with is something that Aristotle talked about all those long years ago: To provide a catharsis of feeling. In more understandable terms: So I can go about the next whole week without shedding any tears for the thousands who will die in India of the same irrational causes that they died of last week; so I can earn my comfortable living in a land a few thousand miles away and attempt to bridge the gap by attending Bhangra Dances every third Friday night instead of the usual disco; so I can wipe off the debt I owe certain individuals and institutions back home by calling India 'Home' and sending a few dollars every other month and purge myself of pity and kindness; so I don't feel bad about myself for doing all this and feel good that I sympathise with the patriotic and the good who throng theaters in Chicago and New York to watch the premiere.
Of course all this does not mean the folks back home are not without their share of patriotic feeling. They drive the production of these movies after all. And what do they do? They feel happy they did not go to America; they feel satisfied and smug knowing they are contributing to the growth of a resplendent India by the mere fact of their six-figure salaries; they feel their struggles and woes are what makes them Indian: their Indianness in the face of adversity and their perseverance inspite of their Indianness. Solid lumps of popcorn gets stuck in their throats and that is true feeling; the Cokes they drank in the interval leaks out of their eyes and that is true feeling; an indignation rises up at the people cracking obscene jokes near them and that is true feeling. What is not true feeling indeed?
Are we to believe that there is no patriotism except that engendered by rhetoric? Are we to believe that a few hours of big-screen entertainment will make better people of our youth? What history do I know? Who was Bhagat Singh? Or Azad? Or Bismil or Ashfaq? What did it mean to them: this idea called freedom, all this talk of revolution? What was India in their eyes? What have I done that I shake my head in appreciation and wonder at what the actors do?
In every sense of the word, RdB is a very necessary movie, no mistaking that; but the question is about how it is perceived, how ingested in the age we live in. When a country starts hating itself, it destroys itself; but when it starts loving itself too much, it forgets itself. RdB is an offering at the altar of a country that loves itself so much it does not know that the apathy of its children is the harbinger of skepticism or, worse, hatred; a country that believes every passion expended for her sake is an expression of love; a country that is yet to realize the fact that if last year was Bhagat Singh at Bollywood, next year will be the Rani of Jhansi. And India is happy with her youth, with people like me, who merely write and talk and spout nonsense. Right she is to be happy for she has forgotten herself but there still are the millions who need to be fed and clothed and brought to the theatre to watch RdB and others of its ilk.
Questions abound and one way of answering them is to turn the other way; another is to try and make the best out of every situation. So I will try and learn what it is Bhagat Singh attempted to do; learn what the characters in RdB mean to me and to that nebulous, glorious thing I call my country India. And then to act on what I have learnt and that before it is too late. There are people who have appreciated the movie better than I could and who took more out of watching it than I have and I hope I will learn what it means to empathise with people who find purpose in life greater than personal profit.
All in all a movie worth the watch.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
The Economics of Corruption
Just wondering about the effects of corruption. The aim of money in society, it seems to me, is the redistribution of wealth, originally in the form of natural resources, among its members according to certain criteria. In the past physical might seems to have been the primary factor deciding property. Then it was innovation and cunning. Now intelligence and popularity are high on the list. Whatever be the criteria(and they change with time, which is to say they are arbitrary), if somebody is good(or bad?) enough to bend the rules of society in their favour, which is what corruption is essentially, the end of redistribution is achieved though according to a more radical means. People who are not entitled to much, as per the standard rules of society, get more than their fair share. The main problem is not that there is not enough for others or even that it goes against our sense of fairplay and rightness, but, more fundamentally, this creates an instability. The rules of organized society are undermined and the money, though in circulation, which is good in the immediate sense for the economic structure, works against itself. The rules of society give value to the means of exchange of resources within society - money - and now the value of these rules is brought down by money itself. In an anarchy money will lose much of its value and it is towards this form of arbitrariness that corruption leads. By making money all-important, corruption leads us on to a society where money is not important. This alone should make corruption bad. But, in another sense, corruption might just make us re-evaluate our ideals and principles, creating a new meaning and value for money. It was a corruption of the chivalric code of conduct that led to the upsurge of the mercantile class in the medieval period and now, all but the most dreamy-eyed, decidedly laugh down as absurd the ideas of Ivanhoe and his band of knights. Now, we have the software engineer and the Wall Street broker. We might just see corruption change our way of evaluating success and well-deserved prosperity.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Baasha-bashing?
