Tale of two belts

Folks, this one occurred right within an hour ago to me today.

And I am laughing hard even as I am typing.

Everything began with me seeking a belt for my favourite pair of jeans. Anyone who's been on a belt-hunt in Patna will agree with me that it's no mean task. From the footpath peddlers to the Lee/Levi’s shop assistant – each failed to sell me a belt that was buyable. Too broad, too bright, too tawdry, too expensive…this ‘too’ refused to stay away.

Except today, when while walking down the aisle of a nice mall, I came across just the right thing!

“Can you show me one just like this, but for adults?”

The shopkeeper kept looking at me stupidly.

“Huh?”

“One, just like this one”, (here I took the thingummy in hand), “but for adults, not children.”

Mom came behind my back, ever alert to prevent me buying something that I didn’t really need, as I am wont to do.

“What is all this, what do you need a belt for?”

“Mom, for my denims, what else do people need belts for!”

Before she could say anything the shop assistant chimed animatedly.

“But Madam, this belt is for dogs.”

Ek Ruka Hua Faisla.

Director - Basu Chatterjee
Actors - K.K. Raina, Annu Kapoor, Pankaj Kapoor, S.M. Zaheer, Hemant Mishra, and others
Nature - Telefilm
Year - 1986
Channel - Doordarshan


One man against eleven, in a closed room. One man, arguing peacefully, in the face of heated oppostion, for what he believes is right - viz. any human life is expensive and should not be jeopardized without ample thought.

His weapon - logic.

His asset - doubt. A doubt which he recognizes, tries to clarify rationally and unbiasedly.

His enemies - eleven men, some of whom are sarcastic, some angry, some indifferent and all of them impatient.

The end - His victory.

This is a hindi re-make of 12 Angry Men, a 1957 Hollywood movie which is in turn based on a play of the same title penned by Reginald Rose.

My review will take three words only - An Objectivist's delight.

Check out the movie on You Tube.

The lone-ranger protagonist played by K.K. Raina is an architect by profession!

Where did the new age Hindi writer go?

I went to visit the Patna Book Fair today (11/12/2007). And trust me, I was impressed. A voice blaring on the loud speaker told me that it was the second-largest book fair in the nation – second only to Kolkata’s book fair – and I was inclined to believe it. Some of the best publication houses had their stalls and had chosen to come up with some rare collections and publications at concession rates, much to the bibliophile’s delight.

Stall after stall I walked slowly, almost awed by the collection. I had not read many Hindi books after Hindi stopped to be a part of my academic curriculum nearly ten years ago. A beautiful feeling of nostalgia washed over me as I recalled the half-forgotten names like Yashpal, Sumitranandan Pant, Krishan Chandar, Mohan Rakesh, Jayshankar Prasad, Mahadevi Verma, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan – whose short stories, essays and poems had been part of my syllabus. More names popped up before my eyes that I remembered hearing in my grandpa’s literary discussions with his friends. Fanishwarnath Renu, Jainendra, Aashapurna Devi, Ramvriksha Benipuri, Harimohan Jha. Then some familiar names, with unfamiliar books. Munshi Premchand, Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar', Maithilisharan Gupt, Surykant Tripathi ‘Nirala’. (Arey ye bhi unki kitaab hai? You get the feeling?)

As I heard my grandpa exchange pleasantries with the stall-keeper, I rued.

Hitherto, I have considered my library a nice big fat one, having everything from Mahabharata to Julius Caesar and from Mirza Ghalib to Gulzar.

I rued that I had ever thought my library to be complete.

Hitherto, I have thought that I have done justice to Hindi – my grandpa did not let me read English until I was twelve years of age, and had mastered my mother tongue. And it is not for nothing that my post graduate classmates call me ‘naniji’ till date.

I rued that I had thought I had done justice to Hindi.

For my library missed the books and short stories and poetry written by the gems I named above! Where I should have possessed the complete works of most of these men and women of glory, I had only Dinkar’s Rashmirathi! How did I even dare to think that my library was complete? True, my grandpa has most of those books in his own library, but I hadn't explored even 1o% of his collection, thinking there was all the time in the world and that I should try to buy something that he did not have.

What had I been reading in the name of Hindi all my life? Translated works from English and vernacular Indian languages! Fie on thee, Miss Singh!

And then another shocking truth hit me.

All the names on display were old names. All the names were parts of fond memories.

I began to wonder why the 21st century had failed, until now, to yield its pound of young flesh to Hindi Literature – and since the thought had come on the heels of my own inadequacies, I got my answer fast enough!

Who reads Hindi these days? I asked this of myself.

The Premchands, the Dinkars, the Yashpals, the Mahadevi Vermas are asking the Vikram Seths, the Anita Desais, the Arundhati Roys –

Who writes in Hindi these days?

Sushree Deepika ji ko samarpit

Okay, I have almost been hounded into this, for my friend Piyush has demanded several times that I dedicate a blog, on his behalf, to the love of his life – Ms. Deepika Padukone. The silly brat ought to have chosen a male to do this job for him, but it seems that most males are smitten themselves and though they may write ‘n’ number of blogs to the diva, they won’t do it on his behalf.

So Piyush, buddy, here she comes, just for you, in this humble little blog page of mine.

Mr. Om Prakash Makhija swoons and faints twice in the first half of OSO, and no man should blame him for doing so. If a male is treated to a sight as lovely as the dimpled, zillion-watt, pearly-white revealing smile of the Dreamy Girl – Shanti Priya – then he must be stone personified if he does not faint.

There is definite beauty here. Mere make-up and artificiality cannot account for the eyes that seem to move all around her face, the smile that deepens those dimples, the artistic, long-fingered hands that make her wave to her fans a regal gesture and that elegant height of hers that makes one look up to her, figuratively and literally as well for some. J.
One wonders how many artistes this young dame will inspire. We sure want more odes like ‘Kisi zubaan me wo lafz hi nahi ki jinme tum ho kya tumhe bata saku’ and ‘Chaand teri roshni ka halka sa ik saaya hai.’ We want M.F. Hussain to have a muse better than Amrita Rao. We want India’s doddering sculptors to come to life.

Show-stopper, heart-stealer, eye-candy, India’s new Venus – more such nouns shall be provided by the male readers!

10 reel life dialogues in real life

1. 
   Mushy to Gen. Kiyani when the latter thanked him – “Dosti ka ek usul hai – no sorry no thank you”
2. 
   Dawood to Indian Police – “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nai namumkin hai.”
3. 
   Manoj Kumar to Farah Khan – “Mind it!”
4. 
   Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur to BJP- JDS Chiefs regarding their bid to lord over the Bengaluru CM house – “Kitne aadmi the?”
5. 
   Public to Kapil praaji when he shed tears on camera – “I hate tears.”
6. 
   Speakers to arrant mike and chair throwing-MLAs in UP and Bihar Legislative Assemblies – “Khamosh!”
7. 
   Rahul Dravid after giving up his captaincy and losing his form – “Main kaun hoon? Main kahan hoon?”
8. 
   South Mega star Chiranjeevi to his daughter – “Tumhari shaadi us se nai ho sakti jis se tum prem karti ho.” Okay the second half of the dialogue is not necessary, but I love Utpal Dutt, Hrishikesh Mukherji and Golmaal way way too much to miss it here. So here it is – “Tumhari shaadi us se nai ho sakti jis se tum prem karti ho. Tumhari shaadi us se hogi jis se main prem karta hoon.”
9. 
   Casting couch victims to Shakti Kapoor et al – “Mujhe Bhagwan ke liye chhod do.”
10. 
    Late Madhumita Shukla to UP MLA Amarmani Tripathi – “Main tumhare bachhe ki maa ban ne wali hoon.”

The reader shall appreciate the fact that this is no ridiculing of the very serious cases and of the victims of points 9 and 10. There are no puns there, intended or unintended and a serious discussion about the same if wanted shall be provided. Thank You.

When M feeling Blue, all I gotta do’s take a look at you – and then?

No, I can’t carry on with the expected lyrics further. I cannot say, ‘Then I’m not so blue.’ Because as you watch Saawariya, the blue becomes more indigo with the progress of the motion picture.

I wish to enlist the adjectives that came to mind as I watched this SLB production on cable despite warnings that it was a potty piece of work.

Blue. Languorous. Dreamy. Whimsical. Dark. Surreal. Lingering. Meandering. Picturesque. Sleepy. Haunting. Heart-tugging.

And last of all – a victim of unfair criticism and poor timing or SRK’s newfound bitchiness. (Sorry you SRK fans, but that was the only word that came to mind. It seems there had been some informal pact between SLB and SRK that OSO shall not be allowed to clash with Saawariya. Arz kiya hai… ‘Wo jo hum me tum me qarar tha tumhe yaad ho ki na yaad ho!’).

The mistake SLB made was to promote and release this venture as commercial cinema. This is art -and as such, meant not for the masses but for a mere handful who end up getting at the same wavelength as the director.

Coming back to the movie.

A movie that reminded me of those slow art cinematic productions like ‘Lekin…’, ‘Maya Memsaab' and 'Suraj ka Saatwa Ghoda.’ A movie that makes a celebration of Raj Kapoor hits and Mughal-e-azam. A movie that showcases that gem called Zohra Sehgel in an ‘Anari’s’ Lalita Pawar avatar for too short a time. A movie with a near naked sculptured Ranbir Kapoor (winks, whistles).

A movie that an average Indian youth will never like because it will be called crazy, senseless and a venture secretly funded by analgesic-selling pharma companies.

My one message to them – have a heart! In this commerce-crazy industry an attempt to create art should not be asphyxiated so. In this commerce-crazy world a raw emotion-fuelled story should not be pooh-poohed so.

Useless message, I know! No one shall listen to it…but it gave me some satisfaction to write it. See this movie if you have heard and liked the matla of that one ghazal of Ghalib’s – ‘Ishq mujhko nahin, vehshat hi sahi.’

By the way, the music is no less grand than Om Shanti Om’s. In fact it is purer and more melodious and thankfully, a total no-no for the remix industry. And Sonam is no less eye candysome than Deepika. I am afraid few guys would have noticed that since only her face had been put on show. Men will turn me cynical one of these days!

Even Jewelry design may need science!

A DNA double strand

A Covalent Bond

A Myxobacteria species




A t-RNA strand

A Carbon tetramer

A bacteria-infecting virus

A double strand DNA

A cosmic wave representation

Adenovirus

An Alpha strand protein

A Copper-Oxygen Bond

If you thought Science was pure cut and dried logic, you've got another think coming my friend! The world may well be all set to explore the art of science - the beauty of science. And if it's not then it should!

If you think back, the relationship is not as odd as it sounds. After all, it took an oyster to give man his first pearls, and it took technology to give him his second pearls and diamonds, so to say.

But the point I am making here deals with a different contribution of science - the artistic spurt that it may give to imaginative jewelry designers. Now that man has explored deeper with Microscopy, X-ray crystallography and NMR technology and taken a closer look at the symmetry of a double strand of DNA or the amazing angularity of bonded organic compounds, his aesthetic senses must be getting tickled.

