Utrecht

City of dreams. Fount of poetic imagination. Beauty that can inspire divine music. None of these describes Utrecht, which is like any other Dutch city. It sounds like "uterus" and looks like one. No, it's actually quite nice and boasts of being the fourth largest city in the Netherlands, a feat that would impress the unambitious. But I was not there to take in the city's sights and sounds (nobody does that any more) but to take in some alcohol with the man with the aquiline nose.

Sandeep has followed me here as well. He has been sent here for a few months and, by the looks of it, will spend the rest of his life here. To drown his sorrow over this matter, I, of noble heart, take along with me one Glen Moray, a single malt of fitting ordinariness. Wikipedia says Glen Moray "offerings have performed modestly at international Spirit ratings competitions". Goes well with the overall mediocrity of the occasion. I offer him a glass of the whisky, he takes a swig of it and pronounces it smooth. I offer him my hand in friendship, he takes a swig of it and pronounces it smooth. I am appalled.

Our conversations have always revolved around how much our parents struggled for us and how much we haven't repaid them for it. And it soon takes the form of a poker game. He starts off with "My father used to work in some factory". I counter easily with "My father looked at factories and wasn't even allowed inside". He parries deftly with "My parents could not afford milk, on some occasions", which makes me think for a while before I come up with "My father had to take his younger brother along with him to school, and take a loan to get his sisters married, which drowned him in debt for the best years of his youth". But I know he's been waiting for something like this, the swine. He unleashes his trump card, "My father even had to do physical labour". I am stumped, bowled, leg-before-wicket, but I can't let him see it. I mustn't have a tell. So, after looking here and there for inspiration, I submit for the court's inspection "My mother was shot in the leg in the '71 war and she hobbled along on her wounded leg and jumped into a tank and secured vast swathes of Bangladesh for us and then grew a whole new leg in place of the old one. Jai Hind!" and open the window and fly away. There's no point in sticking around after you've won.

We speak to Harish and Arvind, a friends' "Hangout". Arvind is looking delighted like a man who's just had someone sit on his face. Harish is looking delighted like he is that someone. Both inform us that things are normal and LokPal is evil. We are slightly inebriated by this point and promise to vote for Ambedkar in the next elections. I remember relentlessly questioning Arvind about the face-sitting, based on some picture.

This was a couple of weeks ago. I made for Utrecht again last week, this time for free booze and food being proffered by the great Nagaraj (Sandeep's friend, colleague and part-time lover). In my attempts to help them in the cooking by chopping onions, I was set upon by an inhabitant of Andhra Pradesh and his Fu Manchu beard. I am not the best chopper of onions in the world, so he commented kindly on my plight, "'Shall I chop? This fellow is STRUGGLING so much. Businayana Bagepalli Communistu yegenistu Rayalaseema!" That was the gist of it, anyway. I immediately judged him to be one of those guys who prides themselves on being good at something, despite being good at it. Like those idiots with good cameras who put up those infernal pictures of bees, bathrooms, begonias and balls ("High exposure", "f12", "800 metres away"). Fine, I bow to your expertise, stop being anal about it (and then I'll stop being anal about you).

Anyway, Onion Boy was not done yet. He discarded my weapon of choice (a small knife) and picked up a machete. His hand was the size of my thigh and he chopped down powerfully on the hapless onion, mincing it ruthlessly. I felt ruth for the vegetable and it, heeding my feelings, made him cry as he was cutting it. But he wasn't satisfied with just doing the job well, he needed to expound on the best techniques for performing the miracle we had witnessed. For every epic palaver, there needs to be someone who will fan the flames of the palaverer(?)'s ego. Sandeep jumped at the opportunity to do this and asked AbbayiRayudu "How might one best cut onions, O Divine Cook? I saw you 'air-cutting' onions as you said 'cutting onions' and knew right away you were gifted in the art of cookery. Teach us!" And AbbayiRayudu spoke at length for over two hours, as my rotting corpse slowly turned to dust. "Chop the onions lengthwise. Hold the onions with your nails facing the blade. Your onion-holding hand must be perpendicular to the knife, essentially. Then, start cutting and moving the holding hand backwards. Even if your knife is faster than your holding hand, the blade will slide-- haan? -- slide off your nails and you will not hurt yourself. Super, no? I have been cooking since I was 18. In Andhra Pradesh, we play cards for money and you can make tens of lakhs in one night. I visited Y S Rajashekhara Reddy."

OK, those were the things he said over several hours, not in one concise paragraph. Fuck him, I hope he gets amnesia and forgets what onions are. Nice guy otherwise, though.

Cricket, then. Despite being Indians abroad for several years, the bunch of people that Sandeep knows in Utrecht are not complete assholes. They do have an inflated opinion of their own cricketing abilities, however. This is evidenced by the attention paid to (what else?) 'technique' and 'strategy' in a tennis-ball game played in a small park surrounded by slush and trees. Field placement, "That off-cutter you bowled last week was amazing, man!", all these were on show. However, neither that, nor the rain that came down eventually, can conceal the fact that a good time was had by all.

So, in summary, it doesn't matter how you chop the onions as long as you chop them correctly for the occasion. And Andhra Pradesh should stop sending its most epic bladers to annoy me.

Sharma does Holland

On a fine morning in 1911, it can be asserted, Srinivasa Sarma (as he was then known) stepped into the world and decided this was no place to be tall. So he adamantly refused to grow beyond a modest five feet and strode the dust-paved streets of Thandarai, TN, within this small frame of his. Srinivasa Sarma's mother died young (by today's standards) and his father was left a widower. His father, Vedachalaiah, was no small man, though. A man of notorious determination, Vedachalaiah went on to break up an intended marriage and take the bride for himself after settling certain matters with the bride's father. As a result, Srinivasa Sarma was caught in an embarrassing situation where his stepmother was younger than himself. Both stepmother and stepson were cognizant of this delicate state of affairs and did not speak to each other unless absolutely necessary, for many years. Other casualties resulting from this strange predicament were the birth of Srinivasa Sarma's stepbrothers and stepsisters and the yawning chasm of an age difference between them and him.

