Myriad Journeys

Holmes - and the game for its sake

2012-02-07T10:06:00.002+05:30

I finished reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes two weeks ago, and I must say the legendary "consulting detective" and his tales have enriched my reading experience, and perhaps even my life as time will tell, in some ways. Although I am not a great fan of books being made into films, my turn to the texts on Sherlock Holmes was ironically brought about by the talkie Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which I am convinced has superseded King Arthur as my favourite English film made since the turn of the millennium and which I have watched five times thus far. If I watch it once more or two times, I will be able to repeat most of the dialogues from memory: it has been a while since I found a film this addictive.

There is a lot about Holmes' character, both in the film and in the umpteen pages Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has written, that is impressive though the one word that comes to mind when I think of him is "oddball". He is a convinced bachelor if ever there was one, barring his great admiration for Miss. Irene Adler - which if anything seems purely intellectual - and yet you couldn't find a more eligible one either, if a slightly mysterious man with a brilliant mind and a sense of mystique, which he himself downplays, makes for an excellent romantic suit.

He hates to be idle and when he is he welcomes even the most trifling "cases" which you think don't befit his reputation (but he would have none of it!) or gets into his friend Dr. Watson's nerves by deducing his thought processes. When there are no cases he resorts to drugs, a habit he gradually outgrows at the insistence of the good doctor (who has my utmost sympathy by the way for being the underdog, a brilliant man's "assistant" and for all the flak he gets from Holmes for romanticising his work and continuing to be his Boswell. But more on Watson for another day).

Holmes never forms a theory before he has a first-hand knowledge of the "data", as he calls the facts regarding his cases, and like all great inquirers of all times he is respectfully sceptical of even the most obvious explanations. It is particularly fascinating to see him dissect Inspector Lestrade and others' open-and-shut case and come up with answers that sometimes take a criminal to the gallows and otherwise saves innocent people from being wrongfully punished. Yet despite his superior powers and his predilection to occasionally boast about them, Holmes does not look own upon the men of the Scotland Yard. Often and again he quits the scene of the crime once "his case" is solved, only to chuckle in quiet pleasure later as Watson reads out to him from the newspapers about the force getting all the credit. Holmes' own friendship with Watson, which one feels he perceives to be a "partnership", and Watson's friendship with Holmes, which is also based on concern and borders quite often on the reverential, form crisscrossing but wonderful subtexts to the tales as the duo go about resolving the most "singular" mysteries in the quaintest places in the England of the late eighteenth century.

I will not talk about Holmes' skills of deduction about which reams and reams, I am sure, have been written and which suspended me, often for several hours at a stretch, from the humdrum world of the everyday into a fascinating world where Sherlock Holmes with the air of ease that only accompanies a genius did his stuff. Yet, long days after I have finished reading his exploits, it is not his genius that keeps coming back to me; it is his almost childlike curiosity to see a problem as a puzzle to be solved rather than a burden to worry about that does. Watson mentions more than once in his descriptions of his friend's cases that Holmes played the game for its own sake, a quality that is underrated and often criticised as being symptomatic of a lack of maturity and vision. It is, however, a quality we can all do with for life is too much of a joke to be taken seriously anyhow. Elsewhere Watson amusingly argues that Holmes would have been as formidable a force against the law as he was in favour of it.

It is no wonder that I felt a lump in my throat when Watson narrates the scene in Switzerland where he finds only his friend's proverbial hat above the Reichenbach fall and assumes that Holmes had, true to his word, himself perished in an effort to put an end to the doings of a rare villain who stretched Sherlock to the ends of his powers and who is described as "the most dangerous criminal" of the time - Prof. James Moriarty. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle admits that he had originally planned on that being the climax to the achievements and life of Sherlock Holmes whom John Watson calls "the wisest man I have ever known" but was persuaded to bring back the detective due to popular demand.

A century later Holmes' game still remains so popular that there is a televised series that runs on TVB Pearl every Monday, where the detective and his friend solve high-tech crimes in modern-day England: Inspector Lestrade is around, too, sometimes to assist and mostly to complain and irritate. The series is admittedly not a patch - nor for that matter is the film, in hindsight - on the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes. But it is still fun to watch. Ultimately, playing the game is itself a reward that cannot be quantified. Everything else is incidental.

Weathering the weather!

2012-01-26T14:37:00.001+05:30

The last three days have been everything that would put a true blue Chennaiite in discomfort: whether I am one is besides the point. First, it has been cold. And when the mercury has slightly risen, it has turned blustery - angry winds howling along streets deserted by people on the Chinese New Year holidays! Intermittently, it has rained. On Tuesday night I made the extremely silly mistake of venturing out for dinner seeing that the rain which had been around when I got back to my room from office had stopped. For the first time in twenty-seven (well, thereabouts, anyway) years I experienced winter, winds and rains coalesce in such severity that even though I was shivering - I had on a full-sleeved shirt, a sweater and a jacket on top of that mind you - it was difficult for me not to be amazed.

Among the various meetings that travelling, by which I also include residing in towns away from home, makes possible I find the tryst with weather gods the most fascinating. Be they those journeys from Hyderabad to Utnoor - or Thiruchchi to KumbakoNam earlier last decade - in creaking buses on unbelievably hot days or the ones from and to New Delhi for a conference by train when I truly understood that winter could be as physically taxing as summer if not more, the weather has made them worthy of a place in my memory. It looks as if the present winter in Hong Kong, much colder than last year's winter might have portended, will also be remembered for a long time to come.

Speaking of weather and the attendant physical challenges posed by life in extreme climatic conditions, I am obliged to recommend Bear Grylls' Man versus Wild : I find the programme nothing short of awesome.

On that note, goodbye for now. I do not like the way the words are coming out these days so I might as well take a break. Cheerio!

February, people and festivals

2012-01-22T09:26:00.000+05:30

For once, Rudyard Kipling is not working, nor is the admirable stoicism that oozes through every syllable in his poem If. So I have let the expectations touch me and go like winds do without being overly excited or anxious about them. There are, however, times, like the lazy Friday afternoon (when I began writing this post) or this dark and cold Sunday morning, when the thrill and hope of the upcoming imposes a curfew on the ongoing. I am looking forward to February and my trip home.

My defence at Hyderabad is the main purpose of the said visit with my viva voce scheduled for February 14. As I jokingly told a friend, "While half of the world will be busy with their other halves, or looking for one, I hope to get engaged to a partner who will be with me lifelong." I should remember not to get ahead of myself too much, however. On either side of the Valentine's Day, there will be time at home which I hope to spend with my family, particularly with my brother-in-law and sister who is expecting.

Besides its academic significance and the short interlude with the family that it entails, the trip also promises a meeting with P, which, if it materialises, will be the first in more than seven years: the last time I met her was on the humid evening of August 22 at T. Nagar bus stand. So much has happened in our lives since then that I am convinced that "catching up once" is not going to be sufficient - not for me at least - to talk about how we have come to be what we are. Yet I cannot be, and will not be, too greedy because during the times when we were not in touch I thought just a line from her end once in a while would be enough. So the mere likelihood of the meeting gives me great joy as I prepare to meet a woman of great elegance and phenomenal fortitude whose silken voice, however, still reminds me of the sixteen year old I know. I wonder what P will be preparing for.

In other news, the Chinese Year of the Dragon begins tomorrow. The trains, buses, trams and, supermarkets are full as they usually are on Chinese New Year's Eve. It's a time when, I have been reliably told, most people race across the length and breadth of China to their hometowns, no matter how far, in an attempt to welcome the New Year with their families. In terms of the sheer 'weight' of the atmosphere, therefore, I cannot think of any festival that comes close to the Chinese New Year. Lore has it that Dragon holds a special place to the Chinese among the twelve animals that constitute their astrological calendar. I live in Kowloon which roughly means "nine dragons". As I take in the feeling of festivity in the air despite the six degree drop in temperature overnight, here's wishing you all kung hei fat choi.

A disheartening day!

2012-01-13T17:08:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, it is hard being the fan of a team albeit the fan's despondency is, in reality, nowhere compared to that of the team's. But on days like today, Friday, 13 January, 2011, such reasonableness of perspective takes a backseat and is supplanted by an emotion more underwhelming than any the day itself has directly offered. Being bowled out for 161 on a green-tinged WACA Pitch after being 120-odd for four at one stage is not likely to have stunned even the most optimistic fan of the Indian cricket team, what with batting collapses being the norm rather than the exception since Yuvraj and Dravid's fourth wicket partnership at Trent Bridge, which now seems eons ago in time. What breaks the heart is David Warner's counterattacking hundred which has already - impudently, as someone rightly called it - made short work of the total, laughing at it in a way that geniuses might at those who struggle to understand that they have an intellect too.

For six tests in a row overseas - and you can read that as seven - the fan has hoped for a contest and and has barely got to see even a tough scrap that shows the team's ticker, aside from phases like the Laxman-Kohli partnership today, Zaheer's spell at Sydney, Tendulkar's two half centuries or Gambhir's gutsy efforts. From getting angry with the team and diverting the anger towards the money-, power- and insanity-hungry BCCI to consoling ourselves about the age of our batting greats (ironic how we suddenly realise that they are not just human but fallibly human and repeatedly so!) to grudgingly accepting the fact that the opposition has played some great cricket to sympathising with our fledgling bowling attack barring Zaheer Khan (oh, Ishant has been unlucky, we say!) and how they have not got the best fields from a slightly defensive captain to rationalising about the defeats to promising not to watch again only to be back behind the team the next day - no matter how hopeless the situation - the fans have done it all, and as my friend and co-author of this blog would say, to death.

I can now tell you that even if the series goes 3-0 to Adelaide, some devoted people (I am not sure if I am one of them!) will still wake up early in India just so they can see a Sehwag make a whirlwind 100 to bring an inconsequential but comforting smile to their lips, a Tendulkar get his 100th 100 poignantly in a lost cause or a team playing like a group of men, not a bunch of lost vagrants on the field. Pardon me the strong language, but I never saw an Australian's or a South African's shoulder slump or the glint in their eye fade even when they found an opposition 500-4. We do want results as fans, of course, but since that is not forthcoming we at least want to see the intent: at least, I have not seen any nearing it since the Australians were less than 50 for 3 after the first day at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Siddhartha Raju, a dear friend and someone who follows Indian cricket as much as I do if not more, wrote after the third test in England was lost that it does not matter so long as the hurt that series provided turned out a catalyst for better things ahead. Three more tests - and three more comprehensive defeats (even that sounds mild!) - later as cavalier a character like Michael Slater wonders whether the losses are, in fact, hurting the Indian team at all. Among other things, it is an insult to the fans' anger but they still defend the team. I still ask, "How dare anybody question what's going on in the minds of those in a team that has been bruised and battered?" But on days like today one has to acknowledge the truth behind Slater's question even if one wishes to disagree with it, hoping against hope that the team will reply to those questions at least with partial answers.

For many Indians of my generation, and I am afraid it does not include me, India's winning of the ODI World Cu last year must be their greatest cricketing memory: they won it at home, their Captain Cool wrapped it up with a six - and a casual twirl of the bat - and they did it for the best of them all, Sachin Tendulkar. I do not deny that I have goose skin, too, when I watch the highlights of the finals. But barely a year later in cricket's (arguably) most valued format the team is continuing to explore new lows letting the opposition scale new heights. Admittedly, neither I nor any other of the Indian cricket team will forget the famous wins at Port of Spain, Kingston Headingley, Adelaide, Perth, Durban, Johannesberg and Trent Bridge during the last decade. What hurts is that a team that worked hard to register nine test wins outside the subcontinent in ten years has now lost more than half of that in a row in a span of six months without showing the least sign of resilience. The losses may have to do with the influence of the IPL, the captain, the coach, the BCCI, the age of batsmen, the sporting pitches, the opposition's bowlers, the nosy Indian media, a defensive captain, the distinct lack of good fortune anything and everything, but not the abjectness of the capitulations. If the Indians want to be anything at all in test cricket in the years ahead - albeit I sound like the bringer of apocalypse - they will do well by acknowledging mistakes, whatever they may be, rather than giving excuses. Perhaps, the seniors can kick-start the trend by accepting the fact that they have had their time and done a few wonderful things for the team but that it is time to bid goodbye and hand the baton to a new generation

Lines on the Lion Rock Mountain (seen at a distance)

2012-01-02T07:59:00.004+05:30

There towers Lion Rock more stone than State
By day in grey engraved, the Blue's bridesmaid;
At night outlining rite from depths irate;
A stubborn stand that fancy's flows invades.
Afar it fetters hearts that foster heights
Some Loyalty as law, all love outlawed;
Afar it 'ffends the mind that's primed in change
As still as frozen wings. Yet steel is thawed

By Will, not voices that proclaim their worth:
A lion does more than roar, than frighten foes;
A rock is more than time in eyes that shine*.
Like backs of books a sight does sample earth
No more than broken glass can show a rose
Beyond whose brows horizons are quite fine.

*The line is inspired by one of the most memorable lines I have ever read: "Time is god in the realms of man." - Prashanth Shankar

Thanking the roots!

2011-12-29T20:37:00.003+05:30

The year 2011 is drawing to a close. It is time, therefore, to take stock and thank the people who have contributed generously to my life during the year. While I have been blessed with the best of parents, teachers and friends, they are not the ones I am going to thank through this post (and my gratitude to them is implicit in any case and never-ending). My thank you through this post goes to the so-called ordinary people who work in supposedly insignificant places wearing uniforms wherein it is difficult to tell apart faded colours from dirt, who nonetheless ensure that our lives in big cities are lived with as much convenience as possible even if they themselves might never have experienced any in their lives.

Earlier this evening on my long walk from office to home through a circuitous route I stopped at a park to find a public toilet. In the men's room, an old man who must be in in his mid-sixties was mopping the carpeted floor slowly, his face down, his shoulders hunched. The sight sent a thousand emotions surging through me, despair, helplessness, admiration and shame coagulating in an odd admixture. Across Hong Kong many public toilets have many other old men and women toiling till late in the evening for whatever pittance they are paid. I reckon they would have their grudges, frustrations and sense of loss in life but never once have I heard a rude whisper from them when people were around. And never once have I seen a reeking urinal or a soiled toilet seat! A huge thanks to these old men and women who rather than being protected and cared for late in their lives keep diseases at bay: some day I hope to do more than saying a mere thank you to them.

The waiters and waitresses who have attended on me at restaurants of various sizes which offer different types of food also deserve to be thanked. Indeed, their 'business' may be 'hospitality' but I am sure being nice and courteous to customer after customer, each with his own idiosyncrasies, demands and varying degrees of (im)patience, must be among the most tiresome things in the world. I would especially like to mention the grandfatherly sardar, who brings our orders in the afternoons at Bombay Indian Restaurant on Woosung Street, among those who have made me feel welcome. He invariably sends people off with a "thank you, God bless you!" and although he is loud and the words can be sometimes embarrassing you cannot help but feel the goodwill behind them. (In fact, the restaurant is run by his son, who also twins as the chef sometimes, while his grandson and daughter-in-law come over in the evenings to replace him. All of them are gracious and patient). Of course, I have also encountered waiters who make it appear as if they are doing you a grand favour by even bringing a glass of water after five reminders. Ironically though I have seen such waiters only at higher class restaurants while the simpler ones seem to have people with a heart working for them. Thanks to the former for helping me appreciate the latter even more and thanks to the latter from a full stomach as well as a contented heart.

I know as much about driving as I know about the history of Middle Indic - which is not saying much - but I guess keeping to speed limits while still keeping the vehicle safe can be tough: drivers here do it with apparently effortless ease, also frequently having time for a "pa-pai" with that unmistakably cute Cantonese lilt when people get down at their destinations. It does not come with their territory and they need not say it, but it does make the world appear a warm place at the end of long days. I have only taken the taxi three times during the last year or so. On all those instances I have been driven to my destinations through routes considerably shorter than the ones I know and each time I have received my change without even a cent being taken for granted. A big thanks to the taxi drivers!

Supermarket staff here, especially the ones who do not sit at the check-out counter, have little knowledge of English and yet they have usually directed me to what I was looking for correctly, or taken me to someone else who could help me out. The diligence with which they attend to their small responsibilities reminds me of one of D' Silva sir's mantras: what you do may be insignificant seen with the world in the background, but still do it well. Truer words have never been spoken and for embodying the spirit of those words I am thankful to the supermarket staff I have come across this year. Behind restaurants cinema halls have registered my presence the most this year- thanks be to the staff at the cinema halls. A couple of ladies who sit at the ticketing area in AMC Cinemas Festival Walk must probably be bored of my face, my uninspiring monotone or both by now: even before I show my ID, they issue me tickets at the student price these days. In a world where personal connection is dwindling even among the near and dear instances of heart-warming cordiality mean a lot, particularly to a person of my disposition.

I am sure these people, the "roots" of modern cities, can be seen all over the world. In a place like Hong Kong, however, where high-rise hotels and dilapidated lodges stand side by side the contrasts are ruder and more clearly seen and felt. Admittedly, the contrasts do irritate me on bad days but I am generally more balanced - or so do I believe - for having seen them. Sometimes while crossing the road to get to my office, I see an old lady push a carriage with two overflowing trash cans, trying to reach the other side of the road before the lights change from green to red. Every time I wish to do something for her but cross the road, peer around to see if she has crossed safely and run into the escalator. I have never considered myself capable of saving the world, but someday I hope to make a small difference at least to some of these lives, lived thanklessly behind the shimmering lights of urban evenings, but with the one quality that I have found most inspiring in human beings in general - resilience. And to resilience I am more grateful than ever.

My good friend Venkat's recent post (A City in Slumber) is pretty similar in spirit to this one: check it out too.

Morning Memories!

2011-12-26T05:01:00.000+05:30

It is 06:32 a.m. HKT on Boxing Day. Having brushed off a sleepless night, showered and had breakfast at McDonalds, I am tentatively seated on my chair, wondering where this post will go, simultaneously wondering what the Monday has in store for me. It is a special Monday, too, with the first India versus Australia test set to begin in less than an hour and Siddharth, one of my best friends, celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday. A slightly strained back is annoying me in that quirky way only strained backs can, but I am determined to, for once, make use of the several hours between now and nightfall by getting some work done.

I have often envied people who regularly rise early in the morning, sometime with the Sun, sometime before it. The exciting possibilities a long day offers are enough to impel one to wake up early, and yet I have not found myself doing it with any regularity in the last four years. The time in Mumbai when sleep was the last thing in my mind was an exception as I found myself at office around 7:30 a.m - sometimes as early as 6:30 a.m. - for an 8 a.m start, often arriving before most others in my team did. In a way I enjoyed getting to work early. It gave me sometime alone before the monotony and the confused emotions of another work day set in. It also reassured me of the freshness of a new day, fostering hope far away from home and fortitude even when the sky that was my head was overcast.