Another late night/early morning repeat movie. This time Baasha. Stylish and totally Rajnikanth-esque. One of my favourite scenes is the 'Unmaiya sonnen' - 'I told the truth' - dialogue, when the lecherous medical college owner takes back the indecent proposal he offers Rajni's sister, on coming to know that the auto-driver Manickam was the underworld don Baasha a few years before. The movie is littered with dialogues and snippets of populist messages. Not too bad an idea though, considering people whistled their happiness through more than a 100 days when the movie was released.
A few points. Of course the movie is silly and no point indicating isolated bloopers. But some tickle whatever makes you smile the wry one on lean days. The auto-driving population has to be humoured but parading a pregnant lady to convey a dubious message in the first song did not make much sense. Also noticed that old mothers in Tamil movie have to mouth the 'Nalla pasanga pa' dialogue, with an affectionate smile, at her breed of youngsters, atleast once a movie or we know the father made a wrong choice in his second bride. Near the climax, the Inspector calls for the control room to trace a call after the line gets cut (Purists will say the receiver is left dangling off the hook and so a trace is possible but whatever). The funny thing here is the attempt to be perfectly logical. And then of course the brother knows just whose records to look up after seeing Rajni pointing his index finger up against henchman Janakaraj's objections. The hand-kissing part in the Baasha scenes are awesome and what is with humble heroes bearing unjust blows with broad smiles? And the windshield-shattering-with-a-log idea to stop a car is surely borrowed from movies with more equestrian participation! One final note: Isn't 'Nee pesum Thamizh azhagu' - 'The tamil you speak is beautiful' - going way too overboard?
A few points. Of course the movie is silly and no point indicating isolated bloopers. But some tickle whatever makes you smile the wry one on lean days. The auto-driving population has to be humoured but parading a pregnant lady to convey a dubious message in the first song did not make much sense. Also noticed that old mothers in Tamil movie have to mouth the 'Nalla pasanga pa' dialogue, with an affectionate smile, at her breed of youngsters, atleast once a movie or we know the father made a wrong choice in his second bride. Near the climax, the Inspector calls for the control room to trace a call after the line gets cut (Purists will say the receiver is left dangling off the hook and so a trace is possible but whatever). The funny thing here is the attempt to be perfectly logical. And then of course the brother knows just whose records to look up after seeing Rajni pointing his index finger up against henchman Janakaraj's objections. The hand-kissing part in the Baasha scenes are awesome and what is with humble heroes bearing unjust blows with broad smiles? And the windshield-shattering-with-a-log idea to stop a car is surely borrowed from movies with more equestrian participation! One final note: Isn't 'Nee pesum Thamizh azhagu' - 'The tamil you speak is beautiful' - going way too overboard?
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Kannathil Muthamittal
Saw Kannathil Muthamittal again. It is, in my opinion, one of the best movies I have ever seen, possessing beauty in form and content. The music and the lyrics, the dialogues, the characters well-etched and portrayed, the direction and the editing, indeed just about everything is nice. A couple of thoughts are in order now that I have spent nearly 3 more hours on it, having seen the movie a few times already.
When Amudha runs away from school the first time, she is found in the Perambur Railway Station. Peculiar, Mani Ratnam's attachment to the railways and trains: quite a few of his movies include an important scene on a train or in a railway station. A few movies that come to mind immediately are: Agni Nakshathiram(the song), Dhalapathi(the child abandoned in a train), Nayakan(the girl asking Kamal about her mother), Dil Se(the song and the opening sequence), Alaipayuthe(lots of scenes), Thiruda Thiruda(the premise itself), AE(Meera Jasmine and Siddharth have scenes on trains), Kannathil Muthamittal(see above) etc. I do not think it is exhaustive and maybe I am taking a piece of coincidental observation too far but..
The central theme in the movie is expressed of course in the beautiful Vellai Pookal song(a song for peace to dawn in a world torn in pieces by conflict), with each of the other songs providing variations or minor themes. For example, Vidai Kodu catches the effects of social displacement; Kannathil Muthamittal, the love-hate relationship between the child and the parents; the short ditty when Madhavan and Simran open their hearts, the idealistic couple; the other two major songs are intros to Amudha's character and to Sri Lanka itself. All fine songs and beautiful sequences though the songs I have not named are not favourites of mine.
