Coolest thing to do this summer - to vote!!!

I was feeling exasperated and suffocated - beads of sweat trickled down my face. I was after all standing in a queue that had gathered at one of the government offices in my locality. The objective was of course to gain possession of the prized "voter id" card - after all its election season..........The queue was getting lengthier and more boisterous by the minute. Unsuspecting souls trying to cut the queue were treated to a avalanche of pleasantries by the fellow queue-mates, the guy in charge of regulating the line was losing his sanity by the minute, a few of the gray haired "seen-it-all" type citizens were ranting their "Who cares about these sons-of-b****** politicians.....to the hell with these elections...all I care for is my voter id card which is being asked for everywhere nowadays!!!" - now this is by no means a complete account of my observations as a silent bystander but a good indicator of the madness that comes tagged along with "elections" in our country......

Elections have always been great time to witness the complete gamut of pyrotechnics that the "theatre of politics" can summon........"poster boys" are made out of yesterday's nobodies,calling each other names(coward,weak etc etc) is not such a bad thing,loyalties and allegiances to coalitions are being switched as rapidly, "Fronts" are being created where everyone thinks of himself as the Prime Ministerial candidate etc. Politics and media are like parasites - they feed off each other......if one is a theatre the other is a circus.......The media goes the whole hog when it is election time - projecting their innumerable 'this-is-the-most-reliable' kind of pre-election surveys (which invariably never match the actual election results!!), interviewing every politician worth his salt and chewing upon his controversial 'sound bytes' etc. In this whole melee, the only people who are left out are the voters themselves...............That is sad because this is something like writing a Harry Potter book forgetting Harry Potter !!!(excuse me for the bad example.....)

In spite of feeling so left out of the 'drama', we must all vote this summer for the following reasons (order not so important......)

1) Its cool to vote......
2) Its a chance to show politicians that "we-could-screw-you-too" albeit we can give it back only once in 4 years....
3) Its often a chance to choose between a) a devil (read Coalition #1) b) the deep sea (read Coalition #2) c) Nobody (read Independents)
4) Simply because you feel patriotic.....
5) Because JFK once said "Ask not what your country can do for you..but ask what you can do for your country"!!!
6) Flaunting the indelible ink mark on your finger is the latest fashion statement....
7) When you candidate doesn't win, you know for sure that you don't share the "mass mentality"!!
8) You get the moral right to crib that "Democracy is a necessary evil" during your 'water-cooler' sessions in office...
9) You deny a worthy candidate of his right to "proxy-vote"!!
10) Lastly because Aamir Khan is endorsing the "Vote India" campaign!!

Finally to sum it up like an ad-man...."Vote India Vote!!!!" (punchlines sell in India!!)

Sachin, Adiga and Sensex!!

It has been a very eventful week this....quite simply because India most famous sporting hero eclipses the batting "Everest", an obscure debutante writer wins the "Holy grail" of writing and the rampaging sensex bull, often seen as synonymous to the country's economic prosperity takes a dive to reach its nadir.

For the millions of those who started following cricket since the early 90's, "cricket and sachin" are probably inseparable. There were times when the newly liberalised India looked upto Sachin to pull off impossible victories almost single handedly. A country that was on the move was in search of a hero who could show it what it takes to be world class. Sachin lived up to those gigantic expectations. His career has gone through the full spectrum of phases (the fearless aggressor ,the insatiable run accumulator, now the senior statesman of the team). Hats off to the master entertainer for conquering a record that so naturally belonged to him. Thanks Sachin for all the entertainment you have provided over the years!!

Its not easy taking on the likes of Amitava Ghosh, Salman Rushdie et al and beating them to win the Booker prize. A very unlikely novel "The White Tiger" written by a Aravind Adiga, did exactly that in what could be termed as the start of a new wave of Indian writing. Even as I am eagerly waiting to lay my hands upon the book, I read in newspaper reports that this book explores the underbelly of the Indian society through the eyes of a man from an unprevileged background. I am sure reading this one is going to be quite an experience!

Well the sad part for the last - the Sensex nosedives to an "all-year low" pretty much casting a shadow over the health of the economy. The recession that is beginning to assume global proportions is having everyone - citizens and governments alike on tenterhooks. This does bring back the memories of the 2000 dot com burst but this time around the implications seem more wide spread (aviation,finance etc) and more severe. Media is bustling with theories and jargons (sub-prime crisis, bailout plans- what not!!) and a sense of grim anticipation seems to have descended upon most industries. So folks, fasten your seat belts, the slump is about to take over!!