Before Mumbai I had to get up early when I was at Loyola. Now that I think about it the 08:15 a.m. start was one of the joys of my B.A days. I used to be up by six-fifteen/six-thirty, have a quick shower, enjoy a tumbler of hot milk before finding myself at the Baliah Garden bus stop around ten to seven and the Guindy/Saidapet railway station by seven-thirty. The rides in the local trains, not too crowded at that time of the day, used to be a pleasure. On the odd occasion, when I had more time on hand than usual, I took a 47D/147 from Saidapet Police Station and enjoyed a leisurely half hour ride to college, with the morning breeze on my face, a relief from the round-the-year heat Chennai is known for, besides its katcheris, filter coffee (although people who have tasted coffee at Hyderabad may disagree on this point!) and share autos. On exam days I reached college particularly early, taking a walk, deeply enamoured by the sight of the chapel or Bertram Hall for the umpteenth time, discussing with a classmate or two Article 19 from the Indian Constitution before Dr. BDS' exam on the subject or British poetry before De Silva sir's paper.

I am not sure if I can replicate the morning schedule I followed during my days at Loyola or Mumbai given that I currently have the choice to wake up whenever I want, a choice that I have used too freely in the last year or so. But what I do know is I can make the most use of today, and hope that it inspires me to build a regular morning routine in the days to come. On that note, I wish everyone a great final week of 2011. Goodbye and take care. And oh, the Australians have won the toss and elected to bat on a green-tinged pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. A capacity crowd - 80, 000 yes- is expected on Boxing Day. May the better team win.

Also born today!

2011-12-21T18:02:00.018+05:30

Few fascinations have persisted into my adulthood from childhood though my parents, especially mom, think that I never had a childhood in the first place. But one fascination surely has - "shared birthdays". Though I have never been thrilled by the presence of a celebrity, nor had autograph-hunting as pastime, I do light up when I recognise that a certain celebrated person shares a birthday with someone I know (not the other way around). The more special the person I know is the greater the insane thrill that follows the recognition. In this post, I will speak of some of these shared birthdays.

Let me start from within the family, and with my brother-in-law born on February 9. One of my favourite "fast" bowlers and favourite Australian cricketers, Glenn McGrath, also has a February 9 birthday. Though their trades are vastly different, my brother-in-law is as impeccable in his tastes and finicky in his life as Glenn McGrath was respectively with his line-and-length and in his reactions on the rare occasion he was hit for a four or a six. Enough said I guess. Dad, as I have mentioned, elsewhere has an October 11 birthday: Amitabh Bachchan and Samit Dravid, Rahul's older son, have October 11 birthdays too. I do not know much about Samit, but there is at least one point of similarity between Mr. Bachchan and dad. Both of them are mesmerising speakers (although mom says that dad frequently trades passion for quiet eloquence especially at debates. It is an understatement). Sister is also a Libran - October 3 is her birthday. Also born on the day is the actor who plays King Arthur in King Arthur - Clive Owen. Both Owen and Asha have the most beautiful eyes I have seen. Finally, two very brave and tough people were born on April 17 - amma and retired Sri Lankan cricketing legend Muttiah Muralidharan.

Among friends, S has a birthday that she shares with, among others, her own brother, Albert Einstein, actors Maurice Mickle White (a.k.a Sir Michael Caine) and Aamir Khan and a close friend's sister: March 14. S is both brilliant and meticulous, qualities which catapulted the physicist and the actors to the forefront of their fields, and is quite the humblest woman you would meet. My close friend Sathiya was also born on a fourteenth, but in December. Natascha McElhone, an actress I like, though I have watched her only in Ronin, was also born on December 14th. Still with 14, my classmate from school Sriram was born on November 14: others born on the same date include Adam Gilchrist, Jawaharlal Nehru and very recently GB's daughter. Staying within the November family, a dear "scorpio" friend turned 25 this year on November 17. Like the two celebrated people born on the day, legendary former New Zealand opening batsman Bert Sutcliffe and Rachel McAdams of the Notebook fame, my friend's is a fine life in the making.V ma'am, who was more like a mother to me at school and who I have always been inspired by, has November 19th as her date of birth. And so does Jodie Foster, actor and director, who has won the Academy Award twice. She received the second award for Silence of the Lambs, a most disturbing film in which she matches Sir Anthony Hopkins for class. Sir Anthony himself has a New Year's Eve birthday like Jaggi maama, one of my life's rocks in Bombay (2008-9).

Sharang Sinha, one of my dearest buddies, was born on December 29. At one point, I could recall six people born on the same day but now I remember only three of them: Rajan maama, one of my sister's classmates, and British actor (and a personal favourite) Jude Law. I find Law and Sharang charming and Sharang and Rajan maama quite sincere and hardworking. Seven days on, a junior of mine at EFL and a classmate of sister's at high school celebrate their birthdays. I do not know the latter very well and the former and I have shared some delightful conversations. Yet it is the celebrated actor born on January 6 who has given me, and many others I am sure, the greatest joy - Rowan Atkinson. The cricketer who was one of the faces of Indian cricket for my mother's generation, Kapil (often pronounced Kabil) Dev, and Deepika Padukone was also born on this day.

August 2, 3 and 4 all have twin birthdays. My cousin's husband and an EFL senior in the Linguistics department were born on 2nd but couldn't be more different, at least in my opinion. The former is soft-spoken, simple and plain and the latter comes across as the opposite from my limited interactions with her. My uncle's first daughter and a friend of mine in Chennai share not only the August 3 birthday, but also a fine work ethic, a great sense of style and the ability to light up the bleakest of rooms with their energy. Two of the most forthright men I have known, one personally, were born on August 4: U.S President Barack Obama and a very dear friend whose name I have been ordered (jovially) not to use in the blogosphere.

Three people, each with great accomplishments under their belt, have a January 27 birthday. One of them is a senior who I have taken (much to her good-humoured annoyance) as my spiritual phonology guru, the second a rakhi sister's fiance. The third is a gentleman who would seem better at home in a university of standing but has excelled more often than not as New Zealand's lone crusader on the cricket field - their former skipper Daniel Luca Vettori. Iyshwarya was born on May 27 and so was a gentleman cricketer pertinently labelled Mr. Cricket by the Australians - Michael Hussey.

Big-grinned and big-hearted bear of a man Gautam, versatile actor Johnny Depp and this year's Academy Award winner Natalie Portman all celebrate their birthdays on June 9, as do Bollywood actresses Sonam Kapoor and Amisha Patel. Vishesh and Arvind, a distant cousin and classmate, have a July 18 birthday which they share with one of the greatest men of the era - former South African President Nelson Mandela. Venk, who co-authors the cricket blog with me, is a person of some talent but also with painstaking attention to detail: his birthday August 31 is also Clive Hubert Lloyd's (and, as I have been reliably informed by the man himself, Richard Gere's, Yuvan Shankar Raja's and Javagal Srinath's).

Turning to my month, two men with a palpably aggressive streak have a March 24th birthday: one was a friend of a friend of mine with whom I have promptly lost contact and the other, a bit of a younger brother, who is finally learning that a show of aggression is defiance only when used sparingly and prudently. To the "Pisces" part of the month, a classmate of mine at EFL was born on March 2, Daniel Craig and Andrew Strauss being others born on the same day. A friend's father and Ross Taylor, the captain of the New Zealand cricket team were both born on Women's Day, March 8. Lastly (and I can hear some of you exclaim "finally!") I share my own birthday with Shashi Tharoor (former United Nation's Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information), appa's former colleague and friend R aunty, Indian cricketer Parthiv Patel, my friend P's friend P (who is a superb painter!), famous Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Kumar (one of my first friends when we were both at Vidya Surabhi Matriculation School), actress Linda Fiorentino and legendary chess player Bobby Fischer . Thus far, I share only my birthday with these wonderful people.

Others:

My Niece and Mother Teresa: August 26.

My current supervisor and Salman Rushdie: August 15.

Karthik and Sachin Tendulkar: April 24.

My former colleague Abdul, Katie Holmes and Steven Spielberg: December 18.

An acquaintance from my Bangalore days and A.B. De Villiers: February 17.

A rakhi sister, a friend and S. M. Gavaskar: July 10.

My aunt's second daughter and Angelina Jolie: June 4.

Srivatsa and Rufus Sewell: October 29.

Lavannya (a classmate of my sister's from school), Sharon Stone and Olivia Wilde: March 10.

Hong Kong - the year that was.

2011-12-16T17:44:00.005+05:30

Afternoon traffic towards Cross Harbour Tunnel was slow for a weekday. I was sitting on the upper deck of 103, a fascinating - even significant - book in hand, but my thoughts were interrupted by the silly anxiety that I may not reach the restaurant I was headed to before the lunch time elapsed. The sky was blue, but a pale rather than a bright one, the occasional spread of dull clouds flecked by the rays from an even duller Sun. A wan winter afternoon for all counts, and 'indolence' was the word that frequently came to mind. Then, I sat up and realised that it is December 16. Two days hence, and it will be a year since I arrived here. That afternoon had been a dull one as well although first the physical tiredness, then the warmth of my generous host pushed the weather away from my mind.

The eleven months and a bit in Hong Kong, given as I was away for two weeks earlier in the year for my sister's wedding, have been decent. As far as academics is concerned, the going has been steady without being sparkling at any stage. While the work I have produced has been generally fruitful, a sense of restlessness lingers, which might have to do with the fact that I have had far more periods of relaxation during these months than in the previous years of my life. That said, the interludes away from work have also helped me from viewing work as an end-all or escape mechanism in life. Aside from work, things have ranged from average to good. As always I promised myself to go out and see more places but Hong Kong Peak, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, a revamped Ocean Park, the Buddhist monastery in Shatin and Discovery Bay still remain in the list of places I had marked out to visit. If it had not been for my niece's insistence I would not have been to Disneyland either. The visit to the Lantau Island on Chinese New Year still sits fresh in my memory, while the five evenings at Stanley Beach have led to poetry, more unwritten than written.

Besides beaches and books (predominantly fiction) restaurants have helped me unwind this year. If the vegetable biryani at Bombay Restaurant (a crammed room with an adjoining kitchen on Woosung Street in Jordan), seasoned with delicious corn, has made many an impromptu lunch both enjoyable and affordable, Smrat's (fifth floor, Ching King Mansions) chapathis and nominally priced sabzi have often made for satiating Sunday dinners. Khaana Khazaana just off Jaffe Road in Wanchai, where I had lunched today, continues the buffet lunch tradition among Indian vegetarian restaurants in the city, with both Southern Indian and Northern Indian items on the menu. Most of their items a la carte are delicious, too, but do not come at a price that can be paid every week. A good part of my non-work, non-sleep time has been spent, and cheerfully, in these restaurants. Good company would have only made the time livelier but there are no regrets.

I have watched some very good films too in 2011. In Time had a fascinating plot and was worth the money I spent on it. Tron was an absolute delight on the IMAX-3D here. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows had a superb cast and some outstanding screenplay. I watched Johnny English Reborn four times and Tower Heist three times; even by my own standards of insanity, I guess it is a little too much. Both films were out-and-out entertainers, Tower Heist the more humorous because of the firm of Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy and Matthew Broderick, and with a "sexy" background score. One Day starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess was a vivid adaptation of what I suspect must be a moving book and appealed to the more sensitive side of my personality. The Tourist and The Rum Diary were films I watched for Johnny Deep and from that respect I was not disappointed. I went to Margin Call with great expectation but it was a huge letdown While people have often looked at me quizzically for watching films alone (not that it is all choice mind you!), I continue to enjoy the solitude* at cinema halls. It is like having a personal conversation with the characters on the screen.

As the year draws to a close, I can say with some confidence that I have lost the "stiff" tag at least from my own perspective. While just going out there and having fun is not second nature to me yet, I am glad that I have done things outside of work that have gone against my general obsession with routines. Indeed, breaking a routine does leave behind some guilt ever so often, but it is something I have to live with or get over. The next year may not present as much freedom as this year for non-work activity, but if it turns out better than this year on the academic front, which admittedly lies in my hands, I will be more than happy. But that is for later.

*I actually watched a film where I was the lone person in the hall during the first half hour.

The Art of Zaheer Khan

2011-12-07T22:04:00.005+05:30

Zaheer Khan should have been in any other country if he had wanted to ply his craft, or should have had a different craft being in India. However, when he "Yorked" his way into the Indian national team, during the same time as Yuvraj Singh, in the Champions Trophy in Nairobi, collecting the wicket of Steve Waugh for good measure, many predicted him to be the next big thing in Indian fast bowling. They have been mostly correct barring perhaps the ill-advised use of the word 'fast'. Some said he was going to be the next Wasim Akram, partly out of the enthusiasm surrounding an exciting new talent and partly because of those Yorkers which arrived a dime a dozen in those days. The comparison is not likely to bear out in terms of the numbers, but in less obvious ways Khan in his prime has come close to the man who remains left-arm bowling's biggest pioneer as well as complete expert. No wonder then that the Indian team depends, unhealthily at times, on Zaheer to produce those match- or series-turning spells particularly abroad. England might still have won the series earlier in the year with him around, but the margin and the manner of the defeats might have been less obscene.

To see a fit Zaheer bowl in the last few years has been like seeing a world-class conjurer doing his thing. So what if he is a fast bowler, magic is not a simile that recalls spin alone to mind. As the jump into the final delivery stride has reduced the meanness, the stares and the occasional word to the batsman have increased. Only, the gamesmanship these days is additional weaponry, while his main ammunition remains that priceless ability to swing the ball, old or new, in both directions. The best of the batsmen (ask Graeme Smith if you need additional endorsement) will tell you that swing by itself is the trickiest of things one can face up to. When swing is combined with reasonable digits on the speed gun you are bound to have the most vaunted batting line-ups in jitters. It is little wonder then that Zaheer has regularly figured among the top ten test bowlers in the world in the last five years.

Though vastly different and a little less threatening than the best fast bowler of our time, and certainly the most complete, Dale Steyn, Zaheer shares with the South African an asset that cannot be put down in words - the ability to get wickets anywhere in the world. It is not an endowed skill though for it has been honed through though and effort after bowling on home pitches that might soon kill a fast bowler than give in to his innovations or effort. The skill was fittingly evident during the World Cup earlier in the year where Zaheer took home twenty sticks (the joint highest for the tourney) and was one of the architects of the eventual triumph. The hallmark of Zak's performance there was how he produced a wicket whenever Dhoni threw the ball to him. To understand this one need not look anywhere beyond the slower delivery that bowled Michael Hussey neck and crop in the Quarter Finals at Ahmedabad and the searing Yorker that ended a Strauss special in Bangalore and brought India back into a round-robin game against England earlier in the tournament. The contrast between the two deliveries spoke of a genius in control after years of apprenticeship. And to think that it was in a World Cup final that Zaheer had faltered eight years ago, albeit under conditions far more conducive to him, makes his recent World Cup performance even more compelling as a study.

Zaheer Khan is two months and a day on the wrong side of thirty-three when I write this post. Injuries have been woefully regular in his ten-year career, even with vastly improved fitness regimes in Indian cricket, and with passing years every spell is going to be longer on the body even if the mental aspect of his game may be better than ever. That's the thing about fast bowling; when it becomes too much on the body no amount of mind and will can make a difference. If Zak budgets his time based on his priorities, and what the team needs, he has an outside chance of surviving two more seasons. The caveat is, however, never far away: the next injury, should there be one, could well be his farewell for as the later Peter Roebuck put it, but in a different context, "there are only so many battles left in a man." How many ever Zaheer has he needs to fight them prudently for himself and wisely for the team.

Khan currently has a brace of 273's as his ODI and test wicket tallies. In the former format, he is behind Javagal Srinath's 315 wickets, a number which is not that far away, and in the latter behind Kapil Dev's 434, a number that even the most fervent fan of his would recognise as an unreasonable dream. But career numbers, as always, provide only a bland summary: for instance, Kapil Dev (with due respect to him) took forever to get to 432 wickets, while Sir Richard Hadlee's 431 came in 86 tests (an incredible achievement which Dale Steyn may equal or surpass). What Zaheer will be remembered for primarily is, therefore, what he has done to the team since his comeback in 2007 and the numbers for this period show why. 144 out of his 273 test wickets and seven out of his ten five wicket hauls have come at a respectable average of 27 during this time. Creditably, 60 out of those wickets have come at a shade over thirty in 17 home tests, a period when Harbhajan Singh has not particularly set the scores ringing. It is no coincidence that this four-year period has been one of India's most successful especially in test cricket with a series draw in South Africa (where India have only lost in the tours before), two home series wins against Australia, the 1-0 series win in England (2007) and an away series win against New Zealand (2009). Barring the rearguard victories at Perth (2007) and Colombo (2010), Zaheer has been an integral part of every significant Indian win in the last four years.

With the Australian summer set to begin on Boxing Day in nineteen days, I hope that Zaheer is declared fit (not the "England tour kind of fit") and gets a four-test crack at an Australian line-up that is a mix of exciting youth and some experienced, if fading, stars. This hope is partly born out of the fact that I like Zaheer and partly because both his previous tours to Australia ended after the first test match. A Zaheer in peak fitness is these days as good as a Zaheer in peak form and the prospect of seeing him (ably supported by Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav) match wits with Clarke, Hussey, Ponting & Co in conditions he is bound to enjoy is only next to the prospect of seeing Anderson, Broad and Bresnan bowl at the Indian batsmen (a test where, as we all know, the latter miserably failed). Should he make it, this will be Khan's last visit to Australia like it will be for Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid. And if he is still standing and sipping from a bottle of water at deep third-man on the last day of the test series, it is likely he will have been part of something historical on his final tour to Australia like the more illustrious Khan, Imran, who lifted the World Cup (1992) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and retired in style the last time he took a team to those shores.

A Winter's Day!

2011-12-01T16:59:00.001+05:30

The morn arrives as mournful as a lie.
A faint moon feigns the Light delayed by haze
While pliant soles and plated souls, in daze
Inflame a morgue in vying for its sky.
Noontime tiptoes home as the Sun turns shy
Now ling'ring, hesitant as First Love's gaze,
And now malingering to miss love's Maze.
A mean wind blows. The face is frayed but dry

As evening steals in stealthy as a stream,
While stately hills too shiver for a hug
From breaths of hearths, and birds of hearts set free
By Willful wisps which wish the will to gleam
Though sense won't see, through comfort's calls that tug,
As coals this night while Diamonds disagree.

A looming destination and other journeys!

2011-11-29T21:17:00.002+05:30

A year has passed since I stood entranced at the smell of the hardbound copies of the dissertation, every thing about them a vindication even if it was not obvious then, a journey from a definitively cracked sense of self-belief to confidence which was slowly being restored. In a befitting tale of ironies, the bureaucratic machinery ensured that I could not on my own submit the thesis which was given to the COE's office two weeks later by one of my dearest friends in Hyderabad. It had seemed then nothing else mattered in life, not even the result of the dissertation. But then as always my cheese was moved, and so did I to another place - familiarly effervescent in memory which was still uneasily distant in time - another three years away from home, and into the overwhelming echo emanating from the pulses of a grand amalgam of people I landed on a grey winter's day, the sharp winter wind a contrast to my host's welcoming warmth. It was December 18, 2010.

Today, November 29, 2011, as I sit and count down the days left for my defence - and more importantly my next trip home - I wonder why no satisfaction ever lasts - not a job well done, not a rainy day savoured, not a sunshine never to be repeated, not a relationship that was beautiful in its time and prime and not the so-called accolades we gather along the way. Some greats have said that a sense of restlessness is good as it speaks of a mind alert to possibilities and the need for expanding vistas but other greats have said with as much conviction that happiness is a journey enjoyed, and not a destination to be attained. Yet despite being one of those who find tremendous excitement in the ramblings and wanderings life makes available, I am generally lost in a labyrinth, often questioning my journeys and in the process myself. Some are convinced that I just need an additional dose of Rowan Atkinson. Others are as convinced that I am "beyond salvage" ;).