The script is also a mixed bag of many ideas. It raises issues about adoption, terrorism, war, idealism, adjustment etc. One thing that matters a lot these days is terrorism and that will be the subject of my next long post.
When Amudha runs away from school the first time, she is found in the Perambur Railway Station. Peculiar, Mani Ratnam's attachment to the railways and trains: quite a few of his movies include an important scene on a train or in a railway station. A few movies that come to mind immediately are: Agni Nakshathiram(the song), Dhalapathi(the child abandoned in a train), Nayakan(the girl asking Kamal about her mother), Dil Se(the song and the opening sequence), Alaipayuthe(lots of scenes), Thiruda Thiruda(the premise itself), AE(Meera Jasmine and Siddharth have scenes on trains), Kannathil Muthamittal(see above) etc. I do not think it is exhaustive and maybe I am taking a piece of coincidental observation too far but..
The central theme in the movie is expressed of course in the beautiful Vellai Pookal song(a song for peace to dawn in a world torn in pieces by conflict), with each of the other songs providing variations or minor themes. For example, Vidai Kodu catches the effects of social displacement; Kannathil Muthamittal, the love-hate relationship between the child and the parents; the short ditty when Madhavan and Simran open their hearts, the idealistic couple; the other two major songs are intros to Amudha's character and to Sri Lanka itself. All fine songs and beautiful sequences though the songs I have not named are not favourites of mine.
The script is also a mixed bag of many ideas. It raises issues about adoption, terrorism, war, idealism, adjustment etc. One thing that matters a lot these days is terrorism and that will be the subject of my next long post.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Journalism and the Free Society
In a free society, everybody is allowed everything. But, of course, we are not all good nor charitable. Hence the need for a watchdog that restricts social freedoms by taking some to itself. The three branches of government have been the traditional watchdogs, but increasingly, especially in this information age, the media is taking up the role too. So there is bound to be a problem, as there is with the police, as to what the ideal freedom-restriction ratio is: always a moot point how much freedom is allowed the watchdog. Only, in the case of journalists, the freedom they take away from people is the freedom to prosecute wrongdoers-by-law, offering them anonymity for information. Judgement comes into play and sometimes you use small fry to catch big fish. In this context, this judgement on the journalists who refused to divulge their sources in the matter of the leak of a CIA agent's identity is bound to raise some hackles. While the law has to be upheld, as indicated in the NYT Chairman's statement, there ought to be some kind of federal shield legislation to let the Fourth Estate function independently. It is all in the grey and Gopalan's interviews with Veerappan were exasperating agreed, but I feel we ought to sacrifice some rights to those who keep us informed(I am not talking of the papparazzi of course). And just when Deep Throat came into the open to remind people of the golden days of journalism(although that was by the way), Judith Miller's stand in court assures us its not just all papparazzi values in journalism now.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Holy Monopoly
Picutre a monopoly board with squares marked Jerusalem, Vaikuntham, Paathalam, Jahannu, Jannat, Earth, Limbo etc. And picture a game with an invisible opponent with invisible dice where you move to where you are asked to, when you are asked to. Picture too that Jail is the most probable position you might end up at in simple Monopoly, and here, you have nothing but Earth that you know anything of. If it doesn't frighten you, okay; but if it does, Welcome to the Holy Monopoly, Or: How I learned to stop worrying and listen to the Voice of Religion.
I have always been confused about religion. There are people who claim it releases our latent potentialities and others who say its just an opiate for the masses. I was even troubled when I decided I was an agnostic and discovered Yann Martel roaring against the "hypocrisy" of agnostics. Religion is a difficult and thorny issue and I don't even want to start on my views on it; suffice to say, I persist in my agnosticism without affiliations to any religion, borrowing sometimes from the mystics, sometimes from the scholastics, for my ideas; and lean heavily on the Hindu Vaishnavism of my parents' for form. And while I doubt that religion (any religion at all) can be useful(forget necessity), I think people who believe otherwise have the right to persist in their ways(folly or otherwise). But whether this includes even those who indulge in publishing fatwas and carrying them out, burning up kids inside cars because their fathers preach another creed, condemning people they dont like to death on the Cross, burning alive people they don't trust etc etc, I leave to each person's conscience and understanding. The more important thing to note is that religion has always controlled social responses even where secular law purports to hold sway. I was horrified after reading this news article on rediff.com yesterday. Not just that religion controls all life, denying the heart while claiming for it reasons that the head does not understand; worse, people are ready to suffer for it even when they get nothing in return. Perhaps conformism is 'useful' to live in society; perhaps there is another world. But what price will we pay for our beliefs in this world? Does it not matter at all? Then why all the hooplah about a better world and a better life on earth?
