...was the last post on this blog. I've been so busy with life and work in general that I have not had the time. A lot of water has flown the bridge... Gay sex was made legal in India, Congress stayed in power, Roger Federer completed a career Grand Slam, LTTE was destroyed, GM went bankrupt, MJ died, there were riots in Iran, Honduras and China, North Korea tested many more missiles, swine flu came into existence, Pakistan won the T20 world cup... Phew. A whole flood seems to have passed under the bridge, threatening the bridge's very existence.

These days, I've been feeling terribly guilty. In some ways, I feel like Siddhartha who ventured out on his chariot, only the other way around- from seeing daily drudgery to Utopia. One would expect me to be happy- indeed I am happy at a personal level- but the question of the bigger picture in life haunts me. Maybe the only good thing, indeed, might be the fact that I'm feeling guilty. It means I'll want to do something about it. All our visions are clouded by fogs of selfishness and illusions of self-importance. I'm no exception, but I have realised I have a choice. I am not strong enough to let go of my career, a secure future and a peaceful life and dive in to an uncertainty- that haunts me. But then, it's been haunting me for the last ten odd years, and I've done little about it but continue with my whims and fancies. What will I do about it now? Maybe nothing. Maybe time will tell.

Mandatory poll post

I've been reading many blogs and Facebook updates, and they are all abuzz with the millions of aspects of the greatest vote-casting exercise in human history. The tone, in most places, is pessimistic.

There simply is no choice- all of them seem equally bad. So, what's the point in voting? Is there any point in voting? Of course there is. It lets you shift the blame when things dont work out.

History has taught us that change comes to us in many and unexpected ways. Go vote. Maybe you'll find the girl/guy of your dreams in the polling line. You could then get started on a non-political discussion about the weather and the spring blooms, and live happily ever after.

Go vote- that's the only time you're treated like a king (unless someone already proxy-voted for you, of course), and you should, repeat should, make hay while the sun shines.

Go vote- Chances are that your vote no. 489563948 was the winning one!!! Please send us your personal details (don't forget your bank details, duh!) to claim the prize!

Vaastu

I love Vaastu. Oh yes, I'm so thrilled by learning the fact that our ancestors knew the 'magical powers' of the pyramids. I am also informed, by this masterpiece of an article, that 'pyramid' stands for:

P - Perfect (In measurement & work)
Y - Yielding (More Yield In Agriculture & Wish Fulfillment)
R - Rainbow colour, resonant (Pyramid Fire ­ Aghnihotra, Responding Thought)
A - Almighty (Represents Cosmic Power)
M - Mathematics, Mysterious (Perfect Angle & Size, Wonderful results)
I - Intuition (To Get Inner Help Towards Upliftment)
D - Dynamic (Full Of Power)

I'm not the right guy to tell you these things. You should read that article completely. You'll experience what Buddha felt like under the Bodhi tree. An epiphany.

But wait. There's more. Er. R. Prasad also informs us, about the sacred art of Dowsing. Dowsing, he assures us, is the study of energy field by a person with 'electromagnetic ability'. He also adds that there is very little in this world that cannot be found by Dowsing. Pendulums, and other such simple devices, are all he needs. He also adds:

The pendulum's contact with our body acts as a "witness device" - something which has been in physical contact with us. This physical contact establishes a psychometric relationship between person and object; a sympathetic attraction once created may endure for unlimited time.

It is recommended to clear your dowsing instruments from time to time to neutralize these energetic emanations; cleansing dowsing tools can be done in a number of ways including immersion in a jar of seasalt overnight.

I have no doubt that the scientific community has misunderstood Foucault and Galileo all these years. They were of course people with electromagnetic ability, and they were, in all likelihood, looking for scientific truth through this ancient and sacred art. It is also probably how the Indians found the Zero. Andrew Wiles must have found the proof for Fermat's last theorem in this way too. We are also informed that many big companies dowse for oil and precious stones, but never admit it due to concerns about their image (Can you believe that!). It is only a minor step of logic from there, to say that individuals (with electromagnetic ability) also follow this example, and simply claim that they had to work for years before they could achieve their goal. It all makes so much sense now.

Maybe, instead of spending billions of taxpayer money to look for the Higgs Boson, all they had to do was pay Er. R. Prasad his fees, Rs. 11000 a day (plus airfare, obviously) for a full day visit to CERN and give him a pendulum. I'm sure, with a long enough pendulum and enough time, he could sniff it out even if it were hidden in Michael Jackson's face.