TSS, as he was to be known, soldiered on in Thandarai. Madras was 120 km away and it was there that he made his fortune. Such fortune as a modest education and means would allow. The lands back in Thandarai did provide him some financial succour, however, and it is surmised that he purchased his house on Tilak Street, Madras, with monies sourced therefrom. And what a house it was too! Huge rooms and palatial halls filled the house. A bathroom in that mansion was to prove to be bigger than many houses in future Chennai. Unfortunate women hired to serve as domestic help would often marvel at how big the house was and how fortunate TSS and family were to live there.

TSS married, and married again. He took after his father in this respect. His first wife, Raji, passed away before they had produced little Sarmas to dot the landscape, victim to some disease which was to prove laughably curable in the future. Undaunted, and no doubt learning from his father, TSS married again, this time a robust and kind lady named Girija. As though to make up for the opportunities lost by the untimely departure of Raji, TSS and Girija produced five children, two boys, three girls and no hermaphrodites. The children grew up reasonably happily and graduated respectably, securing jobs or spouses or both. It was then that tragedy struck.

TSS Sarma invested his provident fund and gratuity money in some (as it turned out, ill-advised) venture. This was because it was run by trusted friends and relatives and he had known them for some time now. However, as history has shown repeatedly, in matters of money and the heart, trust no one. TSS Sarma, who had by now somehow become Sharma, did not seem to have heeded history's lessons and was promptly defrauded of his retirement savings by his nears and dears. The family was forced to move out of the bungalow on Tilak Street (they had to sell the house to pay off loans and credit) and move into a flat on nearby Thanikachalam road. As they left Tilak Street, Srinivasa Sarma hugged all the pillars of the house and kissed its walls, bidding his beloved home, where his children had played and grown up, goodbye.

His eldest son married in 1981 and failed to produce an heir even when the marriage was as far gone as 1984. Therefore, TSS, troubled, advised his daughter-in-law to read the Sundara Kaanda from the Ramayana because "somebody told me that helps get you a male child". This random piece of advice was adhered to by said daughter-in-law more because she was charmed by his innocence than because she believed reading helped in furthering the human race. These matters aside, in 1985, TSS, locally known as Kullaiyer on account of his imposing frame, was informed by his eldest son, Raghu, that a boy had indeed been borne by his daughter-in-law, in Bangalore. Kullaiyer was thrilled; this was the third grandchild in the family, the first born to his daughter seven years ago and the second born to another daughter five years ago, and this one would carry on the family name. The Sharmas had survived yet another generation through him, he rejoiced. This was still February; Raghu informed him he would bring the boy home in a couple of weeks, after both mother and child had recuperated a bit. In March, Srinivasa Sarma, TSS, Kullaiyer died.

Srinivasa Sarma did not set eyes on his third grandchild; his third, and subsequent, grandchildren did not see him in the flesh either. Tales recollected by parents and relatives, photographs, books collected by him, scrawlings inside those books, these remain testament to his memory. A man of great fortitude, those who knew him say, with a remarkable sense of humour. Glasses as thick as Jayaprakash Narayan's. A man who was, incredibly enough, well known to the Kanchi Swamiji of the time (since that seer wielded no political influence like that of his successor, this acquaintance would prove of no material benefit to TSS). A man who spoke as much as his eldest son, Raghu, was quiet. If he was Vito and Raghu was Michael and Michael was the eldest son instead of Sonny and the family did nothing criminal and instead lost loads of money, this would be the Corleone family.

Kullaiyer would have been happy to know that his son did well for himself, in the coming years. He would have been thrilled to know that Raghu went on to achieve, from humble beginnings, high positions in his company by dint of sheer hard work and determination. Perhaps Raghu would have switched companies and risen higher, had Kullaiyer been alive; the man perhaps would have prodded him repeatedly and said he was worth more than what this company valued him. Srinivasa Sarma would also have been thrilled when his first grandchild went to the US for studies; although he would perhaps have been less thrilled at the news that that grandchild had applied for citizenship thereof. He would no doubt have been ecstatic at the weddings of his eldest grandchildren, and the birth of his great grandchild. He would also have been a hundred years old, this year.

This year, when his eldest son visits his son in Holland. Raghunandan Sharma, son of Thandarai's Srinivasa Sharma nee Sarma, will fly abroad for his first time. Srinivasa Sarma could have waited a bit to see all this. Allow me to address my grandfather, whom I have never seen but heard so much about, as the locals probably would have: Kullaiyere, innum irunthirukkalaamillai? Pottunu poyitteengaLe, enna avvaLo urgent? Paiyyan poyi paerana paakkaraan, neengaLum paatthirukkalaam. Sari, angirunthae paarungo.

[Kullaiyer, could have stuck around, couldn't you? Just upped and left, didn't you? What was your hurry? Son's going to see your grandson, you could've gone too. Fine, see it from wherever you are.]

/senti

A beginning

Happy New Year, merry Christmas, happy DeepavaLi, Id Mubarak and Yo Buddha to everyone. I wish now because all those things are safely behind us. Days of great rejoicing are always to be viewed with suspicion ("With great rejoicing comes great doubt"). I had a very pleasant year. Thanks to tremendous fiscal strain borne by my parents, I was able to visit a couple of countries and look down condescendingly upon their 'culture' and 'cuisine.' My travels have brought me, after a fashion, to Holland now. Very nice people, pretty terrible food. Except for the pastries, those are nice.

