Absence makes the mind wander
A heart or two drawn asunder
Messages and mails make me wonder
Could there be days fonder?
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Fashion is bad for you
Because I and most likely most boys of my age in their formative years were denied a healthy, unhypocritic sex education, our resort at better understanding of the fairer sex was taken up by Michel Adam and his team at Ftv. Hmmm...thats just an excuse for my voyeuristic tendencies. Though I had a late awakening (cable took a while in entering my household) many nights were spent in the drawing room on the pretext of burning the midnight oil for approaching exams. Under the fat BS Raman text books were neatly camouflaged Grishams and Higgins, which would eventually be put away sharp at 00:00 hours for some visual feasting sponsored by Midnight Hot. I wouldn't say it was my first sight of minimalism, but it did develop a short lived lively interest in haute couture. My philosophy in fashion sustains though, since those early easily influenced days- summers are for minimalism and all seasons for all things pretty and beautiful.
Now, Ambika Soni and the team at the I&B Ministry decide that a whole generation of teenagers raging hormones and all will have to be bereft of the coming of age ritual of tuning into Ftv for their daily fix of titillation for the next 10 days! Obviously there is the internet which has various sources to bypass the I&B order. But it just doesn't match up to watching it on TV in mute, ears perked to approaching feet, index finger twitching on the next channel button on the remote, in anticipation of someone entering the room.
Apart from nipping bright Bals/Valayas/et al in the bud it is also a strong indictment that watching fashionable things trotting down a ramp is a crime! In that case wouldn't it be even grievous a crime to broadcast shows like MTV Roadies, Big Boss and such? Oh, that's reality focused programing delving into human emotions under duress, a social experiment. Excellent! Repeated news flashes of Nityananda's friskiness did not cause a shut down of news channels? That would be termed social awareness I guess.
So why cant we choose what we want to watch? Because the I& B guys think "The visuals were found to be obscene, denigrating women and were not suitable for children and unrestricted public exhibition." There is absolutely no denigration of the woman or child as is the case in pornography, in fact it is more like a method of advertising your ware to potential clientele. And its perfect viewing for children in their talkative teenage prime. Have you noticed how they turn quiet when a modestly dressed woman appears on TV? Hell, most adults also do!
This suppressed hypocritical moral policing will continue in the name of saving the child from culture which is clearly anti Indian, more so anti Bharatiya Nari- until maybe the I&B guys do a workshop with Mr. Howard Stern or more locally maybe Nityananda himself.
Now, Ambika Soni and the team at the I&B Ministry decide that a whole generation of teenagers raging hormones and all will have to be bereft of the coming of age ritual of tuning into Ftv for their daily fix of titillation for the next 10 days! Obviously there is the internet which has various sources to bypass the I&B order. But it just doesn't match up to watching it on TV in mute, ears perked to approaching feet, index finger twitching on the next channel button on the remote, in anticipation of someone entering the room.
Apart from nipping bright Bals/Valayas/et al in the bud it is also a strong indictment that watching fashionable things trotting down a ramp is a crime! In that case wouldn't it be even grievous a crime to broadcast shows like MTV Roadies, Big Boss and such? Oh, that's reality focused programing delving into human emotions under duress, a social experiment. Excellent! Repeated news flashes of Nityananda's friskiness did not cause a shut down of news channels? That would be termed social awareness I guess.
So why cant we choose what we want to watch? Because the I& B guys think "The visuals were found to be obscene, denigrating women and were not suitable for children and unrestricted public exhibition." There is absolutely no denigration of the woman or child as is the case in pornography, in fact it is more like a method of advertising your ware to potential clientele. And its perfect viewing for children in their talkative teenage prime. Have you noticed how they turn quiet when a modestly dressed woman appears on TV? Hell, most adults also do!
This suppressed hypocritical moral policing will continue in the name of saving the child from culture which is clearly anti Indian, more so anti Bharatiya Nari- until maybe the I&B guys do a workshop with Mr. Howard Stern or more locally maybe Nityananda himself.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
A Morning Beat
Key turned right. Choke pulled up. Petrol tap down. A gentle kick and a deep throated thump emanates, shattering the early morning quietude. A gentle nudge from the right toe and I glide out of the neighbourhood, sadistically pleased that the aerobics instructor lady (attemptee) will now be wide awake. She must have got back home a couple of hours back. HA! WAKEY WAKEY!
The throttle is slowly released as I settle into the saddle, palms caressing the handles, as I reassure my black and silver stallion. The chrome tank, shiny (I spent most of last evening wiping it, hawing steam from the mouth for the final glint) winks occasionally under the street lamps. I move up to second and quickly into third as the road widens, it welcomes me like a long lost friend. Sandwich boards whizz past like a toned down version of the Wachowski Speedracer. The needle advances beating a steady time. The black tarmac shines like a coiled cobra.
Islands of sodium luminescence vandalise the sooty morning. Barreling ahead on fourth the wind bites into my eyes. What started as a low moan is now a frenetic wail. Tears stream down, cool on the face. Every cell is active, alert, lucid, waiting...