P.S.: I have a humble question for Nameologists and Numerologists out there: My incapable mind does not comprehend the deep science of modifying the English spellings of people's names (which are originally from an Indian language) which will then go on to change their fortunes. Suneel or Sunil or Suniel, it is still सुनील in Hindi and ಸುನೀಲ್ in Kannada. How to decide what language? Or is the Roman Alphabet the King of Good Times?

ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ಸತ್ಯ, ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ನಿತ್ಯ

For people like me, who are very protective about their own language and believe that no matter what you do, where you do it, you will always remain a true-blue *demonym* , there are few things better than seeing other people respecting your language and culture. I am a hardcore, cut-me-I'll-bleed-Kannada Kannadiga, who read Prajavani for daily news when growing up. My 'language of thought', still remains to this day, Kannada.

One of my newly discovered delights (thanks to Sha-ಸ್ತ್ರೀ for that) is the Kannada Gmail, and the amazingly clean and good language (of course, they still simply use english words transliterated to kannada for a lot of things, but hey, it would be ridiculous to expect e-mail to be called vidyut anche and so on...) which is used for describing things. I have seen many attempts at using kannada for the web, and very often, they take it to extremes, which makes it incomprehensible for most common Kannada users. Let's face it, not even a tiny fraction of people would say 'ugibandi' for 'trains'.

The joy of reading or listening to good, unadulterated and slang-free Kannada is something else. Being born to a Kannada/Sanskrit scholar and having a long history of language teachers in my family, I have been set very high standards in language ever since I was old enough to read. Therefore, it is not right to expect everyone to speak it with the same degree of comfort as I do. I have, over the years, come to terms with the fact that Kan-glish is as far as any informal communication will go, even when two Kannadigas are speaking. Maybe that's how languages evolve, surviving external influences by bending instead of buckling.

Kannadigas, however, are not the most aggressive of people you would meet. They are, to a large extent, very 'accommodating', particularly when it comes to their language and culture. There is no way you can survive in Chennai without learning Tamizh, or in Kolkata without Bengali. Karnataka, on the other hand, is slowly getting frayed at it's edges... by Telugu to the east, by Marathi to the north, by Tamil and Malayalam in the south. People in the so-called 'Hyderabad Karnataka' barely communicate in Kannada. You go to Belgaum, and speaking in Marathi would probably fetch you more brownie points with the natives than speaking Kannada. I will not say much about Bangalore (that would be a blog post by itself) - all I can say is it is suffering the same fate as Mumbai. It is the price it paid for its fame, and some would say it sold its soul to the devil. While I don't support this notion, I have to assert that Bangalore has, indeed, lost its identity (or at least, morphed itself into a completely new being, which has no resemblance to the old-age-retirement haven it once was. Although Bangalore has always had a heady brew of cosmopolitanism, being the focal point of three intersecting cultures, it has now lost the easy going, old-town feel that I associate with my childhood).

Anyway, I digress. Kannadigas, like I said, are quite docile. Over 70 folk arts in Karnataka have reportedly met their demise in recent times, due to lack of nourishment and interest It appears that Kannadigas are simply not interested in their own culture anymore. Maybe we deserve it but the language does not. We have managed to get a Classical Language status, but only time will tell what this really entails. (I just hope being a classical language is not halfway to being a dead language) As long as Kannadigas remain indifferent to their culture, things that they now take for granted will simply vanish. Our kids may not even know what Yakshagaana is.

Like an old proverb goes, ಹಿತ್ತಲ ಗಿಡ ಮದ್ದಲ್ಲ. (translating it is retarded, so let me reword it: When you try to look very far, you tend to miss what's closest to you.) I'm afraid it is only very true in this case. If our politicians tomorrow made language a political plank, it wouldn't be too far-fetched (heck, there already are a few, but not noteworthy). But then again, there are more important issues than language, and as usually happens with politicians, the way they would nurture a language would be by pouring their hatred on other languages, which is worse.

P.S.: Reader: I'm sorry if you're not a Kannadiga. Perhaps you can draw parallels with your own language, perhaps not. In any case, if you found it offensive/boring/irritating (what part, pray!), screw you. If you appreciate my concern for my culture, thank you.

P.P.S.: There are, of course, other languages in Karnataka, like Tulu, Kodava, Konkani etc.- They have their own culture, and I will not speak for them, since I'm ignorant of their problems.

Random short blog#1

If you set out a few years ago wanting to change the world, and you still want to change the world, haven't you wasted those few years of your life? You're no better off than when you started off, except in your silly little mind. Lesser expectations, perhaps, are the key to a happy, if not a successful life. How many famous and great people you know are happy anyway?

Who watches the Watchmen...