See for yourself the natural diamond-head of the bacteriophage or the intricate pattern of the myxobacteria species. Look at the unique shape of the t-RNA strand. Take one keen glance at the representation of cosmic waves.

I can almost imagine a mannequin wearing a t-RNA pendant suspended from a double-strand DNA chain round her throat, with a bacteriophage teeka on the forehead, covalently bonded carbon atoms in her ears, an adenovirus topped bracelet, a cosmic-wave ring, an alpha-protein helix styled waistlet, armlet or anklet!

Physics chips in, so does Chemistry. Biology was already there and now makes it's presence felt with advances in Molecular Biology and Microbiology.

Will Science give a new dimension to Art, soon? Any professional jewelrs listening? 'Cause what I showed here was merely the tip of an iceberg! Just remember how many millions of species we have on earth and how many billions are still awaiting explorators and taxonomists!

To Gao Om Shanti Om....all the way :)

SRK.....6 pack abs...grand, grand music...mast mast comedy...an eye-candysome Deepika - the movie packs everything. Isme romance bhi hai aur drama bhi, maar-dhaad bhi hai aur rona-dhona bhi - aur...aur dil thaam ke suniye janaab, isme to MAA bhi hai! Wo bhi apne dil ke saath!

On a relatively solemn note, 'F. Khan' (SRK's childhood friend?) must take a bow. The movie was Entertainment with a capital 'E' and to a 'T'. I did not realize how the three hours simply flew by - the reels flew smoother than cream.

Now I confess I am no mind-reader and I do not know whether Ms. Khan had only commerce in mind when she initiated this venture. To me it seems she had a hidden agenda - that of creating a gentle, very subtle satire on the Indian film industry and its inmates, at the same time tickling them and at the same time saluting them!

That makes it difficult for me to categorize this movie in any one genre. Is it purely light-hearted, meant to be taken with a pinch of salt all the way? Or is it pure satire? Or is it a genuine tribute to this same industry?
I think it is a very judicious and intelligent mixture of all three, complete with hidden scandals that could be true, the reel-life vs real life heroes that must be true, aatma-punarjanam formulae that did sell vs the inane story plus item number formula that is also selling. Something that only a very 'hatke' director can manage!

Did anyone else notice that the climax scene was almost a straight lift-off from the 1950s 'Madhumati'? And I came to hear that some shots had Manoj Kumar crying agonized 'Mind Its'. Not that I am complaining....'Theinx', Farah for the 'Happies Endings' :)

10 most despairing words ever penned

1. 
   “Jeeney ki wajeh to koi nahi…marne ka bahaana dhoondta hai” – Gulzar; ‘Ek Akela is Sheher me’; Gharonda
2. 
   “Marte hain aarzoo me marne ki…maut aati hai par nahi aati” – Mirza Ghalib
3. 
   “Meri khanabadoshi se poochhe koi…kitna mushkil hai rastey ko ghar bolna” - Tahir Farhaz; 'Jab Kabhi Bolna'; Waqt Par Bolna (Hariharan's Album)
4. 
   “Kati aisi kai raatein…naa tum aaye na maut aayi” – Raja Mehdi Ali Khan; ‘Naina barse rimjhim rimjhim’; Woh Kaun Thi
5. 
   “Kyu saans loon...kyu main jiyu...jeena bura sa lagey”; ‘Tere Bin’; Bas Ek Pal
6. 
   “Saarey taarey door ke taarey…sabke chhote haath”; ‘Mere Tere Naam Naye Hain’; Is Raat Ki Subeh Nahi
7. 
   “Karamwa bairee ho gaye hamaar…chithiya ho to har koi baanche, bhaag na baanche koi” - Shailendra; ‘Sajanwa bairee’; Teesri Kasam
8. 
   “Magar dil wo kambakht hai ki tab bhi ummeed karta hai...shayad kabhi...shayad kahi” – Javed Akhtar; ‘Sagar se bhi gehri hain tanhaaiyaan’; Tum Yaad Aaye (Album)
9. 
   “Kitne ghayal hain…kitne bismil hain…is Khudaai me ek tu kya hai?” - Anand Bakshi; ‘Aye Dil-e-nadaa’; Razia Sultan
10. 
    “Oonchi teri ataari, maine pankh liye katwaye” – Gulzar; ‘Dil Hoom Hoom Kare’; Rudaali

p.s. - If anyone can provide the names of the lyricists of 'Bas Ek Pal' and 'Is raat ki subeh nahi' lines, I shall be infinitely grateful. :)

10 interesting transfers

1. Power of governance – from the common Pakistani into the hands of Mushy darling – waise I truly wonder how much this power actually was in the hands of a common Pakistani before the General took over.
2. 
   Barbarism – from the uncivilized Neanderthals to the alleged Hindutva-protectors of Gujarat (that is, if Tehelka and Aaj Tak are to be believed)
3. 
   Position of world’s no.1 moneybags – from Gates to Ambani
4. 
   Speed – from a cheetah to the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex…holy cow, is it rocketing!
5. 
   Kareena’s affections – from Shahid to Saif (Ahem, any similarity between me and a yellow journalist is purely co-incidental)
6. 
   Chance to battle against Pakis in the first two ODIs – from Dravid to Sehwag
7. 
   Pony tail – from Cheeni Kam’s Big B to SRK
8. 
   Exaggeratedly emoted ups and downs in tenor of voice – from Hindi movie artistes of yore to the present day newsreaders (If you watch one episode of ‘Vaardaat’ or ‘Crime Reporter’ or some similarly titled real-life crime dramatization shows aired late night on Aaj Tak or Zee News, you will agree with me completely.)
9. 
   Large chunks of most Hindi movies – from Hollywood flicks
10. 
    North Indian lizard – from north of the Vindhyas to the south of it, by accidentally traveling without ticket in a south-bound train with a traveler’s luggage. (This is something we came across in our Biogeography classes…someone call Laluji…though all he’s likely to say is, “We shall take out a ‘chetawani’ rally against the then rail minister.” Laluji you rock, truly.)
    

10 things that were sorely missing

1. 
   The word ‘white’ from the monkey chants directed to Symonds – ‘White Monkey’ chants would have leant more substance to accusations of racism.
2. 
   AB, baby and bahu from the Om Shanti Om title track.
3. 
   SRK’s normal amiability – first stating he’d be the last to quit smoking after watching a movie with this message; then taking a lit cigarette to a press conference. What man, Shahrukh… John se jalan? Sirif cigarette hi nahi jal rahi, shayad. (Eeks, I am very ashamed of my newfound talent as the stereotypical sneering yellow journalist)
4. 
   Dhoni’s flowing locks.
5. 
   Devotees – from temples other than those dedicated to Devi Ma during the navratras – a Hanuman temple looked so sorry and empty and bedraggled compared to the nearby puja pandals!
6. 
   Style – seems to be an alien word for Sonam Kapoor. Girl, go take a leaf out of daddy’s book.
7. 
   Priyanka Chopra’s memory cells – if gossip rags are to be believed.
8. 
   Manmohan Singh’s iron hand – all we get to see is the velvet glove. (We know Sonia and MMS are hand-in-glove.)
9. 
   Vultures – they are fast disappearing from the Indian skies and Indian cadavers are probably sighing in relief? Naturalists, hurry ere you worry.
10. 
    Style – from my hair. These days its looking like Harry Potter’s broom that got electrocuted. :(

Banishing Singledom

Never under estimate the match-making capacity of the average Indian bua or masi. At any rate, if you do happen to overlook their talent in this direction do so at your own peril.

I hitherto plead guilty of such an oversight.

At ** (my age, what else), which is old enough for girls in our community to stay unmarried, I was sitting pretty. No parading myself in saris, no listing of my various qualities (er, ahem) as a homemaker to the aunts of prospective grooms and no time wasted in listening to the hemming and hawing of their nervous, perspiring nephews. I considered myself lucky for the JRF thingummy which gave me the official label of ‘student’ and saved me from the above-mentioned perils. I even went so far as to boast to my less fortunate pals of having broad-minded parents.

Not so anymore. The ultimatum’s out. The alarm bell’s ringing. The signal’s flashing an urgent red. Black cats have suddenly turned over-zealous and are busy chasing each other across my path, the figure 13 is popping up in the unlikeliest of places, the sneezing rate around me has considerably escalated (so much that I am planning to write to the health minister) and even my mirror chose to crack itself while I was combing my hair. The doom’s upon me, like the Lady of Shalot.

The unreasonability of Alice’s wonderland has descended here what with every elderly female behaving like the Red Queen and every male of advancing years mooching about like the mad hatter.

Lofty reasons like ‘doing my bit against population outburst’, ‘wedded to my career’ and ‘go take a look at what happened to Rani-Abhishek-SRK-Priety in Kabhi Alvida…’ are falling flat on selectively deaf ears. Poor ol’ me is fiercely thinking up petty ones now (‘His nose is flat’ and ‘He looks like Asrani/Johnny Lever’ variety). And I need help! Save My Soul (SOS was far too socialistic, we are the SMS generation after all) from these Bachelorhood Bulldozers. :-(

Ecology - Juxtaposition of Science and Spirituality?

This thought floated into the cerebrum during this evening, while discussing Nature Worship with grandpa. Baba says nature worship was a boon in disguise - people worshipped Ganga Maiyya and desisted from polluting her. There was fear for the sun, moon, wind, sea and river gods and godesses but there was a respect and a regard too - which has not died down even today.

From nature worship our conversation escalated to 'Aham Bramhasmi'. Baba interprets it as 'I am Him-He is me-He is in everything-I am in everything'. In other words, I am linked to water, sun air, earth, to a bird, to a butterfly, to a snake, to a tree just as my limbs are linked to my torso.

Now some Ecology facts. This is what the Wikipedia has to say about it -

"Ecology(also known as Oekologie, Okology, or Oekology, from Greek: οίκος, oikos, "household"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of living organisms and how the distribution and abundance are affected by interactions between the organisms and their environment. The environment of an organism includes both physical properties, which can be described as the sum of local abiotic factors such as insolation (sunlight), climate, and geology, and biotic factors, which are other organisms that share its habitat."

Seems the Upanishads are the most ancient treatise on Ecology, eh what? Seems nice I am doing my doctorate in Spiritual Science :)

I believe the greatest pity is not that there are too many people being religious or too many people busy in destroying earth through new scientific discoveries. Pity is - we are neither completely religious nor completely scientific. Had we been either, there would have been no Science vs Religion strife.