The Netherlands seems to consist of genuinely nice people who, unlike those bastards in France and Germany (who have historically shared a symbiotic relationship), speak fluent English and don't get affronted if you don't speak their language after being here for a whole eight minutes. Amsterdam is a great place in which to spend a day. Not much more, I'm afraid, unless you're really into art and can spend days plodding through museum after museum. I thought I could do that but have recently discovered that I get, how do you say it, bored. But it's got that big city feel; I'm a sucker for that feel. Just being in a place with lots of noise, pollution and people jostling past each other without paying attention to anything makes me feel happy and safe.

I visited the pointless country of Belgium last month and was put up with by the good graces of Sandeep, who has now become a dick and made his blog invite-only. The posts there, as I recall, were not of a scandalous variety so I don't understand the fuss. Anyway, we made train journeys to a couple of places and, as we passed through desolate stations amidst snow-swept landscapes, try as we might not to, we could only think of people stripped to their bare essentials, shivering in 20-below-zero temperatures and digging with shovels while desperately trying to stay alive and eventually being thrown into furnaces. Whenever we passed a station, we'd see cattle cars and people being shepherded into them ruthlessly by men in grey suits. This was because we are very sensitive people and also because stereotyping is fun. I don't understand why Germans today are so sensitive about discussing that entire era. Surely, discussing it out in the open is a better catharsis than bottling it all up and letting it explode, one day, on a man with darker skin (this applies also to bodily fluids) ? India has quite a few shameful incidents in its past (admittedly none quite as horrific as the Holocaust) but we don't fight shy of talking about them. The same goes for America, England, Japan and other countries. Except Germany, whose head-of-state publicly says multiculturalism has failed. Quite the prima donna, aren't you, Germany? Most Germans alive today didn't even have anything to do with all that, so why not talk about it and make fun of the cowards who went along with it and pity those who could do nothing about it but look on in horror? Laughing in the face of horror eases some of the pain. As Sandeep said about the Germans (in a quotable quote), "you destroyed half the world, the least you can do is take a joke about it."

Holland is a nice place, historical betrayal of teenage girls apart. I visited the Anne Frank museum for a second time because Harish couldn't bear to go through it alone, could he? Harish, there's nothing wrong in crying, those days really were that horrible, no, there have not been many children named Adolf after 1945. The language is nice as well, pleasant-sounding and with a lot of near-Arabic sounds. Dutch grammar is structured a lot like Kannada's (or Sanskrit's, for that matter). It seems like the language was constructed to be a bridge between the harsh and difficult German and the simpler and more acceptable English.

A minor shameless plea for attention announcement. The honourable Arun, Harish and I were in discussion some months ago at the roadside gaaDi of one Mr. Gangadhar in Jayanagar. I had just finished reading a book by Mr. A N Murthy Rao and Arun was enlightening us of the many correspondences between that man and his friends and family (compiled in another book of his). Talk soon veered into the forms of literature the great writers of Kannada have tried their hand at. "Practically everything" seemed to be the conclusion and we were ready to leave it at that and go home, having complained to Mr. Gangadhar yet again about rising prices and receiving the same "En boss maaDodu?" reply. I piped up with a question to Arun: what about science fiction? Has there been any writing in Kannada in that realm? Arun thought for a moment and said no. I accepted Arun's word as gospel truth, since he is highly knowledgeable in most matters. However, his answer surprised me, since there had been a great many highly talented men and women writing in Kannada. Someone should do something about it, I thought, and that stayed in the back of my mind for a while. It was only recently that I got down to trying my hand at it myself. All this blade to tell you that I'm going to try and write science fiction in Kannada. Short stories, mainly, but I ramble even in haikus, so these will be longer than usual. It may well fail and I may end up with egg-on-face but it seems like fun and I'm giving it a shot (the same attitude is advisable while entering relationships. Or Kerala).

This is where I'll do it. The URL is extremely lame wordplay. Satya miti ("The limit of truth") as also Satyam iti ("Thus is the truth"). Yeah, I know, I'm slapping myself in disbelief but this is the best I could motivate myself to do. The first part of the first short story is up now. Please read it and let me know what you think. I'll try and put up a new part every week, like a sitcom. Or sooner, if I have decent stuff before that. Life does not allow for timetables.

Update: My aunt (in a response swift enough to alarm most photons) brought to notice the efforts of Prof. Rajashekhar Bhoosnurmath in the direction of science-fiction in Kannada. Apparently, the good man has been persevering in this regard since the '60s. My aunt supplies me with this link for more information. Murthy, in a comment, also speaks of the same Prof. RaBhoo and mentions that the man is from the university of Dharwad. So yeah, all my hopes of creating history of some sort have been dashed. Damn you, RaBhoo.

The Karnataka sangeeta ('Carnatic' music) fanboy clash

Fanboys rule the Internet. Irrespective (or 'irregardless,' as some people bafflingly insist on saying) of what site you visit, if there is a space open for viewer comments, there will soon be an escalation into full-scale name-calling, slandering and virtual fisticuffs. The general pattern is --> "I think so-and-so or such-and-such is right."  "No." "What do you mean, no?" "You're wrong, is what I mean." "You cant just say no. Back up your opinion." "I don't have to. It's so obvious you don't know what you're talking about." "Was your mother raped by retarded bears in the woods?" "Yeah, one of them was your dad! Ha!" "(pause) You realise you just insulted yourself rather than me, don't you?" "(pause) You're a gay Nazi who loves Muslim suicide bombers." (sudden entry of third person) "Ah, Godwin's law." "Who the fuck are you?" "Yeah, all-knowing bastard. But you are still a gay Nazi, dude." "Heck, maybe I am. Friends?" "Friends."