I have to admit, I hadn't read Watchmen till recently. I remember the time we all pooled in and bought Bharath the graphic novel. He was very happy, to put it mildly. He's a comic freak. Now that I've read it, I can safely say it's a masterpiece. A work of art. A monumental piece of cynicism.

Make no mistake, this one is not for people seeking some philistine pleasure. Watchmen is right up there beyond the best. It is not always a pleasant read and there are times where Alan Moore's sanity is called into question. But it always oozes oodles of class. This one is for the well-read. Respect.

Oh, I haven't yet seen the movie, and I will soon. I'm very curious about how the film handles the complicated storyline. Moore has apparently always been against turning his books into movies, but that doesn't seem to stop people from doing it. Hmmm.

Cook-cook-cook-cook-cook

That title is supposed to be sung to the tune of 'Choli ke peeche kya hai' from Khalnayak. Nevermind.

So. The point of this blog post is basically to think aloud about all the nice things I've learnt to cook. My opinion and idea of cooking has changed over years. Strangely enough, I used to be a better cook when I was small (about 12 yrs, shall we say?) when I used to help my mom around in then kitchen. Back then, with my sister doing medicine and all, it was mainly to gain mileage with my mom- I could always yap that I was the better cook 'despite being a boy'. Then, of course, she got better. Much better. Then, occupied with my own tribulations in life, I gave it a miss, and became what you can safely call a dunce at cooking. Of course, things have now changed. I had to learn cooking or eat food cooked by people who thought salt was spicy (it's not bad, you know, pasta and rösti and älplermaggronnen, but like the old adage, what's life without some spice?). Bottomline: I've learnt to cook. Quite well. (Don't ask me about times of experimentation, when, many a day, I've had to consume food that would not qualify even for a best-before date.) I'm quite proud of this whole cooking thing, you know. It's experimenting at its best. I've always considered myself good at hands on experimenting (I better be, or else I'll have made a bad career choice), and cooking is, as a pop-sci program would put it, something you can find in your kitchen. I'm crazy, because I often find myself wondering what really happens to food when you put it on heat and mix and stir and all that. Of course, it's not an exact science, and that's what makes it brilliant. I wish I could produce some photo-evidence of all my cooking exploits, but I'm not just a cook, you see. I'm also a glutton. I don't really have the patience to take pictures of my food when it is lying invitingly on my plate. This weekend, I'm making Gasagase Payasa. That's poppy seed pudding. Anyone who can smell it can hop in.

A New Way to Tackle Global Warming

I just thought this up. I think the plan is genius in its simplicity. It's the easiest plan conceivable, not just because it needs no money or effort, but simply because it IS lack of effort. This is my idea in its brilliant glory: Stop dieting, eat a lot, sleep a lot, stay lazy, and grow fat. Still wondering why? Let me elaborate:

1. When you eat more than necessary, you store most of the energy in your body as fat. If you go on a diet, you burn all that fat, and in doing so, introduce unnecessary heat into the atmosphere, which would have otherwise been safely been assimilated into the ground when you died. (remember, the byproducts of fat burning are CO2, water and heat). This, of course, assumes that most of humanity is buried when dead, which is the case anyway.

2. When you're fat, you tend to get lazy, and hence move around lesser. Remember, getting from A to B is one of the biggest supposed sources of global warming.

3. By eating more food (especially meat-eaters) you're killing the cows which are responsible for global warming.

4. When you're fat, you don't live as long, owing to the various health risks associated with obesity. Which means you're contributing lesser carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and at the same time, help to fix more carbon back to the ground (since you carry more carbon back to the ground when you die- this follows as a corollary of point 1)

5. Fat people offer lesser surface area per kilogram of area from which heat can escape. Think of it this way: one person weighing 100 kg will have lesser skin on him/her than two people weighing 50 kg, which implies lesser heat loss into the atmosphere.

6. This also makes millions of life simpler, gives them hope that obesity can be cool one day. At the very least, they can claim to have helped the planet, if not anyone else, in their lazy good-for-nothing lives. It will also lend an air of credibility to the arguments of middle-aged fat women pouring scorn over their page-3 bulimic anorexic counterparts.

Like I said, the plan is mindbogglingly simple. Easily the greatest idea since Relativity. And what's more, I'm writing it only a few miles away from where Einstein had his epiphany. I'm experiencing one right now. This is it. Any takers?

Of Adults, Children and Metaphors.

I have to warn you, this is a rant.

I have always wondered how, when as a kid, you have some anomaly, you are always convinced that it would be alright once you're old enough. If you had a premature puberty, you would be convinced that in a few years, it would all be okay. If you had premature gray-hair, (like I did) you'd think, in twenty years what difference would gray hair make. For me, this sort of underscores the point of this post- that humans grow uglier as they grow old. And not just physically.