As the year draws to a close, though, I have enough (and more) to keep me on my toes and I am glad. I also seem to have found (touch wood!) a sense of rhythm that was not quite there even till the end of October. I just wish I can persist and lengthen this good work phase into something more satisfying in terms of the effort I put in even if the end product does not always mirror the input. Given as there are few other things than work which vie for my attention I think my expectations are reasonable. Sorry, I guess I am now speaking like a self-help guru (something I find life-threateningly - the guru's life - exasperating).

December lies ahead and promises to be an exciting month, as it has been for a while now. Two close friends, both of whom I know for over twelve years, have birthdays in the first half of the month and two other buddies have birthdays closer to the New Year. I am also looking forward to work on the review a paper of mine has received while waiting for the announcement from a conference at Berkeley I have applied to, which would be out in mid-December. The good thing is I will be financially less annoyed if I don't get selected while my CV will be intellectually less annoyed if I get selected: few are the times in life when you win if it is a head and you don't lose if it's a tail, so I cannot really complain. And then there are the year-end blog posts and my "ten for this year" thank you mails which I enjoy writing even if I have to steal time for them. I hope I can continue the tradition this year and in the future as well.

On that note, wish you all a fine final day of November. It is a mere thirty-two days to go for 2012. It already looks like the year will bring great challenges, exciting possibilities and the chance to consolidate on various fronts. If things go well, the Valentine's Day would bring me a birthday gift in advance. Before anyone gets excited, or before I myself get excited, all that I can say is it has to do with a three letter abbreviation rather than a four-letter word. On that incorrigibly Srini-esque (read 'pointless') note, I sign off for one more time for 2011 November. Happy December, everyone :)

From a Dravid Fan. Unabashedly. Proudly.

2011-11-24T21:34:00.004+05:30

In the beginning there is Sehwag, at the end there is a number 11 and forever there is Sachin Tendulkar. That would be an apt description of the Indian batting sheet. A year ago, to the date, the name Rahul Dravid would not have been missed even if it had not been mentioned somewhere in between. With clouds hanging over his head, and some critics said even over his technique, runs being eked out more than flowing from his bat, like drips to a life in its final stretch, Laxman having pulled off famous heists and Sachin Tendulkar on an incredible and extended second-coming, Dravid would have been excused if he thought he'd overstayed his welcome. Being the man he is Dravid might well have had those thoughts, and if he had seethed at the comments of detractors some of whom did not have even one test hundred, let alone thirty-one, he did not show it. After all, Pujara had taken his place in the batting order against Australia in a tight chase, in Bangalore of all places, and come out with a seventy that spoke of maturity and poise and readiness for the stage; Virat Kohli was knocking the door hard too to make good of the promissory note which was his performances in the shorter formats. Ardent fans (and here's one writing) of Dravid's too sought relief in place of hope, longing to be freed from the anguish of seeing a blade known for symmetry and style morphed by the vagaries of time into an uncultured scythe which sounded like "wet wood" when it hit a ball, wondering when Rahul will announce his retirement.

Then, 2011 happened.

His first significant effort of the year, a ground out seven-hour 112 on a Kingston pitch that was irrelevant for none but the fastest and most accurate bowlers and insipid to the batsmen, and latest one, today's 82 on a batsmen-extremely-friendly wicket during which he breezed past 13000 runs and 1000 runs in the calendar year, can be set against each other, studies in contrast, indirectly, perhaps, even a foray into Dravid's mind. And yet neither innings embodies the man more or less, but both together do though not completely.

If Dravid were merely utilitarian, the arena of sport, which is not without its share of minds affected by tinsel town metaphors, would have called him "efficient", an adjective which, in this world of takeaways, T20's, Twilight and twitter, also means "thank you very much, but I didn't catch your name!" If Dravid had been merely elegant, the more pragmatic of us would have smiled about a simile with Mark Waugh's batting but also deduced a tragic flaw over fixations with pulchritude. But the Bangalorean, like the other majestic and underrated performer of his era in Jacques Kallis, is as much flowing cover drives on a sunny day as elbow staring unstintingly heavenward on an overcast English evening (as the Indian team found out this year). No wonder then that among Dravid's fans are both poets and philosophers, and each group, I am sure, has had its fill of that aspect of Dravid's batting it loves in 2011.

His knock at Bombay today on a Tendulkar day might have ended eighteen short of a thirty-seventh ton, but it was, pleasingly but poignantly, yet another festival of and Festschrift to a school of stroke-making that deserves to be called Dravidian because it might be soon extinct and because it is both original and eclectic like fine music or great literature, entertaining in its rasping prime to populist vantage points and enlightening even otherwise to refined taste: "whiplash" square-cuts which cricinfo delightfully informed bore the stamp of Karnataka and Gundappa Viswanath, a wristy whip of Samuels whose power was inconspicuous until the ball was picked up beyond the boundary line, on-drives laced with lovely hands, a lofted-four of Bishoo and, of course, the cover-drives which were top draw and had "Dravid" and "deja vu" written all over them.

Off the first ball of consecutive Darren Sammy overs in the post-lunch session Dravid played - or is it essayed? - two drives, each bisecting the narrow gap between mid-off and cover in the circle, each gently wishing that the other were less graceful, less technically accomplished and less photogenic like competitive twin children of similar standing do. Although the jury is still out the second should probably win, not because it was inherently better than the first but because it brought up Dravid's 13000th test run, as Tendulkar still awaiting his turn in the dressing room applauded. The helmet was intact, but a nod materialised from the Indian first-drop, and up came the bat for about five seconds to acknowledge a generous applause before the run-making resumed as if it was the most natural thing to do, perhaps only next to watching Tendulkar bat, on a warm November afternoon.

And during that briefest of interludes while Dravid accepted the congratulations, the afterimages of those cover-drives brought together not only the finest attributes of Dravid's batting, but also what we, strange specimens tied by an inane affinity to this great game, have salvaged about them in our mind's eye. The memory does abound with tales which are as clear as the best photographs taken on bright sunny days. Such photographs are often as good as the real! I can only smile and say, crazy as I might sound when I do so, that Rahul Dravid does it to you, be it through his droll humour at press conferences, that enchanting but most childlike of smiles, dropping sitters and plucking blinders, or doing what he does best - bat, bat, bat, lunch, bat, bat, tea, bat, bat, bat, bat, stumps! Perhaps, it is time we realised that when when someone says they want Dravid to bat for their life, they are being dead serious!

"I Believe in You" - Rumer

2011-11-23T17:54:00.001+05:30

I first heard the song as part of the closing credits in Johnny English Reborn and have since fallen in love with the lines. Here they are:

"When you’re sleeping, I watch you for hours
Feels like reading
Or gazing at stars
Never touch you, no
Just waiting for one to fall to Earth
Brighten up my empty world

‘Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
You make it better
You keep on coming through
So much, I don’t believe it
But I believe in you

Heroes win
But sometimes they fail
Some people can’t believe it
But I need you human anyway
Nothing less
I want my star to fall to Earth
It’s where we love; it’s where we hurt

‘Cause I believe in you
I believe in you
You make it better
You keep on coming through
So much, I don’t believe it
But I believe in you

(You make it better, baby)
You make it better, baby

I believe in you
(You make it better, baby)

You make it better
You keep on coming through
So much, I don’t believe it
But I believe in you."

http://mp3skull.com/mp3/rumer_i_believe_in_you.html

:)

Relationships revisited!

2011-11-18T11:44:00.002+05:30

It is an overcast day. While listening to some soft music, mentally visualising theoretical possibilities for my work on syllable structure and reading random articles on far-ranging subjects from cricket to kittens to the history of the word "kibbutz", keeping an eye on the approaching deadlines and the heart tuned to living rather than merely existing, the "R" word comes to mind again - "relationships" yes. I rewind the clock a few years as much to compare my views on relationships between then and now as to trace my own development as a person, and the following firmly worded lines from Robert Frost ring in my ears:

""I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true." - From 'Into My Own', Robert Frost

To those who know me well, uncharitably or lovingly, those lines may come across as a borrowing intended to buttress my own obstinacy. And yet, is not tenacity stubbornness of some sort too? What is it that lends words like "obstinacy" and "stubbornness" a negative connotation and make "tenacity" and "perseverance" inspire us with their evident optimism? My belief is, and has always been, that connotations are just two sides of a coin. An ox' strong will may offend some, but offence is only a by-product, its purpose being to remain strong "in the midst of woe". What does any of this have to do with relationships?

I am more convinced than ever - a conviction that has been tested, informed and reinforced by my readings as well as interactions with people who are or have been in relationships - that my view of relationships (whatever it is, which is not relevant here) is no more ideal or constructive than that of anybody else I come across. As for objectivity, at the risk of ruffling feathers I believe there can be none. With all due respect to those who reckon that relationships can be viewed objectively, I believe that objectivity is a far cry when it comes to anything that is at least in part - however small a part that is - an emotional matter. If objectivity so coloured is objective at all, we are back to the old wrangling: whose sense of objectivity is better, a question that takes us back to chicken and eggs, a debate to which an uncontroversial verdict seems a far cry.

Let me elaborate a little. In the last three years, I have interacted with the following people: a good friend who is adamant that his high school love can at best be pretended away not forgotten (to put it mildly) and still holds a grudge (a word he may find unfair, but I use it nonetheless for lack of a better alternative) towards the instruments of society which thwarted its culmination into something more substantial; a lady who believes that men in relationships are either exploitative or deceptive; a middle-aged male friend who, after his break-up, has come to conclude (tentatively or not, time will tell) that polygamy - or at the very least non-fidelity - is the natural state of the human mind (a point that may make some go up in arms but has received support from writers in various circles and celebrities, so it is not as radical as it may seem); a girl who swears on her life that relationships are more about what one gets out of it rather than what one brings to it or gives to the other person; a female friend of close to ten years for whom her boyfriend is the one lone beacon in an otherwise pointless life on a dark road; another special friend - quiet and too proud to share much about her pains - who married and divorced young, has a child, is grappling with things galore and seems generally and understandably disillusioned about love and relationships at the moment; a child-like damsel who is essentially pragmatic but a romantic at heart and believes in the "knight in shining armour"; a young man who is looking forward to a relationship in a manner reminiscent of me five years ago and two good friends - one a bachelor who has still not lost his faith in love or women after repeated mishaps and another, a happily married friend who is amused by my continuing 'single' status -; and four women, including my sister, married to the love of their lives, a couple of them at least, to my knowledge, having had to fight for it and reconcile priorities on an every day basis. And then there is me - disinterested at the moment, noncommital about the long run and basically measuring the lie of the land, as it were, more because 'human relationships' is a pet obsession these days than a personal longing.

Whom do I side with? Or, to phrase it differently do I need to side with anyone at all to understand people and to confirm, as I once said, that hearts do not have grammars? I am of the view that high school love is a lot of baloney and yet from my interactions with this friend who has sincerely struggled to put an end to his misery, and that of others around him, I know that my verdict is one-dimensional and prejudiced, in short harsh. Take the lady who is skeptical of men in general or the girl who believes receiving is in some sense more important than giving in a relationship: I disagree with both of them to varying degrees but can empathise with them because I have had moments when I have been frustrated in my attempts to understand a girl, or have felt let down by someone close. When I see the pro-non-fidelity gent I am confused and curious partly because I would like to think I am a "one woman man" when I am with someone, and more significantly because it is antithetical to the culture (however you define it) that has been drummed into us - him and me - deliberately or otherwise since our respective births. Towards the divorcee there is a lot of affection but unless I know more, I would not, and should not, put myself in a position to criticise or vindicate her disillusionment although it has my sympathy. The two solicitous male friends, Capricorns if you want to know, unerringly practical and endearingly cheerful, are loyalists too like I am, and yet I cannot bring myself to give the same amount of importance - not at the moment, anyway - they do to a relationship. The female friend who I have known for close to a decade and the one who delights in fairy tales are both very important people in my life, but I have a support system stronger than that of the former - so can never comprehend love as an end-all - and I stopped believing in miracles when I was 23! Finally, I know little, if anything at all, about the married women, my sister excepted, and I hope and trust they are happy.

I cockily called the character modelled on me The Observer in a quasi-autobiographical piece of fiction I attempted to write several years ago. As the years roll by I am impressed at my own clairvoyance. When people - friends, colleagues and acquaintances - tell me that I understand them very well, I feel chuffed about it because it is something I consciously try to do. I do have my own viewpoint, obviously, but will not give it unless asked to. Of course, if I can help out someone emotionally through a difficult time I try to: it helps me understand people, life and myself better. My personal trysts with relationships these days starts and ends with understanding it as an object of interest, much like phonological puzzles, through introspection and interaction with others. The human beings themselves bring the context within which to view their relational episodes. For the most part, seeing them within their contexts without drawing parallels or unnecessary comparisons is good enough for me. Sometimes, the heart stops when encountering a wonderful couple or skips a beat when a familiar smell, sight or song triggers a memory. I treat them as delicious distractions and move on. Life is good.

A Very Special Birthday!

2011-11-16T23:44:00.003+05:30

What makes human beings interesting and irritating at the same time is they do not fit into types. There are those who regularly come into our lives just to test and extend the circumferences of our patience and endurance. They overstay their welcome often. Yet when they eventually depart the heart still skips a beat and the eyes still grow bleary. There are others who understand our pains and joys without the slightest whisper from us, call or text us precisely when we yearn for a "feel-good" gesture and are always around when we need a mirror to see our smiles and a shoulder for our tears. No amount of time is "enough" with them and as a friend would say no time is good to bid them goodbye. And yet it has to be done. The friend who will be twenty-five years old in a bit does not certainly belong to the first category; and yet to put her in the second would not do complete justice to her either.

We first met nine years ago during a train journey from Bangalore to Chennai. Twenty months later our paths forked, and not, I must admit at least from my end, without a sense of bitterness. We got back in touch thirteen months ago - after a gap of six years, one month and eight days (yes, some guys remember such things too!) - and our correspondences to date continue to be of the steady and cordial type. But that is not the point. There was a time when I could have given much to just hear about her; hearing from her and knowing that she is around, going on with her life with typical fortitude in another city, is more than I could have hoped for before last October and it makes me happy. It is one of those simple joys that you cannot train for or pretend because you do not know wherein it lies. But sometimes you feel it and that is all that counts: I feel it this very moment.

I don't pray, but I always sincerely wish for the best to befall those I know and those I do not know. When it comes to her, my supplications to life are even more pronounced. She has gone through so much - and is still probably going through a lot - always enduring in silence, always finding strength, even on the most tempestuous days when the motivation to go on might be at its dregs, always giving her best shot - "putting your best foot forward" she used to call it - at work and always being the best mother, daughter, sister and cousin she can be.

To know her is to be proud of the knowledge; and 'pride' is a word that plays a significant part in the descriptive proceedings when you think of her. Yet on her it sits light and elegantly, without noise, without the elaborateness of something gaudy. Pride becomes her: it is not so much a jewel in her make-up as the make-up itself. Hereabouts arrogance invariably suits caricature, but her self-assurance, even through that lilting voice that I can wait forever to hear, breathes character.

Here's wishing her the loveliest of birthdays and a pacifying year ahead. Below is one of four poems I had penned for the occasion:

The princely star imprints the pendent dawn

With praise to prayers, to pluck, to pride of place

And prudent calm reproves the pregnant morn

With prating hope that's precious past its face.

The seething sea set free from storms' decrees

Recedes in swells, concedes in ebbs that speak

Of dreams that gleam as sleep bequeaths a crease

And thoughts that thaw the freeze as fawn suns reek!

By truce enthused, the teasing throes yet lose

To living's thrust enthralled by trysts with trust

As Fall-hued thorns that throve with thirsty ruse

Now fall and melt as spring now thieves the(ir) rust.

The prescience threads the lilts, while preaching thin,

With Conscience probing lees right through the din.

Peter Roebuck is dead; long Live Peter Roebuck!

2011-11-13T10:50:00.003+05:30

Like Sir Donald Bradman's final innings, or a last wicket partnership that might have saved the game if it had lasted five more balls, or the match that was lost but might have been won if the weather gods or Messrs. Duckworth & Lewis had been kinder in their statistical clairvoyance, it is gone. Only this is life, not a cricket match: Peter Roebuck, one of my most favourite writers ('cricket' is just a convenient prefix) and a columnist revered as much for his broad-minded opinions on the game as for his unshackled candidness is no more. May he rest in peace.

Whatever I have known of Roebuck I have known through the written word. His birth at Oxford, law education at Cambridge, cricket-playing days - and the attendant controversies - at Somerset, role as a teacher in Australia and South Africa and suspended jail sentence for taking the term "task master" to a new level only provide a rich, if unorthodox, historical context, to a journalist whose writing was rife as much with mystery and metaphor as with wit and sincerity. Hereabouts was a man who often wrote about cricketers as persons, often merging the two as was only right to do, with a human touch that is sadly absent in many among the current crop of sports writers, and a keen eye to extrapolate from the seen to the unseen - but in every way obvious for the keen-eyed. In that sense, Roebuck's own innings with the pen remained a reflection, even if not an accurate mirror, of him too. Roebuck traded prose for poetry that would have been natural to him, and yet his journalistic accounts of cricket and cricketers are anything but prosaic.

It is difficult to pick out my favourites among the pieces that have been born from Peter Roebuck's pen, for each has been, at least for me, a package of playful and stylish penmanship. So, I will merely list those articles that spontaneously spring to mind.

Of Sangakkara, one of contemporary cricket's prolific players and finest men, Roebuck writes: "Sangakkara is an all-round man with an all-round game. He is a contributor. Hardly an hour, let alone a day or a match, goes by without something from him."

He has this to say about V. V. S Laxman, another of world cricket's great stylists, a man who for a very long time was, and to some still remains, a tantalisingly fine batsman even though he has the credentials to be one of modern cricket's greats.

Old age, Roebuck opines, is hard for sports persons and harder yet for cricketers, especially batsmen. Despite the harshness of that verdict, it is delivered in the most sympathetic and beautiful terms possible. As if to reinforce the balance and buttress the premise that age is something, but not the thing, he does not mince words when he says "it's not sensible to go gaga every time a gifted youngster impresses or glum every time an old timer has a bad spell."

There are many more that come to mind, for different reasons and for, arguably, the different traits of the author they project silently: if the piece about Geoff Boycott in his book It Takes All Sorts is the stuff of the typical and understated British humour, his piece on Glenn McGrath is shockingly hilarious as McGrath's bowling was not while another article tells just why Tendulkar is a phenomenon with minimum exaggeration. One of Roebuck's most controversial creations, this candid, if rabid, take on the Australian skipper and team from the ill-fated Sydney test of 2008 versus India polarised opinion on cricketing morality as much as any other contemporaneous story did. If the article is viewed as anti-Ponting or anti-Australian, one only needs to recall the author's glowing praise for Ponting in the aforementioned book and Adam Gilchrist - the reference to whose sportsmanship as convenient might have been unfair - or his equally strong approbation of the 'Aussie way' of playing the game.