Through this thunderous gallop, however, a strange calmness envelopes me. The seething rage extinguished, insecurities thrown to the wind, cynicism emptied, unmindful of ironies, peace reigns. I ride into the wild, unknown, on and on into the horizon until I am a small speck and then....POOF! I am gone.
Or so I think. Escapist!
The throttle is slowly released as I settle into the saddle, palms caressing the handles, as I reassure my black and silver stallion. The chrome tank, shiny (I spent most of last evening wiping it, hawing steam from the mouth for the final glint) winks occasionally under the street lamps. I move up to second and quickly into third as the road widens, it welcomes me like a long lost friend. Sandwich boards whizz past like a toned down version of the Wachowski Speedracer. The needle advances beating a steady time. The black tarmac shines like a coiled cobra.
Islands of sodium luminescence vandalise the sooty morning. Barreling ahead on fourth the wind bites into my eyes. What started as a low moan is now a frenetic wail. Tears stream down, cool on the face. Every cell is active, alert, lucid, waiting...
Through this thunderous gallop, however, a strange calmness envelopes me. The seething rage extinguished, insecurities thrown to the wind, cynicism emptied, unmindful of ironies, peace reigns. I ride into the wild, unknown, on and on into the horizon until I am a small speck and then....POOF! I am gone.
Or so I think. Escapist!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Here comes the sun
One downside of going the full tonsure is your scalp fights a lost battle against the sun. Stepping out for lunch turns into an excessively perspiring expedition unless you have protection of a cap/hat, which doesn't give you that naked feeling on top.
Ri-baldry apart Bangalore has turned quite into an oven over the last couple of weeks. And its only February! Climate change is here and its on your (at least my) head. When was the last February night you remember having turned the fan on full blast, apart from the last two weeks? Never in my living memory! An Uncle of mine mentioned of how they hadn't even installed a fan when they initially settled in Bangalore some 30 years back. Air conditioning is the norm now.
I have always hated the heat. Even though I was born in Madras and root around Trichur in Kerala. Summer holidays were never as romantic as in Enid Blyton stories. A month would be spent half naked fakir like in Trichur, gulping down coconut water by the dozen from the decently endowed garden in my grandfathers house. Sweet mangoes would be decimated after lunch, only to lead to further discomfort with their strange ability to increase gastronomic combustion. Just as we were getting comfortable with the frying pan we would be shunted right into the fire, a moist one at that, to Madras. A city known for its wide variety of weather conditions- hot, hotter, hottest. I would invariably land up around the peak of the last option. The evenings would provide some respite, from the sea breeze, but you would still look like you have just emerged from a sauna right after a shower. I never found much reason to having a shower in Madras. The only right thing would be stay under it-forever. In hindsight, despite the flak against heat, those days were enjoyable-they were after all the summer holidays, a time when you had absolutely no responsibilities, no deadlines, no bosses, no most things that irk me now.
What is happening to all this solar energy anyway? Apart from making us and other natural entities we share this planet with tick, what does it do? Oh, it makes a lot shiny panels generate electricity which is then used to cook food, heat water and an assortment of such nice stuff. What happens to the rest of it? I am sure there is a lot which is wasted, being absorbed by the earth to bake one hell of a huge pie. What are the scientists and other knowledgeable characters in such matters doing? Can't all this energy be tapped to run- more air conditioners? There's also the catch, the more we use such equipment, the more chemicals released into the air, blocking the sun's rays from escaping back into the upper zones of the atmosphere and leaving us hot (not just under the collar).
If things are so hot why doesn't it melt all the fat stored under my skin? Just imagine the possibilities, eat, drink, lead a merry life in say Manali or Ladakh and come down to Chennai for therapy. At the rate Bangalore's temperatures are soaring, we could heat up the competition. After reading news bits about melting ice caps and glaziers, increasing sea levels and becoming a victim of a burnt scalp I have resigned to my fate and decided to wait and marginally increase the waistline of a polar bear:
Ri-baldry apart Bangalore has turned quite into an oven over the last couple of weeks. And its only February! Climate change is here and its on your (at least my) head. When was the last February night you remember having turned the fan on full blast, apart from the last two weeks? Never in my living memory! An Uncle of mine mentioned of how they hadn't even installed a fan when they initially settled in Bangalore some 30 years back. Air conditioning is the norm now.
I have always hated the heat. Even though I was born in Madras and root around Trichur in Kerala. Summer holidays were never as romantic as in Enid Blyton stories. A month would be spent half naked fakir like in Trichur, gulping down coconut water by the dozen from the decently endowed garden in my grandfathers house. Sweet mangoes would be decimated after lunch, only to lead to further discomfort with their strange ability to increase gastronomic combustion. Just as we were getting comfortable with the frying pan we would be shunted right into the fire, a moist one at that, to Madras. A city known for its wide variety of weather conditions- hot, hotter, hottest. I would invariably land up around the peak of the last option. The evenings would provide some respite, from the sea breeze, but you would still look like you have just emerged from a sauna right after a shower. I never found much reason to having a shower in Madras. The only right thing would be stay under it-forever. In hindsight, despite the flak against heat, those days were enjoyable-they were after all the summer holidays, a time when you had absolutely no responsibilities, no deadlines, no bosses, no most things that irk me now.