When you're born as a wrinkly two-foot piece of meat with a hose pipe in your belly, you're probably ugly (not to your mom, of course). But then, so is an uncut diamond. unlike a simple diamond, though, it takes years to shape a human, to cut it to perfection. The world has a funny way of cutting diamonds, and it is as far from perfect as perfect can be. When you're born, you're beautiful. No matter what your shortcomings, you're still beautiful. Your Conscience does not even know it exists, which is, in my humble opinion, the best state of being for Conscience. You are completely at peace with yourself, and care the least for the cares of the world. That's why you're beautiful.

As they grow up, in Salman Rushdie's words, children become the vessels into which adults pour their poison. WarhatredgreedI'm-better-than-you-because-you're-lowborn. Divisions begin to appear, as like chinks made by an unskilled diamond-cutter. Children don't lose their innocence... It is murdered, beaten to death by the myriad misgivings and prejudices of adults around them. Adults are acting out a play rehearsed a million times in history, a play whose writers are forgotten in time.

One could always say, in the spirit of the Lord of the flies, that a natural order will always emerge, no matter the influence of the society. After all, envy, cupidity, anger and lust are human emotions, and children are no exception. Yes, and this is why a perfect diamond cutter is needed. One who can cut out the rough edges these emotions create. Parents are expected to burden this superhuman task, but then, parents are only humans, fallible, gullible, meek and prone to err. They have already been cut and ground into rough, unshaped or misshapen diamonds with their own noses to the grindstone.

I'm now tired, and will stop. My own own future is clouded with dirt, and it bothers me that my only aim in life now is to clean out that dirt. If you're depressed, don't blame yourself. After all, it was Pandora's fault. But also remember that the last thing that came out of that box, was hope.

Of Countries, Frost and Missing Fountains.

Last Monday, I travelled to Geneva. For a newcomer, Geneva is the city of diplomacy and international relations. It was an independent republic for a long time, before it finally decided to join the Swiss Confederacy. It is so close to France that it is almost France, and behaves like it too.

So then, We went to Geneva. I live about a half-hour train ride away from Zurich, so the first thing to do was to get to the Zurich train station, the Hauptbahnhof. And it would take is about 3 hours to get to Geneva from there, which meant that we had to leave as early in the morning as possible, and that in turn would mean missing a good three hours sleep.

Right, so we wake up at 5 in the morning, and leave at 5.46, so we can catch the train at 6.34 (sorry for funny timings, but that's how it is, in Switzerland). And so we got on board a nice and cozy, not-so-crowded train where we could have a few seats for ourselves. The sun wouldn't rise till 8, so we slept. For an hour, everything went smooth, after which we saw the train slowing down to make a scheduled stop at Bern, when we heard the announcement: 'Ladies and Gentlemen, due to a collision with three horses on the way, we regret to announce that this train will return to Zurich after reaching Bern. Passengers travelling to Fribourg may take a connection at blah blah, to Neuchatel at blah blah, and those travelling to Lausanne and Geneva are requested to take the connection to Biel/Bienne at 8.04 where another connection awaits you to Geneva. Right. So we get down at Berne, where the temperature, I can swear, was atleast -100 C! So we wait there, shivering in the cold, when an already crowded train glides in at the wrong platform. So we run, and manage to get into the train, only to find out that it's as crowded as a Mumbai local train at peak hour (well that's exaggerating, but it wasn't far from that). We finally got off at Biel/Bienne, and got into a better looking, but seemingly full train, where we finally found decent seats and settled down.

We then reach Geneva, and are all excited and take the first tram to the UN office. This was an awesome experience- we got a guided tour, bought some souvenirs, and had fun like any other tourist. Next on the agenda was the Jet d'Eau, which is supposed to be a round-the-year attraction for tourists, what with it being the poster-boy of it's tourism and all. So we decide to walk along the lake, get to the point where it should have been- Surprise Surprise. It's not there. The temperature's -5 degrees, so they've turned it off so that the droplets from the fountain do not form ice on the pavements.

At that time, we were, understandably, bloody pissed off. We obviously had a plan-B: Go to the Telepherique du Saleve, an alpine ridge just outside Geneva which affords a brilliant view of the surroundings. This, we soon realised, was flawed- one phone call to the office of the cable train told us that it was closed as well. Some luck we were having!

