An Arthouse Interpretation...

Well, I wanted to pen this down before the worldly opinions & factors malign my pure thought yet again. So trying something different now – writing what I felt after watching the movie Khoya Khoya Chand about half an hour back. Three scenes stick to my mind indelibly-

1. The male lead, Zafar, is directing his debut movie. He chooses the story to be that of his own life – a childhood and a youth ridden with angst against his casanova father. In the climactic scene that he shoots, the actor in this movie – which is actually a screen avatar of Zafar himself, asks his father something that he wanted to ask all his life, but could never do so until now. The sincerity and the painfully curious, screaming-for-an-answer-look is shown to be shared by both the actor and the director Zafar, before and behind the camera respectively. Zafar is so emotionally involved in filming this scene that, for him, the difference between reel & real ceases to exist. He looks earnestly, searchingly towards the father, and, in the process, forgets to ‘cut’ the scene.

This scene shows what art means to an artist. Art is not only self expression. It is also a medium to attain salvation for him. It gives him a chance to rollback his life, change things he wished he could – even if those changes are on something as mercurial as a celluloid. A piece of art can be understood cent percent only by its creator for this very reason; it is a self constructed code language, a sort of personal diary, an expression which is, to a certain extent, directed towards himself. A commercially viable piece of art would be directed more towards the audience and would have practically no personal connection with the artist, while a non-commercial one would be directed almost totally towards the artist himself – being as unintelligible to others as scribblings in a personal journal are. The difference between these two lies totally in the target audience that they have.

2. Zafar’s movie’s premiere is greeted with yawns and other general displays of disinterest. Watching, a critic asks Zafar, who is sitting besides him, his opinion on the whole debacle. Zafar watches him broodingly for a moment, seeming ready to burst out in exasperation any second. He does burst out, albeit into a big, ear-to-ear grin.

This scene is a continuation of what I said above. After making a personal-journal piece of art, and understandably not being understood by anyone, there is nothing left for an artist to do but to smile. There may be two reasons for this smile – One, he smiles at others’ ignorance. In a mocking way, he may consider himself to be ahead of his time. He may consider others dumb because they couldn’t understand his metaphors. Two, and this one is difficult to explain. The artist is so deliriously submerged in his art that he doesn’t give a damn about anyone’s opinion on his work. Visually, the situation looks like a sculptor who, after creating his sculpture, has settled down to worship it, as we worship our idols.

And, well, there also are a few, who, with their ingenuity, understand this beautiful but abstruse piece of art, and end up smiling too, albeit for reasons entirely different than those of the artist!

3. Zafar, who had left the industry and his actor girlfriend after the failure of his film, has returned after many years – in order to make a comeback, only to find that his ex-girlfriend has become disillusioned & alcoholic since. While talking to his friend who has since taken care of the girl, about her condition & his reasons for coming back, he says, while looking straight at the girl, who is immersed in an intoxicated slumber –

‘Kya karein bhaisaab, ab in se duur bhi to nahi raha jaata’.

I found this to be swashbucklingly brilliant. The identity of ‘in’ here, in my opinion, is two pronged. He is referring to the two things which were irresistible, and probably irreplaceable in his life –

i)the film industry: An artist can never run away from his art. No matter how much he may try, whatever else he may dabble in, or however disillusioned he may become, he just can not throw his art out of his existence. Perhaps this is the difference between an artist and a non-artist. The commoner has taught himself since childhood that an unproductive part of your being should be cut out from your existence. There is no reason whatsoever for retaining anything so unworthy, so unusable – and so, he adapts himself to any vocation that will satisfy his material wants. An artist can’t do that. He is a person who will retain that pencil with which he has practiced all year long for the final test, even though it may have reduced to such a small size that it is practically unusable.

ii)the girl: This excessive sentimentalism is evident is his human relationships as well. Even well after they end, he can perhaps never get over any of them. Just as he can’t cut away his creative organ however unrewarding it be, he similarly can’t do away with the people he loves. But because his self-expression would be as abstruse as his art, he would be constantly uninterpreted (or worse – misinterpreted), giving way to his failures in these relationships.

So these were some riveting moments from the movie. But watching this movie added more fuel to a greater debate raging inside me for quite sometime now. This debate concerns itself with the relevance of art today. Do we really need it? Does it represent a useless outcome of human creativity? Does it not, by the virtue of its existence, and by its propensity to hypnotize minds, waste human time and effort? These questions can be better understood if we take a peek into what we aim to head towards. Human upbringing is all about mechanizing. Since childhood, we are taught discipline, laws, doctrines, manners, etc. and are constantly conditioned to become ‘civilized’. The rules stated above are imbibed in every inch of our existence, and are generally viewed as prerequisites for living in an organized society. Any deviation from these is regarded as abnormal and unacceptable. Our ideal existence looks, thereby, to be chillingly similar to a machine part. We are intended to be the well oiled, formulaic & unwavering pieces of a larger machine (visual imagery*: a clock mechanism; also a military parade for the broader sense) known as the human society so that it may run ad infinitum. In such a pursuit, art is necessarily an unneeded enterprise.