Then, there are those write-ups which foster a sense of nostalgia whenever I read it, because they have to do with a favourite cricketer/cricketers - like this one on Anil Kumble or this one in The Guardian on India's famed middle-order firm of the genius, the artist and the builder - or with unforgettable milestones in Indian cricket, like the pieces after the VB series win in Australia under Mahendra Singh Dhoni or the come-back-from-behind Headingley triumph in 2002.

I can simply go on without ever stopping especially given that it would give me a chance to read some of Roebuck's pieces again. But in the interests of time and length, I will stop here.Roebuck's writing, I am sure, has brought immense joy to many others as well and I look forward to reading their opinions in the days to come. It does not matter if some of the tributes will turn out to be back-handed compliments. I have no doubts that he will be missed.

The hundredth will come!

2011-11-09T13:20:00.002+05:30

It is nothing new: when you bat with Sachin Tendulkar, especially when he's staring at a(n) excuse-me-how-many-eth milestone, you might as well be a dwarf without a name unless, probably, if you are Sehwag. And so, at the Oval last month when the Little Master was given out leg before in the nineties the cricket-crazy nation heaved a collective sigh, or so it seemed, at his having missed his HUNDREDTH INTERNATIONAL TON. Never mind a pathetic Indian outfit had been annihilated in every manner possible by a supremely fine-and-fit English team; the ton would have obliterated the enormity of the series defeat in a one-off billow of exaggerated celebrations: thankfully, as Andrew Miller wrote, the ton did not arrive there.

And so the Tendulkar show moves to Kotla, New Delhi: India chasing 276, three-down, Tendulkar in the fifties, cover-drives, into the sixties, sweeps, and into the seventies! The target shrinks, Laxman's silken, as he typically is in run-chases, and fans wonder aloud why Laxman shouldn't slow down. (Of course, it is every Indian batsman's unwritten duty to do so). In fact, Laxman does, whether deliberately or not nobody knows, picking singles early in the over handing the strike back to the MAN. Against the run of play, as Shastri would say, Bishoo wraps Tendulkar going for the pull on the back-leg: Rod Tucker looks long and hard - oh, you wouldn't want to be tucker with Tendulkar twenty-four short would you? - Rod Tucker thinks and Rod Tucker raises the finger. Apparently, in front of a television in some official complex the crowd thins instantly from fifteen to four. What does it say about Tendulkar? Nothing. What does it say about the Indian mindset (as scathing as I might appear)? Everything.

I have said this in the past and at the risk of being shredded I will do so again. Tendulkar is arguably the greatest batsmen and cricket icon as well as the best Indian sportsperson the world has ever seen, and may ever see, but is not bigger than his team or the game as some have the gall - yes, G.A.L.L - to say! The champion batsmen has himself repeated it over the years in every manner possible, with that hoarsely cute voice which still speaks of a shy teenager at heart, a fact that demands as much commendation as his batting exploits if not more. And yet, we in India, while acknowledging the Laxmans, the Sehwags, the Gangulys and the Dravids, do not seem to have quit the nineties' response to Tendulkar-related stimuli - Tendulkar batting TV on, Tendulkar out TV off! Indeed, there might have been sense in our behaviour then because Tendulkar was flanked by men prone to collapsing quicker than a house of cards, so even the probability of a victory post-Tendulkar seemed too far-fetched (read "insane") a contemplation. But now, we have "matured" into trading off the team's cause for a Tendulkar milestone. Perhaps because we are suddenly Kipling-esque or Tennyson-ian: victories and defeats, as impostors, come and go, but the echo of Tendulkar's 100th ton...etc.

Harsha Bhogle wrote pertinently after the loss at Centurion last year that the euphoria of Tendulkar's fiftieth test hundred should not let us forget yet another first-test loss in an away series to a strong team. Today again, his tweet - "saddened to see number of people saying laxman must slow down. it's about india winning guys. tells us a thing or two about ourselves." - says everything that needs to be said. Being a fan myself, I do understand that we need not be always bound by sensibility and put the team ahead of an individual; indeed, I enjoyed Dravid's tough runs in England, but would have loved to exchange an Indian victory for each of his hundreds. So would Rahul, and Tendulkar had he been India's lone crusader in that mammoth mismatch of a series. That being the case I wonder if we have our heart in the right place whenever we toast anybody ignoring or under-appreciating, if not at the expense of, others.

I have no doubt that Tendulkar's hundredth will come sooner than later. For all we know, it may come in the Kolkata test match starting in a few days' time. It is likely to be celebrated days on end when it comes, especially because the wait will have been long given Tendulkar's superlative standards. While commemorating that achievement and being thankful yet again for having seen Tendulkar as an Indian cricketer, let us remember that it is a team game and we have had many a magnificent gem who might have shone less but have shone nonetheless. The irony is that the greatest of Indian cricketers (at least in my opinion!), perhaps because he was a bowler - and because he didn't turn the ball he was as close to a romantic's compliments as Johnny Depp is handsome in a conventional way - remains the most unsung, and yet does not consider himself any less fortunate for it. Anil Kumble is the name, and I wish all the time that we, as fans, away from the actual heat of the battle have half the equanimity the tall Indian leggie had while in it (though Ricky Ponting may not agree).

Congratulations to India on a fine run-chase at New Delhi. But, hey, is that even half news-worthy as Sachin not reaching his hundredth ton? Well, I will not answer that!

In Time

2011-10-30T18:20:00.001+05:30

Big or small, everything seems to be coming in a pair these days- ideas for papers and papers, breaks in a week, typhoons, fights, reunions, text messages from unexpected quarters, falling down (that had not happened in twenty years before the two in two weeks!) everything except yours truly! Nowhere has the couple tendency been more evident in my choice of movies. This year, I have watched two films starring Anne Hathaway, two spearheaded by Jake Gyllenhaal, two with Natalie Portman as the protagonist and now two with Justin Timberlake in the lead. As an aside I find Mr. Timberlake quite charming, and he continues to remind me of a friend's husband. I digress...

Earlier today, I watched In Time, a film whose plot fascinated me until the last twenty minutes when I thought it was dragged out. In one line: the film depicts an Orwellian world where time is everything. In this world nobody ages physically beyond 25 years and the duration of one's life after that threshold depends on the time one has on hand (literally). It is a world where you work for time and get paid by it, where time is the bus fare and toll pass, where you can give and get time and where time gets you the scotch, the plush seats at poker games and just about everything - time in this world is THE currency. The only problem is that the cliche from the material world extends to this temporal doom-a-geddon too - the rich live longer than the poor, have the time-keepers at their beck and call, reside safely in New Greenwich away from the ghetto everyday a time-poor person dies and are untouched by time-thirsty gangs who direct their threats among the poor.

The film opens with Will Salas (Timberlake) rescuing a time-rich Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) from a group of time-thirsty hoodlums at a bar. The next morning, tired of having a life without the certainty of natural death, Hamilton transfers to the sleeping Will more than a century, keeping only a few minutes with himself, and reaches a nearby lake where he is timed out and dies. Salas, now armed with enough time to take his mother (Rachel Salas played by Olivia Wilde), is crushed when his mother dies the same night while running to meet him after missing a bus whose fare for the day is two hours (the only she has left). After giving Borel (Johnny Galecki) ten years in honour of the ten years of friendship between them, Will hires a Limo and heads to New Greenwich with the vow to "make them pay".

At New Greenwich, Will meets Philippe Weis (played by the smooth Frenchman Vincent Kartheiser), a powerful businessman and a supplier and controller of time and - as night follows day - gets wound up with his daughter Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried). Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), the timekeeper from the ghetto, tracks Will down to the party at the Weis residence but Will escapes using Sylvia as his hostage. The rest of the film is about how Sylvia warms up to Will, how the two evade their pursuers and battle the limited time in their hands and how they eventually crash the "system"!

Though not a great believer in "star power", I do feel that this film was greatly catapulted by its cast: of Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Johnny Galecki, Cillian Murphy and Justin Timberlake the last four are personal favourites to varying degrees. While everyone, I thought, acted their part, Murphy's performance as the timekeeper was something else. The strong accent, the evident but teasing anger in his eyes and the perverse stubbornness to stop Salas, if only to satisfy the parochial ideal of doing his job well and pandering to the rich, meshed effortlessly and were a strong boost to the character. Timberlake himself was more than adequate; between the romantic scenes, where his gleaming eyes and gelatin charm were obviously at home, he brought out sadness, puzzlement, frustration, resignation, mischief and relief in a way that I had thought was not possible for him. Olivia Wilde's cameo (for me just seeing her was enough!) did not demand much, and it was quiet and efficient. The character of Sylvia Weis was somewhat beaten track - spoiled and suffocated rich girl meets the rough but gold-hearted hero and joins hands with him at the expense of her ruthless dad - but within its limitations Seyfried's portrayal of it was charming and good-natured. Her reaction after she shoots the time-keeper, not realising she had pulled the trigger and puzzled look when Will instructs her later about the parts of a gun are light-hearted, but not inappropriate, interjections in an otherwise serious narrative.

Besides the main idea, two things fascinated me about the film now that I think of it in hindsight. The screenplay was for the most part swift with no unnecessary diversions, so the viewer has little time to think or wonder "what next?". There is nothing preachy about the film and the dialogues are to be credited for it. Even the most philosophical dialogue - which is spoken twice, first by Hamilton and then by the time-keeper - about how for some to be immortal many others have to die seems matter of course. Craig Amstrong's music was subtle and strong giving the film the effect of a thriller, which in some sense it is. However, there is at some places an unmistakable similarity between his background score here and in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

In Time is about living for the day. And as the time-threatened hero keeps quipping, there is a lot you can do in a day.

Correspondence in Poetry (a ramble!)

2011-10-28T14:36:00.001+05:30

Experts in poetics and linguistics who may happen to read this are welcome to share their opinions. This post is a result of a random and passing thought.

On my way to office today - it is but a very short walk - I had one of those outrageous thoughts which make being in academics an exciting love affair despite the general shoveling, feeling of loss and sense of insecurity involved. It was probably inspired by Prof. Percy G. Adams' wonderful book called Graces of Harmony (1977; The University of Georgia Press) which I finished last week, a rigorous work that discusses alliteration, assonance and consonance among English poets in general, but with particular reference to Dryden and Pope and those came after them. Last afternoon I was talking to a colleague about how the Correspondence model has been extended (e.g., McCarthy 2007, McCarthy 2010; and references therein) to account for famous long distance assimilation process like sibilant harmony in Chumash with Optimality Theory. Prof. K. G. Vijayakrishnan has also treated Carnatic Music to an OT-like analysis in his pioneering book The Grammar of Carnatic Music (2006; Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin). So I wondered: wouldn't it be fascinating to see if the three sound devices which seek to heighten the rhetorical value of verse is susceptible to a (quasi-)Correspondence analysis? It may very well be.

For starters, I learned from Adams' book that there is a general consensus about the fact that assonance, consonance or alliteration is truly effective if and only if: (i) they relate stressed syllables by sound echoes so that the echoes enhance prominence even more; and (ii) the stressed syllables in question are not too far apart. Naturally, constraints on the type of line (e.g., pentasyllabic) and the feet (e.g., iambic or trochaic) adopted by the poets as well as the need to wed auditory ornament to sense have to be thrown into the equation as well. Even with these constraints, I suspect the actual repetition of sounds can be captured by constraints on correspondence applying across various domains. The rest of this post will throw some light on what these domains might be in poetry.

The smallest domain within which a vowel could assonate or a consonant could alliterate or consonate, of course, is the metrical foot (as understood in poetry, because this may often cross a word, not Phonology where it may not). This is because, by definition, a consonant or a vowel cannot have an echo within the same syllable. For example, if a syllable begins and ends in the sibilant /s/ the beginning /s/ is a candidate for alliteration and the ending /s/ a candidate for consonance. The foot, therefore, seems like the smallest domain within which the rhetorical devices can apply.

The immediately higher domain where sounds can be made to echo is the line. I suspect this works very well especially if there is a "caesura" clearly demarcating a line into two halves whereby echoes of a sound on both sides of the caesura can be used to designate different types of grammatical and semantic relationships to go with the rhetorical effect. I was quite fascinated to learn that poets who had subtly trained ears often alliterated, for instance, nouns while assonating/consonating the noun with a nearby adjective! The indication, of course, is that there can be correspondence applying across many domains at once.

The next higher domains involved are the couplet, depending on the poetic style involved, and then the stanza. While it is perhaps easy to pick out the smallest poetic unit within which sounds can be in correspondence it is difficult to determine what the largest unit might be. The difficulty stems from the fact that the sounds in languages are finite - vowels are particularly small in number and Adams devotes a lengthy discussion to how Dryden advised his fellow English poets to "manage the vowels" carefully - so echoes are bound to be repeated over feet, lines and stanzas. For a phonological analysisof alliteration, assonance and consonance, however, one may have to restrict oneself to a feasible domain such as a stanza (or even a couplet/line) with the assumption that intra-stanza echoes would be more conceptually bound than inter-stanza ones; likewise for intra-couplet and intra-line versus inter-couplet versus intra-couplet echoes.

Turning to the statement of constraints, I presume this is where echoes in poetry differ from phonology proper. In Chumash, for instance, abstracting from technicalities every sibilant in a word must have the same quality (and this is determined by the sibilant at one edge of the word). The constraints on sibilant-correspondence are violable, but whether they are violated or not depends on the presence and the relevance of the higher-ranked constraints. In poetry, however, the use of rhetorical devices is, despite the rigour with which poets practise(d) it, entirely optional. The correspondence constraints on sounds across domains of verse may therefore be seen as those which inform the poet what sounds can be in correspondence, not what should be. Furthermore, there is no proscription on echoing sounds in unstressed syllables (which is perfectly understandable especially in the case of consonants), merely the suggestion that such echoes may not be effective. The upshot is that apart from the context-sensitive phonological markedness constraints which have a direct bearing on verse (bear in mind, verse read out, not silently) - for instance, certain types of vowels will not be found in unstressed syllables for an English speaker, whether he's speaking or reciting a verse - there seems to be no context-sensitive markedness constraint which says: *ALLIT/Unstressed Syllable (i.e. unstressed syllables cannot alliterate). I have not given much thought to context-free markedness constraints.

Until I do, take care, good luck and good health - have lovely weekends! :)

A sonnet after a while:

2011-10-27T10:56:00.001+05:30

-based on the legend of the thorn bird!

If shorn of truth is born in trust, a bird
That's worn in flight through woods towards its dawn,
A tree with thorns; in whose still thrust's interred
A crust that's cruel and goads to hopes reborn:

The tryst once made, it sits in sliver'd nest,
As twigs berate the bleeding wings that fly;
But vow unhurt and verve sunned in its breast
The bird in throes steeled seeks the smiling sky;

For neither Sky nor Soul by scars is slit,
Intense, the pain extends into a paean --
To world the praise, to will, from wounded wit;
As 'Larks and 'Gales do freeze at oceans weaned!

The song then steals into the Still, and fills
Yon voids that sing of Spirits never ill!

Standing one's ground!

2011-10-22T10:18:00.005+05:30

Discussion threads which accompany articles online can be fun places especially if you are the kind that likes to see patterns in argumentation. Recently, however, I have felt strongly impelled to stay away from many of them owing to what is becoming a predictable trend at times, one wonders, solely based on popularity. With the effect, any opinion to the contrary is ambushed or looked down upon with contempt or, in cases where it is well argued for, ignored because the opposition cannot do much about it. Arguing till one's throat's last dregs of moistness have disappeared - or hell freezes over - is fine; I have indulged in such arguments myself all too often and have found them enlightening and entertaining as long as they have been bookended by a mutual respect for both sides of the story which does not necessarily mean agreement at the end of it all. Sadly though such respect for opinions that are contrary in spirit to one's own is dwindling, or at the very least becoming a lip-service.

Three pertinent examples come to my mind: a discussion after a post about Akhtar's autobiography which naturally focused on Sachin Tendulkar's stature in world cricket; the reactions (or the lack thereof) from certain quarters to the death of Steve Jobs; and the recent death of Gaddafi. The critical debates were triggered respectively by: (i) a very balanced comment from a gentleman who while never discrediting Tendulkar's greatness refers to the age-old trend of how even anything reasonable against Tendulkar (he quotes Imran Khan and Barry Richards) is ambushed by a passionate fan base; (ii) a newspaper article that disputes Mr. Jobs' greatness, but more importantly calls into question the billow of sad reactions to his death; and (iii) the reference to how Gaddafi's corpse was hurled around (something I have not seen myself).

With reference to (i) I completely agree with the gentleman in question because Tendulkar in India is a phenomenon that is beyond reproach, so we expect him to be treated likewise by every critic, commentator, fan and player, present and past - which, to put it mildly, is not a fair expectation whatsoever.

As to (ii), I do not know much about Jobs - nor am I an aficionado of Apple gadgets (if certain quarters consider me unfit to live for that remark, well they are welcome to have that opinion!) - except from friends, including a very dear Niece, who are in awe(r) of anything that has to do with apple. So, I shall not have anything to say about Mr. Jobs' life. However, I do concur with the author of (ii) in that beyond a point the reactions to Mr. Jobs' death became a little annoying. To put it bluntly, seeing "i-sad" pasted everywhere made my eye mad. Again, this is just my reaction - and that of the author and perhaps a few others - and I do not mean to insult the sentiments of those who mourned what someone, rightly, called it an "enormous loss." The article itself has however elicited "angry" reactions; if sentiments are to be respected then those who mourned Mr. Jobs' death and those who didn't - and to some extent those who thought he was a game-changer and those who didn't - should both learn to accord that respect, even if begrudgingly.

(iii) is probably the most controversial and was brought to my attention by a friend who his himself quite balanced in his views and with whom I have found myself in disagreement a number of times over a number issues. Yet when he condemned the hurling of Gaddafi's corpse, I found myself in agreement immediately. Naturally, the most sensible way to see it would be to say: he was as ruthless a dictator as any the last century has seen, and so his eventual fate need not be bemoaned even if it does not call for a celebration. I do welcome the totalitarian's death, too, but there is something not right (to me) about the corpse-hurling. That is not to say that views such as mine (or my friend's) should have a bearing on the debate; but merely that such views should be allowed to stay even if they do not dominate proceedings.

This post has nothing to do with the merits, robustness or the morality underlying different viewpoints. Those are (pseudo-)intellectual underpinnings that are not directly relevant to the issue at hand. It has rather to do with the much simpler theme of the right to hold an opinion, in connection with which the climate that is conducive to foster that right meaningfully assumes a significant role. It is easy to say that if your convictions are strong enough you will get yourself heard regardless of the deterrents on the way. Yet if discussion aspires to be egalitarian even convictions with feeble voices have to be encouraged.

I am not a "quotes person" but I thought the following quote from Mark Twain sums up the problem perfectly:

"...we all know that in all matters of mere opinion that [every] man is insane--just as insane as we are...we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours....All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane."

Four years of AOL mail!

2011-10-19T13:24:00.001+05:30

I received a very thoughtful email from AOL for having stuck on for four years with their web mail. Given the pace of our lives and my own prejudices against corporate the world the message was unexpected and therefore pleasantly surprising :) As for the email id itself, it has been special - it has seen news of admissions, appointments and rejections, words of love and parting, thoughts of strife, defeats and triumphs and virtually everything about my life in the last four years. What's more the id inspired/influenced, or at the very least prompted, a couple of others to have AOL ids at some point in time as well; not that I demand a pat from them or a commission from AOL, of course.