So we're stuck, at about 3 PM, with nothing to do but see the city in the bloody cold. So we walk around aimlessly for a bit, see all the nice places, and then board a boat. We get to the destination, which turns out to be just one stop away, and we're still sitting there, drawing stares. The driver waits, then realises we wouldn't get down, and starts back, and we get down at the same place where we started.
Then, we go into a nice looking cafe, buy ice cream and later, a cuckoo clock at a souvenir shop (that completes the touristy list of things we did). but we still have to kill time till 7 PM, you see. We have this Gleis-7 card which allows travel throughout Switzerland for free after 7 PM. so we go back, take a random bus, and do the same routine- half an hour to the destination, and half an hour back.

Then, we get back, roam around some more and finally get to the station, where we find out that our train is late by half an hour. There are a few more annoying delays and when we get home, it's 12 in the night. some day, eh?

My suggestion: Never, ever go to Geneva in peak winter. Never.

Slumdog Millionaire

Right. I just have to get it out of my system, and I don't care who reads. Slumdog Millionaire is just another movie. It's not a great movie. I don't think the movie deserves so many accolades, it's just overrated. Now, let's do this the old style. What are the positive aspects of the movie?

1. Brilliant cinematography.
2. Music Score by A. R. Rehman is not his best, but it suits the flow of the movie.
3. A supposedly different story line.
4. Good direction and editing.
5. Entertaining

All in all, the movie's technically great. But so are RGV's movies. And there's the standard argument against every Indian writing a negative review of this movie: The movie just pricks the sensitive areas of the Patriotic Heart. An Indian abroad, especially, cannot tolerate anything that shows his/her country in a negative light. Right. In my case atleast, I couldn't relate to anything shown about India in the movie, but I wasn't born in a slum. The story, as far as I'm concerned, could be in any slum. So, let's for the moment assume that the movie took place somewhere far from India and get rid of the patriotic heart.

I am willing to concede that it is possible, just possible that so many bad things can happen to one single person. Your mom dies, you grow up in a slum, you're captured by a beggar gang where they try to put out your eyes, you run away on a train, child prostitution etc., because these are real problems in slums. But what I particularly disliked was the attempt to sensationalise some things in the movie. Some things I find unacceptable:

1. The scene where he is beaten up for misleading two American tourists into the Dhobi Ghaat and he says 'You wanted to see the real India'. What irked me even more was the reply: 'Here's some of real America for you, son' (or something like that). Now why was this scene put there, or even necessary? I mean, you could always argue 'this was just this one guy's case and it's what really happened to him, let it go for God's sake!'. Maybe, but more likely not. I think this scene was added simply to appeal to the western pride and make them feel comfortable and happy when they're watching it. It reaffirms their existent beliefs and impressions. This is where the movie's subtle underlying stereotyping just pokes through.

2. The storyline is just too flimsy to be convincing at times. Like the 100 dollar bill and how he gets to know the name of Ben Franklin, is way too unconvincing. A blind kid begging in a Mumbai subway telling Jamal the name of the guy on the 100 dollar bill seems just too contrived. The situation of the kid dressed as Rama holding a Bow and Arrow in his hand being related to the riot scene leaves too many holes in reasoning. I would little assume that any Hindu rioters charging in to a Muslim slum would bring their kids dressed up as Rama to witness the killing. Too artificial.

3. The mix of Hindi and English dialogue in the movie just seems out of place. It makes the Hindi dialogue too prosaic, and this again, is I think simply to appeal to the western audiences. I mean, they wouldn't understand the Hindi dialogues anyway, but it gives the movie an 'authenticity'. Jamal speaking perfect British English complete with the accent makes little sense in the movie's context.

4. Ending the movie with a Bollywood-style item number. Duh.

Oh, and before I forget,
5. Anil Kapoor.

There's a standard argument, that Hollywood has always shown only the rotting and gangrenous parts of India. The view is not balanced, and any movie about India is invariably filled with stereotype snake charmers, slum dwellers and loose cows excreting on highways. There are no movies of successful Indian businessmen or great success stories which catch the Hollywood eye. I mean, when you think of the US, you don't usually think of the slums of NY or Chicago or the mystic Native American witch doctors. When you think of Britain, it's not about medieval witch burners or the slums of Victorian England. I don't care to follow this line of argument, because Hollywood, after all, is full of stereotypes, and not just about India.

There are a few things, I must admit, are new about this movie. It fails to sit clean into any predetermined template or framework. It's easily better than previous attempts to mould Bollywood and Hollywood, better than Marigold, Mistress of Spices and the other retarded lot. But is it really as good as this? I beg to differ. These awards put it in the league of classics, in the same league as City of God and Forrest Gump. To me, it's just not there.