10 things I felt sorry for

1. 
   Audience of Ram Gopal Verma’s latest bilges…er, flicks
2. 
   Tom, of Tom and Jerry fame
3. 
   Jimmy Shergill – need I specify why?
4. 
   NDA – No Dame Allowed to win in our sms-polled TV musical competitions (point to be noted - those competitions that included adult competititors only :D)
5. 
   The crime cases and criminals that the media tries in studios, before the same get to courts of law – thank goodness we don’t have juries anymore
6. 
   Dravid, Ganguly, Tendulkar – ‘Colonel’ Vengsarkar made them look like the proverbial dormice with his warning of ‘Perform or Perish’ to them
7. 
   Wonder if you have heard this one – no flood reports are sent from Bihar to the Central Government in the month of October, because the British made this rule deeming it impossible for floods to occur in October, and we are sticking to this rule even after 60 years of Independence…talk of loyalty…this one takes the cake
8. 
   (Yel)low journalism – here I am divided equally between pity and rage
9. 
   My teeth, after I have finished a diet of candy floss, chocolates and coke…on second thoughts it’s my teeth and my on-the-rise weight after I have finished a diet of…..
10. 
    Delhites sharing the same street with the Blue Line Buses

10 things that impressed me

1. The Australians attacked, in the press conference and on the cricket ground - I hate them, nonetheless for routing Dhoni's men
2. 
   A lower court in Patna sentenced 7 killers of an IAS officer - of the 36 accuseds, 29 commoners were acquited, while 6 high-profile politicians were found guilty
3. 
   Shahrukh got 6-pack abs at 40-plus - never mind that he was paid to do so
4. 
   Science – it is the gold standard by which to judge a phenomenon, an action, a religion or a philosophy
5. 
   An express train running between Patna and Darbhanga lowered itself to the status of a slow passenger train in the flood-ravaged stretch between Samastipur and Darbhanga, for the benefit of the flood victims forced into living on the trackside - men, women and children got onto the train top with their burden of feed for their cattle and got down wherever they wanted. The passengers sitting inside the train gave up their natural propensity to fuss and understood and sympathized, notwithstanding their own discomfort and delay
6. 
   Konkona Sen Sharma played the role of a young mother in 'Mr. & Mrs. Iyer' and that of a young small town girl in 'Laga Chunari...' - in one she looked 5 years elder to her age, in the other, 5 years younger
7. 
   We are world champs in Chess, under-14 Rugby, Billiards and T20 cricket, Asian champs in Hockey and Nehru Cup winners in Football
8. 
   Salman refused to have his wax statue put up in Madame Tussaud’s – impressive ego indeed
9. 
   Bacteria – One bacterial population can teach as much to a Life sciences student as to a wannabe Sociologist (more on this later)
10. 
    My 5-year-old cousin – he knows if he ‘downloads’ ‘chess’ from the ‘internet’ he may chance to cause a ‘virus’ to enter his ‘laptop’.
    

10 things I laughed about

1. 
   As we were flooded in by rainwater, the dirty water polluted our ground floor water tank – for 1 day we had no water to drink but had internet and telephone
2. 
   Mumbai bhais danced to the tune of the police siren in the song ‘Aey Ganpat’ from the movie ‘Shootout in Lokhandwala’
3. 
   The Pakistani captain apologized to all Muslims over the world for losing the T20 cricket world cup finals
4. 
   ‘Eklavya’ was sent to the Oscars from India – this was as good a one as Saif getting the National Award for Best Male Actor in ‘Hum Tum’ or ‘Jeans’ being sent to the Oscars in 1995(?)
5. 
   A Star News Channel newsreader, while wondering about the identity of M. S. Dhoni’s unknown friend, mused thus while on air – “Kaun hain ye ladki? Kya ye unki behen hain, maaf kijiyega, unki dost hain?”
6. 
   It was announced most solemnly by a TV news reporter on 1st October, 2007 that the police suspect black magic to be behind a murder
7. 
   Star News (again?!) aired an item on the men is Sushmita Sen’s life on 1st October, 2007; excerpts of a conversation (not the exact words, mind you) between Sen’s father and the presiding magistrate way back when the lady adopted Renee –
   Judge – How can a good man now approach your daughter?
   Mr. Sen – I am assured now that only a good man shall approach her.
   
   Going by this, and the Star News report that Sush has had 7 boy friends, humanity has 7 good reasons to be proud
8. 
   ‘Rang De Basanti’ was aired on 2nd October, 2007 on Star Gold
9. 
   Bheja Fry – watched it finally. (Others are welcome to laugh about my out-datedness… :-D)
10. 
    Heart is one organ that does not suffer from tumour – Devdas would join me in laughing at this one

Karan Arjun to Past Life Therapy

From old wives' tales to a Pyscho-therapy format. From masala for entertainment to tonic for the soul. From shlokas of Veds and Puranas to a Psycho-analyst's prescriptions. From pavement astrologers, tantriks and hypnotizers to AC chambers of licenced practitioners.

Punarjanam has had a punarjanam. A re-incarnation of re-incarnation!

Many are thinking twice before pooh-poohing the notion. Amongst many circles it is no longer being looked down upon as losers' talk and lazybones' alibis.

I have personally been a whole-hearted disbeliever in this re-incarnation thoery. To chak de fatte, I frankly have felt it's pure crap, shit and rot! I mean, what is the point of being punished for a crime I do not even remember or be rewarded for some good deed I have lost all memory of? How illogical can Dharamraj get?
My views underwent a subtle change about a year ago, when my granddad spoke to me about a yog-sadhna that can actually be used to recall one's past lives! And then came the Page 1 TOI report on PLT about a month or two back, and I was intrigued no end.

I wondered if it's merely an old-medicine-in-new-bottle type panacea for man's ever nagging query of the whys of his life.

But then as I think it over, I suppose this may well be something more colossal - both in terms of giving the oriental faiths a swig of science as well as handing a new lease of life to genuine psychiatric cases.

Wonder if I could give it a try myself! Any guesses what I could have been in my previous avtaar?

!!!!!!!!!!Dhoni makes me 14 again!!!!!!!!!!

Used to be an avid cricket fan, but the match fixing controversies broke my heart. Had almost stopped watching the game, but for a few world cup matches here and there. Along came the T20 fever and I wrinkled my lofty nose at the idea like the Test cricket puritans had sneered down on the One Dayers.

But am I a happy child today! Boy o Boy what a match! What a performance! What a revival from the One-day (F50?) world cup debacle! What a wave of celebration! What an adrenaline rush! What a heart-turning-upside-down-in-the-throat situation! What a complete no-watch game for cardiac patients! What madness! What thrill!

Yaar ye to sach me anhoni ho gayi honi! long live dhoni!

Celebrating a Day

My aunt once asked me to help her with a speech on Woman's Day. She wanted the speech to have a distinct negative touch, for she is something of a female activist and like all female activists (or rather like all females, period?), she is never satisfied..hehe...
Coming back to the point, she wished to give the speech a negative touch and was not succeeding in the effort. Ergo, a consultation with the expert (ahem) was necessary, and the expert obliged with one sentence - 'The very fact that we need a special day to celebrate womanhood speaks volumes about the current position of the fair sex in this world.'

The same sentence echoed in my mind today when I observed the Archies honchos canvassing another marketing gimmick by celebrating September 23 as 'Daughter's Day'.
Now I find it honestly ridiculous. Are 'Sister's Day', 'Wife's Day' , 'Niece's Day' and 'Girl Friend's Day' round the corner? I wouldn't be too surprized.
I hope a smart Archie's rival initates a 'Stag's Day' or something like it...and it's almost a cinch a woman shall be the initiator of this idea...

An eye for a motorbike?

Kids tonsured for stealing detergent packets...Eyes gouged out for robbing a motorcycle...And the crowning glory of barbarism - ten men lynched to death on the mere suspicion of being thieves!

Can one imagine the extent of monstrosity, the barbarism, the gruesomeness of man the animal?

Is the incapability/dishonesty/inactivity of the police any justification for these acts? Most emphatically NO. Senseless Violence and Destruction are carryovers from our Neanderthal pasts - indication of dull, underdeveloped, unenlightened minds. Uneducated minds.

I have come across a few nasty jibes here and there for being a Bihari. But never have I felt more ashamed of belonging to Bihar than the day I came to hear of this news. What a blackspot!
What especially hurts is the reason behind these killings - had it been rape or murder one could have considered it. But theft? Dear me! The Taliban touch?

I hope strict action is taken against the accuseds as soon as possible to serve as deterrants. And I hope the Police take it as a slap on their faces and get into action. Let's see how many such hopes materialize.

The Kite Runner

One of the most popular books of late...a Khaled Hosseini debut creation which topped the best-seller lists.

I am afraid I have read a lot!

Probably that is why I finished this novel with the disappointment of an itching-to-fight snake meeting a dull little mongoose.

Take away the backdrop of strife-ridden Afghanistan and what do you get? (In fact, if one does not take away the Taliban backdrop the tales of monstrous terror are not very different from the newspaper/channel reports.)

An almost expected story with almost anticipated twists. The familiar threads of love-hate father-son relationship... of a weakling coming to terms with his infirmity in due course of time....of the way time turns tables on mortals.... and of poetic justice bordering on melodrama...especially this last irks a little. A treble dose of destiny coming round to give each what he deserves in a word-perfect, picture-perfect manner is unnatural to say the least!

Even the ending fails to stir the reader's interest. The worst thing anyone can do to his literary creation is to make the ending predictable - which is precisely what happens here.

At one or two points I had this feeling too that the book had perhaps missed an editing effort by the author. Ah, no. That'd be too much....must be just a feeling on my part...

Too much of trashing? OopS! :-P

The book has its moments. They come while describing the local colour. The Afghan culture is so rich and beautiful, its realistic portrayal using original words from the author's native language make for one of the best USPs of The Kite Runner. Go for it if you are curious about what an Afghan has to write about Afghanistan - this curiosity made it a best-seller after all. :-)

Fly Away....

It was not for nothing that Hrishkesh Mukherji made the opening shot of 'Zindagi Kaisi ye Paheli' a bunch of balloons receding higher into the skies. There is something utterly fascinating, mysterious, profound and yes - just a tad melancholic about a bunch of balloons flying up and up.
After several years now, I am suddenly reminded of a half-forgotten and yet not really forgotten memory.
I was nine then, and still too young to give up on balloons. We were seated on the terrace, forced to enjoy the moonlight because of the customary power cut. I remember being exteremely bored and bothered when Mom suddenly pointed out a distraction. Nothing less than a large orange and yellow balloon that came floating in! It was evidently losing its byuoant gas for it came close enough to us. I shouted 'Grab it' to Mamma, but she had stretched for it almost before I yelled. But the naughty balloon had plans of its own. It danced out of her reach, landed on a window sill for one tantalizing moment, and then, sort of making one last valiant effort - gathered all its dying energy just like an injured soldier, and flew away.
I still remember the ruckus I created for that balloon. Dad was more than willing to stem my tears and get me a new one but you see - the silly me wanted that balloon and none other.
I often played with balloons since that summer evening. Blown them and burst them, dribbled them and byoued them to the roof. But the sight of a balloon rising in a sky has always made me philosophical at worst and despondent at best. What is it? The ominous parallel to a soul leaving for its last journey? Or a childhood memory converting it into a symbol of treasure found suddenly and lost with equal abruptness? Of unkept promises? Of things that could be and yet just did not materialize even after efforts were made? Of in fact, the futility of effort? I am inclined to think it has become to me a symbol of all these. Also a symbol of the silly, sensitive and stubborn nine year old me. :)

Aye Hairat-e-Ashique :-)

Channel [V], MTV, B4U and Zoom refuse to air this absolutely drugging song from Guru as much as they do that weird Maiyya Maiyya number of Mallika darling’s, for reasons unknown (Not really unknown, if you come right down to it).