It has been a nice journey with AOL since 2007, a significant year in my life's landscape whichever way I look at it. I have no intentions of switching over to any other web mail provider since the AOL inbox has become a familiar and comfortable part of my everyday world: the classy look is only part of the magic. Besides, my AOL id is the one that most people - in official and personal circles - have and I have had no personal issues with the service, so I see no reason to quit for a while. On that note, wish you all a great mid-week.

Ghosts, brilliance and cliche!

2011-10-18T13:57:00.001+05:30

It is not the hopefulness of being cited or the expectation of affixes to the name or the imminent thrill of being a master of a microcosm that I love about being a linguist, or for that matter being an academic. Those things are good, and I will for a change not deny them, but it is the sheer struggle to reconcile (or choose from) viewpoints, frameworks and data and seeing it all come together - sometimes after days, sometimes weeks and at times after months - into an organic whole that excites me. In that sense, I have perhaps had the finest week at work in years, besting even the delirious four months that I spent writing my dissertation last year.

My last week and a bit have been spent re-couching, in terms of a theory propounded by my current supervisor seven years ago, the solution to a problem that is famous in Polish phonology in particular and Slavic phonology in general. It has to do with vowel sounds labelled (rather impishly it seems to me as) "yers", fascinatingly, and also befittingly, called ghost vowels. These vowels are all over the place in representations, like a rash to use a non-linguistic analogy, but not all of them are heard viz., produced. Why these yers behave like ghosts has triggered a debate that goes back at least three decades. Having been both exasperated and excited by these creatures - I have always likened yers to something like deus ex machina perhaps to convince myself that a bit of the literature student is still alive in me - I am happy to make a contribution to the literature involving them. It is quite likely that my paper is going to be shredded, if not binned, given that it is reinterprets some fundamental assumptions in the field but it has been enthralling to work on something close to my heart without the fear of what will happen later. After all, the paper will remain a manuscript even if it does not make it bigger which, as my supervisor says, is not a bad thing itself.

In other news, a senior who has waited for a frustratingly long time has finally got the reports for her dissertation and is all set to have her defence tomorrow. I am sure it will be aces (never mind if you're inclined to tennis or poker but not both). She is one among the triumvirate of colleagues I looked up to while doing Phonology at EFL and by far the most brilliant with due respect to the other two. (Amusingly enough she is yet another of those Aquarians who make me feel my mortality acutely without ever intending to do so. If I can draw half the connections she does in ten years' time, I am sure I will go places. Now, she is someone I would call awesome without feeling a sense of exaggeration).

In still other news, it has come to my attention that even when you muster as much transparency and decency as you can people will see what they wish to see, hear what they wish to hear and interpret things not so much on context but on convenience. So much for all the ultimata (well, I just made up the plural! :D) that warn you not to assume or judge things. I cannot say that I am completely cool with it because some things, among them double standards, continue to gnaw at my being, as if a vacuum cleaner were trying to suck all the oxygen in the vicinity to leave me panting. I am probably exaggerating, which is a sign that I must return to work. NOW.

A matter of Faith!

2011-10-13T17:58:00.003+05:30

Although nothing to do with the book per se, this post is inspired by Irving Wallace's The Word - a novel whose discourse on faith versus skepticism I found most intriguing.

Coming from a family where religiosity is not fanaticism but a strong fervour nonetheless, I have often wondered why I am the odd man out. Often have I envied, like Steve Randall the agnostic protagonist in the aforementioned novel does, those for whom Faith provides solace, if not the necessary solutions, when things are hard. But the more I have thought about it the more I have realised that there is nothing to envy, for I am what I am by choice just as those who believe in a power above are what they are by choice. While I may not cross over to the other side tomorrow, next week or owing to some sudden event, it has remained crystal clear, at least to me, that having Faith or not is simply another of life's decisions, perhaps with implications which are slightly more significant than our everyday decisions. That being the case I have often let myself wander and wonder about two things: why is it difficult for theists and agnostics (or even atheists) to coexist? More importantly, why is it that some - I emphasise on the word - who proclaim their allegiances to a Faith resort to it only under duress, if not distress, and how is it that they find it convenient to think of all successes and good times as results of free will and failures and bad times as interventions of a force above?

As far as I am aware (and I cannot call myself even an amateur theologian), every theory of God that has been posited and every view of a Supreme Being that has been invoked has relied on negation: you look at a world and subtract all that can be put down to empirical experience, and you get to something like an Original Cause - a Creation - and a Creator. The moment the "reason" card is played, those who stick fast to their Faith will tell you that there is quite a bit in this world that cannot be empirically verified. Love, for instance, is an oft-quoted example in such cases. Naturally, neither can I nor can anyone else I suppose prove love scientifically and therefore we, of little (or no) faith, can only emit a sheepish smile.However, not all is lost. The love card is based on the assumption, albeit one that breaks and builds hearts, that its reality cannot be denied. However, inasmuch as love is not verifiable it and God are on even footing - the reality of which (or lack thereof) is coloured, if not influenced, by our perception.

Now if the (perceived) reality of something immanent is not out there but right with us - in the form of our choices shaped by our experiences - the question begs to be asked (if not out of general necessity, out of the curiosity to understand one's own convictions over time): am I, allowing for thunderbolts which can reportedly change the way one views life, its purpose and the world, consistent in what I perceive to be real? That brings me to a point where I see it fit to adumbrate the whys of my own supposed faithlessness.

I do not believe in a world governed by a Force or my life having a preordained course - call it destiny or what you will - because it makes me nervous. Considering the seriousness of the subject you may titter at the reason I am dishing out, but it is true. I would like to believe that my choices and decisions, work, conduct with people and what I give (and receive) are all there is to my life (there you see, I do believe but not in the same things as a close friend might). There have indeed been moments when I have mulled over the possibility of my burdensome everydays being pre-planned; the possibility amuses me at best and makes me feel pointless about life at worst (ironic isn't it?) I do concede that there may be things beyond my control, or human control anyway, but I have learned to live in a manner that does not give a great deal of importance to them. The result: I graduated from being an agnostic to an atheist a couple of years ago.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I have seen friends fluctuating between being believers and non-believers with whom I sympathise because I can relate to confusions, even if I have not had too many confusions as regards my view on religion. And there are my parents, sister and brother-in-law, who are rock solid in their Faith. I respect the strength of their convictions, especially amma's given that she seldom asks God anything: for her prayer does not rhyme with Barter. But what used to exasperate me - or tire me to be honest (not my business, some would say, but it is when I am directly in the line of fire) - was seeing people who choose to be believers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and non-believers on other days; or worse to attribute every good fortune to their royal awesomeness and bad tidings to "oh, it was Meant to be!" Deep inside, perhaps this last group of people also fluctuated in their views, which is understandable, but on more than one occasion and with more than one person have I found the "super power" coin being played into the carrom hole called convenience where it fits snugly. Which brings me to the denouement.

An esteemed friend of mine believes in classifying people - albeit classification may not be his aim - as good versus bad, black versus white, godly versus sinful and so forth. In fact, I have often been a subject of his scrutiny whereby my sensitivity apparently does not go well with my atheism (or the other way around), a remark I have taken on board. My response, however, is simple: we believe what we want to believe. For some of us what we want to believe changes from time to time with regard to certain things while remaining firm with yet other things. Views on religion, faith (deliberately lower-cased here), love, destiny, God etc are not excepted by such changes, but influenced by them.

Far too often a believer is scorned as an elitist among certain groups of people (I have observed that) and an atheist is treated as if he has committed sacrilege just because he is jittery about believing in something he has not seen, heard or been able to prove (I have been subject to lectures though not by my family). Neither is a fair position to take. Ultimately, happiness is an unwritten aim for all of us. When my father chants the Gayatri Mantra it gives him mental peace; when I go to Stanley on a wan day and immerse my legs in the splashing water that makes me happy. Which of those experiences is more spiritual, uplifting or godly is an irrelevant question because in any case one person cannot exactly feel that which another does and draw comparisons. So, it's best to just get on with it: having or not having Faith is an asset or liability based on perceptions. Privileging it any more than that fosters extraordinary annoyance.

Dad at 60!

2011-10-11T00:01:00.001+05:30

Deeds that deliver dawn after dawn

Depths that endure and vie with the dark

A legacy liveried with gratitude's heart

A life that says lovely men needn't be last...

Dad at 60!

Moderateness that meets men straight

Majesty made in words held back

Deigning to inspire, stooping but not to conquer

Sweat for passions, silence for battles...

Dad at 60!

Grit that hustles gratefully into grace

Triumph that ever speaks a team's tale

Flickers of humour, fire of a voice

Which silence even a conflagration's noise...

Dad at 60!

Husband who flits between child and stalwart

Father who is my friend, my sister's epiphany

Little brother with a giant heart

In whose palm every line echoes "family"...

That...

That's dad at 60!

(The image or sound of a mobile
Makes him nervous...
That's also dad at 60!)

PS1: Curiously, I am reminded of one other father and a daughter and how incredibly they have enriched each other's lives. Here's wishing that father-child duo the very best as well :)

PS2: Also born today, Bachchan-ji (Sr) and Dravid-Jr (Samit).

A Super Sunday!

2011-10-09T10:01:00.000+05:30

Not often does occasion over occasion converge upon a single day. But today, on the ninth day of October in the two thousand eleventh year after Christ, I have four important things to share with you all. And since elaborating on any of them would take me too far afield - besides, a book awaits me - I shall keep them as short as possible.

(i) Appa celebrates his sixtieth star birthday today (and enters his sixty first year by date day after tomorrow). Though not one for milestones or years, I am a little sad that I am not around in Chennai with my family. Simultaneously, I feel a great sense of joy and gratitude - something that I have felt always, more so since the 2008 emotional fiasco when I was busy messing up my life and my father was persistently busier trying to redo it for me (despite his other pressures) - when I look back at the twenty-six years and six months of our shared lives. That dad is not celebrating this day due to my absence (but that's unfair to Asha, as dad himself acknowledges) as well as the death of a close friend and the absence of the other few close friends he has made over the years speaks volumes about the man. Sometimes, a dose of him in thought is enough to inspire me for a week.

(ii) Sowmiya is getting married today (perhaps at this hour, as I write). Among the many new entrants in my life in the post-2008 era who helped me perceive the worth of living just one more day - which in essence is what life comes down to, and it takes a crisis for many of us to realise that - Sowmiya stands nigh near the top. Her marriage is yet another testament during this year to the fact that terms like "love marriage" and "arranged marriage" have fuzzy boundaries these days. It is also a testimony to the general strength of commitment, tenacity and the will to fight for all that one dearly loves coupled with the admirable will to embrace everyone in the process. My best wishes to Sowmiya and her husband!

(iii) If you look up the names of persons under 'proportion', 'prodigy', 'toil' and 'fairness' - not the best of bed mates, admittedly - in a putative dictionary of traits, Daniel would definitely be listed under all four. He is also listed in October 9 birthdays! Understatement is not so much his means to a personal end, as it is a way of life; and yet it speaks not of a timorous creature, but a man whose clarity is tempered by accommodation and conviction rather than fanaticism. Seldom does he waste words so when he speaks, and he does when deviousness swamps integrity, the listeners had better listen. Whether it is pumping water in a neighbourhood tap after a hard day's work, or working on an advertising project, or writing an attractive summary for a feature story in journals, or talking about his life over dinner Daniel does it without so much a sigh, let alone a grudge (to think he lives in the same world as some who believe that not complaining speaks of a mental condition; incorrigible!). My own friendship with him has solidified over the last couple of years. I can be long and never end this passage, but I shall be short: he is the Rahul Dravid among my friends. Enough said. No exaggerations. Neither does Rahul Dravid's forward defence nor does Daniel's profile have any need of them.

(iv) And to the final NEWS, arguably the sweetest of them all: I don't think I have the ability to adorn it in any beautiful/meaningful way so I will out with it. In about eight months' time, which may well coincide with my next trip home, I will have a little guest to spend time with as well. YAY! It is early days yet, but I am eagerly awaiting the day when my nephew or niece will set foot in this world. My sister is fine at this stage although she has been too tied up with work on the personal and professional fronts. Being a worry-wart, it is going to be a few anxious months for me - and I cannot even imagine what she (and brother-in-law) would be feeling. I wish my sister, brother-in-law and the NTB (i.e. nephew/niece-to-be) the very best.

PS: I have watched Johnny English Reborn three times (once day before yesterday and twice the Friday before). If you like Rowan Atkinson and/or are into spoofs of espionage thrillers, it is a must-watch in my opinion.

Central!

2011-10-03T13:09:00.000+05:30

Two hours ago I was walking back towards Des Voeux Road after picking up dad's parcel from the Indian Overseas Bank located at Duddell Street. Crossing into Ice-House Street (I have had my Triplicane memories, indeed!), with a steady wind, an odd drop of drizzle therein and hundreds of others pedestrians keeping me company, I walked on and came to a halt opposite HSBC's main building, an edifice in its own right, and a landmark of both financial and geographical importance in Central. Behind it are the Central Star Ferry piers, the Hong Kong city hall and a number of other buildings that make one reminisce about the British times in the island and in front the booming commercial centres of Downtown Hong Kong. To its left is the road leading towards the famous Mid-Levels Escalator, Admiralty, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay and beyond, and to its right are parts of central I have not explored so far.

As I stood in front of HSBC for the one-minute or thereabouts that it took for the pedestrian signal to change from red to green, I realised that the tag Asia's World City was by no means an exaggeration. At my ear shot, to the left, two middle-aged Australian accents were discussing some investment in Sydney. Behind me an old Chinese lady tried to squeeze through to the front to have her best chance at crossing the road quickly. Alongside me were a European family - the accents suggested German - of four who were perhaps on a holiday, the boy particularly fidgety and the girl with springy hair unconcerned about her brother's restlessness.

On the opposite side from a sea of faces and formal and casual wear, one middle-aged lady stood out with her striking face and a flowing black gown which hinted at a personal summer on a cloudy and windy day. And there were others: local officials dressed in their usual ensemble - black suits and shoes, white shirts and red or black ties - an athletic-looking Caucasian male, a geek in his early twenties with thick-set spectacles, a McDonald's staff member, an old British couple, a couple of pregnant ladies, a domestic helper, a turbaned sardar, and even the odd school uniform in a largely commercial part of the city. I am not sure if any other city in the world, with the possible exception of New York, can boast of a concourse where the world's peoples come together and toast in the atmosphere of the city.

A little later when I waited for 182 at the Statue Square bus stop on Des Voeux Road I reflected on how it is places like Central, and on this side Tsim sha Tsui and Mong Kok, during the peak hours of a business day which define Hong Kong: transitory, time(-)less and arguably tireless. And it is places like Central (~~not to forget Egmore~~) which make the human aspect of being in Hong Kong such a life-levelling experience. On that note, here's wishing my sister a very happy birthday and everyone reading this blog a happy week :)

October Skies!

2011-09-29T12:29:00.003+05:30

After playing an extended hide-and-seek, the rain gods have finally decided to bestow some rains upon Hong Kong. At the time of typing this post, the typhoon warning 8 is still in force, the skies are dark, the winds are alternating between strong to fierce and the drizzle-sweetened air touches the face endearingly. Perfect weather some may say, and I am especially reminded of my father who loves rains. I am at office, having just dispatched a submission to a journal my former supervisor is editing in Hyderabad. No wonder people ask me to relax. And what better way to do that than write a post on October, heralded by these rains which in their intensity are not very different from those seen in Kerala and Bombay.

October is a special month for me. My father who shares his birthday with Amitabh Bachchan, sister and a very close friend are all October-born. If there is no other reason, the month still has enough to demand a celebration. But there is: day after tomorrow will be the tenth October 1 since I met P in the Brindhavan Express (a fact that anyone who has known me for a week is likely to know and get bored or delighted by, based on their emotional allegiances). It will, however, only be the fourth October 1 I will wake up to knowing well - hopefully - that she is a call or an email away (what comforting thought that is!), and the second after we resumed correspondence on the same day last year. I do not want to write much about P here - an October 1 special is on the cards, time permitting - except to say unequivocally that she will be right at the top whenever I count my female friends, or for that matter friends in general. There is simply nobody like her from where I stand. She once sent me an e-card with the words: "When I count my blessings I count you twice." Looking back, I think the words befit the sender more than the recipient.

The coming October will be red-lettered for other equally important reasons as well. Asha, my sister, is looking at what will arguably be the second most significant birthday in her life (future birthdays included; details for a later post). Appa will be, as I mentioned elsewhere, turning sixty. For someone who has lived six decades what amazes me, among other things, is his sense of humour. Perhaps, the more one lives the more one realises that a good life often reduces, especially in its crunch moments, to a good dose of laughter. I will miss being around in Chennai obviously, but that's the way life goes. Finally, another of my good friends, Sowmiya, is getting married and the wedding happens to be on my close friend's birthday - October 9. I do not know about the world in general, but the world of numbers, dates and the patterns they throw up is surprisingly small especially if my life is any indication.

On the personal front, which can for a while be safely construed as work front, this October represents a chance to charter newer courses of action as well as consolidate on work done or half-done. I particularly look forward to working on a (slightly overdue) paper that accounts for the distribution of "ghost vowels" in Polish within a framework proposed by my present supervisor. More work on my pre-PhD Open Presentation, the abstract - and thereafter paper - I intend submitting to BLS 38 and a couple of other squibs is also on the cards as 2011 moves towards the its final quarter.

It seems like I just landed in Hong Kong before Christmas last year and October is at hand. I cannot say time has flown for there have been days when I have felt like sitting in a bizarre desert where there is no night or day - only an insipidly endless now with every moment erasing an earlier moment, the erasure obscured by lack of traces. There have also been days when I have felt thrilled to work on two things at a time - something I thought, and still think, I am not that proficient at doing - go back to my room, grab a quick bite, take a walk upto Choi Hung or Diamond Hill, come back tired and just go to bed. Many a time memories from one type of day brings clarity or comfort to another day. Sometimes, they help me go on or walk away.

Is a little grace that difficult?

2011-09-24T17:25:00.004+05:30

Although both have the same morphological (reference: linguistic) structure, 'gamesmanship' (throw in 'showmanship' if you want) and 'sportsmanship' are as far from each other as you can imagine. The latter involves, among other things, grace; and if grace is ever used in the context of the former, it may only be part of the interjection "goodness gracious!" when some of the words used by 'sledgers' are spoken to an audience. In this day and age where sportsmanship seems to be sinking fast and gamesmanship has taken over sport completely, the final ODI between India and England witnessed a(n elongated) moment that stopped the clocks as romantically as Dravid's innings had during the test series: as the Bangalorean made his long walk to the pavilion having been dismissed by Swann in his final ODI innings, every English player in sight came to congratulate. Jonathan Trott, as Harsha Bhogle beautifully describes, went a step ahead, removed his cap before shaking hands with Dravid to honour a stalwart walking back for the last time in his country's coloured flannels. Some may argue that given England had trounced India in every match in the series they could afford some grace. And yet, they need not have shown it. Not many in the Australian team of the noughties (barring, perhaps, Gilchrist and Wanre) would have shown such grace even at the fag end of a bruising tour for the opposition. But sadly, the very fact that we use a phrase like "afford grace" is a sign of the times we live in.