And art becomes necessary just because of a need to demechanize. Both its construction & understanding involve the uninhibited side of human nature. A side which is perhaps the sole factor distinguishing us as human beings (to quote a character in The Matrix Reloaded – ‘To deny our impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human’). The keywords here are ‘uninhibited’, ‘free’, ‘creative’, ‘romantic’, ‘impulsive’, ‘un-dogmatic’, and, to a certain extent, ‘illogical’ – with the definition of logic which one chooses making the difference here. And it is these words which represent the basic tenets of the concept of art. Art involves a skill which is almost totally impulse based. Its outcome is an expression which is not externally controlled or dogma-resultant, but is free. A shackled expression can therefore never be called art. Art is inherently iconoclast, because human spirit is inherently unrestricted.

And therefore art is needed - to give an expression to the demechanization. By giving an output to this unrestricted side through the medium of art, we keep some semblance of that human element alive in ourselves in this fast changing world.

‘Of all lies, art is the least untrue.’ ~ Gustave Flaubert.

Pretty apt, eh?

* Refer to the previous post for more elucidation on visual imagery

The Vagaries of a Senile Mind!

There is a certain visual imagery associated with most of the intangible forms that we come across or think about in a lifetime. What that might be for the particular forms differs from person to person. Like the word 'Envy' comes about as written in green & wrapped in ivy in my mind whenever I think of it; 'Olympics' always bring about a track & field event's image, the font colour of ‘Ice’ is always white, ‘Angry’ written on a text pad somehow always looks angry, and so on & so forth. But the manifestation of number '25' for me, oddly enough, is not shackled to such mundane avatars. Envisage a Twentieth Century Fox movie’s opening graphic, replace the luminescent studio name by ‘25’, add some firecrackers to the background, and increase the glitter quotient of the whole spectacle by infinity.
Yes, THAT grand.
This romance with ‘25’ started perhaps when there was a bash at my place to celebrate the 25th wedding anniversary of my ol’ folks. That’s when I got to know that completion of 25 years of togetherness is SOME thing, the numeral 25 being the key in the sentence, rather than the word ‘togetherness’. Mind this - had it been 24 or 26, the celebration would have been dampened, and the statement’s worthiness would have reduced to that of a news report in Dainik Sandhya Prakash claiming itself to be a cryptic message from an alien civilization. The interest waned for a while when I got obsessively interested in cricket statistics - especially the batting averages - and has waxed ad nauseam since I turned 25 three weeks back!
Suddenly there was a difference in me, over a period of 24 hours, as if I had jumped across a major crevice in time space (which I obviously had, except for the exaggerating ‘major’). The hair seemed grayer, the shoulders seemed slouched, & the skin seemed saggier (the word ‘seemed’ was zeroed upon after a later, more relaxed examination). If the physical transitions are any indicator of the colossal aftereffects that followed this event, the mental ones were even more telling. An uncomfortable thought that the two hands of every clock around the world were joining hands in a conspiracy against me at precisely 12’oclock during the night of 13th September made me panicky. As the Sun crept across the globe on that fateful night, I could envisage those zillions of clock parts in millions of clocks working in tandem in order to rob me off my {X: X is equal to a thing which you lose when you turn 25 – and it is not YOUTH, you teeth barer!}.
25 is an interesting age to be at. It is where you start becoming unquestionable. After years of asserting your independence of opinion, it is here when you finally start getting your due. You are THERE- with that ‘Adult’ tag firmly in place now. The interesting part? You don’t want it now! Why? Because it doesn’t matter, and what does matter now is, again, heartbreakingly, out of your grasp. When you were a kid, as Kevin Arnold said in ‘The Wonder Years’, you were a bit of everything. You wanted to be that everyone who fascinated you. Before I knew it, I wanted to be a scientist, a fighter pilot, a computer engineer, a computer hacker(even before I knew what that meant), a cop, an intergalactic voyager(under the guise of a NASA astronaut, of course),a rockstar, and last, but not the least – an international sportsperson! As being any of these was quite improbable at that young age, I settled down cozily to dream of a fairy tale future – which included rescuing the world thrice from invading aliens, developing the world’s deadliest & longest-ranged ICBMs, revising anything Newtonian, playing electric guitar to the biggest sold-out audience ever, & hitting 6 sixes in a row in cricket. The play was written, the stage was set, and the only thing that I had to do now was to set a time for the show to begin. So I chose 25 – the age when you are supposed to be big and burly and spitting off even the minutest traces of adolescence (selection criteria – “gosh! People are married off in that age!”). By that age, I was supposed to be at least one of those great figures mentioned above. The ‘sportsperson’ dream ended while growing up and watching contemporaries making it; the pilot dream ended in one Pilot Aptitude & Battery Test, the rockstar dream ended in oodles of lethargy, and the causes of the rest of the debacles are unmentionable in a civilized discussion. Our childhood dreams, I often think, are like a pendulum’s swing – they start with a huge sweep between two very different and even contradictory ambitions (what else should a desire to be an astronaut and a rockstar be termed?) - covering a wide range of wants in between, and, with the passage of time, get smaller, slower and more & more limited as that sweep does, and end eventually with a stillness which signifies our one and only unipolar ambition in the end – to live, somehow. This ‘end’ in my case, it seemed to me, had come with this birthday. Hence, the dismay!
Well, my chagrin notwithstanding, the Sun did creep, the clockwork did tick, and before I knew it, there I was, hands flung in air, eyes redefining the term ‘deliria’, and chest thrust forward – more due to a push, rather than a self-thrust - breaking that ribbon which has ‘Gotcha’ written over it! (That, again, is a visual imagery associated with the event)- with the identity of the addressee for the word ‘Gotcha’ being a matter of high & wide speculation.
It is the beauty of this eventuality that saved me.
Because, in any case - whether the age ‘got’ me, or I ‘got’ the age - the finality was that I was over that threshold. And this threshold is like a hill top or a plateau you encounter in midst of a long and tiring journey. You climb it, stretch your arms, breathe in fresh air, look around, and then look back at the long way that you have traveled to come this far. You see that smooth initial portion of the road that you started your journey on – believing it to be one hell of a joyride all the way; you see that little thorn ridden patch of the road that ended your honeymoon but which you could still navigate through, unscathed in the end; you see those rollercoaster like sections of the road, full of crests & troughs which you journeyed through with a lurch in your stomach, and a twinkle in the eye; you see those hairpin bends which made you slow down in spite of you prior breakneck speeds - this slowing down being attributed usually to fear, and sometimes to respect; you see those wreckages of cars you passed by - silently swearing that you would never let this happen to yours, only to end up narrowly missing a crash; you see those lifts that you gave to strangers – and how close you came to being robbed by them; you see those torrential rains which made going on hell for you, but you still admired the cleansing they did for your then-dirty car! And then, when you see all that, you realize that the drive was indeed a joyride all the way, that honeymoon actually never got over, because in the end, and on that hill top, you were still there, with your very own car, your very own road, and more starry eyed for the path ahead than you were when you started it all!
So, I finally did what should have been done – wiped that brow, snapped those fingers, and got on with that drive!