But even if they had aired it I am sure they would have chopped off the most lovely part of the ode – the initial 21 second intro music. Rehman’s true genius shines here for he has captured that essence of music, which only a few have done – its ‘uplifting quality’. The inexplicable way music seems to raise you beyond the boundaries of the earth and oppose all rules of Gravity by making you float! Had come across this feeling only once before – during the intro music of O Hansini, that R. D. Burman – Kishore Kumar combo. And now, with Hairat-e-Ashique. Keep it up, Rehman! Rather, Keep us up!

Soociiiiiiiiiiiiide!

Yes, yes, it’s the Sholay hangover. Rather RGV ki Aag hangover (ugghh)

But it’s got me thinking about this act – “Suicide.”

Killing oneself.

Man’s way of telling God ‘You Don’t Fire Me, I Quit.’

A crime punishable according to the Indian Penal Code.

A sin, according to all major religions.

An act looked down upon by nearly all as an act of cowardice and an act of ungratefulness for the Almighty who gave life oh so mercifully.

A psychiatric syndrome.

What all is it and what all is it not? What all is it under all conditions, and what all is it under some conditions? (Yeah, Relative..Smiles...)

To live life, one needs courage. But to die, too, is courage unnecessary? How many men would be able to embrace death willingly? Few, very few indeed.

Also, when we say ‘living life’ what exactly do we mean by that? According to a lovely line by Ms. Rand, life is something that has motive and motion. Have come across so many people who have neither, or have one of the two, or if they luckily have both then they are both at odds with each other! Moreover, most men do not even realize until the very end what it was they had been lacking. In short, very few ‘live’; they exist and existence does not need courage. For these ‘existers’ are as big, perhaps bigger cowards than 'suiceders'. And yet we have no moral preachings and no religious texts for such individuals.

If you analyze it, it also comes out as another example of selfishness being denigrated over selflessness –
We have the phenomenon of dying for a cause. People who have died for a cause have gone down in history as men of bravery and courage. Men who have laid down their lives for others have so many times become heroes.
And on the other hand are men who die for individual causes, for selfish motives – and they are labeled as cowards, unreasonable, irrational, fools, mentally unstable, psychiatric cases, insane and yes, ungrateful!

Another aspect – Men who ‘live for others’ are thought of greatly (and incidentally such people think highly of themselves, too – lolz. How many times have I come across such dialogues, ‘I am living only for the sake of this, this or this’!!!!) And men who die for themselves are considered criminals.

So think about it - Is Suicide an Irrational/Unreasonable act always? Is Suicide an Immoral Act? Is Suicide an act of cowardice? Is Suicide an offence? Is life always better than Death? Is mere vegetable existence better than death? Do we have a logical approach to Suicide? Are we rationaly judging Suicide?

If you see, the widely-discussed Mercy Killing debate may well enter the issue.

Controversial topic, I know – but would love to thresh it :)

And no, I am not suicidal so please do not worry!

Dam you!

Man said it to the river, and dammed it.

In so doing, did he or did he not damn(pardon the swear word) himself?

A flowing river was made into lakes. Agricultural lands, man's dwellings, forests, flora and fauna were inundated and lost. The regular supply of silt that the river provided oh so generously to the land it flooded was stopped. Instead this silt deposited itself in the river bed, making it go shallow over the years and causing the extra cost 0f desilting. Man grew confident of the mighty walls of the dam, and hence occasional wall breakages and subsequent flash floods took him so much by surprise that he lost much.

In return, he got electricity (mind you, not all dams can yield electricity), an assurance that he will get water for agriculture all the year round in just the right amount.

Imagine now, a scenario without dams.

The average villager knew well the level to which river water was likely to reach. Cleverly, he prepared himself for it - by collecting his stuff and moving up to higher up areas referred to as 'Gadhs' (You may still here about gadhs and even get to see them in several villages of North Bihar). The river would come, spread its silt on his agricultural fields, and in its own time, recede. The farmers would return, and enjoy a decent harvest sans fertilizers.

North Bihar gets flooded every year, notwithstanding the amount of rainfall. This is because of the millions of gallons of water that flows down the Himalayas every monsoon. Every year we hear of at least one river that has broken its embankment and caused floods. Every year we hear of villages plunged into misery.

Have embankments really helped? Would it have been better to provide for maintenance of level-markers to indicate which level a river is likely to reach during an average flood and prepare more 'gadhs' than embankments?

Viva Ms Babi

Flipping lazily through the TV channels this lazy afternoon, came across one that was airing that 70's comedy 'Namak Halal'. Sat watching it for lack of anything else worth viewing - and had a pleasant surprize in the bargain - the insight that Ms Parveen Babi is not less than most of her more-touted contemporaries.

Believe it or not, I ended up ignoring Amitabh (a well-nigh impossible task for me, you know!) as my entire attention was taken up by this doe-eyed actress and her talent in histrionics. Such marvellous control of facial expressions, such calculated coldness in voice and eyes that would give way to emotion only for one flickering second - with an interestingly grey-tinted character and some of the most power-packed punchlines reserved just for her. (e.g. - "Unke paas phool the, unhone phool bheje. Mere paas jo hain wo main de rahi hoon." After which she proceeds to hand over a cactus plant to Amitabh for Shashi Kapoor!) Add to it her natural beauty and SA, and whoa! What a scintillating performance you would see.

True enough, beauty sans personality can not impress ever, and if you wish to find the deadly combination of the two, do give Namak Halal a Babi-centric look next time you watch it :)

Eva-Lution

From Adam's ribs to The President of the largest democracy in the world - Ms. Eve, you have come a long way!

I wish to salute Womanhood today thought it's not 8th March.

The fact that there are so many centuries between Razia Sultan and Pratibha Patil is something of a damper, but, chalta hai, folks! Better late than never, so they say, and we are still ahead of US of A in this one, lolz. The non-selection of Kiran Bedi for that coveted post is another damper, but still - at least we are moving ahead in the right direction and I am feeling very optimistic at the moment!

The Lust for Trust

"The most evil form of manipulation is the manipulation of the mind"



Whose quote is it?

Can anyone help me there?


Cause if no claimants come up, I shall take possession of it as being one of my own, so apt I am finding it at the moment!

The sentence sprang into mind so spontaneously as I watched certain events unfolding before my eyes.

A was an ex-freedom fighter. After Independance, A left to puruse the path of spirituality after being enlightened by a guru. A left for his heavenly abode after establishing a modest ashram in a small town which gained some local popularity. A was survived by seven sons.



B, C, D, E, F, G & H were different from each other, but shared a common trait - of being extremely good with words, extraordinarliy talented with the tongue.

B was honest, quiet and serene, and devoted to A.

C was interested in only one thing - cashing in on the popularity of A.

D was a mild family man.

E was as devoted to A as B was.

F was ostensibly as devoted to A as B was, was resident caretaker of the ashram while A was alive.

G was hot tempered and unstable.

H was a rebel but so far as 'sacrifices' went, had made the biggest one.



While A was on the verge of passing away for his heavenly abode, speculations flew about regarding the candidate who would receive the precious legacy of trust. B, E, F & H were serious contenders, though H was being touted as the blue-eyed boy.



Most were shocked when B, the eldest was chosen for the sacred seat. The dark horse winning the race caused the circlets of disturbance on the surface of a deceptively peaceful pond.



E was deeply hurt by this, and reacted by withdrawing himself from all activities. He gradually developed on his own a small following of people who loved and trusted him.



F had great hopes on being named the successor, and the dashing of these hopes, and his fall from the elevated position of yesteryears left him a bitter and vengeant man.



H being the rebel that he was and flabbergasted by the non-recognition of his sacrifices, left the place and found for himself a completely different school of thought - almost anti to that of his father.

Things developed along these lines for several years. Relationship between the seven brothers remained normal for onlookers but had sinister undercurrents for the observant members of the inner circle.

Events catapulted into action by a sudden ailment of B, which, incidentally, was not as serious as it appeared initially.

Needless to say, his speedy recovery was looked at askance by the others. Nasty comments were passed, double entendres were made and a few harsh words were spoken.

Thoroughly piqued by this strange reaction, I was forced to question around for reasons behind this transformation of normal men into vultures.
Was it money? It seemed not. Though for C & F, it could well be that, I personally knew that G & H were rolling in dough (sorry, was dying to use this dirty slang for them.. :D) F could also possess a second reason - revenge.

But money and revenge really did not gel as being strong enough motives for hatred. For one, there just wasn't enough money in the thing - nothing on the lines of Osho Ashram. And petty vengeance also seemed too insufficient.

I thought and thought, and finally came to the point - Manipulation! Manipulation of the mind. Manipulation of the thought process of another man. Manipulation of the ideas of another man. And this manipulation leading to the subversion of another human mind to yours. The heady feeling of power over another's cerebrum because of the cunning use of your tongue. In short, the lust for trust.

And predictably I was reminded of the evil of Elsworth Toohey from Ayn Rand's Fountainhead - and also of the quote with which I opened this write-up - "The most evil form of manipulation is the manipulation of the mind."

I am striving hard that at whatever small scale it may be, the miniature center of human mind manipulation that I talked about, can be stopped from victmizing other lambs.

Let's see if I succeed!

@ Ramyangshu

The aim of this write-up is to explore the significance of this statement -

A is A

What it essentially implies that when one begins the journey of seeking the truth, he finally arrives at this point that truth is absolute and not relative - objective and not subjective.

To go deeper into this, it is necessary we clearly explain what is Absolute and what is Relative; what is Objective and what is Subjective?

Awaiting your response.

Scientist meets the Child

Child - What is Science?

Scientist - Science is Logic.

Child - What is Logic?

Scientist - Logic is reason.

Child - What is Reason?

Scientist - Reason is the answer to the question Why.

Child - What is Why?

Scientist - Why is the most important question of life.

Child - What is Life?

Scientist - The attempt to answer Why.

Child - Does that mean Life is all about asking Why? That is what I always do.

Scientist - That means you are me, or I am you - for that is exactly what I always do too!

Love versus Love

A sentence read nearly a decade ago echoes in mind as I think along these lines-

"Vaiyyaktik prem se Rashtriya Prem mahaan hota hai"

Translated, it becomes-

"Love for the Nation is greater than Love for the Individual"

Several examples for and against the statement comes to mind...examples from sources as diverse as History, Mythology and Fiction..