No? That's not how these things go? Anyway, it's Thing vs Thing or Celebrity vs Celebrity debates that fanboys get most passionate about. On things like corruption, terrorism, greed etc., the responses are usually apathy or a cliched cynicism ("This is India and this is how it will always be." "Our politicians are the worst, man!" "Hindu fanatics are ruining the nation." "I pity the nation that silences Savita Bhabhi."). But something like A R Rahman vs Ilayaraja, Apple vs PC, India vs Pakistan, Congress vs BJP, Team Jacob vs Team Edward (that shit is still around) gets people participating like crazy. In all this, I noticed there isn't a decent fight going on in the grand, gentle old world of South Indian classical music. I like to think that if the great composers of yore had been around today, their respective fanboys would have been almost as vociferous as these other ones. Almost. Our folks are gentle.

(The song that Tyagaraja uploads is 'Endaro mahanubhavulu,' rendered by Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna.)

It's a bit long, sorry about that.

Philosophy, die

I haven't watched "The social network" yet. I don't want to, either. The pleasures of creating a website or writing a program are inherent and private, not shareable or communicable to those who haven't tried it themselves. You cannot, I believe, make a movie as interesting as "The Godfather" or "Taxi driver" out of the story of Gmail. Maybe you could, but you would have to be Scorsese/Kubrick/Coppola/Leone to do that. And even then, the bland truth would not interest a wide audience that stereotypes computer scientists and software engineers. I've often wondered how cricketers would feel if someone taped me at my job for a whole day and played it to them. I know I would watch with interest as the events of a typical day unfolded and nod with identification at scrum meeting jokes and people discovering cataclysmic flaws in their design three days before release, but Sachin would probably doze off fifteen minutes into the movie. It is unfortunately the curse of technology that the most interesting movies about it involve its misuse (Metropolis, The island of Dr. Moreau, 2001 : A space odyssey, The Terminator I and II, Endhiran ad infinitum). Even Iron Man is kind of about misuse, although Tony Stark does claim he privatised world peace successfully.

The reason I wrote that boring paragraph above is this review by Zadie Smith of the film. I agree with her spot-on assessment as she says "From the opening scene it’s clear that this is a movie about 2.0 people made by 1.0 people (Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher, forty-nine and forty-eight respectively)" [Unnecessary italics mine]. From what she says, it seems that this film, despite being a David Fincher offering, falls into the same geek-cliche traps as practically every other geek film. Mark Zuckerberg is capable of creating, or stealing, something as massive as Facebook, so he must be "overprogrammed, furious, lonely." This is in accordance with the dictums of dramatic storytelling as put down by Aeschylus: 'He who typeth furiously hath not friends nor kin but hath only the company of the sweat of his brow and his enemies multifarious.' The programmer is socially awkward and inept. The software type is also introverted and not at all given to displays of emotion (OK, maybe Crazyfuck Ballmer is a bad example. But the point is, it does happen in our world). (S)He is altogether disconnected from the 'real' world and 'real' people and has no comprehension of the repercussions of her/his actions/inventions. The only 'real world' object that sparks any interest in the geek is money and there is no end to the extent to which said geek will go to get most, if not all, of it. In the process, love is sacrificed and love interests are either driven away or killed. Smith says the movie fulfills all these banalities very satisfactorily.

And then goes on to make observations as dumb and pointless as those she criticised in the movie. A superficial one first. She says "No doubt the filmmakers considered this option, but you can see their dilemma: how to convey the pleasure of programming—if such a pleasure exists—in a way that is both cinematic and comprehensible?" Why would she assume no pleasure exists in programming? Programmers are not as esoteric a group today as they were in 1968. Every day, hundreds of thousands of people go through the agony and the ecstasy of running their code. Watching it compile and waiting with bated breath for the outcome (if any) is a build-up filled with almost as much excitement and anticipation as the climax of "The good, the bad and the ugly." Even if we leave aside such, some would say, grandiose comparisons, the same pleasure exists in programming as in any other job well done. The doubtful "if such a pleasure exists" is unnecessary.

The rest of her review is devoted to a subject much beloved of luddites -- the philosophical and ethical implications of technology. Smith quotes from Jaron Lanier's book "You are not a gadget" and argues that we are all somehow being tricked into believing that websites represent us wholely and accurately (Lanier is the only software expert she  defers to, in the giant review. He represents the whole software industry.). Our online personas are, we apparently begin to believe, our real selves. To wit:

'We know that having two thousand Facebook friends is not what it looks like. We know that we are using the software to behave in a certain, superficial way toward others. We know what we are doing “in” the software. But do we know, are we alert to, what the software is doing to us? Is it possible that what is communicated between people online “eventually becomes their truth”?'

This is a patently ridiculous point. Almost everyone who is on Facebook or any other website that involves interaction learns quickly enough not to trust online personas. Cases involving paedophiles stalking fourteen-year olds online and preying on them subsequently have alerted us to the dangers of interactive websites. Unnecessary bullshit like ChatRoulette have alerted us to the dangers of random penises being flashed at us. That's why nobody puts everything about themselves online. Atleast, not truthfully. As Gregory House says, "everybody lies."

The software does nothing to me, or anybody using it. If you're wasting hours on end going through Facebook pages and profiles, it proves more that you're an idiot than it does that the software is some philosophical and ethical nightmare. The purpose of 'social networks' is the same as the Usenet groups of yore: bring together people with similar interests and let them share information (photos, videos, memes, whatever). Attributing anything higher, nobler, more sinister to them is purely alarmist. I apologise for sounding like Eric Schmidt here ("If you're doing something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.") but privacy of information is not in the scope of this point that she raises.