PS - Pray to your Lord Almighty that you are not around when I turn 50!

Cooling Illeya!

That during rounds of post-ethanolic discussions with co-conspirators, a lot of beautiful and unadulterated thoughts diffuse, is a no brainer. But, when the thoughts tend to encompass burning social issues like the relevance of heat in an average Chennaiite's day, and, regretfully, night - a jaw dropping display of human agony & helplessness emanates from the faces of the tortured souls. Usually everybody - and that includes the normally sedate ones - howl, at the top of their voices, and with such conviction that would give any dog enough belief to file a copyright protection suit. But sometimes, the conspirators get into a more creative mood. Like suggesting taglines for the 'Welcome to Chennai' boards on the serpentine highways that lead unsuspecting souls to this 'melting pot'(no, thats not being said in the usual literary sense, but in a more literal sense). A tag line which may have a global appeal, but which may strike a personal chord. Which could, in a couple of words, bring out the spirit of the city. Which could make the dwellers smile - either wistfully, as in the conspirators' case, or nostalgically, as in the locals' case. And thus, after tremendous contemplations & deliberations, the conspirators finally come out with the most apt one.
"Cooling illeya boss!" - replies the irate general store owner - while scratching his belly, when queried about the lukewarm status of a 'cold'-drink bottle he has recently uncorked. Notwithstanding the fact that the bottle in question has been, thankfully for the eye of the customer, withdrawn from a cooler that supposedly brings down the temperature level of liquids to near-zero levels.
"Cooling illeya boss!" - replies the irate liquor salesman - while scratching his belly, when queried about the warm status of a beer bottle - usually being one of the many international brands of beer that Chennai has produced - Vorion 6000, Kalyani, Bullet, etc - which he has withdrawn from, you guessed it right, a cooler. That he gives a puzzled look when asked about the availability of KF Strong - similar to the look that is given by liquor salesmen in Bhopal when asked about the availability of Budweiser - is a different issue altogether.
The list goes on, with people of different capacities & customs spending their regular days chanting this phrase and scratching their bellies. God must have recovered from a severe bout of hypothermia when he was about to create this city. So he made heat a religion here. He created the four seasons here as - hot, damn hot, sweltering hot, & warm - in that order from Jan to Dec. And whatever that was left outside the scope of climate, like the human brain, he filled up with an unwavering thermic faith. A faith so strong that even the technological innovations like refrigerators & air conditioners couldn't break. To keep up with the changing times, some enterprising folks like those mentioned above did adopt these inventions, but found a brilliant way out - they kept the coolants shut. Hence the lukewarm cold-drink & the warm beer.
Indeed, heat manifests itself in various antics of Chennaiites. For instance, the plates in a restaurant to which a few fellow conspirators once went to, were warm. The reason for them being so, was, apparently, not environmental - as the restaurant was air conditioned, but was a result of a manual deliberation. The reason, of course, was incomprehensible to us non-believers. This was after the conspirators had refused a tempting offer to drink boiling Black Knight beer at a place cooled by table fans. Also, the fact that in addition to having the regular tap, most water-'coolers' here have an extra tap to pour out warm water too. A conspirator once suggested that commodities which have to be served cold, like icecreams(thankfully!), should come with a statutory warning especially for Chennai - "Consume with caution/Keep out of reach of subjects with a weak heart". An insignia portraying a frostbite would serve as a perfect deterrent for the faint hearted but still-maverick gourmands.
Another specialty of this place, which is also a brilliant attempt by the residents to preserve tradition and prevent cross mingling of cultures, is the custom of inequitable distribution of heat. This is one custom which makes the city mindblowingly different from the 'other world' - as they call it. So, your finger bowl will necessarily hold cold water, while the drinking water in the accompanying jug would be sure to set the mercury levels rising. Your 'Hot' Dog will be invariably cold, while the dishware, for some godforsaken reason, will be hot. 'Heating up the wrong things' - as it is called in the conspirators' theory, but truly being a custom that goes a long way to show this city's utter thermic devotion and its penchant for isolation.
Sweat inspiring stuff, this!
I'll wind up with writing a definition for this beautiful phrase, hoping that Oxford may consider it one day.
cooling illeya [kool-ing il-ā-yuh] adjective
Phrase describing lack of cold in an object that should otherwise be served cold; an unnatural state of being, involving the dimension of temperature
ORIGIN : 'cool' - Victorian English; 'illeya' - Tamil (meaning - 'do not have')
REMARKS : The adjunct 'Cool' used here may not be considered in any way as being of American English origin. The phrase, though, may be used as an antonym for the word 'Cool' as it appears in American English.