Take care until my next post!!

A vintage "Dark Knight" !!

This week I had the opportunity of catching up with one of the finest movies in recent times - "The Dark Knight". Its not often that you get to see a super hero movie which is not just that but a lot more. Possibly one of the best super-hero movies (if not the best), this is a dark, complex and intriguing tale of good versus bad. I have always been a big fan of Christopher Nolan directed movies (Memento,Prestige) but this movie really propels Nolan into my list of all time favorite directors. Nolan constructs an imminently relatable and real Gotham city with a Batman, who is vulnerable, human and yet dependable. But as many of us might already know, the highlight of the movie is the outstanding performance of the late Heath Ledger as Batman's nemesis - "The Joker" (truly an Oscar worthy performance!!). Extremely sinister, amoral and deeply frightening, this "Joker" probably has to be one of the greatest villains of all time. When the Joker tells Batman "We complete each other" or when he proclaims "I am an agent of Chaos", the Joker is in tremendous form making even Batman nervous.

Somewhere during the middle of the movie, I even forgot that this was a super-hero movie! It was as if I was watching an intense Martin Scorcese or Michael Mann crime-drama. This is inspite of some jaw dropping action scenes that are requisite of any super hero movie. To sum it up best, it has all the action to keep the fan-boys happy and at the same time, it has all the depth, intensity and intellectual propensity to keep the discerning viewer happy too. In my opinion, this one is a must watch and for those who are yet to catch up on this one, rush to your nearest screen ( cos this one's big screen worthy !). And beware this one is one helluva ride - it catches you unawares with its strong recurrent "Good vs Evil" undertone and an ending that is so not characteristic of a super hero movie.....

So have a great time meeting up with the caped crusader and his nemesis...while I think of what will be the topic of my next post. Till then adieu and have a fantabulous time!!

This week at the cinemas...........................

Welcome back......I return to blogging after a span of nearly more than a month. Now I am getting used those streaks of lethargy that keep surfacing in me quite often! After all you always try to overcome your shortcomings and keep failing miserably at it...isn't it?
This week I was at the cinemas trying to catch up on the new movie from the "perfectionist" Khan stable - "Jaane tu yaa jaane na". To put things in the perspective, "Jaane tu....." by no means is an outstanding piece of cinema........and yes it definitely isn't in the league of the cult classic "Dil Chahta Hai", yet this is one movie that is a must watch this season! "Jaane tu...." is a romantic caper minus all the eccentricities of commercial Hindi cinema, with a generous sprinkling of humor. One thing "Jaane tu......." does well is to consciously avoid all the cliches of Hindi cinema right until the climax........the far-fetched yet entertaining climax seems more like a tribute to the bygone era of Indian cinema which reveled in 'over the top' dramatization and bang-up climaxes. "Jaane..." marks the coming of age of a bunch of fine young actors - Imran is a revelation, Genelia is a livewire and their bunch of friends are an absolute delight......Here one actor who managed to arrest your attention in a brief role was Prateik Babbar as Genelia's brother. He seems to have inherited his famous mom's acting genes and I am looking forward to seeing a lot more of him in the movies. I have always admired Naseeruddin Shah's uncanny ability to act well in mundane movies but in this movie, he was an absolute delight as the hero's long dead father. Every time there was an altercation between him and Rathna Pathak (hero's mom), the audience was in splits. In a movie such as this, peppy music is a must......and ARR delivers big time......His music supports the movie admirably without for a moment sounding out of place..........

This is surely one of the finest movies this season and definitely worth a watch. If not for anything else, watch it for the fabulous performances!!! Well here I come to the end of this post, and let me be optimistic and believe that it wont be long before I return with another post!!

Till then have a happy time at the cinemas ( if you are going to watch LoveStory:2050, please treat it as an unintentional comedy......you might end up enjoying it!!!!!!!!!)

A date with Jeffrey Archer

"He came, he saw, he spoke, he conquered.............."

Very few times in life you get the opportunity to meet someone whom you have adored through your growing up years. And when such an opportunity presents itself, you wouldn't miss it for anything - not even the heavy downpour that was lashing across the city on a gloomy Friday evening.