Smith says her apprehension that the whole Internet might become 'falsely jolly, fake-friendly, self-promoting, slickly disingenuous' like Facebook was why she quit Facebook after just two months on it. There are people like that too, so while she's at it, she might as well quit humanity. She also says, again quoting the sole expert in the world, Lanier, that pack mentality is encouraged, and made more efficient, by the social networks we use. We apparently see what other people are reading, watching, eating and do exactly the same. Of course, individuality is exempt here. The mere act of going online and joining something like MySpace or Facebook strips you of judgement, character and taste and makes you a drooling idiot who watches celebrity wedding programmes all day.

I submit another example of pure philosophical psychobabble:

'I am dreaming of a Web that caters to a kind of person who no longer exists. A private person, a person who is a mystery, to the world and—which is more important—to herself. Person as mystery: this idea of personhood is certainly changing, perhaps has already changed. Because I find I agree with Zuckerberg: selves evolve.'

Make your own LAN and sit in it. Play Minesweeper and Solitaire and send yourself an email and then wonder who it's from. Person as mystery! How the hell do people come up with this bullshit? What kind of a horrible Web would it be if everyone and everything was a mystery? If no one shared anything and remained private. It might just be this sort of idiot thinking that leads to proprietary software and DRM and greedy music corporations trying to muscle in on FM radio stations to extort royalty for playing new songs. 'I dream of a private network of music lovers. With music as mystery and song as puzzle. Where I try and discover for myself what the artist is trying to say. And feel.' I hate feel.

Right after that, there's this:

'Of course, Zuckerberg insists selves simply do this by themselves and the technology he and others have created has no influence upon the process. That is for techies and philosophers to debate (ideally techie-philosophers, like Jaron Lanier).'

Not on many occasions will we hear this but Zuckerberg is right. Selves evolve by and because of themselves and their social environment. Technology is an aid to human progress and does not supplant any stage of it. Atleast, not yet (because who knows when the singularity will be achieved and we will become semi-machines and can finally bid goodbye to loose motions). And no, there is no debate to be had by techies and philosophers. Fuck philosophers, they're smug, boring, pointless people who expend much time, energy, money and paper on things that are little else but common sense. Exactly what has philosophy achieved that could not have been learnt by us through pure common sense and a little reflection thereupon? All those books by Heidegger, Hegel, Mill, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre and other assholes can be efficiently summed up like the Pythons did with the meaning of life:

"Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."

That's it, short and practical and quite commonsense. I find the 'philosophical discomfort' that Smith feels with Facebook is as foolish as that felt by people who feared printing when it was invented ("Oh noes! Now our memoriez wil becum poorer!") or that photography would consume your soul or that television would lead to depression and alienation. This alienation thing is another concern of Smith. You can be alienated anywhere. As humans, our greatest invention, society, is also our greatest falling. You can be alone in a crowd anywhere, be it online or offline. Did you see Taxi driver? Do you think Travis Bickle would send a friendship request to Betsy, poke her, have the poke rejected and go on a murderous rampage solely because of that? (Hint: no). Our tastes, attitudes, personalities, stance on the music(?) of Justin Bieber and myriad other 'human variables' come together to determine how we interact with others.

Every accusation that Smith hurls at the Internet and social networks is true of almost every mass medium we have.  But we cannot abandon them. Carrying her logic forward, can we afford to take down the Internet because someone somewhere 'dreams of a more private Web' ? Dictated by our attitudes, we use technology as a means to an end ("Hey, I just used my iPhone to find and drown that guy in sewage"), not an end in itself. Fearing Facebook because you're afraid your personal, human weaknesses and inner demons might make you a fool online is a bit lame. As with almost every bloody thing in the world, moderation is the key.

It's this kind of philosophical nonsense that will come in the way of great progress. Not human ingenuity, not non-availability of funds but this kind of pointless discourse on 'ethical aspects' which are not even ethical aspects. When we invent teleportation and time travel, some idiot with a philosophy degree is going to stand in the way. Pay no heed, future generations. Give them a book deal and a spot on a 24-hour news channel and plough on. We have galaxies to explore, diseases to cure, tyrants to kill. We can't afford to waste time on this (although, if you've already invented time travel, wasting a little time to shoot philosophers in the face doesn't matter and is definitely worth it).

If you've made it this far, I apologise for the length of the post. Something about Zadie Smith's attitude towards the web and software irked me and I cobbled this together. I don't think I've put my point and indignation across well, probably kept some of it to myself. Doesn't matter, you probably also like the idea of a 'person as mystery.'

The seventh part itch -- Harry Potter

Seldom have books been translated into good movies that live up to readers' expectations. More seldom have the movies been better than the books themselves (The Godfather. Leaving out those overlong stories of Johnny Fontane, Nino Valenti, Lucy Mancini and that Doctor Jules were the best decisions made by someone adapting the novel to the screen. What makes it more creditable is that Mario Puzo was part of the writing team. If you agree to chop out massive chunks of your own material, you're either an amazingly generous writer or someone undergoing a circumcision.). But when the book itself is not the best in a series, I suspect it must become easier to make a good movie out of it and satisfy people's expectations. So it was that David Yates had a headstart while making the Deathly Hallows.