Le mot juste...

The perfect word.
The eternal quest of Flaubert. The antithesis to foot in mouth.
The logic behind 'Eureka'. The courage behind 'Molon labe'.
The thought behind 'Neti Neti'.

This phrase just struck me. You know, sometimes, words strike you like that. They haunt you, never leaving your imagination or memory. They grip your mind, and persuade you to think. It needn't be universal - your reaction that is, for any couplet or adage or quote - that is something very relative. Something like the fact that you don't always like a commercially successful movie and also that you almost never end up liking the Oscar winner for the year. But one fact is certain (came to think of it, isn't every fact certain?!) - A written word communicates so much more than what it was initially intended to. Under every pair of eyes it comes, it assumes different, contextual meanings which may depend upon the background - both social & personal - and also the foreground, of the reader; a process which may visually be like shape formation in a kaleidoscope - a different shape for each turn, and it may end up creating a most personal note for individuals. For instance, I like the word 'Intense' since my earliest association with language. If you ask me for reasons, well, I dont have any. Probably its because of a longtime fascination with intense, broodish personalities. Or probably because a flame is intense, and I happen to love flames. Or maybe just because it is such a hard hitting, deep and, well, intense word!
Words - these groupings of letters, brought together to supposedly convey a meaning - this meaning been suggested by our neanderthal forefathers, who obviously shied away from any traces of non-phonetic logic while suggesting the same - are such a bizarre, yet interesting lot. This very invention of man, this written/spoken script, comes around to challenge & dominate the man and and his mind from time to time. We have been governed by Geeta & Kuraan, incensed by speeches, enraptured by poetry, moved by tragedies, enamoured by songs, educated by books, inspired by anthems & swayed by slogans. Forget about the proposed takeover of human race by 'AI'ed robots, we are already ruled by one of our most antiquated creations - Words. Any human interaction with the world outside the limits of his body requires communication, and any reliable communication system which may be an 'All Terrain' deployable one, and which does not rest on the foundation of a structurally word-oriented language, is still a distant dream. I'm able to type this because I'm interacting with a keyboard that is modeled on English and you are able to read this because, obviously, you know English. We can dial phone numbers because we know the numeric text. We can speak because we know the spoken language. We can make computer programs which serve us because we know the programming language & the processor knows how to understand it. In short, in our every interaction with anyone or anything except ourselves, we employ words. Even symbols, when used in communicating thoughts, are modeled on a language - with each symbol effectively conveying a sentence or a word in that language; Yes, even for the deaf & the mutes, who have never spoken or heard anything in their lives - let alone a language. Forms of communications which delve into realms beyond language too are said to exist, with notable examples being parapsychology, but our current knowledge is too frivolous for them to be taken seriously as communication facilitators, Uri Geller notwithstanding! So, the way it turns out to be is that we would have been nothing but a bunch of nomadic beasts, groping in the dark and searching for ways to organize, store, pass & utilize information, had it not been for language. Even an alien civilization - in order to put up an utterly unavoidable communication channel - would need a set of symbols, governed by a common rule so as to convey the same meaning to its inhabitants whenever a particular use of the symbols is made in a particular order - and yup, that is precisely what we call as language!
But words do not merely fulfill the role of communication facilitators, though they remain to serve this very purpose for a vast majority of us. They become an expression of self when coming from the honest, an expression of a dream when coming from the poet, an expression of reality when coming from the grounded, an expression of passion when coming from the incensed & an expression of hope when coming from a believer. Then, in these situations, they rise above their literal meanings. They translate into something that is free, that is unbounded; something that is quite ironically free from restrictions posed by the very language that helped it materialize in the first place.
Ever read a Param Vir Chakra plaque? You will know that something if you did!