I have always been confused about religion. There are people who claim it releases our latent potentialities and others who say its just an opiate for the masses. I was even troubled when I decided I was an agnostic and discovered Yann Martel roaring against the "hypocrisy" of agnostics. Religion is a difficult and thorny issue and I don't even want to start on my views on it; suffice to say, I persist in my agnosticism without affiliations to any religion, borrowing sometimes from the mystics, sometimes from the scholastics, for my ideas; and lean heavily on the Hindu Vaishnavism of my parents' for form. And while I doubt that religion (any religion at all) can be useful(forget necessity), I think people who believe otherwise have the right to persist in their ways(folly or otherwise). But whether this includes even those who indulge in publishing fatwas and carrying them out, burning up kids inside cars because their fathers preach another creed, condemning people they dont like to death on the Cross, burning alive people they don't trust etc etc, I leave to each person's conscience and understanding. The more important thing to note is that religion has always controlled social responses even where secular law purports to hold sway. I was horrified after reading this news article on rediff.com yesterday. Not just that religion controls all life, denying the heart while claiming for it reasons that the head does not understand; worse, people are ready to suffer for it even when they get nothing in return. Perhaps conformism is 'useful' to live in society; perhaps there is another world. But what price will we pay for our beliefs in this world? Does it not matter at all? Then why all the hooplah about a better world and a better life on earth?
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Tags and Itches
A new day and a new tag, or more poetically, in German, "Neuer Tag, neues 'tag'". Again by arethusa. And this is a real tough one :-).
Three Names I go By
Shyam
Shyamu
Shyami ... this was easy
Three Screen Names
shyam_iitm
madatadam
shyam
Three Physical Things I Like about myself
My arms
My legs
My eyes(?) ... this was a really difficult question
Three Physical Things I dont like about myself
My tummy :-)
My nose - its an Indian map if u know what I mean
My ears - elephants have winnows for ears not men
Three Parts of my Heritage
Madras
Notre Dame
Kumbakonam (my mother says so)
Three Things that scare me
Nothing scares me really though some things frighten me at times.. Anyways 3 of these:
Life & Relationships (read People & Society :-))
A purposeless life
Not doing/getting what I am supposed/want to do/get & the possibility of there being no point anyways
Three things I want in a relationship
Fun - lots of it
Honesty & Understanding/Empathy - helps :-)
A middle ground - neither too close as to smother nor too far as to be indistinguishable from someone else
Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to me
A beautiful face
The Goldilocks figure (neither too tall nor too short, neither too fat nor too slim etc)
A nice smile
Three Things I want to do badly right now
Go Home and read a nice book (im at work now :-()
Get away to India/Europe for a long vacation
Put my head in a sack and hide myself (u know why)
Three Places I want to go on vacation
The Highlands and most of Britain
Italy - esp Rome, Florence and Venice
Paris
Three Things to do before I die
Resolve all the problems I have/face (would hate to die saying, "Houston we have a problem")
Read all that is written & understand all that is said (yeah right)
Experience all I can... and of course the usual help as many as I can
Three of my everyday essentials
My computer
Books
Tennis/Food/Sleep - really guys none of the 3 is an everyday essential though tennis would come close
Three Things I am wearing right now
Three huh... would hv been tough if I were at home :P
My watch
Old jeans
Torn slippers... i'll leave out the other items of clothing and my poonal :)
Three Reasons I am posting this
I am a masochist
I am a good liar
I love high adrenaline stuff & bungee-jumping :-)
Of course I have taken out the stuff Shy herself took out. Also I can't think of anybody to tag and continue this. But if anybody who reads this would like to, why dont u just drop me a line and i'll edit this post:)
Three Names I go By
Shyam
Shyamu
Shyami ... this was easy
Three Screen Names
shyam_iitm
madatadam
shyam
Three Physical Things I Like about myself
My arms
My legs
My eyes(?) ... this was a really difficult question
Three Physical Things I dont like about myself
My tummy :-)