The final book of the series ended everything neatly, all ends wrapped up and no loopholes-leaving-open-the-possibility-of-a-sequel of the Super Mario Bros or "Pirates of the Caribbean : At World's End" type. And David Yates does a pretty good job of bringing that to celluloid. I didn't understand, while reading the book, why so huge a part of it had to have our intrepid trio out in the wild. Rowling had such an awful lot to throw into this one book, yet she chose to put in this 'on the road' narrative. The search for Godric Gryffindor's sword and the identity of the mysterious R.A.B and the locket that he takes from that cave could have happened in some other, less wayward manner. But whatever.

The thing is, Yates has done a good job of making that less rambling. There's a road movie feel to that segment of the movie, which is almost three-fourths of it. And it feels a lot like Jim Jarmusch's "Down by law," with the crushing silences and long fadeouts and the eerie suddenness of events. Bits of it look like "The Book of Eli" (which looked nice and tasted awful).

What's with the shaky camerawork? Why is Harry Potter suddenly the place to experiment with your cinema verite / Cloverfield / random documentary type of cinematography? Who wants realism in this fantasy world? That was what annoyed me the most about this movie (little else actually annoyed me but this one stuck out). Eduardo Serra, the camera guy, apparently did this deliberately, as he and the director "wanted to experiment." Well, go do LSD or something, stop this nonsense with handheld cameras in important scenes. There's this one where minions of the Ministry of Magic and Harry-Hermione-Ron have a battle of spells. Couldn't see a damn thing, the camera was shaking all over the place. Yeah, having the cameraman running along with actors and stunt doubles 'to capture the realism and feel of the battle' was a great idea, idiot. I'll quote from Maddox here:
"Why does every battle scene in the universe have to have a shaky cam? Just whose view point are we seeing this from anyway? Wow, the cam is shaky, I feel like I'm right in the battle, looking through the eyes of some idiot who can't fight, yet he still can't focus on an object for more than a few seconds. Hey assholes, here's an idea: how about the perspective of someone who got stabbed in the face? The camera would just sit there staring up at the blue sky as an occasional limb would come flying across, or someone would trip over his body. That would be tits."

I kept thinking about this valid point as that scene unfolded and as the idiot behind the camera shook it violently.

That apart, HP7 -- Part I is a pleasant ride. The actors are up to scratch, not being required to do much. I mean, they do a competent job (more than competent, since they're all 20 or so and not annoying. Yet.). And, joy, John Williams doesn't do the music for this one too. Fine, he's given us some iconic themes over the years but he overwhelms movies with the same generic humongous goulash of violins. You can tell when it's a John Williams score. If it's a children's movie he's composing for, watch out for the cliched music. ET, Home Alone, Harry Potter, all have this similar-sounding buildup-crescendo-deflation scheme going on. Where's the man who scored for Schindler's List? Let him out for a change. Speaking of letting things out, I didn't pee once during this 2-hour long movie. Proud of myself.

That's about it, really. It's worth a watch. I've decided to decide that some movies aren't worth a watch without even watching them. You can tell from the trailers and promo pictures and actors that they're going to be deeper piles of shit than a stack of DMK ministers in a Chilean mine. Guzaarish, any movie with Lara Dutta in it, almost all movies of Ranbir Kapoor, a Hindi movie set in a foreign city, movies with more than four words in the title (Roop ki rani choron ka raja, Jal bin machli nritya bin bijli, Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag, Sanjay Leela Bhansali ke films etc). Speaking of Bhansali, I'm reminded of a comment my friend Rishi made. "You want to see what an Alzheimer's patient really is like? Watch Mohanlal in Thanmathra. Not Amitabh Bachchan in Black, I think he had pneumonia in that. Who shakes so violently?"

Mohammed draws himself; confuses protesters

In a strange turn of events, the prophet of the Islamic faith, Mohammed, has submitted a drawing of himself to the 'Everybody draw Mohammed' Facebook page and confused the hell out of protesters everywhere, AP reports. The drawing, copies of which were hand-delivered to the offices of major newspapers around the world, depicts the stick figure of a man holding a cup. Critics and scholars everywhere are divided over the meaning and implications of this drawing while protesters are standing around in confusion.

"We can't draw Mohammed, but can Mohammed draw himself?" asked leading protester Fazl ul Hasan. "I can't think for myself, I'm waiting for old, derelict fools to issue orders about whether or not this means we shouldn't protest. But it's a bit like that mountain-Mohammed thing, isn't it?"

"Except....it kind of isn't" concluded he, confused.

Protesters worldwide were stopped in their tracks as news broke of this queer phenomenon. In a statement later released to reporters, Mohammed revealed that the drawing was a self-portrait of himself drinking coffee in the morning. "I don't know, I just felt like drawing myself, you know, and putting an end to all this bullshit going on. I know it's no Rembrandt but it's a start."

Mohammed further clarified that there was no ban anywhere in the Quran on drawing pictures of him, that people had been drawing his pictures for ages now and that this was his method of protest against the strangling of free speech by 'wacky braindead conservatives' [sic]. "I mean, I admit that bomb-in-the-turban thing in Jyllands-Posten was a bit provocative. But there are democratic ways of protesting that stuff, not a blanket ban of drawing and killing film directors and setting things on fire. And claiming God said that about pictures! That would be a silly thing for Allah to say. 'If you kill one person, you kill all of humanity. And if you save one person, you save all of humanity. And screw crayons.'  I'd blink twice at that" said the statement.

"The point is, He didn't say any such thing" continued the statement. Mohammed is also said to have 'Liked' the Facebook page and unjoined the community 'Pakistan.'