Impromtu...

Well, here goes - three thoughts crossed my mind today- they suddenly morph into four as I type this.
Third: I thought of writing straight here, right here on this 'New Post' online textpad, instead of creating something on my wordpad and then copying it here. My first post was done this way, and it also became my last one done with the mentioned modus operandi because of a sudden blogspot whitewash of the page which took away all of my work just when I was about to save it. Ever been robbed? Well that only could express the exact sentiment I experienced that moment. Then onwards, I wrote everything in my smug Windows Wordpad, because of a sorry situation involving a 'good-for-nothing' Microsoft Office 2007 which didn't work in spite of a 300 MB download due to subscription expiry, and religiously copied everything here. When you write something in a wordpad, its something very sculptor-like. You start off with a premise, as a sculptor starts with a stone slab having some vision in his mind. Then you start crafting and chiseling letters/slabs into words/statues as you go on. Finally, you smoothen the edges & sharp corners, and, after a final re examination of your work, place it for viewing in a display. I want to move away from that model this time. Let this one come straight from the gut! Let there be no editing and no retakes. Let there be no spell checks and no grammar recommendations. Let this one come the old way - not as old as bhojpatras and not as new as Office 2007 (can't help but crib about it). Let there be no scramble for structure and none for a classical approach while writing.
Let there be light!
(Our greatest fortune is that God doesn't file copyright infringement suits!)
First: My Orkut fortune today said : 'You are going to have some new clothes'. Got me thinking. No fortune teller - mystic, astrologist, cheap robotic machines or even our very own fortune cookies has ever given such a prediction! They had their own reasons for doing so - the first two for obvious commercial concerns & the last two to escape bludgeoning through the hands of customers. So obviously, this prediction is just a case of silly whatevers. But the case of 'what if its not?' made me think a little. Usually, statements regarding activities like shopping for apparels, which fall within your range, are very enticing to entertain. Imagine yourself reading that fortune, then moving out of your place, chancing upon a 'SALES ON' board at one of the retail outlets nearby - something which you wanted to happen since some time. Because of that fortune's sheer rarity, those words stick to your mind, and the first thought that crosses your mind upon seeing that board would be to shop - especially after seeing that sale tag. And after you are done, you would also revel in being a part of events that led to a prophecy coming true! Now imagine this : Orkut has a tie up with that store, and you have been manipulated into a buying spree with the store. Well, not exactly manipulation, this; but smart tie-up of business and technology. Imagine the consequences, if this becomes run of the mill. Every web user has done his share of zodiac analysis, name analysis, numerological analysis, psychological tests, personality mapping and various other tests of different occult & psychology related disciplines at one time or the other on the web. The reports generated by these usually are very generic and which may advice folks in the matters of general merchandise like stones, metals etc to wear. If these are interspersed closely with business areas like retail, imagine the amount of money that this could bring! Users would actually become the target consumers of a totally different marketing campaign - one that exploits the inherent instinct of every human, i.e. interest in the sciences which are not empirical in nature. We would be bombed with heavy advertising of a product without us even getting aware of it. Though here, brand unification would be of foremost importance for the business houses because a prediction cant mention that the shirt you are going to purchase in some time would be a 'Louis Philippe'! Is this duping? HELL, yes! But isn't that a norm online these days!
Second: We have an office canteen in place, run by Sodexho. Sodexho is a foodservice company operational in many states in India, and therefore recognized in those many states in India. For self promotional purpose they have tied up with many food outlets across the country and have come out with this concept of Sodexho passes, which are recognized by the same as a form of currency. As my firm has a tie up with Sodexho, we, as employees, get a booklet of passes whose worth is decided by our designations in the organization. Their equivalent worth in hard money is deducted from our monthly salaries and is given a tax exemption by the government. These passes can be used in our canteen and also outside at the outlets which have collaborated with Sodexho. Now, our canteen runs on the prepaid principle, i.e. we first pay for the dish we want to have, take the bill thus received to the person in charge of the food counter, who, in turn, services us with our request. Obviously, there are lines involved in waiting for both the cashier & the food counter guy. The payment mode is three pronged - 1. Hard cash, 2. Sodexho pass, 3. In house Sodexho coupon. 1 & 2 can be used with the cashier, who in turn gives you the bill. 3 can be used straight at the food counter guy, so it nullifies any effort & time wasted in standing in the first queue. This in house coupon booklet can be obtained at any point of time from the cashier by payment of an equivalent amount of cash or the Sodexho passes. So thats how the whole show runs. Now, something happened yesterday which made realize the simplest reason for most of the conflict in this world; yes, something - even in such an insipid setup. Here goes. I dont have have any in house coupons with me, as I procrastinate when it comes to buy them. Today, when I got up from my seat for lunch, I was feeling particularly hungry. This could be ascribed to an idiotic decision of skipping breakfast for the day. So, I ambled downstairs to the cafeteria during the mad hour full of crazy, hungry humans which is called the lunch time. To my utter dismay, the cashier's line was quite long and I had to wait for around 10 minutes or so to get my bill. As I approached the food counter queue, I spotted, from a distance, a couple of females getting into the queue. I hurried on, and before anyone else could reduce the distance between the food and my stomach (esophagal feets notwithstanding!), I got myself in that line. The hurry was actually due to the dish I was planning to have and in whose distribution line I stood. It was naan, and naan is usually served hot. So, it is brought from the kitchen in pairs, triplets or quadruples as soon as it is cooked and not stored in vessels like the other forms of food. Therefore, it may happen so that even though you are the second in line, the person in front of you may get served and you along with three people who are behind you may get served together only after an interval stretching upto 5 minutes more, this, being irrespective of the fact that you came earlier for that naan! This can be quite a pain in the arse considering the fact that the thought of food first crossed your mind 20 long minutes back, and you have been hungry ALL along, trying to find food like a scavenger on prowl. So, naturally, the hurry! Anyways, when I got there, at the end of that line behind those two ladies, I could see, amidst their excited chatter, their Sodexho in house coupons clutched firmly in their hands.
I got inflamed.
After all, it was I who did all that hardwork in waiting patiently for my turn in the cashier line, it was I who had hurried down to this line in order to get served earlier. And what these good for nothing nubiles did? Just walk down from their comfortable chairs in their modules upto this very line & decided what they wanted to have mentally - thats it! Done! They will be serviced with their request before me! As usual, I immediately got into contemplative mode - "Why isn't hardwork rewarded in this world? Why do the men of labour always languish in ignominy and denial?" What those girls did was to apply their minds, get themselves the coupons to free themselves from the queue hassles, and all my physical effort goes waste! Apply their minds - this hit me! Isn't this the root of all conflict in the world around us - this tussle between men of labour & men of mind? Trade Unions Vs Factory owners. Small time vegetable vendors Vs Reliance Foodmart. AAI strike Vs Privatisation of airports. In short, Poor Vs Rich, or, to put it in a more apt manner - Communism Vs Capitalism. Before this thought, I was tilted more towards the 'right' - pun intended, courtesy Ms Rand. Now, after experiencing the 'left' - (ditto!) side of the above given analogies, I find myself shifted a little towards the centre of the balance. Physical hardwork ending up being unrewarded can be a very frustrating experience. So much so that it may actually make you blind to reason. Today's is a knowledge based society, and any labour without a mind behind it could be equivalent to 100 fools trying to push back the Great Wall of China by brute force. Also, applying mind without putting in, or extracting, physical labour would be equivalent to winning Age of Empires II and actually imagining yourself to be the King of the world.