Akbar forcing Anarkali out of his kingdom and begging her not to return, even though he knew full well she was happiness personified for his beloved son..

Lord Ram ousting his dear wife to continue holding his claim to the tag of 'Maryada Puroshttam'...

Kunti never acknowledging Karna as her son for fear of discredit and disgrace...

Nehru and Lady Mountbatten never acknowledging their affair..

And in direct contrast we have the great King of England who gave up his throne to marry his sweetheart..


How does one analyse these?

Which betwixt the two is greater? Which is braver?

The regent who kills his inner self to show the world the face of a brave monarch?

Or the royalty that accepts the blows of society and his fall from honour to fulfill his heart's one desire?

The answer to this perhaps lies in the secret of what makes a leader..

To present one side of the coin, everyone cannot be a leader. A few have what it takes, only a few amongst these elite recognize their rare ability and still fewer wield this mighty sword correctly..these one-amongst-billions are, needless to say, the need of the day..the staple diet on which a nation, a community or a society feeds...for such a person to give up their position of responsibility for their personal needs will perhaps be seen as destructive..


Come to the other side of the coin...


Being a leader means possessing power...popularity..many a time, affluency...it is quite reasonable to suppose that not the thorns (read responsibilities) but the roses of 'Position' distracts a lover from his path of love...


Which side wins? Am I back to sqaure one? I wonder indeed!

Some pertinent questions that raise their heads...How can a dissatisfied and unhappy leader keep the people he leads happy? Everything said and done about the rarity of leaders, is it impossible to fill an empty social post? Isn't it more impossible to replace the object of love instead?

As I said, I wonder indeed!

Dashavtaar and Evolution of Life - some parallels

The story of Lord Vishnu’s ten avatars or incarnations is well known to devout Hindus.
A short and fast rehash for those who don’t.

1.Matsya Avatar – The Fish Incarnation
2.Kachhap Avatar – The Tortoise Incarnation
3.Varaha Avatar – The Boar Incarnation
4.Narsimha Avatar – The Lion-Man Incarnation
5.Vaman Avatar – The Dwarf Incarnation
6.Parasurama Avatar – The Axe-wielding Warrior Sage Incarnation
7.Sri Ram Avatar
8.Sri Krishna Avatar
9.Buddha Avatar
10.Kalki Avatar

(For more detailed stories refer http://www.punditravi.com/dasavtar__the_10_incarnations_of.htm)

While the tales regarding each incarnation make for interesting read, what is more interesting is the way evolution of life, and that of man, as predicted by modern science today, are to some extent borne out by the order of these avatars.

For instance, that Life originated in water is a well accepted fundamental – and the story of Dashavtaars begins with Matsya, in water.

The latter transfer of newfound life to land is commemorated by the amphibious Kachhap.

The next in line, the Varaha, is a big leap as it comes straight to the mammals, missing the reptiles and the birds – but the trend is maintained anyhow.

Narsimha, or the semi bestial being points towards the savage, non-humanized ancestor of man.

Vaman, or the dwarf man, is once again in tandem with popular evolutionary biology beliefs – the earliest species of hominid - Ardipithecus ramidus, was shown to be only 4 feet tall.

Parshuram – the angry warrior sage can be compared with the aggressive, Homo sapiens Neanderthals which is known to resemble Homo sapiens sapiens physically but was definitely more prone to violence.

Sri Ram and Sri Krishna, and Buddha denote the perfectly evolved man with a well-developed emotional side to their characters.

And Kalki may well be the Superman that the man of today will evolve into in a few thousand of years more.

Perhaps just one more indication that Vedas and Puranas contain a hidden science....just waiting to be explored some more....

La Belle Dame Sans Balleza

Literally, this translates into - The Beautiful Girl Without Beauty.

I am referring to the new variety of Beautiful women who have 'arrived' on the silver screen.
Don't know about you, but it makes my skin crawl when I hear Rakhi Sawant and Mallika Sherawat being called beauties!! I am plain horrified to see Esha Deol cast as a beauty queen and Priyanka Chopra, Shamita Shetty, Udita Goswami and Sameera Reddy getting away with the title of gorgeous!! I have to run to change the channel when they air songs of Deepal Shaw, Shefali, Meghna Naidu and others of their ilk. The Channel V's Get Gorgeous is absolutely aptly named - the eeeks models (!)certainly need to make an effort to get Gorgeeous! And most of the Ekta Kapoor heroines certainly need all the jewellary and saris they get to look presentable on screen!
To acknowledge the truth, so many faces doing the rounds on the myriad TV channels are so dully average and uninspiringly alike! So few faces that can make one sit up and take notice...alas...!

True, very true indeed that Beauty lies in the beholder's eyes and its a very relative and subjective quality.

But I just could not stop myself from writing about this - man! Whatever happened to a Film Industry that had once provided us with Venuses like Madhubala, Waheeda Rehmaan, Sadhna, Sharmila Tagore and Saira Banu? Or Parveen Babi, Rekha, Dimple Kapadia and Tina Munim? Or Meenakshi Sheshadri, Madhuri Dixit and Neelam?

I suppose the parameters for assessing Beauty have changed drastically. Perhaps a heart-shaped face or deep almond-shaped eyes or long coiffuered hair have stepped aside and given way to long exposed limbs, six-pack abs and a freshly waxed cleavage!

I hope you will notice I am talking strictly about Beauty - Not Charm, not Acting Skills - and not Dancing ability.

I am talking only about the way people have begun to percieve beauty differntly.


The degree of artificiality in beauty has also increased with time. It is so difficult to determine that what I am calling Beauty on screen is genuine or a plastic surgeon's, a cameraman's, or a cosmetician's trick!

Who is responsible for causing this change in trend? The cosmetic industry? The Film Industry? The Viewers? I wonder...I seriously wonder...While the neo-belle-dame brigade goes ahead full swing making it impossible for me to watch Television!

Lost in Translation?!

It was with great anticipation that I picked up Tagore’s Chokher Bali for perusal.
It was with great disappointment that I put it down.

I sat back and reflected.

How could it be that Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s celebrated creation had left me cold! Had I gone out of my mind?
I could grasp nothing concrete from that vague ‘something missing feeling’ that had haunted me throughout the read.

The realization struck me in the most unexpected of places – while watching Sanjeev Kapoor’s Cookery session on the idiot box. He kept repeating the word ‘flavour’ and at its tenth mention, I sat up straight.

This was it!

Flavour!

The flavour of Tagore’s creation – of the Bangla tradition in that pre-independence era – were conspicuously missing from the English translation of his work!

Chokher Bali had been lost somewhere in translation.

I decided to give it another go. I read the English version of Sardindu Bindopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi collection – though not at par with Chokher Bali, it was at least set in the same Bangla world! This time the feeling of unreality was markedly less. It did not feel as though Byomkesh and Ajit were puppets lip-syncing on stage, as I had felt with Binodini and Behari.

What was the difference? Why was this the case?

At first, I reasoned that Byomkesh was more of crime and investigation and less of culture and language and emotion as Chokher Bali had been. But I dismissed the notion soon as a fitter idea took its place.

The translator of Saradindu Bindopadhyay (Shrijeeta Guha) had used several Hindi and Bangla words in place of their English counterparts whereas that of Chokher Bali (Radha Chakravarty) had not.

This had somehow managed to provide a certain authenticity, a stamp of Bengal so to say, on the translated version.

Eureka!

If you leave books aside and regard the celluloid world, the tale is abjectly pitiable. Even less attention to maintaining the flavour is spared in this area – all those of you who have seen the Hindi versions of Harry Potter and Titanic will have to agree to this – the movies were so much caricature and so little movies! I was reading the Hindi sub-titles of The Mask and you wouldn’t believe it how they translated ‘Spicy Babe’. Forgive me, but I leave it to your knowledge of Hindi and your imagination powers to help decipher what its literal translation would be! You can’t? How about ‘Chhamiya Masaledaar’? Er – Gosh – Egads – Yikes – But there it is! True enough!
(Oh, and my barother wants me to believe that Spiderman is available with Bhojpuri sub-titles - anyone game for it? :-D)

The Tele-Shopping network or the Discovery Channel & NGC are still worse – they make you want to laugh and do nothing else! Especially the TSN is nothing but an elaborate joke and very little less, methinks at times. And as for Discovery…Frankly, the way they speak on Discovery…I once wondered if I was watching an Ekta Kapoor creation and not a treatise on African snakes.


You see language itself can be a source of constraint for any Translator. Language can be such a complexity. It is such an efficient mirror of culture and popular views – which are dynamic, diverse and developing every minute!
There are dozens of words that can be found in one and are missing from others – e.g. – a tailor is called ‘darzi’ in Urdu but I could find no suitable synonym for it in Hindi.

Herein, a translator has no option but to use the only word available.

Then there are the idioms and axioms and special phrases and similar sounding words that are so unique to one language. I feel especially sad when an intelligent pun has been made using words of one language and a translator can never achieve to transmit it faithfully in the other-language version.

On other occasions, some words simply refuse to be translated with the same feel to them. Example in quote – the word ‘mishti’ has such sweetness in it that the word ‘sweetmeats’ can not replace it!

The nature of the text is important of course. A philosophical treatise will not give as many hassles as the song ‘Beedi’ from Omkara… No jokes people – take it as an exercise! You can translate Coelho’s Alchemist more easily (If you know Brazilian, that is) than Gulzar's 'Beedi'…try it, try it!


Jokes apart, I hope you would perhaps now agree with me that a Translator is doing no mean task – and that he seldom gets the credit due to him when all we mention is the author’s name and forget his! In fact, do we even bother to know the name of those unheard of people who prepare sub-titles for movies?

Disclaimer!

The Images below are the creation of my sweet cuz Geetika :-)

But as the wall, colour combi (and incidentally the financial inputs) are mine, I feel it deserved a space in my blog page.

Kidding...Geetika ma'am, u rock!

Its what I fondly call Wall Art

Its what I fondly call Wall Art

The Psyche of Debate

Having spent some 7-8 months on Orkut in general and being a part of several communities, the psyche of debate has begun to interest me.There is a statement. One person agrees to it. The other disagrees. Both give reasons for their agreeing/disagreeing. So far so good. The trouble begins, when one starts the unconscious effort to convert the other to his/her belief. And then a number of things may happen.1. The convincing power of one is so good/his reasons are so valid, the other person becomes a convert. (Rare)2. The two appreciate each other’s views but agree to disagree. (Commoner)3. When one is too eager to convince the other, but fails to do so, one in utter disgust goes down to the level of verbal attack, using foul words at the worst and sarcasm at the best. Consequence - mayhem. (Commonest)One may ask, why enter into a debate then? If no conclusions are reached and if everyone, ultimately starts fighting? Well, I would say a lot of information does come your way for you to analyze during a debate. If u like it, option 1 is open! If u don’t, option 2 is open, too! If we are debating about anything under the sun, some are bound to disagree. I empathize with the tendency to putting one's points across. I sympathize, to an extent, with the tendency to try converting another to one's way of thinking (rather a silly thing, largely). But what I fail to understand is, why should one lose one's temper if one can’t change another's opinion? Why go down to abuse and personal attack? Why lose one's cool?