Stunned conservatives across the world have huddled together to decide on their next course of action while liberals have creamed their jeans in excitement. Meanwhile, NDTV interviewed it's token Muslim, Javed Akhtar, about this development, to which the poet and ace lyricist eloquently replied "I don't even fucking care! I'm an atheist."  NDTV's Dr. Prannoy Roy then went on to put Akhtar in the dock for further issues related to Muslims and interrogated him for three hours, as though Akhtar were the only representative for the entire community, which Dr. Roy no doubt viewed as monolithic. Akhtar, Shah Rukh Khan, Irrfan Khan and other prominent Indian celebrities who happen to be Muslims have been reported to have been told to be on standby by NDTV for purposes of condemning any silly protest, violent outburst or terrorist attack that might ensue in the future and clarifying that Islam did not condone it, ignoring the fact that this implied that NDTV thought it did.

In the Middle-East, aged Wahhabi conservatives in the Saudi Arabian kingdom have issued a fatwa against everyone who draws pictures of the Prophet. When the ironic implication of this was pointed out to them, they reportedly also issued a fatwa against irony, sarcasm, deadpan and other forms of humour. Former Uttar Pradesh minister Haji Yaqoob Qureishi meanwhile announced a bounty on the head of all the people who had drawn pictures for the Facebook page. He also added "Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia," stunning Sam Peckinpah fans.

At press time, the prophet Mohammed was reportedly turned away from a mosque in Mecca because he modestly refused to recite the kalma.

Red Dead Redemption

In February-March of this year, I wrote a little paper about a then-upcoming game, analysing the trailer and appraising its prospects upon release. The focus was on what we could glean from the trailers and what we estimated the game's sales would be. Amongst other things, I said it would be a genre-defining game and could well launch a new demographic for the publishing company to exploit. That game was Rockstar's "Red Dead Redemption" and, now that the game has been released, quite a few reviews seem to agree with me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/arts/television/17dead.html?pagewanted=1

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/109/1090125p1.html

http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=19537

Feels good to be supported by the New York Times and IGN (who even give it a 9.7/10 overall). At the time of writing that essay, Rockstar hadn't released as many trailers as they have now, so I've mentioned only the ones that were on their website then.

The sad part is, I have no money to buy a PS3 or an XBox and this delicious-looking game hasn't come out for the PC yet. So I'm like a film critic. I've reviewed a creation of somebody else but I haven't experienced the stuff myself yet.

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces

Inexplicable is the fact that they cancelled this show. I was checking Cartoon Network's lineup of shows today and was deeply saddened at what they're showing kids these days. What did the children do to deserve this? "Courage, the cowardly dog" is still on, for some reason; so are "Ed, Edd n Eddy" AND "Sheep in the big city." I hated those stupid shows with all my heart, even as a kid. I am, however, glad that they have a couple of Batman shows and Iron Man and the X-Men (which is more Wolverine-centric, sadly. I mean, there's only so much you can do with an all-Adamantium body. Jean Grey looks better in the movies); I'm also glad they got rid of Tiny TV (they have, haven't they? Didn't find it in the listings). I tried watching it a couple of years ago and couldn't get through more than an episode of it. Bob the builder has nothing going for him except that theme song which Obama plagiarised. And don't get me started on Oswald the octopus and that asshole Noddy.

Cartoon Network, till about the early '00s, had great shows. The mid-'90s were especially great, with Jonny Quest, Swat Kats (second coolest theme music after Jonny Quest), the old Scooby Doo and Super Adventures. I liked Jonny quest especially because I thought, when the Matrix came out, that the movie had copied the cartoon (I didn't know then that both had been inspired by William Gibson novels).

Which brings me to the earlier gripe. Why did they cancel both these wonderful shows -- Jonny Quest and Swat Kats? Apparently, critics compared the new Jonny Quest 'unfavourably' to the original '60s show. I think this is just a case of critics hanging on to their childhood memories and imagining them as something more wonderful than they really were (something I might be doing with this post myself). I watched the '60s episodes of Jonny Quest too. The newer ones seem way better. For one, the music is much better. Also, the introduction of Questworld somehow enriched the show, adding that (pardon the long-windedness) post-modern funk to it. Although the combat scenes in the Questworld seem bad by today's standards, for a kid in the '90s, they were the epitome of cool. Who wouldn't want to escape into a psychic world and do battle there? And it was a good idea to switch focus from Dr. Quest and Race to the kids. It didn't make sense to me that the '60s show was called Jonny Quest but was more focussed on the titular hero's father and the father's friend. The updated version grew the kids up a bit, making them the right age (around 16. Hey, if you can believe the pre-teens of Enid Blyton can thwart evil kidnappers & smugglers and Harry Potter can defeat the greatest Dark Wizard of all time, then 16 year-olds can comfortably defeat an evil genius like Jeremiah Surd) so that they could participate in the adventures too, instead of just getting caught up in messes and waiting to be rescued by the adults.

My favourite episode from The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest is this one:-

Expedition to Khumbu

Something about the opening credits still gets me all excited. Look how cool it is, the canyon of green Matrix lines with the 1984-like video panels here and there. Sweet. And that episode -- if you're any fan of twist endings, you'll love this one.

The Swat Kats -- now, there was a cool show. It had every qualification to be cool. Good guys do the right thing but are dismissed for it. Then, by dint of their own ingenuity and hard work, they become, for lack of a better word, superheroes. They build a superplane from junk in a scrapyard, for God's sake! They live in a secret underground lair, something traditionally done by supervillains. And they had such cool enemies too. Dark Kat, the Pastmaster, Dr. Viper, the Red Lynx (a Red Baron parody. Loved this episode - Part 1  Part 2  Part 3). And they managed to sneak in a bit of innuendo too. T-Bone says, when Commander Feral's daughter spurns him yet another time, "You are one stubborn she-kat!"

Astonishingly good theme music. It's still cool, managing to age really well. Which is the same case with the Real Adventures of Jonny Quest theme song too. Both these themes were composed over a decade and a half ago and they still sound good. Which is more than you can say for other cartoons. The '60s Jonny Quest theme sounds so dated (probably because it is).