So these were the registered ones. The fourth one was a feeling of amazement at how increasingly subjective I'm getting these days on this space. First my views on Theism, then the defense of my room, then my unabashed display of fanship for IO, and then finally - this! So, are the days of objective & impersonal reporting gone at this space? Well, you never know!
There was a fifth one too, sorry to hide it till now! No, you dont need to throw up your hands in the air in exasperation, this one is a serious observation. Read the order again : 3-1-2. Ever seen Olympic Medal ceremonies?
Drop the idea of carnal harm, its only your computer screen you are gonna end up damaging...

Melancholic Ecstasy...

"You are not rock; you are not jazz; you are not fusion; you guys are INDIAN OCEAN!!" - This was what I wanted to say. But then, the reticent me, came up with the utterly cliched - "You know, I have been following the fusion scene a lot these times, and you guys are just the best!", while giving Rahul Ram a hug onstage after their performance at a venue in Chennai in 2006. I got one thing rightly done, though. Got his autograph on the cover of a CD of theirs - acquired from their manager, and which was, incidentally, my first ever authentic music CD purchase. Add to this the fact that despite being an ardent music lover, I had been a proud pirate all my life. Earlier, it was the penury of student life that forced me into it, & later on it was the sheer ease of downloading free music. This trait left me by sheer happenstance through two turning point events in my life - one, attending this concert here and experiencing a passion to pay for quality music and two, meeting Ayn Rand - in fiction(pun intended), of course. I shelved out 150 bucks for the CD - which, considering the fact that 150 constituted a full 1.5% of my then salary, and that 150 is an amount which could have bought me enough booze for the night, and also that possessing Rs. 150 in college days used to be a luxury of millionaires - was a pretty sumptuous amount - and the fact that such an amount is being spent on an authentic music CD(which has just 8-9 tracks) didn't much help the cause either!
All this, was of course after I heard their last performance of the night - a song which sounded odd & was totally incomprehensible - because basically its about 1000 years old, is almost entirely in Syrian if I'm correct, and which enjoys a cult status in fans across the globe - Kandisa. A group of youngsters had cheered for and demanded this song since the show began, partly because they loved it, and mostly because it was the only Indian Ocean song they had heard - and this shouldn't come come as a surprise because this is one of those bands who can develop a cult following of one-song initiated fans with ridiculous ease. I myself had come over because I had heard Bandeh & Bharam Baap Ke, and both were testimony to the fact that my money on the show's ticket will not go waste. And I was not wrong.
Since that concert, I became a hopeless addict.
There shouldn't exist that 'If there be one word to describe this.....' phrase, because it is just so....so....unfair.....in one word!!! :-P But on a serious note, it does do a colossal amount of injustice to a plethora of words like ethereal, mellifluous, extraterrestrial, intense, hypnotic, & most importantly earthy, which, incidentally, are some of the most suitable adjectives that can be employed to describe Indian Ocean's music. A composition of theirs - Ma Rewa, which was also the penultimate song of the evening, and which is an ode to the river Narmada, has a starting combo of guitar, tabla & dubdubi(an instrument used by tribals in MP with its structure and sound being incomparable to any other recognized instrument known to me). The result is a unique sound which induces such passion, fun & intensity that you actually feel yourself to be in between the waves of Narmada, being swept from one point to another in an oscillatory manner! The song was introduced by Ram as - "Nimaad ka ilaaka, Vindhyachal ki chaon, Narmada Maiyya ka aanchal........"(read earthy!) and then went on to inform that this is basically a folk song sung by tribal fishermen, whose sole means of existence is the river, thereby christening her as Ma Narabda(thats how we MP dwellers call her!). The vocals finish within the initial 2 minutes and the rest of the three minutes or so follow an increasing pitch & breakup-reconstruction pattern, culminating in a violent frenzy of drums by Amit Kilam - this, as was interestingly suggested by some fan in some forum, indicates the destruction of the river. Given the band's ideology, which is pro NBA, this seems to be a plausible explanation - an explanation which may not go down very well with dad, who, incidentally, holds Medha Patkar and her NBA activists as nothing but a bunch of unpatriotic morons - but that's not the point here. :-)