"We will go at any cost even if it continues to rain.......after all its not everyday that you get to meet Jeffrey Archer........." wrote my friend, Preeti on Yahoo messenger even I as I had already made up my mind to get the autograph of one of my favorite writers. Chidrup, the person who enlightened me about Jeffrey's visit, was ready too for the rendezvous with the master story teller. My other friend Siddharth, an ardent Jeffrey fan, had already reached the Landmark store and was waiting there.

We arrived at the venue at around 6.30 pm and each of us picked a copy of Jeffrey's latest book - "A Prisoner of Birth". The atmosphere in the bookstore was quite electrifying - people were busy picking up copies of Jeffrey Archer's latest page turner before the man himself arrived. Quite expectedly, the mood was one of anticipation and awe. The crowds were briskly pouring in and soon all the seats were taken up. Briefly my mind wandered off to that day when I picked up Jeffrey's most popular book - "Kane and Abel". I had been spell bound by the sheer canvas of the book - a story that starts across two continents, two protagonists with very contrasting backgrounds and a rags-to-riches tale with a heavy dose of boardroom politics and political intrigue. Even as I was lost in thought, the noise decibels in the room suddenly raised manifold and there was a lot of commotion...............

Jeffrey Archer entered the bookstore at around 7 pm. The first thing he did was to assure everyone of his autograph on each of the copies of his new book. After that, he started his brief speech - one that held the audience in rapt attention. He brought the house down with his immensely funny anecdotes, made us think with his words of experience, made us gasp with some startling statistics and more importantly made our evening a memorable one........

Jeffrey recalled his experiences with promoting his book -"Kane and Abel" when he was an unknown entity in the US (Jeffrey is a British writer........). The publisher of Jeffrey's book - "Kane and Abel" wanted to launch him in grand way in the US so that the book could break into the coveted New York Times bestsellers Top 15 list. For this, he was to share a 6 minute time slot on a popular TV programme with the likes of Mickey Mouse and Billy Carter ( brother of US President Jimmy Carter). He had been strictly instructed by his publisher to mention the title -"Kane and Abel" as many times as possible during his speech. As it turned out, Mickey and Carter ended up hogging close to five minutes and all that Archer had was about a minute. And of course, he completely forgot to mention the title even once during that time!!! During another popular TV show, Jeffrey trying to promote his "Kane and Abel" was mistaken by the interviewer to be Edmund Hillary - the man who first scaled Mt.Everest!!!!

He really had the audience in splits when he mentioned about an amazing statistic - each novel bought in India is read by 25 people on an average whereas in the US or UK, it is just about 3 people per book!!! So much for the health of the Indian economy, he jokingly remarked. He also mentioned about one of the best interviews he had ever given - the one with the very knowledgeable Sunil Sethi of NDTV (he hosts a programme called "Just Books"...). It seems Sethi told Archer that a measure of an author's popularity in India is not the number of books he sells but whether pirated copies of his books are available at traffic signals!!!

He also said that he spends nearly 8 hours a day writing his books and it really takes several drafts before the script can be deemed publishable. For example it took Archer 1000 working hours and 17 drafts before "The Prisoner of Birth" could be finally published. He also made an interesting point in response to a question raised by one audience member - when you start a short story you should know your last line and then fill in the intermediate plot but when you write a novel, you let your plot grow and decide the course when you come to that point.

Interestingly, Archer paid a glowing tribute to R.K.Narayan whose books he had come to admire deeply. He also reiterated his "T20 is not cricket but entertainment.." statement (Cricket according to him is Laxman and Dravid surviving on a Perth track for an entire day against hostile Australian bowling!!!). He also showered accolades on India's greatest sporting icon, Sachin Tendulkar. He suggested the names the O'Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Roald Dahl and Hector Munroe (Saki) as the finest exponents of short story writing.

His speech was followed by a question and answer session with the enthusiastic audience - the questions were diverse and interesting. They wanted to know about his inspiration, his favourite book, if he had ever had a writer's block, why all his stories had the rags-to-riches element, what his next book was all about.........phew........!!!!

After this the book signing session started and all hell broke loose. There was no semblance of order at all....people were shoving and pushing each other in a quest for their favourite writer's autograph. I have always had issues with queques (especially if it has to do with religious intent) but for a change, I didn't mind the queque and the crowd. All that mattered was the autographed copy of the book. In the end all the four of us succeeded in owning an autographed copy after nearly an hour.