Can Palmistry become Science?

The latest edition of Current Science has an interesting article wherein it was published that the Tamsic, Raajsic and Saatvik foods (Ayurvedic classification) is actually scientific! Saatvic food was found to be high in nutrints while Tamsic food was found to be low in the same - statistically.

A few years ago, Astrology as a branch of science was introduced in the UK - albeit draped under controversies...

So why not Palmistry?

There is the life line and the heart line and the head line (no pun intended!) and so many minor lines and the monts of venus, jupiter and saturn and moon which mean so much to the palmist but not to us.

I wondered for a while if there was any sense in it. I read a few books here and there, but basically paid more attention to what palmists were saying about people I knew. What I found was this - palmistry may not predict one's future with a remarkable accuracy, but there seemingly was a remarkable precision with which a person's general tendency was predicted! I man about their behaviour and character.

For instance, people with bent head lines tended to have a morose dispostion and even suicidal. People with 'islands' in their heart lines tended to have troublesome love lives. People with many lines in their palms tended to be think a lot - etc etc.

What I am wondering is, is it possible to give all these observations a quantitative (and not qualitative) and statistical basis?

For instance, can't there be a measure of the degree of the bent of the head line (yes, with a ruler and a protractor) to correspond with the degree of morosity (negative thoughts to perpetual depression to abso suicidal). Sounds silly?
Or a measure of the number of lines (that is easy - take a magnifying glass and count) with the tendency to think (difficult to quantitize, but am sure a psychiatrist will come up with some measure)?
Or a measure of the area covered by the Mont of Venus and correlate it with the person's wealth? (Imagine Income Tax officers roaming about with inch tapes - lol ;) )
Or a measure of the Mont of Jupiter and the persons's IQ?
Or a measure of the Life line and its correlation with life - though this is a controversial aspect in Palmistry as well.

I do believe all this is doable, you know? It will just take a team effort of palmists, statisticians and pychologists and voila, perhaps we shall be having Palmistry as one branch of Science in no time and the roadside palmists shall give me a percentage of their income (they will earn much in their new career as lectureres, now won't they) as reward. Eh What?

Names!!!

Scientists ought not to name the species they discover…look what they have done! On second thoughts, let them…how else shall they get their due share of fun, huh?

Naja naja – the poisonous cobra
Aha ha – a stinging wasp
Oops – a tick-like creature – also a beetle, named after Oops the tick, had been named by another scientist– OOPS!
Leonardo davincii – a moth
Dracula – an orchid that supposedly resembles a bat
Pandora – a clam (Pandora opened the box of troubles and a clam is supposed to stay clammed shut, I thought!)
Anticlimax – a fossil snail
Hebejeebie – a plant. The word literally means – ‘troubles that plants cause to taxonomists’
Kamera lens – a unicellular organism
Oedipus complex – a salamander

Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis – an amphipod
Ia io – Chinese bat

The last 2 names are the long and short of it.

In case you didn't get the meaning, they are the longest and shortest scientific names :D

Christie meets cricket

A friend of mine and me (both of us sworn Christie fans) were having this conversation on orkut while the cricket world cup 2007 was in the air...here are the excerpts for you -

A - I was awating you in the libraray..didn't find you or anyone else. Then realized a world cup match was going on and hence there was no Body in the Library

B - Ah, yes. I was watching the match, too. But left it in between as a Sad Cypress.

A - Why, why?

B - Well, After the Funeral of the Big Four (Sachin, Sourav,Rahul, Dhoni), I had not the courage to wait as The Clocks ticked until the fall of the Curtain And then there were None.

A - You are quite right. Our team is faring as though it's Destination is Unknown; and for the poor audience, watching the match is nothing but Ordeal By Innocence. By the way, for these Aussies, Murder is Easy!

B - Next time India is sent to play another match with them we shall call it Appointment with Death. But what can be the possible reason for our team to be in The Hollow like this? Goodness, it seems to be an Endless Night for the team!

A - If you ask me, BCCI is a Crooked House and after that Bhuvaneshwar airport fiasco, Chappel is our Secret Adversary. I hope Dravid realizes it While the Light lasts. Else I forsee that Death comes as the End for his cricketing career - at least for his captaincy.

B - What can we do yaar, we are but a Dumb Witness to the whole thing. By the way where are the teams putting up?

A - At Bertram's Hotel! Where else!

The grain of sense in the chaff of superstition

Sense and Superstition

It all began with my accompanying my grand dad on a distant relative’s ‘terahwa’ (The 13th day of the Hindu death rites, when relatives and friends gather to dine together). My senses found this whole concept of partying 13 days after a beloved’s death rather revolting, you understand. Frank, as I am with my grandpa, I turned to him and asked, “Don’t you think some Hindu customs border on indecency? How sick it seems, celebrating someone’s death.”
Grandpa replied in his most placid tone – “Yes, most youngsters like you would say so, about not just this, but most Hindu customs. That’s because you restrict yourself from thinking deeply about anything. Look at that fifteen-year-old child over there that lost her dad. She will miss him all her life, but do you deny that her immediate grief is the severest? Do you deny that the presence of so many relatives and friends, the duty of catering to them, the responsibility of fulfilling all the rites correctly is doing something to mitigate the blow of tragedy a little? Do you deny that it is, in essence, diluting some if her sorrow?”
I was rendered speechless, and realized that but yes! As always, there was sense in what grandpa was saying.

And then began my tryst with trying to find sense in superstition.

I will acknowledge that a large chunk of what I am writing at the moment has been inspired by the many many discussions I’ve had with grandpa on the said topic. He has always believed implicitly in the hidden science, the latent logic behind our customs, our religious rites, our traditions, our festivals and even our superstitions. He has opined several times that these ancient practices were laid down as rules by the sagacious ones of yore – who knew that people would love to follow the right path if they were told a good story behind it or given a hint of good old fear – the best weapon if one knows how to wield it! Of course, I shall not deny it that most of the ancient beliefs have become grotesquely distorted with time and continued misconstruction – deliberately, or other wise.

And hence, the task of finding sense behind superstition is by no means an easy task! Lots of chaff to remove before I find some grain, it seems!

Ever felt irked that grand mom wants you to stay off non-veg and onions during ‘sawan’? Or when mom suddenly pushed you into a seating position as you were taking a swig of water while standing?
Must have seen an aunt or two getting up early to offer water to the Sun God? You’d be interested to know that rays of the rising sun are very healthy for the eyes. And haven’t you heard – “Early to bed, early to rise…” J
Have you tried arguing with great grand mom that you didn’t want to fast on Mondays? It is being postulated that fasting one day a week helps the digestive system to relax and recuperate and work better the other six days!
Or got intensely irked when you were forced out of the kitchen during the periods? All females would agree with me that those five days of the month are a period of intense discomfort, and if you are getting a break from work – even if you are looked down upon as an impure object meanwhile – does it hurt?! ;-)

Silly superstitions, you’d be inclined to say now wouldn’t you?

Okay forget them for the moment and discuss something more enjoyable – Deepawali, the festival of lights for instance, where one is traditionally supposed to light tiny diyas (not bulbs on strings, mind you). You wouldn’t fail to notice that a day after Deepawali, the population of irksome insects goes down drastically and you can yawn easily in bright lights!
Or Holi, a day before which one ignites mounds of ‘garbage’ in the name of Holika Dehen and in the process, manages to clear up the roads in the city and the remains of rabi crops from the agricultural farms in villages.

This journey of mine is still in its first stage – for you see, I have just delved superficially into some beliefs of my family only. Needless to say, I have miles and miles to travel. Hoping to find more views and counterviews on the same.

My Experiments with Truths of Interior Decor

Colour Combination - Chocolate Brown and Gold - deliberately flambouyant

Dimensions - 7ft X 3ft

USP - The wooden 'jali' on the right hand side

The Art & Science of Writing

RAMBLINGS OF AN AMATEUR AUTHOR


Many people may tell you that writing a book is one tiny piece of cake for a person of your potentialities.
(“Your English is damned fine, fella….why do you waste your time like this….write something….an essay, or a story of some sort….it’ll be easy for someone like you who’s read so much…..” etc etc…)

Take my advice, and do not believe them.
You might ask me (and I wouldn’t blame you for a minute) why at all one should want to write a book. Well – why shouldn’t one? After all, it is as good a way to pass your time or earn your living as any other. Perhaps it is better than most. It offers self-employment – there are no bosses (the point is debatable, publishers have been known to wag the commanding finger at the poor author’s nose several times); you can work from home and is as such comfortable; and of course if you can assess the readers’ market well, you can fill your coffers up to the brim – some authors positively own a mint. And it hardly has any professional hazards.

If you go on to assess, writing a book should be a bed of roses.

It isn’t.

You don’t know the bumps on the road unless you begin to take a ride. On similar lines, you don’t begin to get familiar with the hitches of writing a book unless you begin to write it.

The roses are few and far between, the thorns strewn aplenty.

But what is life without a royal challenge, as the adman’s line goes. I have decided to take up this challenge and have made up my mind to proceed very methodically towards the fulfillment of it.

Actually, to be frank, I have wondered many a time what it would be like to actually write a book. Having read so much and having admired so many authors, one at times wants to know how these gifted men of pen think up things.
Well, they say there is no experience like first hand experience. Why not let’s write a nice little book ourselves and find out for ourselves. (Hell…I’m talking like a nurse!)









As I have made clear in the string of words above, writing a book is a paramount problem, and I am fully prepared to tackle it. If I have decided to catch the bull by its horns, (rather uncomfortable for the bull, by the way) I must make fool proof plans. Plans to fool the bull, pun intended, haw haw haw…sorry. These plans will no doubt take the form of an essay or a treatise on the art and science of Bibliogeny (Book Writing to the uninitiated). However, it will do little to help anybody except the writer herself, and is as such a very selfish piece of work (just like all good pieces of work, I dare say). I am going to convince my publisher (if at all I manage to find one) to print a statutory warning on the front leaf – NOT MEANT AS A GUIDE IN WRITING

All preliminaries taken care of, I may embark on my literary sojourn with a clear conscience.

The first question that I must get an answer to is why should I write a book? No no. What I mean is, why should I write a book?





WHY TO WRITE A BOOK?


There are several reasons for this.
Foremost being that I have just resigned from a decent job. And this because I had a fight with the boss that Patel Chowk was 15.7 kilometers from Mall Road. I had proof that this was so – an auto rickshaw driver’s tariff meter said so. But the opinionated what-not that my boss was, he refused to believe. He kept on insisting that the distance was 16. 1 kilometers and no less. Now, discrepancies like that, in scientific laboratories, are just not tolerated. And I would have tolerated it, had my boss not accompanied his denials with the continuous picking of his nose. Now if there is one thing I never want to know is what the olfactory tunnel of my boss, or for that matter anyone, contains in the nature of wallpaper or plastering so to say. And anyways, it was a matter of principle, not my plain silliness. Pity was, the boss felt different. That afternoon I left the lab, red in the face, racking my brains to come up with the name of a suitable lawyer who would help me launch a case against the big tyrant so that I could prove legally that the distance was 15.7 kilometers and not a picometer more. Better still, I wanted to contest the next Assembly elections so that I could raise my voice against pig-headed bosses in the Parliament.