"There's this blue coloured, long haired, dope smoking guy we all know. This song is about him" said Ram.
"Wha....!" - uttered the crowd in unison, instead of the more ritualistic - "Who?"
Agreeing with Yann Martel about his view on the spoken english of Indians, I too became "bamboozled".
"Shivji." said Ram, as a matter of factly.
And before anyone could react, Teevra Aadi began to be played. Starting with a gothic chant type of an opening, the song soon got settled into the same rhythm Indian Ocean is so famously known for - periods of high octane percussion & vocals, followed by rhythm inducement. Though the lyrics may sound abstruse at times, but then, doesn't it add to the charisma!(Remember Stairway to Heaven?) Asheem Chakravarty, through his sheer powerful vocals, took this song to an entirely new level altogether. As their website says, he's truly 'the man with the golden voice'!
They had earlier followed through the gig with some other breathtaking compositions like Jhini & Bandeh. Jhini, rendered famously earlier by Anoop Jalota, must have been a tough act to perform. Jhini Chadariya has been a bhajan since time immemorial and to morph it into the genre of rock is something like asking Rembrandt to do a me - no offense meant to rock with that! But surprisingly, in what they came up with, Kabir's iconic words sounded like being tailor made for their music! Such great philosophy, so very well complimented by Sushmit Sen on guitar & Asheem on vocals! Bandeh, disappointingly for me, did not have its electric touch, as the band opted for an acoustic rendition, going by the mood of the evening. But then, some songs just don't need instruments - they become so larger than life that even a hum is utterly satisfying! One thing is common in both songs and many other IO songs though - the extended classical aalaap coupled with drums - an act which in western rock is sometimes quite amusingly called as 'orgasm section'; an example being there in Whole lotta love. And, as it happened with Led Zep, being different pays!
There is no star in this band - there is no one guy who steals the show, with others doing their jobs inconspicuously. They all participate in equally in the effort, an effort to create effervescent, soul-stirring music. In all their history, including their struggle years, which stretched almost a decade, they have never done cover versions on stage or elsewhere. Never, Ever! Whatever music that has come out of them till now, including their first gig, has come straight from them, and no one else. That's what I call courage. Sushmit, for that matter, is an entirely self taught artist, so any possibility of covers, even while learning, goes out of the window! Everyone does that today - if you are an Indian Rock band, the mentality is that you will do covers only, or will come out with numbers that will be heavily inspired, in both music & lyrics, with their western counterparts. Molotov Cocktail, the local Chennai band who introduced Indian Ocean did just that and ended up almost raping 'Jeremy'. Poor Pearl Jam! But nonetheless they were heavily & understandably for that matter, cheered by the crowd which mainly consisted of people who were shouting 'slogans' like "Increase the bass, man!!" - this explaining the use of the word 'understandably' earlier in this sentence.
Listening to their album Jhini, which I purchased as mentioned earlier, I was surprised that they didn't play Bhor at that concert. It is unarguably their best song & one of the best that I have heard till now, in any genre. Everything, every single detail, every single component of that song is amazingly brilliant. A human's journey through change, heartbreak & realization is traced through a bird's flight in early morn. Its a must hear for anyone even remotely interested in quality. Des Mera is another song in that album which catches attention with lyrics like - "India sir ye cheez dhurandar, jeb daliddar, dil hai samandar"!
They make you sway with hopeless abandon, and make you feel proud of tabla being Indian, all over again!
Indian Ocean is a genre in itself, and, as they themselves proclaim at their website, it is the sound of contemporary India getting to know itself...