As to why "The Swat Kats" was cancelled...it's not quite clear. But "the show's violence, its inability to move merchandise and a general growing disinterest have been cited as reasons," apparently. Stupid bastards, cancelling a great show just because some idiotic kids wouldn't buy a toy. And what violence? It's no more violent than Tom and Jerry. And kids are more likely to copy, if they're that stupid, the actions in Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo than the Swat Kats. Because it's next to impossible to build a plane from scrap parts when you're ten. In all, they made just 26 episodes of this phenomenon. It's quite the Firefly of the cartoon world. I still have hope that some day, someone sensible will make a movie of it. Look what Jon Favreau did with Iron Man (and not Iron Man2. Although it was a good ride, it simply wasn't as cool as Iron Man. And Rajiv Masand said it right, Robert Downey Jr. is the only superhero who is more fun outside his super suit than in it).

In summation, Cartoon Network, stop being dicks. Bring back the Swat Kats. Bring back The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. Be blessed.

Unrelated P.S:- I watched this Tamil movie called "Tamizh PaDam" (lit: Tamil movie). If you've watched Tamil movies of the last two-three decades, you'll enjoy this spoof.

Of coincidences

It might just be me, but I've noticed some similarities between songs that you wouldn't normally think would sound similar. It would not seem plausible, that is, that the composer of the latter song would be inspired by the former song. For instance, there's a great song called 'Badi dheere jali raina' sung by Rekha Bharadwaj (and composed by Vishal Bharadwaj) in Abhishek Chaubey's "Ishqiya." To me, it sounds a bit like an amazing M. RangaRao song sung brilliantly by Dr. Rajkumar in "Hosa beLaku." But that, to quote the Dude, is just, like, my opinion, man. Check it out for yourselves.

See what I mean? I'm not saying the great Vishal Bharadwaj did what Anu Malik and Anand-Milind did. It might just be the two songs being in the same raga that's swayed me. Then again, this might also be a case of Nabokovian cryptomnesia.

I never thought I'd say Nabokovian cryptomnesia. Ever.


Update:- As commenter penguin points out, "Kanneera dhaare" is an 'absolute and complete adaptation' of a Jagjit Singh ghazal from his 1979 album, "Come alive."   "Hosa beLaku" was released in 1982 and 3 years is ample time to rip off a song. So, I feel a little silly for putting that up as the possible inspiration for "BaDi dheere jali."  The brilliant ghazal in question:- Koi paas aaya savere savere.

Another instance that springs to mind, though even more far-fetched than the previous one, is yet another Hosa beLaku song (I was listening to all the songs from that movie. Really good soundtrack). This time, it's Malayalam composer Ravindran who's been caught by my roving, myopic eye. Particularly, his composition from 'His Highness Abdullah' called "Tu badi masha Allah kahe Abdullah":-





Again, I might be seeing similarities just because I want to. By the way, 'His Highness Abdullah' also has a killer soundtrack. Seek out the songs on Youtube if you haven't heard them already. Also, if you can get your hands on the original Malayalam cassette, you will be privileged to hear Mohanlal say "His Highness Abdullah." Believe me, it's a treat. The movie itself is good, despite the visuals of that last song.

Speaking of that movie, 'Pramadavanam veenDum' seems to have begotten Aaptamitra's "KaNa kaNadi Shaarade."


These aren't instances of plagiarism. Maybe coincidences or cases of a part of a song inspiring another, entirely different song; vague resemblances, perhaps. Let's call it 'vagiarism.' It's not how the music director of the Kannada film 'Mona Lisa' (Vallisha Sandeep?) blatantly ripped off the titular bit of "Staying alive" and added that to the film's title song. Check that shit out, it's in the first interlude. Staying alive, of all the songs. That's among the stupidest songs ever sung. It's also not how Pradeep Sarkar borrowed almost the entire plot from K Balachander's 'Arangetram' and made 'Laaga chunari mein daag' or how B R Chopra made minor changes to the plot of B R Panthulu's Kannada classic 'Schoolmaster' and produced 'Baghban.' By the way, it says five people wrote Baghban. "Hey, did you hear the one about how many writers it takes to rip off an old Kannada film...?"

No, these are just vague resemblances that trigger off dormant faultlines in my memory, I guess. I watched "Let the right one in" yesterday, after thinking of watching it for many months. The more amateur (like me) anime watchers among you will recall the amazing 'Elfenlied' series. This movie put me in mind of that anime. Here, Oskar, the normal, hapless young boy finds an incredibly powerful 'special friend' in the vampire girl Eli. In Elfenlied, Kohta is the powerless hero(?) who befriends the powerful Diclonius Nyu/Lucy. (Spoiler alert) At the end of "Let the right one in," Eli, the vampire girl, saves Oskar from the bullies after some messy bloodletting. In Elfenlied, Nyu confronts shitloads of soldiers and saves Kohta after shedding truckloads of blood. (Spoiler ends)

Come to think of it, that's kind of similar to "Akira" as well. Tetsuo goes crazy and becomes some sort of expanding organism. His best friend, Kaneda, 'saves' him from himself and -- maybe I am seeing too much into this stuff.

Iron Man 2 is good fun, though.

Update:- I really must be seeing too much into things. In the following scene, check out Dr. Rajkumar's acting and voice modulation (don't watch the whole scene, it's a bit blade. Just watch for a couple of minutes).

Doesn't it seem that Kamal Haasan does a similar job in 'Indiran Chandiran' as the evil mayor? Similar voice. Kamal might have been inspired by it, you never know.