That was then. I have cooled down considerably now, but I still don’t feel kindly towards the old man and his productive nose. I guess time doesn’t always mellow things.

Anyway, the end-result of the skirmish was that I was left jobless with plenty of time on my hands.


Another important argument in my favour is that I have always had a good knack for vocabulary and grammar. It is not just I who says so. If you want proof, an old gaunt English teacher of my hometown’s best school will give you a rare smile at the mention of my name, nod her head satisfactorily and tell you there aren’t many like me. She used to give the same rare smiles when my essays came up for correction on her table.

Simply knowing English is not enough. It is by no means a rara avis. So many others know the language. A company clerk knows and a press-reporter knows. A call-center guy will know all (and tell all, too, in an extremely strange cross-breed accent) and so would so many others. I believe there are more Indians in India knowing English than there are English in England itself. It definitely does everything a national language should do, without getting the said title. So what I was saying was that simply knowing English was insufficient.
A writer, I believe is set apart by his imaginative thinking. His thinking must be original, coherent and interesting (to most, at least). This thinking power sprouts from an author’s extraordinarily strong observation propinquity and a very fertile imagination. Ask any author, and he will tell you that his viewpoint on normal things is rather paranormal. I mean different from the ordinary.
Now I am a fully qualified thinker. The aforementioned boss would give half his salary to get me certified as a moony-eyed daydreamer who’d rather lie on a couch than work. And I look at things differently, too. If you will notice my photograph on the backside or inside leaf of my publications, you will notice a very noticeable squint.

All the above points established, the vital point comes next. I may tell you that while I love literature and all that, I have actually been a student of the sciences. Now scientific training adds an extra something to your brain. (Arts and Commerce, don’t whet your knives for me. I’m sure you, too, would add, and not subtract.) It makes you look at every thing with logic and reason and you tend to adopt a clearer viewpoint of a problem. As I keep reiterating that book writing is a headache, a nice scientific brain must be called upon to catch the bull’s horns (the poor bull).





WHAT TO WRITE?



This question logically follows next. One must decide what one has to write. Several authors opine that writing should come from the heart, that there is no conscious decision as to what to write, and that on many occasions a book just writes itself.
I beg to disagree. If any one of these authors had a heart like mine, he’d understand. Why, my heart is one of the most treacherous hearts of all mankind. It will never ever stay put on any one thing for a long time. It will always have an amicable difference of opinion with my brain, it will insist that it is right and when it has been proved wrong, will take up another Pandora’s Box with amazing alacrity. The upshot is that my heart can never guide me correctly as to what to write.
On the other hand, wait a minute. My heart has so often lead me straight into trouble that I may take the direction 1800 from what my heart says and be safe.
But that’s neither here nor there. I must make a conscious decision, independent of my heart.
And my book is certainly in no mood to write itself. If it had been, ladies and gentlemen, I wouldn’t be writing this prequel to writing a book.
Hence, we come to my second obstacle.


People write books on anything.
In accordance with the most approved scientific manner, I am listing down these various topics.
Classics
Cookery books
Thrillers
Romance
Travel books
Memoirs
Murder mysteries
Self enhancement
Books to understand yourself
Books to understand the opposite sex
Books to understand the world


These are what are popularly referred to as the various genres of literature.

What I want to put across is that there is so much choice. One may take one’s pick and still manage not to disturb the established ones or tense the newcomers.

Easier said than done.

Taking one’s pick, I mean.

You’ll see what I mean as I work my way down the list.

There is a major problem with Classics. Despite my claims to knowledge in English, I still have not grasped the actual meaning of the term ‘Classics.’ What are they? I have read my fair share of Shakespeare and Iliad and Charles Dickens and Ayn Rand and have drawn the conclusion that the critics have massively appreciated them all. This indicates that the writer did not intend his book to be called a classic. It became one when all the readers appreciated it, and when the critics declared it so, unanimously.
This puts writing a classic rather out of the question. I do not even know any critics. How can I know their likes and dislikes? And any way, two critics seldom agree on any one thing – and you expect me to convince the whole lot of them that I’m the best?! Rather a tall order that!

Next in line were cookery books, I think. Well, if you leave me on an island, all alone like Robinson Crusoe (even he couldn’t manage alone; he was smart enough to rope in Man Friday), may be then I can cook to save my life. Otherwise, there are greater chances of India winning a one-day international cricket series in West Indies. But folks, it will be doing me a great favour if you didn’t go and relate this paragraph to my grandmother. She is rather a sweetheart and still has the ambition that I will someday make somebody a nice wife, manning…er…(wo)manning his kitchen round the clock.
And tell me, anyways, what good have cookery books ever done to anyone? Half the ingredients sound exotic to the ears, as you have been buying them at the grocer’s under one alias and they appear in print under another a.k.a. Once you have managed to decipher what has to go in, seventeen and a half other troubles crop up. They say the onions have to be fried until a perfect golden brown. Have they provided an Asian Paints shade card alongside for reference? No sir, they have not! So in goes the next lot of stuff into onions of a doubtful hue. And so out goes the idea of writing cookery books.

A Thriller. Hmmm….something may, just may come out of it. A thriller sells you know. It is what rakes in the moolah. People rather like to sit on the edge of their seats (defying all rules of Physics – unstable equilibrium and all that - in the process) and flip the pages of a nice bloody, action-packed piece of fiction. The grosser, the gorier and the more gruesome a thriller, the better – and this, ladies and gentlemen is the thumb rule on which thriller writers operate. Knowing this, I can manage my way pretty smoothly. I hope.
I may just think up an ingenious plot to assassinate the Indian Prime Minister. The assassin will have to be a member of a terrorist group (most un-original, but no other option. The common man doesn’t want frequent elections and will not go about bumping off heads of the nation. ). I shall have a female assassin, someone young and personable, who shall get into the PM’s….hell’s bells. How will she get into the PM’s inner circle? You see, this requires some sort of inside information. Now I am sure the state the PM Office is in after all these bomb blasts and terrorist attacks, it will never allow me inside to do the necessary research work, thinking I might be the very same female assassin that I have been thinking out loud about. Oh well…no matter how I die, I’d rather not die a mislabeled ISI agent!

Chuck it. Let me think of a love story.

Nah….the more personal a love story is, the better. You can’t just think of it. What you felt, what you experienced, what you underwent etc, etc make for far more interesting reading than a story plucked out of thin air.
Now that is the snag. That is the one major mourn of my life.
I do not sound serious in the lines above, do I? But fact is, I am. Deadly serious, about a guy who just isn’t interested in me. Now who indeed would like to listen to a young girl who has spent five years of her life running after an idiot who hasn’t turned and looked at her more than five times! Nobody would even call it a love story. It will pass off as a story of idiocy at worst and pathos at best. But believe me, if I ever get down to type out my story, it will go under the heading of a “love story”.

Let me see, I have crossed four of my list-toppers. (See what I mean. Writing a book is a pain.) Travel books are rather a safe bet. I may put up for records’ sake that I have traveled a good deal. Mountains, deserts, forests, beaches and cities – I’ve been there, seen that and done those.
However, I’m sure to face some stiff competition from members of a particular species. This species positively smells out regions worth traveling. No part of the earth is immune from these creatures. Once a member of this clan settles onto one point on the map, he proceeds to give the benefit of observing this scenic beauty to one and all, relying on a gadget popularly called as ‘the third eye’.
The Indian Film Industry directors, I mean. They have an uncanny knack of nosing out locales. Be it the North Pole or the Sahara Desert, Mount Everest top or Dead Sea bottom – you can bet on it that their crew will come, battling all odds. Like Napoleon, the word Impossible becomes I’mpossible for them.
What with half the movies being screened sans entertainment tax, who would bother reading a travel book?
And didn’t poor Hugh Grant run into huge losses running a bookstore in Notting Hills selling travel books? A genius learns from others’ mistakes. Meaning me, in case you didn’t get the hint.

My memoirs. Am I old enough to write them? Well, there isn’t any lower age limit to start writing it. Life ain’t supposed to be long, life oughtta be Big. (Anand, in Hrishida’s ‘Anand’ says so). Mine has been, or at least I think so. My post-graduation course was a lovely time of my life, what with a great gang of friends and a number of trips in the jungle to stuff field ecology into the little grey cells. It could really make for interesting reading, the good times we shared out there in the jungles. You know, the safaris and the treks and the rain and the Antaksharis and the dancing and the jokes and the general camaraderie. What quirks of human nature you get to observe on occasions like this is a psychologist’s envy and your delight. Tell you what, if you really want to get to know someone well, marry him, or take him with you on a jungle trip. (Youngsters do not misconstrue. I do not want mothers of unwed mothers skinning me alive.)
However, here too, is a snag. If I write my post-graduation reminiscences, I will end up dead within two days of the book being published. Er, okay. Not exactly that, but something horribly close to that. Reason being, very simply, that I know too much! You see, in my college days, I had been a sympathetic type of person. I encouraged people to unburden themselves and listened to them. This resulted in my knowing more about the underbelly of the class than anybody else did. Only I knew that A loved B very much but B loved C, who frankly hated D but couldn’t live without E. However, come the second semester and A had begun to admire D and B and C had formed a couple and G had entered the scene. Whoa, did I skip F?
You get the hang of it, don’t you. Thing is, it was all 2-3 years ago. B and D have got married and they wouldn’t want each other to know about the other alphabets of their pasts, would they?
You might suggest that I can doctor the facts a little bit. But that’s the problem with reminiscences. We memoir-writers sort of take an oath to speak all the truth and nothing but the truth. The bare, naked, truth. Well, there goes the sixth item – killed, so that some secrets could live on. (Boy, do I write with a dramatic pen!)

Murder mysteries were next on the line weren’t they? Between you and me, I have proceeded to write no less than two separate plots of murder. In one, I managed to pen 13 chapters, imagine that, before I developed a terrible distaste for my characters. They became the worst characters ever imagined by an author – dull, insipid and very boring. I could not get the plot in place, either. All in all, it is a most wasteful creation, never likely to see the light of day. No wonder they say 13 is unlucky. I valiantly went on to write the second half-formed plot, vowing that this time Chapter 14 would follow 12. This time, disgust set in in the third chapter itself. In fact, it was then that I banged my electronic notebook shut, stopped pulling my hair out and decided to approach my problem scientifically. To cut a long story short, ladies and gentlemen, I decided to write this prequel out.