The Insipidity of Order

About 20 beer, 6 vodka, 4 whisky and 2 rum bottles(empty, of course) and 10 cold drink/soda bottles(half empty, this time) + a heap of unwashed clothes that might actually qualify very well for use as a mop + a medieval cassette player along with a speaker set which creaks if u try to shift them by a millimeter - for a centimeter, the left one goes dead + 16 butts - of cigarettes, of course + 2 pairs of shoes & socks- with the shoes lying over socks, also a dried up liquid shoe polisher, with the 'dried up' tag signifying its last use date + a horde of CDs & DVDs which contain the same songs or videos redundantly ripped + a little electronica which includes a 64 Kbps line feed, a modem and my laptop power chord = my room's floor. As my eyeballs surge upwards with a mystic smirk, I scan my almirah(a walled one) which contains, in ascending order of height(dont read importance) - CAT memorabilia + an equally large horde of discs as the one lying on the floor, a screwdriver set(I got that so that I could open up and try to repair a pair of headphones gone horribly wrong - and actually because of a childhood fantasy of having the power to unscrew any damned nut!!) + a neatly folded set of clothes which is so because I NEVER wear anything out of it - covered, of course, by dust, plastic, ties and important papers + the penultimate(in ascending order, remember?) shelf playing the role of a 'safe' - chiefly because it can be easily accessed only by a six footer like me and partly because its only me who knows how to navigate safely to reach the base of the almirah after avoiding all the obstacles beneath, and thus housing some documents that may be needed for future reference, unexplainable coils of wire, medicines like crocin tablets and balms and basically anything that is needed urgently whenever needed. The almirah is topped by a moth & dirt-ridden compartment which, thankfully, is about 6 feet(diagonally) from my bed and this distance thus aids me heaps & bounds in sustaining my life. Continuing with the smirk, my vision takes a right turn and I start scanning my walls - well nothing really spectacular here too, except, of course, the occasional blemishes and golden duct tapes torn off whisky bottles' tops (for no apparent/logical reason whatsoever), apart from the usual cobweb decor adorning the corners. There are also the cloth hanging hooks, which, naturally, are used quite extensively as is the case in this room with any form of cloth holding which discourages neat foldings and encourages quick, efficient disposal of clothes once they are off your body - the other example being that heap lying on the floor. Apart from these bare necessities, there are also a couple of indulgences like a bed, a table & a chair, the last one being because its very uncomfortable to do stuff on the table while standing. The table, of course, is littered by the presence of a wine flask, more bottles, discs, an opener, a persian glass(well, a 'Made In India' Persian stemware, actually), 5 empty cigarette packets, and the laptop. Its surface is actually a miniature, but a similar version of the floor, with both scoring equally in entropy. The bed's mattress is ably assisted by a sheet of apparels lying just above it in providing comfort while relaxing and also in serving as a blanket in times of absence of the same. The smirk has now turned into a full fledged grin - the grin of a crusader taking pride in his achievements, as my visual sweep comes to an end. I think most of you, by now, must be lamenting my existence, trying to imagine yourself in my place and ending up shaking your heads in disgust; some probably even trying to sympathize with a person(read 'me') suffering from acute bouts of filthophilia. But there is absolutely no dilly dallying in my thoughts as mind ponders for a stand on the issue - I stand firmly by the interior decor of the room, and this is not because of any Bheeshma Pitamahesque patriotic devotion towards my room, but because it is I who is the proud designer of the same and the whole.....ummmm...situation.....is a product of careful & extensive self restraint & experimentation in pursuit of a higher ideal - Uncertainty. The quantum model was rejected decades ago, and I seriously dont understand why is it still advocated for use in our daily lives?? That what is employed in my room's design is an ultimate ode to a certain Mr. Heisenberg! If there isn't an object in the world whose position can be accurately determined, what is the use of futiling away a whole lifetime in pursuit of order - which is nothing but a structured & physical arrangement of tangible objects like those found in my room? Order can actually be proved to be irrelevant. Suppose, I become an orderly person and I keep placing my watch at a certain designated place, like a drawer. One fine day, I cant locate it. What options do I have - my being an 'orderly' mind, I'll keep coming back to the drawer, without having the capacity to think beyond, or rather, as they call it - the closed box approach, while, if being in a similar situation in my room, you have the whole damned room at your disposal - dig it, swoop it, do whatever you can - there exists a probability of it being present in this very room! Order extinguishes the flame of hope, disorder reiterates it. The 'pleasant surprise' element, which is a rarity these days, is also a distinguishing factor of disorder, and one comes to know about the pleasure of the same only when one stumbles upon that watch 3 weeks later in the same heap. Order is insipid, disorder is exciting!(See, even the exclamation mark is on disorder's side!(and again)). These are not the times of meticulous planning, gelled back hair, suave appearances or disc records; these are the times of impromptu action, jazzy hair & i-pods! And that is why I remain a hardcore disorder loyalist!
So what if I'm left with only 1.5 sq meters of floor area, spread over as a map of Africa - at least I have some zebras to chase!