My nose - its an Indian map if u know what I mean
My ears - elephants have winnows for ears not men
Three Parts of my Heritage
Madras
Notre Dame
Kumbakonam (my mother says so)
Three Things that scare me
Nothing scares me really though some things frighten me at times.. Anyways 3 of these:
Life & Relationships (read People & Society :-))
A purposeless life
Not doing/getting what I am supposed/want to do/get & the possibility of there being no point anyways
Three things I want in a relationship
Fun - lots of it
Honesty & Understanding/Empathy - helps :-)
A middle ground - neither too close as to smother nor too far as to be indistinguishable from someone else
Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to me
A beautiful face
The Goldilocks figure (neither too tall nor too short, neither too fat nor too slim etc)
A nice smile
Three Things I want to do badly right now
Go Home and read a nice book (im at work now :-()
Get away to India/Europe for a long vacation
Put my head in a sack and hide myself (u know why)
Three Places I want to go on vacation
The Highlands and most of Britain
Italy - esp Rome, Florence and Venice
Paris
Three Things to do before I die
Resolve all the problems I have/face (would hate to die saying, "Houston we have a problem")
Read all that is written & understand all that is said (yeah right)
Experience all I can... and of course the usual help as many as I can
Three of my everyday essentials
My computer
Books
Tennis/Food/Sleep - really guys none of the 3 is an everyday essential though tennis would come close
Three Things I am wearing right now
Three huh... would hv been tough if I were at home :P
My watch
Old jeans
Torn slippers... i'll leave out the other items of clothing and my poonal :)
Three Reasons I am posting this
I am a masochist
I am a good liar
I love high adrenaline stuff & bungee-jumping :-)
Of course I have taken out the stuff Shy herself took out. Also I can't think of anybody to tag and continue this. But if anybody who reads this would like to, why dont u just drop me a line and i'll edit this post:)
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Too Many Books ....
So what happened is arethusa, you know, tagged me, and here I am, all tagged and confused. I have to say something about books and all that you know. And I like books and, really, a lot of books too. And they also like me you know. And so, here you see, these are some things I want to say about
1. Books I own:
Books are Absolutely Indispensable. I could almost say I have lived more of my time with books than with people. And so I have a few books though the library and the net have always been the prime sources for my reading material. This is the list of books that I cherish most among the ones I own:
Ulysses & Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce, The Portable Nietzsche, Dialogues of Plato, Complete Poems of Donne, Complete Works of Shakespeare, The Rubaiyat, The Portable Milton, The Stranger by Camus, Moby Dick and The Bhagavad Gita.
2. Books I recently bought:
I keep buying books on and off. When the eBay bug bites me usually. In the last month or two, these are the books I bought: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson and The Tragedies of Shakespeare.
3. Books I am reading now:
Books for light reading I finish off quickly and in that section I am reading 'India Wins Freedom' by Maulana Azad and Jane Eyre. Some books I read slowly, and in this section I am reading 'A Kierkegaard Anthology', Buber's 'I and Thou', some Schopenhauer, assorted stuff on Indian History and some Aristotle. There are a few books, however, that I read and re-read often and again, sometimes in parts and sometimes in the whole. In this section are Joyce, Milton, Donne, Shakespeare, the Gita and Cioran.
4. My Favorites:
This should take a long time. I usually read as much for the author as for the book. So most favs will be authors rather than books.
Literature: Joyce - The Dubliners and The Portrait are by themselves guarantee to fame and the 2 most unreadably bold wonderful books ever are also his. Ulysses, my all-time fav. Shakespeare- enough has been said about him. Dostoevsky - Haunting. And Beautiful. Hardy, Dickens - Beautiful. And Haunting. Huxley, Orwell - Nice. Sometimes Daunting. Rushdie, Marquez - Magical. Realism. India. Latin America. Hot! Also for poetry, Donne, the Sufis, Dickinson, the Romantics, some Browning, TS Eliot and some snatches from the moderns. Others - Pride&Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, much of Scott and Wodehouse - fun and perennial favs for lighter reading.