I think I can safely move on to self-enhancement books. These are nutritious books indeed, having to do with stuff like cheese and chicken soup. (Ref. - WHO MOVED MY CHEESE, CHICKEN SOUP FOR…a lot of souls in trouble) Though they are not cookery books in the least, they end up having as much use(lessness) as their (un)worthy predecessors in the list.
These books take it upon themselves to tell you exactly how you should stir, sit, speak, sneeze, spit, snarl, etc to get exactly what you want.
Now…..hey wait a minute. Why am I going on with the list? If I have gone so ahead (Thirteen chapters, no less, and two separate plots) in my career as a mystery storywriter, it is almost a cinch that I’ll make it to the finish line. Why, it is logical, almost mathematical – I definitely have a higher probability of succeeding in it than in any other form of writing.

I told you, didn’t I, that science helps.





The next question that poses itself is no mean question. It deals with the mysterious fourth dimension of our lives, friends - the time element. It deals with, to be specific, the question when to write.




WHEN TO WRITE A BOOK

No author worth his salt will give the statement that he can write anytime he damn pleases. I tell you, a book often has a will of its own. It will not allow you to write it if it does not have the mood. You will sit before the computer screen and jab away at the keys as much as you please. However, if the time is not right, nothing worthwhile will appear in black over the white sheet. You will read it, take a deep breath of disappointment, stretch your arms, rub your eyes and press the delete key all the way. On other occasions, you’d be tempted to reformat the entire drive.
There will be times worse than the incidents above. You will simply not want to sit before the screen at all. You will create every possible excuse for not doing so. You would virtuously try helping mother in the kitchen, run an errand for father, or listen to grandmother eloquently blackmailing you to agree to get married. In fact, anything except sitting down in front of that dreaded screen. At times like this, a hardware crash can give such a secret guilty pleasure that it can only be savoured and not described.
However, there are good times, too. There is another side to the coin, when the urge to write suddenly inundates you. Your mind becomes a virtual hymenopteran’s abode (I couldn’t make up my mind which among an anthill and a honeycomb was busier-actually didn’t want to get either bitten or stung). Ideas flood in from all directions possible and vie with each other for your attention. Each insists on being jotted down first, threatening to pass away into oblivion if you don’t. You eke your way out of this situation, typing at 1000 words a minute, creating such a cacophony with the keys that banshees want to materialize and provide the vocals in this devil’s orchestra. I think most authors refer to this as a Burst of Creativity.
Naturally, you do not end up writing every single one of your inspirations. Some of them do end up fading away.
But boy, do they fade away gloriously! The point constantly keeps nagging that whatever you had missed was a wonderful idea – a king among ideas. You are tricked by this treacherous feeling into thinking deeply about this idea of ideas, trying to clutch at it mentally. You try gouging your brains out. I have heard our good old human brain harbours memories of our ancestral avatars as fish, frog or reptile. Well, you are more likely to resurrect one of these reminiscences rather than remembering that elusive idea.
You get a funny feeling in your stomach that you are just at the point of grasping that flitting thought. This feeling builds up to a climax in a few seconds – and dies down into a gurgling anti-climax. The remorseless idea relentlessly punishes you for forgetting it in the first place. However, once it has satisfied itself that you have atoned enough for the Eighth Sin of Forgetfulness, it floats back daintily into the folds of the cerebellum and announces its presence with lofty grandiloquence when you are least expecting it. And then comes the biggest anti-climax of it all. The idea was never worth all the trouble at all! Alas, as they say in Shakespearean tragedies – woe is me!

But all this meandering discussion about a flighty idea is taking me away from my intended query. A trained scientific mind does not cater for digression like this.
The errand was to seek the best time to write a book.
Now for me, this time has mostly been the middle of the night. All my literary glands are hyperactive at this hour and secrete the hormone of eloquence into my blood. Now there is no hard and fast rule as such – I may get the ‘urge’ at any other time – but nighttime generally is righttime.
One of the major attributes of this period of inky darkness is its inherent secrecy. Ask any one with a felonious intent, and he will doubtless support me. Though most of them may also tell you that even broad daylight doesn’t bother them any.
Well, in a place like India, Curiosity is a major ingredient of nearly every mind. If you tell an average middle-class Indian that curiosity killed the cat, he is likely to retort that a cat had nine lives. Nearly everybody has a Ph.D. in the art of nosing.
Yeah, so where were we? Right, we were discussing the importance of secrecy in my life as an author. Now, it makes me horribly self-conscious to have someone know I am up to something like writing a book. I remember an occasion when I had scribbled some stuff in my diary. Something related to what I had wanted to do to the truculent maid who had prevented me from my daily diet of purloined pickles. Trouble had come when my father had managed to steal a look. At my diary contents, I mean. He also went on to read the stuff out – and then followed an erudite discussion in my house as to how my childish writing exposed my inner self.
I can still remember the heat and colour as both had risen up my neck to cover my face until I looked positively like a tomato. Who likes his innermost-self bandied about in public, open to comment?
Result has been my abnormal secrecy regarding anything I write. I had even felt uneasy about my school assignments for a long time. Teachers had to literally pull the exercise book from my hands in my junior classes. At times, I wonder if I will have the courage to take my book to the publisher. I might just mail it to him using an alias or something. Oh hell…no point crossing bridges before coming to them.

Anyways, we have conclusively established that most nights and other sundry moments of complete solitary existence are the best for writing.




The next question is one of a very basic nature. It has its roots embedded within the very essence of book writing.




HOW TO WRITE A BOOK?

What a silly query, you’d say. An author who doesn’t know how to write a book ought not to be called an author.
But wait a minute. The question is sensible. It pertains to two main aspects of writing – the language and the plot. Both are the mainstays of any interesting story, and if a writer fails in either, he may as well kiss his career goodbye.
Let’s tackle language first.
I have mentioned before, that one has to have a good command over the language. This indicates that the writer should be capable of writing smoothly and freely, without encountering literary roadblocks. His writing should be an interesting potpourri of words (that are not too difficult and too mundane) with a sprinkling of suitable idioms and proverbs which spice up creation.
Of course, an author enjoys a certain leeway, a freedom in writing off- beat English. He may have characters that speak wrong grammar or prefer using certain proverbs. This serves to make the writing fresh and original. I have even encountered an author who wrote completely in the present tense. Rather disconcerting, but an interesting effort it was.
But an author must beware of the danger of repetition. It must be avoided. What I mean is, an author, almost unknowingly and instinctively, tends to possess a set words and proverbs, which he uses most frequently. Now the language English is so very propitious as to help avoid pitfalls like this. One must consciously avail oneself of this facility.

Vocabulary is not the only constituent of language. The arrangement of words, or in other words, the writing style of an author sets him apart. This style is something that must be original. It is very much the stamp or identifying fingerprint that an author has. As such, an inexperienced author who is bumbling away on his newfound path of self-expression must avoid the danger of unconscious aping. This danger pertains dangerously to me. I have been such an avid reader of Agatha Christie and such a devoted admirer of the character of Mrs. Ariadne Oliver that I instinctively write with the same hint of verbal dysentery, as she tends to speak. I mean the tendency of writing very long and winding sentences with lots of commas and semi colons such that somebody reading it aloud will have to make an untimely pause to take breath. Now the scare of being accused of aping is so strong in my heart that I constantly read and re-read everything I have written with a critical eye, weeding away words and expressions that may land me in trouble.
This point amply established I shall move on to the plot. Plot of a story is like the soul of a living thing. Story without a plot isn’t a story at all. To all intents and purposes, a plot of a story is what comes out of the writer’s heart. There are all sorts of plots. Some based on truth, some imagination, some experienced by the author, some vicariously observed. But whatever be the plot, an author must do his homework properly. Book writing is not an exercise for the really homebound soul. Some scrupulous and painstaking research work is vital so that a plot becomes as accurate as possible. If the plot, for example, is set in a certain city, the author must be familiar with its by-lanes and betel shops so as to bring in the local colour. For instance, I have tried setting my two plots of murder mystery, one in Simla and another in the Kumaouns. I have personally been to neither place. And so the further development of the plots have been adjourned till so and so time when I tour the arena.
Of course, being a student of the sciences as I am, establishing accuracy should not be a very difficult task for me. Though one will have to strike a balance between too much detail and absolute sketchiness.
Moreover, this discussion of details reminds me of another aspect of writing. The length of the story. There is no hard and fast rule to determine this, but an author should keep this in mind that nothing is more tiresome to read than an over-stretched plot. Plots are plots; don’t make elastic bands of them. Else, they will snap out of the reader’s zone of interest.
Another thing or two about the veracity of plots. I believe no matter how imaginary a story may be, its roots are in firm reality. Characters are nearly always real people, some whom we writers know intimately while some may be strangers even.
However, the thoughts that these people have and the speeches that they make are very similar to the author’s own mindset. I have noticed that at least one character, perhaps the main protagonist has an uncanny similarity with the writer himself or his image of himself. Which, incidentally, brings me to what I set about to debate.

How much of himself does an author reveal, deliberately or unconsciously, when he writes?

An author intending to write his autobiography some day, reveals only as much as he intends to. Or none at all. Inexperienced authors, or authors too passionately immersed in their task to notice, or authors who don’t mind this form of self-exhibition proceed to become thoroughly transparent for the intelligent reader.


And that, folks, is the furthest that I am going. If I reveal the magic formula of how to get a plot any more, well…a girl has to make a living after all!





Hey, the problem doesn’t end here. Simply writing a manuscript is not the end of the journey. Another problem crops up – that of giving the finishing touches to what you’ve written.




HOW TO EDIT A BOOK?


A manuscript cannot do without rigorous editing. There are spelling mistakes to be taken care of. There are grammatical errors to be corrected, and so on and so forth.
Several authors, me included…I hope you will pardon me for including myself in the club of Authors, but I will be one, soon….and I have already started feeling like one…so where were we?....yeah….several authors do not write all their chapters in one order. The paragraphs of a storyline may appear in print in one order, and may have been written in another. This, translated into understandable English, means that a quintessential author writes a few lines, reads it, inserts a few lines in between, comes another day, deletes what he had inserted and puts in some different words. In other words, writing is a very, very dynamic process. One thinks of one thing, and then follows that thought with another, and then suddenly realizes that three chapters ago, he had written something exactly opposite to the present thought. Also, there is always the danger of forgetting the names of the characters. If I begin calling the heroine Ramona, and then suddenly refer to her as Mala in the 8th chapter, the reader is bound to get confused.
While writing a mystery story, one has to take in the scrupulous details of clues and hints and innuendoes, etc. It is easy to miss out, or re-write or wrongly-write something here, too. It is also essential to check that what you have fitted in between, dovetails exactly with the lines before and after. In essence, without more ado, I’ve proved this point that EDITING is NECESSARY.


And now, folks, there is one query, the answer to which even a trained Scientific Mind cannot come up with. It is a query, the answer to which many a pathetic, pitiable author has not been able to come up with.

viz.



HOW TO PUBLISH A BOOK?







That’s all folks!
DEEPTI