The problem, I presume, lies with the fact that we commodify grace like much else. In a world where money rules, it can at best be bartered for its likeness. And yet should we look at our own lives a little more closely, we would probably realise that there has been grace all round, muted as is its wont, whether we like it or not. A parent who works hard so that his or her son could sleep well today and perhaps lead a better life tomorrow is unlikely to call the toil sacrifice; therein lies grace. A friend who stands by us when the chips are down, knowing all the quirks and chinks of our personage, and yet takes it on her/his chin when we are not there for them exemplifies grace in the simplest and most human way possible. A teacher - and I have been blessed to have many such teachers - who puts in as much into nurturing a student as into nurturing his/her own child without ever longing to be recognised, acknowledged, quoted or cited stands at the zenith of grace as far as I am concerned. Which is why I find it distinctly annoying, sometimes infuriating, when people with friends who are loyalty-personified speak slyly about friendships and mock at the sentiments of the friends involved; young women and men in high places disrespect their teachers; and when some among my contemporaries regard being nice as a sign of weakness or as a bit of an imposition, or look at children as irritations.

And so I wonder: is it that difficult to display a little grace? Foolish, some may say, but difficult? Let's see. How much is it going to cost to pick up a call, albeit from a persistent friend, and tell them we are not in a position/mood to talk now (or at least send a communication to that effect)? In what way will our egos be battered if we went and wished an equal on his or her achievement even if we might not have had the good fortune ourselves this time? What loss could possibly accrue from a timely smile or an felicitous word of kindness especially when we realise that the person in question needs it? How is it beneath one's dignity to accept that you can like anyone but cannot always be liked in return, but that does not mean you start hating the person(s) in question? Again, some may tell me - or at least mutter to themselves - why is a missed call a big issue? Issues per se are not big or small as far as I am concerned. Besides, every conviction worth its salt has to be rooted so deep that it pervades even the smallest things in our life.

I would probably get a comment, perhaps here, perhaps elsewhere based on this post , saying "please do not bore us with concepts like grace, Srini" - someone I knew called integrity a concept by the way - at the end of it all, but it does not matter. In fact, such a comment would serve to reinforce the fact that grace is as much a 'construct' in a barter world as anything else. Ironically, the barter metaphor leads to a rhetoric question on which I shall let matters rest: when some display grace in abundant measure, does it hurt for us others to even begin thinking about it?

Johnny English to the rescue!

2011-09-22T15:35:00.000+05:30

I have become a bit of a movie buff, what with all the downtime and the excuse of a social life. However, I don't quite recall counting down days for a movie like I do for a trip home or a test match to begin. I am definitely looking forward to this one though:

Wish you all great laughter, a fabulous Friday and a wonderful weekend.

Feburary 9, 2010:

2011-09-21T12:26:00.004+05:30

(re-posted with minor edits from my Hyderabad blog)

Yesterday, I walked. A lot, in fact. From home to university and university to home - the regular routine, but the latter in the afternoon. So I promptly went home and slept. Then because Robert Ludlum was becoming too hot to handle, or perhaps too cold, I went out to get my dinner: a place about seven minutes walk in my speed, give or take a few seconds[...] After two plates of idli, which I under some 'Chennai illusion' had thought would contain four when they contained EIGHT, and a rather bland if romantic end to Parsifal Mosaic, I [...] decided... to walk again. Just like that, at half past ten in the evening!

One ear was on the pod, the other on the sounds of the street. Occasionally, a dog barked mistaking me for a thief or interloper or even for an extraordinarily ordinary passerby. Maybe, I walked too fast for the likes of some. But I was in my elements and I am not talking about "panjaboodham" which if you were blessed with only part knowledge of Tamil would mean something like "five ghosts" (which are land, water, air, fire... and what's the other? I forget). And so I walked on...

Through the back lanes of Tarnaka to where it intersected with the crossroads - chowrastha they are called here - of Nacharam and beyond I walked. The city was not quite asleep just yet; but the night was doing its best to tranquillise it. And the images flashed as usual, first into the eye, then through to the mind where they made an imprint: a boy at a fastfood shop where he was the attender, cook and all; a young woman probably in her early twenties, dressed straight from a corporate gathering perhaps, face tired, but a curly smile to be seen and a phone taped to her ears (perhaps understandable); the occasional flow of buses and more frequent passages of autorickshaws; the misted sodium vapor lamps which have probably become a mystic and romantic reference as far as this blog goes; a seedily lit internet cafe which was still doing good business; an ice-cream parlour, staff from a Domnio's outlet cleaning out the premises before shutdown; an aged couple taking a late night walk hand in hand (now THAT is love); and a trillion other things!

Experiencing a city at night is quite enthralling especially given that we grow up with the lights [...] and sounds of day [...] Residential locales - read "especially conservative" - are particularly denuded of incessant action at night as we all know. And when one takes a walk through alleys, lit just adequately, listening to ones' footsteps and perhaps the smallest patterns of noise that break the silence if not the silence itself, it is a lesson of A kind which cannot be packaged as philosophical, romantic, meditatory, purgatory, aesthetic, scary etc. For there is a dose of each; or perhaps none or all. I do not know if walks do that to you but they do it to me, especially late-night ones...

For reasons I cannot quite put my finger on, I felt quite special after that walk. There was nothing [...] about what I saw, heard or the walk itself. I could describe any walk as I have described yesterday's here and it would be as good or bad, not just in my expression but in its very texture, as yesterday's. Yet for some reason I felt special returning home from that half hour walk last night - which served to put together about 90 minutes on the road yesterday. I brushed my teeth, had a hot water bath, wished a friend on his birthday and went to bed at about an hour past midnight. Nothing had changed. Nothing would, not for practical purposes. But I knew I had lived during those past few hours and I wanted to live on. That's all that matters, Life, in all its beauty, ugliness and life...

It was love, perhaps, too... of a rather peculiar kind!

Stanley Beach!

2011-09-18T14:24:00.004+05:30

Inspired by the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold, which for its grey loveliness and a lot else I am probably not qualified to comment about remains a personal favourite.

Before the day of Mars

A night after the moon was full

As the stealthy ebbs and flows,

Stronger now, whisper at my feet;

The cadence of half-remembered tunes

Coalesce downwind

With eulogies to mid-Autumn

East of my ears,

The melodies muted or muffled

As if the lines had been sung

In a dithered monsoon dream.

Stanley!

The evening is young!

Stanley!

The seclusion is its soul!

Stanley!

Horizons spliced by hills!

Stanley!

The indigo sadness

Elaborate tonight

With hope!

Stanley!

The mirth of Marina

In my bleary eyes!

Stanley!

In whose deep-strung lees

Shadows of a misty-eyed moon

Sing in sprung rhythm

Of sunnier days!

To roads and lines loyal

The sense puts it

Off the heart of Hong Kong;

But the blackened rocks

And the blanched barbeque pits

Breathe tales

Of gravy songs and clipped silences

About a heart

That draws in, and not despite, the

Colour and chaos that is Kowloon!

For even as the mind divides

Ingress from wet egress

The heart in its mite and Might

Is stilll;

As the teeming trumpets,

The strident songs, the silent syllables,

And the blurring boundaries

Of a slit city that fleets like a mirage

And feels like a mirror

Find a solemn voice in the lowing swells

That touch a desolate slice

Of salt-laden water's edge

Whose secrets when sad

Are anything save its own;

Whose secrets when sublime

Time's tirades bemoan!

A Dravid Summer!

2011-09-17T00:51:00.001+05:30

As Dravid walked back to the applause of the English cricketers and the orderly but appreciative applause of the crowd at Cardiff, all of Dravid's career fleeted through my eyes once. The scene also gave me the sentence that will describe the last few months: it has been a Dravid summer! Some say, Chennai is birthright. For me watching Rahul Dravid is a lifeline. Period.

That's it for now. More Dravid paeans will follow. Tada!

Scapegoating Mick Lewis!

2011-09-15T14:24:00.006+05:30

Does anyone remember (a cricketer named) Mick Lewis from Australia? I will stand up and salute you if you do. I was myself led to the gentleman's page only by accident, while reading an article about Chris Mpofu who has fought off time in the wilderness to be a bright quick-bowling prospect for Zimbabwe in the coming years. Mick Lewis on the other hand has faded from everyone's radar, and one wonders if it is just as well for him.

So, who is Lewis? Remember THE 438 game between South Africa and Australia at Johannesberg in 2006? Remember that one guy from each side gave more than eleven runs per over? The man who suffered from the South African side was an all-rounder who goes by the name Jacques Henry Kallis. Kallis' Australian counterpart was Mick Lewis who went for 1 1 3 - yes, hundred-and-thirteen runs, that's right! - in a spell of ten overs after the onslaught from Mark Boucher, Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs and company. As scapegoats go, there could not have been a better - or worse? - one than Lewis for the Australian defeat in that match. Lewis lost his contract with Cricket Australia soon after, which put paid to any chance of his having a prolonged international career which had begun quite late.

Why am I doing a post on a relative anonymous like Lewis in this space (rather than my cricket blog)? There is a strong reason. A few months ago I wrote something on Vinod Kambli focusing on why it may be unfair for us to judge him based on what we perceived he should have done to justify his talents. The focus here is very similar - it has to do with judgments. Lewis' cricinfo profile is not inspiring at all, which probably tells us that the Western Australian was not a Glenn McGrath-wannabe on the cricket field anyway. However, that must not distract attention from why he alone was axed soon after the defeat, never mind there were other bowlers and never mind why Ponting gave a struggling bowler his full quota of ten overs!

I have often spoken about how sport mirrors life and serves as a great leveller. However, it also turns out that sport is as fickle as popular perception and as cruel as the passage of time many a time: the last goal, the last grand grand slam or the last wicket is remembered, the rest consigned to the romantic indulgence of those who have a long memory, which is competitive sport's own version of madness. In my opinion, Lewis' is a classic case of a person being at the right place - or is it? - at the wrong time. Pundits, commentators and "tough" sportsmen will argue that you have to grab whatever chances you're given. To that I say: Tendulkar took 79 ODI's to get his first hundred in the format; Shane Warne's figures after his first four tests were 4 wickets for 386 runs; and Marvan Atapattu who made six double-hundreds for Sri Lanka aggregated ONE run (no not-outs) in his first six test innings! The rest, as they say, is history. It is nobody's fault, not least a player's, if (s)he gets less of a leeway than somebody else.

A tale like that of Mick Lewis also has relevance outside of sport as far as I am concerned. Day in and day out we see people make it big in their chosen spheres of activity. No doubt, these success stories should be heralded in sunlight for they make us all believe that one day our dreams will come true as well. The Mick Lewis-es of the world, however, remind us that while some toils rightfully see the light of day, others shrink into oblivion, sometimes without a second chance and often sadly because of factors beyond one's own control. There is a perception among my friends that I have an obsession towards the underdogs, the struggling and the defeated. Perhaps, but I suppose I can say the something about a lot of people being obsessed about power, luxury, success - in numbers and statistics - and so on. To each her/his own!

On that crazy night at the Bull-Ring (as Wanderers is fondly called), the whole world rejoiced because a new kind of batting landmark had been established and razed in a matter of hours. Even while I cheered the Proteas' triumph, for reasons not relevant here, I was inwardly saddened at the augmenting lack of contest between bat and ball in the modern game. Lewis' story makes my interjection, albeit in hindsight, only more poignant.

Who knows how many Mick Lewises walk our world!

Of hearts, grammars and memories!

2011-09-14T16:25:00.002+05:30

People ask me: how hard is it forget a particular date (not the type where girls and guys get to know each other)? I tell them: incredibly hard, especially a date, especially for someone like me who doesn't forget much except references and what the papers in question talk about in Linguistics. People tell me it's a strength, a gift. My mom continues to be amazed by my memory till the day. As for me, I liken it to clairvoyance - those who possess it know that it is a boon and bane entwined. Why am I speaking of memory here? Tomorrow is September 15, a day that changed my life forever - and perhaps a day.

In the afternoon, I started writing a humorous post on the subject. Three paragraphs into it, I felt that the humour was becoming in places just a veil and in other places just an excuse for sarcasm. I did not want that because my intention was not to hurt anyone - so I scrapped that post. This one is random, more emotional and in that sense more like me. With it, therefore, comes the disclaimer, admittedly sincere as usual, that offence, blames and taunts are not in the wildest of my imaginations.

This eve of September 15 is better than the last year. Last year was arguably better than the year before that as well. The platitudes about time being a leveller have definitely come true in my case regardless of other things. As I had mentioned in passing in another post, there is even a quiet sense of happiness this time around which represents a definite improvement in my emotional health as well as a window into the tidings around me. From fighting obstinately for what was admittedly, in hindsight if I may add, to a hopeless cause to letting the pain that comes with final recognition perform its inevitable duty to being more or less pragmatic about whatever happened (now) it has been a learning curve. I know there may be those out there who think that at 26 perhaps it is too late for me. But to be honest, I am thankful the surgery did happen at some time rather than leave me without immunity for the rest of my life. (The rudeness is only in metaphor).

There is not much more to add on the subject. I have written quite a bit to the chagrin of some over the years. I can happily do without that at the present time in my life as I look forward to at least a couple of years of being a student before looking for a job in the academia. Sometimes, the whole idea of life in academics daunts me. But most times, it is the only thing that keeps me going - not the prefixes, the titles, the degrees and dreams of being cited, but the thought the intellectual journey is more important than the destination. With hearts it is difficult to say that. With mine, it is difficult to say anything which is perhaps why I wrote on a friend's blog: hearts do not have grammars. I sometimes wish they did, if only to amuse myself. I sometimes wish they didn't exist. At other times, I am happy to be where I am and with the way life has turned out. I do not wish to change anything!

Good evening.

On Fine Husbands!

2011-09-11T22:41:00.003+05:30

This is going to be short (and because this has nothing to do with me probably sweet). In the last six to eight weeks, I have read at least four very heart-warming posts about wonderful husbands from women I know. Through each of them I smiled wide, felt proud about the men in question - and simultaneously humble(d) about myself - could appreciate the warm authenticity in their wives' words and in one instance was so impressed that I wanted to meet the man, shake his hands and bow down even if that was going to be the last time I met him. In the event, I may never get to see him and I, if anything, will be poor for it.

The posts have done one other thing. They have made me realise that if I do find a woman who can bear with me, I will remember that being her husband would involve a lifetime of devotion in thought and deed. And in the gentlemen I have read about, I have great examples to borrow from even if thoughts of emulating them might be brazen of me.

On that note, goodnight and goodspeed!

'Deciduous'

2011-09-10T18:32:00.000+05:30

There are times when a word settles into my mind and refuses to leave me. It makes me visualise its possible nuances abstractly and concretely, compels me to take a trip on what my own personal associations with it could be, teases me, taunts me and plays with me before leaving me half-amused and half-puzzled. Have you all, especially word-lovers and wordsmiths and anyone who has anything to do with words, felt this way?

I was working, or at any rate trying to, on this supremely boring task of tabulating observations regarding some data that I have summarised in prose. As always, the tabulation was turning out wordier than prose, which was when the word deciduous chose to visit my deep-fried mind. My first memory of deciduous goes back to a Geography class several years ago. Incidentally, I was talking to mom about Geography ma'am earlier today (I don't know if there is a connection). But the word does not immediately remind me of a certain type of forest, much less the geographical location of such forests in the world. Instead, it reminds me of the enduring romance of life's autumns which seem even more beautiful when they are bound into volumes of nostalgia in our minds. It reminds me of "parting is such sweet sorrow", of why Edgar Allen Poe might have considered melancholy the most beautiful theme for poetry and of how tragedy will always delight my heart in a way happy endings and feel-good love stories do not. If I am called a masochistic for that, so be it.

Deciduous also reminds me of baptisms and funerals, infancy and old age, first knocks and final walks back to the pavilion and of freshers beginning work and veterans laid off, or choosing to retire. There is, for me, something gentle about deciduous that wither does not quite repair to and something yet true about it that shed cannot probably bring itself to embrace. It is beautifully painful - filmy as it sounds, it is a feeling that needs to be experienced to know I am not jesting - and delectably solemn. At the heart of autumn verbalised, it is, perhaps, a paradox that brings together extremes without linking or clinging to them; by invoking what it is not and therefore what it is, it is perhaps Differance.

Deciduous is also other things to me (albeit it may show my diction in dismal light!). It is a snake sloughing its skin, an enthusiastic kid scouring the wall to see a layer of paint come off, a riot of flying leaves heralding the coming of a storm, the end of a great play, book, relationship, life or era and the rustling of crispy logs at a distance on a cold winter's night. It is an apology (both interpretations intended!) even when you are not wrong so that an ego is destroyed but an endearment is kept, a falling star that thrills the moment even when there is not much in life to look forward to, the patience of failure - and in the odd case a fitting farewell to patience - a peacock's feather, a drizzle, a teardrop, a thread from a favourite old shirt, love in gratitude - gravity in love - and of course the memories about maps, Geography, board exams and the final hurrahs.

Deciduous is a falling moon. It is also, in short, a rising Sun.

:)

2011-09-08T10:22:00.005+05:30

Many a time I feel that what I have written is crap. But on the odd occasion, like when reading the following lines, I do feel I am kind of good.

"Oh, ‘if’ and ‘but’ conjoined in mirror’s face

What timeless gait does time thy liquid grace?"

And these below (from the poem Flying Leaves which was also the name of this blog some time ago):

"Drink to them! Here, the flying leaves rest

Once green, then gold and brown, now as their land;

Once like blue eyes, silver voice, now mute thro' sands!

The offending page and autumn leaf are mortality

Touched by guises of sense, the unsaid, seen and unheard!
And here they come, like sleep, like death itself!"

That my English teacher and guru picked out the couplet and the stanza respectively make them even more special.

Forgive that shameless self-indulgence. See you soon!

A September sans Shadows!

2011-09-03T01:19:00.008+05:30

It is 3 a.m. in the morning and here I am, as inane as ever, coming up with a blog post. My new roommate arrived day before yesterday - and is fast asleep - and with him arrived another September. Outside, the city is sleeping; inside, the steady whirring of the air-conditioner and my breath alone keep me company. There is genuine calm - "to be at peace with oneself and the world" as someone termed it. Finally, it feels again like life as I knew it - before break-ups and relationships, before possessiveness and ill-advised words, before self-pity and clashes of ego, in short before adulthood stormed in and took away what little of childhood there was left. But I have no gripes or blames or even anger left; only gratitude and a smile remain. They mean well. I am reminded of GB's comment on an earlier post of mine about relationships: "[...]keep a part of yourself happy for yourself. Be insanely possessive about it!" It's a piece of advice that has been worth its weight in __ (fill up/in the blank; it is so banal to hear the word gold, let alone allow myself to say it).