What is happening to all this solar energy anyway? Apart from making us and other natural entities we share this planet with tick, what does it do? Oh, it makes a lot shiny panels generate electricity which is then used to cook food, heat water and an assortment of such nice stuff. What happens to the rest of it? I am sure there is a lot which is wasted, being absorbed by the earth to bake one hell of a huge pie. What are the scientists and other knowledgeable characters in such matters doing? Can't all this energy be tapped to run- more air conditioners? There's also the catch, the more we use such equipment, the more chemicals released into the air, blocking the sun's rays from escaping back into the upper zones of the atmosphere and leaving us hot (not just under the collar).
If things are so hot why doesn't it melt all the fat stored under my skin? Just imagine the possibilities, eat, drink, lead a merry life in say Manali or Ladakh and come down to Chennai for therapy. At the rate Bangalore's temperatures are soaring, we could heat up the competition. After reading news bits about melting ice caps and glaziers, increasing sea levels and becoming a victim of a burnt scalp I have resigned to my fate and decided to wait and marginally increase the waistline of a polar bear:
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Jahaan Pyaar Hota Hai Vyapaar Bankar
But for the bomb blasts at German Bakery, Pune, the media would have been quite happily covering the sappy story of how Valentine's Day is being celebrated across the nation. While Arnab Goswami might have been quizzing Muthalik on why he suddenly feels democracy has been kidnapped by gundas in the background of his face blackening at a chat show discussing the much debated V Day, he will now focus on internal security lapses or how David Headley could be connected to the blasts and where will the diplomatic talks with Pakistan now lead. Bigger issues at the heart of it, more research and fleshing out of details for journalists following the story, negotiation scripts to be redrafted for the Indo-Pak diplomats and on a lesser note, lesser stupid cupid stories thankfully on the news.
Now this is not a rant from an embittered soul who has minimal experience in the what a close friend calls "complicated human emotion that has done so much destruction rather than construction of good faith between people" department apart from the unrequited and familial variety. This is more a rant against what shenoy refers to as the Love Day Cabal- A group of money-minded publicity-hungry companies that seek to make money from unsuspecting suckers on the great Day of Love. So while restaurants exhort that food and wine is the right way to your darlings heart (what if she has a bad case of indigestion?) and multiplexes proclaim to spend a few cozy hours, hands clasped around each others stargazing at what must be the most creatively titled rom-com till date Valentine's Day, I spent a quiet afternoon (for lack of anything more exciting) scanning the TV.
You are not spared much on the idiot box too. While The Wedding Singer clears his throat on WB, Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy have Just Married on Star Movies. World Movies redeemed Cable TV itself by showing François Truffaut's Jules et Jim. What arrested me for the next couple of hours however was Doordarshan which has a series on Sunday's titled Film Utsav. The programmer must have presumably undergone what I was going through (though mine was more of a self pitying nature) and decided to wreak hell on the big V Day with- Guru Dutt's Pyaasa. For all the venom and vitriol I attempt at venting, not just on the V Day itself but other larger issues, it will remain a rant on this digitised diary. Which brings me to my moment of realisation brought on me care of Messers Sahir Ludhianvi, Mohammad Rafi, S.D.Burman and Guru Dutt and thebollywoodfan (for the translation):
Now this is not a rant from an embittered soul who has minimal experience in the what a close friend calls "complicated human emotion that has done so much destruction rather than construction of good faith between people" department apart from the unrequited and familial variety. This is more a rant against what shenoy refers to as the Love Day Cabal- A group of money-minded publicity-hungry companies that seek to make money from unsuspecting suckers on the great Day of Love. So while restaurants exhort that food and wine is the right way to your darlings heart (what if she has a bad case of indigestion?) and multiplexes proclaim to spend a few cozy hours, hands clasped around each others stargazing at what must be the most creatively titled rom-com till date Valentine's Day, I spent a quiet afternoon (for lack of anything more exciting) scanning the TV.
You are not spared much on the idiot box too. While The Wedding Singer clears his throat on WB, Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy have Just Married on Star Movies. World Movies redeemed Cable TV itself by showing François Truffaut's Jules et Jim. What arrested me for the next couple of hours however was Doordarshan which has a series on Sunday's titled Film Utsav. The programmer must have presumably undergone what I was going through (though mine was more of a self pitying nature) and decided to wreak hell on the big V Day with- Guru Dutt's Pyaasa. For all the venom and vitriol I attempt at venting, not just on the V Day itself but other larger issues, it will remain a rant on this digitised diary. Which brings me to my moment of realisation brought on me care of Messers Sahir Ludhianvi, Mohammad Rafi, S.D.Burman and Guru Dutt and thebollywoodfan (for the translation):
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