Fantasy/Sci-Fi: Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time turns! Tolkien - He didnt write only LOTR! Douglas Adams - In Parts. Asimov - Theres too much I havent read but really good. AC Clarke - Of Course.
Philosophy: Plato - kickstarting Science and Philosophy as we know it, and open and sublime as we don't know how(with the eternal crowd-puller The Gadfly). Hume - No miracles here! Kant - Just cant read him. Schopenhauer - For the sheer weight of his studied Pessimism. Kierkegaard - Positive Religious Existentialism - I am searching too for "an idea that I could live and die for". Nietzsche- no one writes more lyrical philospohy - not even his mentor Plato. Cioran- Worthy successor to Nietzsche. I can just see the little blue light at the end of the tunnel too.(Plus he was insomniac when young :-)). Russell - Philiosophy for the layman. Math and Logic for the Scientist. And Literature for the Nobel Committee. Camus, Sartre - Lit/Phil - take ur pick. But they should be going out of fashion now, no?!. Every now and then, pick up Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius or the Gita for comfort.
I am sure I have missed a few but thats the way it is. And of course, I tag Cue, Sudheer and Varath to post on their fav books etc.
1. Books I own:
Books are Absolutely Indispensable. I could almost say I have lived more of my time with books than with people. And so I have a few books though the library and the net have always been the prime sources for my reading material. This is the list of books that I cherish most among the ones I own:
Ulysses & Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce, The Portable Nietzsche, Dialogues of Plato, Complete Poems of Donne, Complete Works of Shakespeare, The Rubaiyat, The Portable Milton, The Stranger by Camus, Moby Dick and The Bhagavad Gita.
2. Books I recently bought:
I keep buying books on and off. When the eBay bug bites me usually. In the last month or two, these are the books I bought: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson and The Tragedies of Shakespeare.
3. Books I am reading now:
Books for light reading I finish off quickly and in that section I am reading 'India Wins Freedom' by Maulana Azad and Jane Eyre. Some books I read slowly, and in this section I am reading 'A Kierkegaard Anthology', Buber's 'I and Thou', some Schopenhauer, assorted stuff on Indian History and some Aristotle. There are a few books, however, that I read and re-read often and again, sometimes in parts and sometimes in the whole. In this section are Joyce, Milton, Donne, Shakespeare, the Gita and Cioran.
4. My Favorites:
This should take a long time. I usually read as much for the author as for the book. So most favs will be authors rather than books.
Literature: Joyce - The Dubliners and The Portrait are by themselves guarantee to fame and the 2 most unreadably bold wonderful books ever are also his. Ulysses, my all-time fav. Shakespeare- enough has been said about him. Dostoevsky - Haunting. And Beautiful. Hardy, Dickens - Beautiful. And Haunting. Huxley, Orwell - Nice. Sometimes Daunting. Rushdie, Marquez - Magical. Realism. India. Latin America. Hot! Also for poetry, Donne, the Sufis, Dickinson, the Romantics, some Browning, TS Eliot and some snatches from the moderns. Others - Pride&Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, much of Scott and Wodehouse - fun and perennial favs for lighter reading.
Fantasy/Sci-Fi: Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time turns! Tolkien - He didnt write only LOTR! Douglas Adams - In Parts. Asimov - Theres too much I havent read but really good. AC Clarke - Of Course.
Philosophy: Plato - kickstarting Science and Philosophy as we know it, and open and sublime as we don't know how(with the eternal crowd-puller The Gadfly). Hume - No miracles here! Kant - Just cant read him. Schopenhauer - For the sheer weight of his studied Pessimism. Kierkegaard - Positive Religious Existentialism - I am searching too for "an idea that I could live and die for". Nietzsche- no one writes more lyrical philospohy - not even his mentor Plato. Cioran- Worthy successor to Nietzsche. I can just see the little blue light at the end of the tunnel too.(Plus he was insomniac when young :-)). Russell - Philiosophy for the layman. Math and Logic for the Scientist. And Literature for the Nobel Committee. Camus, Sartre - Lit/Phil - take ur pick. But they should be going out of fashion now, no?!. Every now and then, pick up Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius or the Gita for comfort.
I am sure I have missed a few but thats the way it is. And of course, I tag Cue, Sudheer and Varath to post on their fav books etc.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Madras Pettai Wiki
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