I got off the phone with my Niece a half hour ago and it was, as always, a delightful conversation. We spoke about this and that, which we usually do, but also about more serious stuff such as why we both are naturally hesitant (irony that!) people, although her hesitancy is intelligent and mine dumb (she won't agree but who cares!). This September, in fact, seems like everything my Niece has come to represent in my perception - random and spontaneous joys, a recourse to that child within every now and then and the uncomplicated conviction to live life in a way that you are comfortable with. Sometimes, one needs an external agent to 'gently' remind us of the things we already know but are too lazy to follow up on.

This September has also come in with good news heralding bright horizons. I have received my first non-student conference acceptance and should the other logistics work out I will be in New Zealand on P's birthday in November. Even better, P herself may be visiting me a week before or after that. If and when we do meet again, it would end a wait that has already spanned seven years. Eleven months ago, I would have felt blessed to see an email of two cordial lines from her, now we are talking and I cannot ask for more. If she makes it, I have to learn to contain my euphoria especially given that she is a woman of few words; if she doesn't, well, I hope to meet her when I make it to Chennai sometime next year.

S has finally submitted her dissertation and is back home, hopefully enjoying its comforts without having to think of the twin burdens of deadlines and health issues after quite a while. Although she is not going to agree, what she has achieved - given the context - is incredible. I wish her a September sans Shadows as well and a great final part of the year - and beyond.

Last but by no means least - and when it concerns this person, it is no cliche - Mr. K. S. Sampath Kumar enters his final full month at the Indian Overseas Bank. It has been thirty-one years almost to the month since he joined the bank and from Kolkata to Chennai through Hong Kong and Hyderabad to Chennai again his journey is something I, as his son, would remember for two things over others: equanimity and his ability to never think of himself as indispensable. I am sure most people who worked with appa would miss a fine man couched in the armoury of an uncomplaining professional. Amma on the other hand would dread having him at home more. His fast-talking, when he is in the mood for it which is every other day, among other things is something that drives mom mad. I would love to be at appa's farewell but that is not going to be, so here's wishing him a great September.

I have not changed much - not that changing a lot in a span of five minutes is a crime mind you - and that is just to put things into perspective. Some memories and memoirs still make me smile, but there is no accompanying sense of loss. I am still hard on myself, still wallow in dejection every now and then and often have to graft my way through a long day when there are variegated demands on my time. But I go through the struggle with a smile, rather than a sigh, having come to the realisation that there will be some bad days and they are not end-alls; just like there are great days and they are not be-alls. I am not awesome, nor do I aim to be, but I am good enough to see through what life dishes out. When I am done I hope to walk away quietly after a hard day's treading.

I will leave you with this bit from unnaale unnaale that I have always loved: I love the music and the lines. But more importantly, I love the warmth it still brings me when I listen to it.

Moving on!

2011-08-29T23:59:00.004+05:30

Sometimes, it takes many months to realise that a certain fork in the road in the past was bad - a certain separation was for good. In my case it has been close to three years but I have got no problems with that.

In two weeks, I will be part of a third anniversary of a unique kind, only this time I will be happy, not sad. It won't be happiness of the reportedly awesome and infectious kind, but just a quiet and satisfying recognition that comes with the knowledge that you have moved on, without being insincere to yourself or feeling bitter towards another.

Not for me the "yells" of getting even or the "hoo-hahs" of triumphalism after having - metaphorically - battled the new ball under overcast conditions.

Not for me the need to vindicate, gloat or veil sadness with a "manly" smile.

Not for me the cobwebs that tend to be left behind in the fleeting - quicksilver - and seedy alleys of time once friends become 'stranger than strangers' (to slightly alter a friend's quote).

Not for me also the supposed happiness that derives from an emotional gap being "presently" filled. In other words, I am decidedly single so far (which in other news may well remain the story of my life :)).

Life is good. I don't believe in better or best. There was a point when I did, which has given me lifetime immunity against such tags.

(Kowloon City sleeps...)

Love!

2011-08-28T23:59:00.001+05:30

" I don't regret the 18 years [I was] married to Nancy, I don't regret the 6 years where I had to give up counseling when she got sick or even the years when she was really sick, and I definitely don't regret missing the game ... that is regret for you" - Sean (Robin Williams) to Will (Matt Damon) in Good Will Hunting.

Self-explanatory isn't it?

To Dravid!

2011-08-27T11:53:00.000+05:30

Note: On the evidence of recent form Rahul Dravid may go on for a while, but there will come a day - in the near future - when he's gone. This is a scribbled tribute to not just my favourite cricketer but also a great inspiration.

Dry fields are dour but so's the constant Sun
When hours and days in your defence turn one;
As shots to fences fly, blocks towards the slips,
Your firmness shows what fight from free will whips!
Our tags too turn up bland if not too mean
For thy dead bat but braves a battle's scene;
But never crass or cross, the blade stays straight
Being fashioned in Symmetry's fussy gait...
Your end indeed is nigh; but 'wards the night
Your pride sits light; your deed does shimmer bright!

From front to back thy feet as flow to spin
One wonders if 'tis true 'so of that grin
In which you take gloves, fronts, issues and life
With Suns recalled by thy spirit in strife...
In readiness is inhered the parts you play,
As rightness clips your words and what they say;
A willing voice whose light entreats the keen
Nowhere more than in flicks - and whites - tucked clean!
At thresholds where 'the' times and tides spawn greats,
You are old trees! a great who struts sans rate!

So rarely has the luxury to lace
The fields with drives been given you with grace
Yet as the ball strolls square past pregnant waits
Sublime frees struggle - art assumes its State!
It punctuates a c(l)ause that pause detailed
With no less craft than cuts that class entail;
Be off-stumps walled or 'shadow shots' unveiled,
Intense 'thy seconds that enshrine hours' tales!
Oh wrath of work in times where wits woo worth,
How gritty turns thy heart when flows face dearth!

Towards a grime of glut as cricket bays
The gents seem rare, as do sporting ways:
Yet neither steel nor 'sense' deserts your hand;
Nor shoddiness bespeaks Carnatic land!
Tradition tarries' treats your knocks produce;
Technique, the Truth, behind thy batting's truce!
As labour love for lengthy innings meets
Silk Adelaides are born; goose skins raise Leeds!
How clocks shall stop once more when you're done,
From 'Pindi to Jo'berg to Kingst'n as One!

... to the man we shall salute the walk
As shadows meet with you and throat lumps talk -
To thank more than a man who made our game -
'Modest to 'faults, a shyness that shames fame!
Wherever we are, pain will speak and plain
"This game we love will not feel same again"
Once you have gone into the long - long - room
For one last time - 'fore pride, our awe, some gloom!
" 'are others there," in earnest you will say -
Those words, the you, we will miss on cloudy days!

Of moods, walks and lanes left behind!

2011-08-24T22:23:00.000+05:30

I walk... When I am angry, the physical pain of a climb up a slope helps me fight the anger and clear up my mind so that I can think of issues less emotionally. When I am depressed, walking on a bridge with the wind on my face tells me that everything shall pass. When I miss someone, the steady thud of my heavy footsteps on scorched earth reminds me that I am there for myself and at the end of the day that's all that counts. When I feel triumphant, a walk through dark lonely alleys brings to my mind those who have been part of my success story without ever longing to be even thanked. When I lay defeated by better odds, better people and promises not kept, a tired walk back sings its own lullaby - and with it comes the acceptance that there will always be those above me and those below me and that there have been days when I have not kept my word, small as might have been. I live when I walk.

My nearness to Kowloon City makes me come into contact with each of those moods "outside in" - everytime I walk. Yesterday, for instance, I left towards Kowloon City - wind on my feet even though the trees around stood still - by taking the brightly lit Boundary Street at the point where it meets a rather residential Lancashire Road. From Kowloon City I took the Junction Road which is a long and narrow road that leads to my University campus and turned right into the Tung Tau Tsuen road dotted by high rises followed by slums on one-side and parks on the other. I walked on till where this road curves towards the Fung Mo street, halted for a moment - and decided to abandon an early return home for more exploration as I went ahead towards Wong Tai Sin, rather than taking the Street which would have brought me back to Kowloon Tong through Fu Mei street where trees meet at the top like in the Ashok Nagar of yore all told.

The lane that connects Wong Tai Sin with Shatin and Kwai Chung is one of those busy roads predominantly lit by the sparkling flow of automobiles rather than road lights. It also gives way to umpteen curved streets on either side and I would not be surprised if a first-timer gets lost. There are parks, foot-over-bridges, half a dozen bus stops, a couple of malls, garages, car parks and branded eateries all spaced apart - and a road which, if you stand in the middle of it, you might think leads from horizon to horizon on either side. The road also has upward and downward slopes, something I love because they make me sweat and pant and basically strain myself that extra inch. Finally, I found a narrow walking lane that runs parallel to Broadcast Drive which is seven minutes' walk from my place and returned to my room wonderfully exhausted.

The delightful feet-punishing exercise took me about an hour - which is generally the duration of my evening walks. As I wrote on FB: I don't know if that's good, but it was a mighty good walk! And somewhere during it, I felt good about myself and everything life has to offer - and take away. Goodnight!

Yay (a short story):

2011-08-20T14:07:00.004+05:30

For my Niece who has made me laugh more than anybody else has!

The only character of relevance in this story is fictitious and so are the others that come and go. Any similarities observed between them and those who have been part of my life (or not) is coincidental.

“I am Yadav Shastri. Twenty-six – going on 60 to 600. Opinions vary. And whenever I have been called a kid, I have thought it should be an aberration – or the speaker was just trying to indulge me. I am also often referred to as 'reverse' what with the fact that my nickname “Yay”, which some super-enthusiastic girl invented back in school, sounds the same read forward or backwards. Rumour, however, has it that 'reverse' also is a semantic umbrella for my retrograde lifestyle. I am single, have not considered for a while as to whether I am ready to mingle – as goes the clichéd jingle. No wonder I am one of life’s favourite targets for a practical joke. Unlike some though I take it coolly and laugh at myself. Not that I have had a choice mind you.

But if you want to understand my role as a butt of life’s greatest jokes – if you really must that is and if you have the time – you must travel with me to the time I was born. Apparently –my dad never tired of telling me – the wall clock in the ward where my mom had been operated had stopped just before I was brought into the world as a slightly portly child weighing just short of four kilograms! Just the same, the chief doctor went ahead and recorded the time of my birth as 11:58 p.m., May 13, 1985 – while the actual time was past twelve my father says. So, yes, I was recorded born in the history books – or the puny book of forgetful history that is my life – before I was even born.

Of all the dates, I was left with thirteen. Now don’t get me wrong: I am lifetimes away from being superstitious and light-years away from being religious but this thirteen has reared its ugly head so frequently during the two-and-half decades of my marginally productive life, despite its not being my actual DOB, that I am supremely pissed about it. Besides, I am kind of rational, so I cannot imagine that something happened on the fourteenth when it actually happened on the thirteenth – unlike hotel owners in the west who think they are very imaginative by not having a thirteenth floor by labelling it fourteenth. What if there has been a bizarre murder on the fourteenth floor which is actually the thirteenth? You get the drift I surmise. If Shakespeare had been alive he would have said, thirteen by whichever name it is labelled… I digress.

In keeping with having been born before I was born, I also went to school fairly early – at the age of two and half when I had barely begun to talk but walked like a messiah on a mission. Forgive my mixed metaphors, mostly mixed with religion –I don’t know if Freud would have (had) an explanation of how often we also think of things we do not purportedly like. Anyway, both my parents worked, and still do, which was a case both for controversy, among nosy relatives, and “wow”, from those who understood better, during those days. I was in what was referred to as pre-KG for one and half years – I am perhaps the only child with the dubious distinction – before, at the age of 4, I was allowed to get into the kindergarten. Since that time I have often wondered whether I merely remember the “slow” and forget the “steady” in “slow and steady”.

The following fourteen years in school – or four different schools, three in Chennai and one in that ultra-gloomy, ever-lazy and slightly maddening to-be-metro whose name starts with a B – were a breeze. No, no, don’t get me wrong, it is not the “breeze” that brilliant students make of their coursework; it is the breeze that you feel within, without and all round you – my version of Nirvana – when you do not get an iota of what the teacher is saying because you have just returned to class mentally, bored and tired with the tedium of daydreaming, despite your expertise in it.

During my scholastic years – how misleadingly poetic that phrase sounds, or should I say just misleading since most poetry is so? – that breeze was my only constant companion, the friendship occasionally enhanced or disturbed by a human friend – or thirteen (no I am kidding!) – or an eighty in English, when the bespectacled anglo-Indian (as they called him) with a walking stick was not in a grumpy mood which he usually was. Many instances attest to the breeze that was school life, or the aloofness (squared) that was me, but I shall recount only a couple here.

We had this Tambram – for the uninitiated, that is not the mis-spelled name of a place in Southern Chennai but refers to Tamil Brahmins, an exotic lot who excel among other things in Mathematics, Chartered Accountancy, meticulousness, sending every other child in the family to the U.S of A, talking up arranged marriages and grandparents to such an extent that it makes everybody mad and generally exasperating the daylights out of others – Mathematics teacher who was given the honourable – which means admittedly on…er(r)..ous – task of finishing the remaining four-odd hundred pages of the tenth Mathematics text book in 100 days. Among the Mathematical treasures in those pages were things like Trigonometry, Calculus and Analytical Geometry – creatures which could well have been dinosaurs, Godzillas and primitive apes for me and ice-cream, chocolates and pastry for my father and my sister.

The lady, like most strict officers, oops, teachers, had the irritating habit of questioning people mid way through her class. On one Wednesday morning when I was for a change switched on, she was working out a problem in integral calculus that went to three pages at least in my handwriting which may very well impersonate goblins in some dreams – and suddenly stopped. She looked at me and the glare could as well have been an interviewer asking me to answer a nuanced question about Hebrew in Tamil with an English transliteration.

“Yadhdhav,” – that was how she called me – “please come and work out the rest please,” she said. If the teacher had been someone more amusing, I could at least have smiled inwardly at the phrase “work out the rest”.

“Ma’am…,” I stuttered, imagining that the collective eyes of the class were on me. I must have repeated the word some three times. I should at least have made the pretence of presenting a brave front and gone and tried. The problem was – irony, eh? – I was still to complete what she had written on the board, forget alone following it, and was copying from my neighbours on either side who themselves had hieroglyphics and inverted-hieroglyphics respectively for their handwriting.

After two minutes, and in terms of the clock in the heart they might be among the longest two minutes of my life, I replied: “I am afraid I have not followed ma’am.”

She smiled that contemptuous smile then, in the manner of someone who is not only on the other side of life – and Math – but who also seemed to know her contempt was justified, came to my table, looked at my notes and said: “What a horrrrrible handwriting, no wonder you can't follow...yourself... and you are slow. At this rate you will lag behind.”

Quite honestly, it was depressing – but thank god she didn’t say: “You would fail the paper!” That would have confirmed that she was not only a good Mathematician but also a good mind-reader which would mean doomsday for me. But the more I thought of her remark the more it cracked me up: how come adults have the habit of repeating what you already know? I knew I was slo…w (and I also knew that my handwriting was the stuff of chicken legs with pens!) But is there a way to weed out one's drawbacks – or work with them? That they would not tell you. In mitigation, the teacher had barely enough time to complete the syllabus so I mean no offence to the TamBram lady in question.

And, oh, I forgot. She wanted to fling my note out but stopped because the darling Mathematician of the class had a brilliant doubt. Two minutes later, another doubt was raised – and it was dismissed with a: “shut up, what a silly question”. I have never been able to figure out Math, my deficiency with the subject or that woman. But I learned one thing on that day not because of my near-humiliation, but by reading into the responses to the questions raised by my two classmates. A bad question I suspect was an awkward question or a question from the wrong person, a good one was not. Whatever happened to teaching having to cater to the middle ground, not the grassroots or the mountains (with or without the geographical analogy)? Talking of mountains, I returned to daydreaming.

The second instance encompasses the farewell night organised for our batch at school – needless to add it was a thirteenth. After the cultural programmes and the “oh-so-sweet”, “ah-brilliant”, “ugh-philosophical” (that had to be me!) and “oho profound” farewell speeches were through and juniors for a change had ragged the (outgoing) seniors, us, it was the turn for tears to coarse through in generous measure. I will not mistake you if you replaced “wine” with “tears” in that sentence – it would seem pertinent for there seemed to be, at least to me, a contrived joy about the wet eyes at our school farewells.

There was a set template too as to how wetness spread from one pair of eyes to others – I thought conflagrations spread like that. A person, typically a girl, would look at someone she has known for long, typically her oldest male classmate – regardless of whether he’s a close friend – for two thousand years before both of them break down into a profusion of tears, hugs, consolations and what-nots. A classmate at a distance would see them and start crying himself. Seeing him the two who have just stopped crying would start all over again. This would happen until: (a) everyone was hungry – and 'everyone' was the key as it was sacrilege to eat alone; (b) nobody had another drop to squeeze from their lachrymal glands; (c) people suddenly remembered Father Time, last bus timings and distance to their homes; (d) all of the above.

I did not heave a sigh let alone cry - my eyes could have been mistaken for Cactii in deserts if not deserts themselves - and I heard that they made a huge fuss about it. Not that it mattered because I was always fussed over and pampered at school, albeit in a different kind of way. It was not as if I had had a great time of it at school but I had my memories – of angry Math teachers, condescending Chemistry oldies, good English and French ones as well as some nice although rare conversations with classmates, seniors and juniors – and they were safe in a vault that nothing short of a uruttukattai on my head could break. I also did not mind others crying, be it genuine or not. But it was funny that people who had to “think the thing farewell” to each other were trying to punctuate the festive air with a funereal touch.

Ironically, too, those who wept the most that day were the least affected when we heard half-way through a party a few years later that one of our friends from the Class of So-and-so had died of accident. One of them even said, “Dead is deceased – and deceased is impersonal.” Not that one can tell apart affection from affectation a lot of the time; but they moved with time; I struggle in its wake like a bandicoot going in and out of a small hole. I am a simpleton but a schemer’s mind has more burdens so I am likely to suffer laughter on my face but not traumas on my conscience. I enjoy whatever life throws at me – even itself. After all, I am “Yay!” Read me whichever way you want: I am the joker, the joked and the joke.

It was precisely with that attitude that I landed in Loyola for a Bachelors degree in Economics, studied for my courses, built a couple of strong friendships, spoke with teachers and walked around the sprawling green campus contiguous to the Nungambakkam Railway Station. It was here that thirteen came into my life again, BIG TIME! It all began with my score 13/40 in the Major paper during the first year’s first semester’s Continuous Assessment (CA): now don’t ask any not very good student what CA’s are without risking grievous emotional injury caused by the expletives (s)he might handout. They are a torment to the lazy, a time-bomb to the diligent and a teething problem with the teeth right out of a Close-up advertisement but the mouth of a (scare)crow for the pointless meanderers like me. The 13 from the 13/40 extrapolated itself and became 13/100 in an ancillary paper (during the same semester), 13 in at least one subject in every CA and end-semester exam and a total of 13 arrears – each of which I cleared, however, during my first available opportunity. So cut me some slack even if my exploits do not deserve an off-slack shirt from Peter England.