Jeffrey Archer at the end of his speech said that he would mention about his India trip to his grandchildren - but I on my part will at least mention to my friends about my evening with the master story teller!!!

Even as I finish this post, "The Prisoner of Birth" is waiting on my table to be resumed..........

Till my next post.........Adieu...............

Route 11 Diaries - Part 1

I have been wanting to write about EMC Route 11 cab for some time now. Well I think I have atlast shrugged off that last ounce of lethargy that was weighing me down. For the starters, EMC Route 11 is the cab that takes me to and back from office everyday(ok almost everyday!!). When I joined EMC around 7 months ago, I thought travelling in a cab would be a very insipid experience - sitting in one corner of the vehicle with your earphones plugged into your ears even as the vehicle tries to hustle through the chaotic morning Bangalore traffic. But boy how wrong I was!! I was in fact surprised (more precisely 'shocked') at the sheer energy of the crowd there. The young (this refers to ppl of almost my age...!!) and the old (this refers to ppl a tad elder to me......!!) alike were bustling with enthusiasm and were pulling each other's legs with such gusto. Clearly people were having a whale of a time.......they were enjoying themselves (whoever told people are tired and weary after a hard day's work!!)

I remained a silent spectator initially - just remained a sort of aloof observing the people there. The way people went about discussing and joking - it seemed to me as though they had known each other for a long, long time. But I was wrong again...........I learnt that the cab service had commenced just a couple of months before I had joined. Evenings while returning home, it was time either for "Bluff" ( a card game) or DC (Dumb Charades). It was while playing DC that I actually got to know my "cabmates" better. I discovered that most of my cabmates were "movie-freaks" like myself and that really broke the ice. I have always enjoyed discussions on topics like movies, books, sports or politics and in this cab, every topic seemed to have an "in-cab" expert. Often found guilty of being very talkative myself, I slowly began to find my groove. Within a month or so, I was on my way to acquiring the "most talkative person on EMC Route 11" tag (of course with some serious competition!!!)...............

One thing that has struck me about my cabmates is the sense of humor that they manage to bring into their conversations so effortlessly. Often I am left to wonder as to from where do people acquire this 'street smart' sense of humor. Another aspect is of course, the willingness of people to take the joke upon themselves and I must admit my cabmates are very sportive about that. It is very often said that 'humor' is best appreciated when it is directed towards yourself (something which I do when I meet new people........I crack a joke on myself and it immediately breaks the ice............). I vividly remember times when the whole journey has been a 'laugh riot'..........jokes and wisecracks flying thick and fast ( idea is to enjoy even if you are the subject of all the jokes !!!). At times, it has been a sort of forum for intense discussions on topics ranging from philosophy, morality to ghosts!!

With this I come to the end of this introductory post.........in the next post let me take of pleasure(or pain) of unravelling the story behind 'IT.calm' - the skit that has become such an integral part of our lives on EMC Route 11. It is also a story of how a bunch of first timers, a wannabe playwright, a down to earth plot, a half baked script and a super cool fast talking protagonist can pull off a 'laugh riot' in front of a few hundred people. It tells you can often end up surprising yourself!!

For more keep reading!!!

Creative lethargy!!

Open your laptop and just start typing in your ideas.......well I thought this was all writing was about. But how wrong I was........'writing' is just as laborious a process as making a movie or painting on a canvas. Sometimes the idea goes all awry, sometimes the idea is in place but not the words, sometimes pangs of self doubt come visiting, sometimes skepticism about the whole idea creeps in mysteriously. 'Writing' is in fact a journey - you keep evolving with every word you write. You write, delete and again write - in search of that elusive 'magical' sentence or expression. You try hard to be subtle yet not be abstract - the thin line you need to tread often blurs and you find yourself deep in either territory. You try to be intelligent and try to avoid pitfalls of illogicality but often a simple idea is complicated and its impact lost. So writing is really a struggle..........a lonely struggle.............you sometimes enjoy it and also sometimes loathe it..............but at the end of the day you would not mind getting back to it. Often you go through phases of 'creative lethargy' - a phase where you want to write but still cant write..........(just like what I am going through now) But at the end of it all.........the satisfaction of creating something new makes you undergo the struggle again and again!!