But I also met the love of my life, an expression which if it had eyes would cry, if it had ears would pray to be deaf and if it had life and sense(s) would basically want to die, on a… thirteenth. It, I mean the relationship, happened when I was in my final year at Loyola. In keeping with the long-standing intellectual and evangelical connection between my college and Stella Maris, I met C and decided that my emotional connection with my sister institution would be developed through a girlfriend, not a sister. The relationship lasted for two years though it had more than just potential to crack within the two hours she had had to wait for me the first time we went out together while I was held up helping another friend write a love letter – and… lost all track of time, having forgotten my mobile phone at home. As she would say years later while I dined with her and her husband, “onakkellaam kalyaaNamaagi…” I cannot dispute that!

She was brilliant, socially, ecologically and academically active, wore specs, which have always attracted my attention and was cute –in my eyes, which was all that mattered. I was – and still am – somnolent, passive (except for smoking and occasional drinking) and a thick-set man with eyebrows the thickness of two eyebrows! She also had, whenever she chose to use it, patience of a magnitude that could put anyone to sleep and wake anyone from it with its sheer will and a sense of possessiveness that I could understand but never rationalise. When I once told her that I am going to help out this friend, a girl, with an essay, she replied, her temper another hallmark of her eyes and strut, “Learn to lie – and then do it well – or don’t say it or get out of my life.”

“But hey…”

“No buts, period.” What she did not understand was few girls would dare to even look at me as partner material. Once I made the mistake of telling her that and got an earful which ended with the words: “If you even have thoughts like that, I will make you realise how big a mistake you have made by meeting me.”

Two months after that rejoinder she wrote a very lengthy but very rational email – and was gone. It was another thirteenth – a month short of two years after we had made up our minds. Or I’d made up my half-arsed excuse of one.

The core of her email had been this: “We love each other too much, which, I must be plain, is stifling.” As far as reasons for breakups go, hers might have been the lamest and most preposterous – if they had come from anyone except her. I had quite early in our relationship learned to trust her clairvoyance over my commitment: I am someone who could give you my all on a few difficult winter nights being the scrapper who ekes out ability for a living and laughter for a life. She saw to it that such winter nights were avoided if they could be.

We never changed numbers but did not call each other because nonsense and small-talk were things neither of us specialised in, let alone have a soft corner in the heart for; there was no angry email or sniffing around social networking accounts or calling into question each other’s integrity by decorating extended families with the choicest of invectives. I wanted to cry at least to see if that hollowness I felt would change but I ended up trying so hard that tears uncried produced headaches! I then remembered Morgan Freeman’s words in Shawshank Redemption: “I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.”

I missed her. The curious creature I was I did not know what it even meant but it felt nice nonetheless. I could even gather why my classmates had cried some years ago at the farewell – perhaps, it felt nice, perhaps it felt right. Yet again the number thirteen looked hauntingly down at me from the calendar.

The end of the relationship entailed the end of ties for me with the BPO I had been working for. I will rephrase that: the end of the relationship expedited the end of a blathering-excuse called a job etc. The very fact that I’d survived in a “talking” industry for over sixteen months surprised my team manager, who had toiled for six weeks using all the tricks in her basket to get me to speak like a person and not a robot that had accidentally metamorphosed into one, and me. Six weeks after the six weeks of training I had already lost heart for it – not that I’d had one in the first place, not for it, not for much in life except her for a brief while – as I realised for the first time that sleep was a weapon not just for Deltas in Robert Ludlum novels and that the ears, nose and throat were connected and could conspire to overthrow the mind by triggering nightmares of titanic proportions.

I exaggerate but I was done with the industry and would never return. I would take up driving electric trains, start a grocery store, become a janitor or write self-help books (even if I was the only one who was going to read them) if needed, but I decided I would never return to a BPO. It felt as if I was some underdog hero who was quitting on his own terms after invaluable services to the masses. It felt like Rudy Baylor in John Grisham’s The Rainmaker – when I woke up sweating from head to toe. The power cut cut right into my dreams about martyrdom, self-sacrifice and greatness like it had so often in the past. But there will be another day for such dreams. After all, I was now college-less and jobless had all the time in the world. I would never, however, say I was – or am – hopeless because I have never befriended hope. Funny lad he is just like me –much hype and little substance. I like him but let him be. Like poles subtract…is that it? No, no, like poles repel and my relationship with hope is another living example of that.

This was four years ago when my parents decided to part ways. Honestly, I had no complaints with them. I wonder what complaints they would have had with each other anyway given that they did not spend time with each other too often. During the weekdays they never saw each other; during the weekends they had their own set of friends to visit; and on the odd public holiday when they were at home or we all went out they would mostly be chattering away on their cell phones. Before the days of the matchbox devil, they would be quiet and eat their respective meals. I was anyway quiet and so needed no special attention to abide by the edict. Sister was quiet around the folks as well and did not need additional reminders.

Given that background, sister – who was doing something in the States on scholarship, something which I thought she had made up when she mentioned it to me first – and I were surprised that they were actually applying for a divorce after all these years. When we spoke on the phone, I said this to my sister and we both laughed merrily: “I think they are just trying to write down what has been written in the walls of our home, sorry house, for two decades.”

Neither I nor my sister was, is or will be particularly emotional. We therefore harboured no grudges when it was decided – consensually – that I would stay with my mom and she with my dad whenever she visited. Either choice amounted to staying with intimate walls and uninterrupted silence! While my parents’ separation did not affect me much, I realised one day how all the four of us had been content to live our own lives without making the effort to be any more than cordial. I then walked to the Marina Beach from mom’s place at Thiruvanmiyur, had ten bajjis and returned home. That is the kind of man I am: some say incorrigible, others say heartless and still others, like my dad, say plain and parochial. Most of them do not pronounce their sanctimonious judgments on my face for they know I would respond with something like: “The bajji was delicious”; (or) “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously”; (or) a nod of the head, a number on the lips and a spring in the stride. "I am Yay, nothing more, nothing less!”

Nothing special has happened to me in the four years since my parents’ divorce. See how it has even become a reference point like AD, BC, AaDi, Sachin Tendulkar or after-Endhiran? I now have an MA in Economics from the University of Madras and was part of a class that had thirteen students. I was the thirteenth on the rolls as well because a name starting with Y is unlikely to occur early on in the roll-call ritual which appears as brainless as my head sometimes. We had no Zainabs or Zaihras in class; not to sound sexist, we also did not have any Zaheers. Ironically, I have never been acquainted with a Moslem. Not that a Moslem friend would have found me any more interesting than a Christian, Jew, Parsi or a Hindu friend.

Returning to my Economics MA, it is a bigger joke than my B.A, how I got 160/200 in my tenth standard Mathematics exam and my life. Mostly, the teachers never turned up for class citing “conference” as a reason which our seniors had taught us to read– in most if not all cases – as “coffee time with a new colleague”. When they did turn up, once in a week or thirteen, generally on the first or last day of a week, more than half the students in class would not be around. This would give the teacher impetus to declare a “library hour”, which my classmates would read as “beach hour” before heading off to the Marina, weather permitting. I would hang around the library mostly to pretend that I am reading and sometimes really to read, or quietly go home. Legend has it that even at Loyola when I bunked the final hour I headed home straight. The legend I can say is true because I spawned it and I cannot lie about what time I went to bed last night. I often hear collective banging of heads on walls when my peers think about me. And the walls respond: “What a dull creature!”

Last June, I submitted my MA thesis, an 80-page document that received an eight-minute glance from my supervisor and a one-second tick to go with the twenty minutes she had spent mentoring me when we had to finalise our topics for research. The convocation is scheduled for next week. Honestly, I do not want to go, not because the publishing house I work for will shoot me down if I missed a few hours at the end of the day but because it is all so pointless. But mom wants me to stand there with that weird gown – yellow eh? Yikes! – and have pictures of me clicked. I have never been one for photographs and my bulk has nothing to do with it. In that funny gown... leave it.

Anyway, as far as I can tell this is the first remotely personal-sounding request mom has made so I have agreed. She has called dad too and to my misfortune the old man has also decided to come. Forget clicking pictures, I am not sure if they will be seated anywhere close to the dais to see me receive the certificate unless they arrive on time. Neither of my parents is punctual and both have in excess of minus seven in each of their eyes. They cannot drive after six for nuts and I would not want to for a billion dollars though they would want me to drive them – I don’t like driving and being late is one thing I hate. Also, I don’t see their fuss about seeing me receive a Masters degree. My sister has two of those and will get her doctoral in a year – and she is a year younger. All from universities which have been in the top-25 since my mother was born! Anyway, I do not understand most things about my parents. And if they are trying to be nice to me, I do not understand that – and I do not understand why.”

Vyshak Shenoy closed his notebook for the evening. This would roughly be the character of Yadav Shastri – a boy neither eager to please nor brilliant to impress, a man who could feel neither great joy nor great sorrow , a boyfriend who was a tiring stick-in-the-mud or a stifling swamp of affection, a son who could not care more and an older brother who was detached. Yet there was something about him that took him through life’s highs and lows – something that was not special by itself but made special by his perception of it. It would come in handy as Yadav finds his feet as a professional comedian years later in the story. It was matter-of-fact, it was he and it was still “Yay” – and for the moment that was all that mattered.

Vyshak Shenoy, also 26 going on 60 to 600, also single, also with a relationship behind him, switched off his table lamp in whose glow he had been typing away on his laptop. It was August 13, 2011, his twenty-sixth birthday. He had never celebrated any of his previous twenty-five and he would not celebrate this one either. There was a plot to develop and a story to tell – the story of Yay, the comedian who did not have to be loud, foul, brilliant or even comical, the comedian who had to be just the extension of his life - scratch that - of all life.

Work, a Birthday and some cliche!

2011-08-18T18:00:00.000+05:30

One can choose any of the Indian Cricket Team's departments - fielding, batting or bowling - I guess, and it will make a perfect (non-)working metaphor for how the week has been. Mind you, mocking them is not my intention: I wish as much the boys do that the series gets consigned to the ashes of history soon and they emerge the stronger for it, like they did after their last whitewash against Australia in before the new millennium supplanted the old, allegations of match-fixing changed the perception of the game forever and a man from Bengal gave the Indian cricket team the much needed spunk it had lacked for long.

Inspiration has not particularly gushed out like founts from the earth, so I have, just to keep a sense of guilt at bay, been rehashing a couple of old papers in an attempt to bring them to shape - so that they can be half-decent conference or publication material some day. I do have to start writing my qualifying paper on syllable structure before I sense a burning smell only to realise that the fire in question is on my tail! Music, especially old melodies - the likes of thenpaandi cheemayile (from Nayagan) - and M have kept me good company.

Life has been sedate, at many points in the week sleepily so, and I have consequently not found much insight to write about or energy to write with; I would probably have written about sleep -- but who would want to hear about sleep from someone who pinches himself regularly to know whether he is awake. I did manage to finalise my coursework for the next semester and though it is not voluminous at two fairly straightforward courses spanning four months I am certain it will provide some external compulsion as well to keep me going. The semester starts early in September and I look forward to it.

It is going to be my Niece's birthday next week - and she has been one inexplicably wonderful addition to my life. We first spoke to each other barely a year and half ago but it seems like we go back a lot longer than that. Thanks to her I have understood that healthy laughter, far from simply being an exercise in fracturing one's stomache muscles, is one of life's essentials and she has herself been responsible for it more times than I can count. Not a two-day period passes these days without our catching up with each other online or over phone. Evidently, my quoting "familiarity breeds contempt" - albeit in a rather superficially humorous tone - elicited a surprise riposte from unexpected quarters - but as far as my Niece is concerned I agree with the riposte in that the adage does not hold water.

I will wind up this rather uncomfortably quiet Thursday by watching Larry Crowne - the show is less than two hours away. I have a newfound fascination for the work a few good actors and Tom Hanks is one of them. (The others are Kevin Bacon, Robin Williams and Al Pacino). The trailers for Larry Crowne do appear funny and funny is - as Ravi Shastri or Shastri Bot would say - is just what the doctor ordered (or "what the apothecary ordered").

A Goodbye Moment!

2011-08-12T17:44:00.005+05:30

The truism "practice makes perfect" is indeed true. But there are certain things in life to which it does not just apply. A goodbye moment is one of them. No, I am not referring to the subtler versions of goodbye - such as letting go, forgetting grudges, forgiving someone and so on and so forth. I refer simply to that moment when you know that you are seeing a person for the last time or understand that you won't hear a certain voice again or realise that a certain person's number will not appear on a text in your mobile screen hereafter. It does not matter how hard you try preparing for the moment or how best you try simulating it, ultimately you fall short because contrived emotions are a construction of the mind whereas the real thing is a spontaneous fount from the heart.

At twenty-six, I have had my share of goodbyes - some consensual, some forced upon me and others where I have gone on to realise weeks, sometimes months, after meeting a person that I have seen the last of him/her. I can safely say therefore that I have had some experience in waking up on a certain wan morning and feeling that life would never be the same again or sitting up all night after a call just so that I could prolong the day during which I last heard from someone. Yet if there is one significant thing that this "some experience" has taught me it is that a goodbye moment will always remain a challenge, at least for the likes of people like me who feel things quite deeply.

Such moments though quite tumultuous in their wake have also been a fascinating study for me, particularly after the storm has passed and a certain sense of calm - or even an excuse in the form of one - has returned. For starters, they have brought to my attention the extremities I thought I could never scrape, let alone touch. Along the way, they have also reminded me of my capacity to tolerate and walk ahead on the one hand and the poisons of bitterness and pessimism that eat into my already passive nature on the other. But the greatest lessons I have learned from the moments, in retrospect, have to do with how often darkness and hope, pain and pleasure, love and self-loathing, persistence and giving up and tears and smiles come together to give life its solemn voice.

A February 9 taught me that tears were not conscious decisions. An August 22 told me that sometimes you never realise when a person has gone away. Half-way stage in a certain month hinted the point at which my life's first part would conclude, in grey clouds, and the next part would begin, in rains. I could not have asked for more.

Farewell!

The Cycle!

2011-08-09T21:25:00.000+05:30

Academic writing is often criticised, and rightly if I may add, for its convolutions and insufferable idiosyncrasies. While toddlers in academia like me find it difficult to get their writing to a tone where it sounds "acceptably academic", much of the published literature suffers from quite another kind of problem: the almost assumed need to pitch one's writing at a level where only those who are highly specialised in the field can understand. Admittedly, there are certain issues in every discipline that a greenhorn will be advised to stay away from, and for his own good. But oftentimes I find that perfectly simple issues, questions, resolutions and answers are articulated with superfluous technicalia that one ends up having a headache after sitting for a whole day with a paper that should ideally have taken about three hours to read.

Given that background, it was heart-warming and intellectually refreshing to read a paper that rendered the not most straightforward concept in phonology with facility, clarity and simplicity. The notion phonological cycle is something I continue to grapple with six years after my baptism into the field. The paper in question was on this topic, authored by Michael K. Brame. The agenda was set with six to seven crisp lines of introduction and every section was simultaneously a standalone argument as well as a lucid progression towards the justification of the agenda. It took me a little less than two hours to finish the paper and for the first time I felt quite elated after reading something on the cycle because I enjoyed reading it; understanding was epiphenomenal. I do not mean to say that every academic endeavour should involve the joy of first love but papers like these do make you want to delve further into the field for there is no parallel to the fascination evoked by the rendition of something complex comprehensible.

The paper has also made me write something somewhat relevant to work on this page at long last. I will not be doing too much of it though, rest assured. As Emily Blunt keeps quipping in Devil Wears Prada, "I love my job... I love my job!" Goodnight!

Randomly yours!

2011-08-07T14:15:00.004+05:30

Friendships... Friends, someone recently wrote or quoted, are the relatives we make for ourselves. Some of us swear over them saying that they are better than the opportunistic human beings our bloodlines throw up. Others have a ready riposte stating that not all friendships are clean and clear. Oscar Wilde, and till some years ago my dad, believed that a lot was possible between men and women, but not friendships. Kuch kuch hota hai had a crazy take on the subject saying that friendship is love (or is it the other way around?) Some of us loners have come to gradually understand the importance of having that someone who is not your parent, not your boss, not your spouse to whom you can say anything without the anxiety that you may be judged. And yet others who have often valued, for all practical purposes it seemed, friendships more than anything else have become disillusioned by it. Such is, perhaps, the influence of friendship - it can heal you or hurt you; you can embrace or disown it but never, realistically, ignore it. Or such is, perhaps, the influence of time - it spares nothing, not even this supposed platonic association between strangers that can grow into something beautiful and substantial.

I have had many friends over the years, too, although the use of many is purely relative I should think. But the emphasis has never been, cliched as it might seem, on quantity.The Math of friendships is not as important to me as the madness of it and the melancholy and mirth it entails. I have known my two oldest friends - not in terms of the person's age, of course - for over thirteen years now and neither of them has become a detailed footnote, let alone a "hi/bye" index. My youngest friend is short of a year-and-half in my life and is among the loveliest human beings I have met. The former have put up with me through thick and thin and have both played a significant role in helping me turn over a new leaf. The latter has been responsible for the change in the tone of the verses written on that leaf - from the heart still, but refreshing and optimistic. None of the three is "abstractly" more important than the other, yet each is extremely important to me.

Between the oldest and newest, there have been other friendships - some fashioned on intellectual grounds, some forged as part of travels and the places the travels took me to and others yet discovered through friends themselves. From an unnamed college to Loyola to EFL - from Chennai to Bangalore to Hyderabad - from trains to blogs to libraries to classrooms to conferences - friendships have been made, others have been lost without leaving behind even an 'abstraction' of pain and still others morphed into semi-illusory barriers that bilateral hesitancy is too scared to breakdown. And although a couple of abrupt endings have been reversed, many more have faded into the night with the youthful blush of twilight.

For a while, certain friendships promised something more too - if not love in the sense of a lifelong togetherness, at least loyalty until death do us apart. But those were halcyon days as some say and romance has been reduced to a word in my life. Some ended merely on assumptions or word of mouth and others - although few and far in between - never seemed to have a definitiveness about them anyway as they meandered along into a lull that was convenient for all friends concerned. And then there have been those friendships which bring back the smiles of yore even if it means that the shine of the teeth is a coat on the greyness of concealed tears, bonds that shall - with or despite attempts to forget - lurk behind the facade, serving as constant reminders of the joys that were and my incompleteness and the freedom that is and my fight, and reminding me as to why endearments like ka.....a shall not be pronounced by my lips in the future.

Till date the core of my life remains solitary and by choice and still my life would seem rather impoverished without my friendships - present and past. I will neither be politically correct nor the nice man who sees the good in all when I say that the greatest of my pains have come through my closest friends. That, however, is just one part of the story. My finest hours, be they in pride, be they in sheer persistence or be they in the ease of merriment or accomplishment, have also come in the company of the same friends, some of whom at least have told me what I did not want to hear - but what I needed to know - driving me to be harder on myself and stronger. It is not possible to remember all of these friends by name but as I said once: every person I have met ever is dissolved in the flow of my life one way or another. For that, if nothing more, I will remain infinitely grateful.

A Very Special Birthday Wish!

2011-08-02T23:32:00.002+05:30

Thinking isn't new to me, nor is thinking about Bombay (I prefer the old name, too!). Presently, however, I am more than just thinking. I am wondering.

I wonder what would have happened had I simply not left for Bombay for that job three years ago on a cold (metaphorically speaking) October morning.

I wonder what course life would have taken if you had not come down during May the following year.

I wonder about an evening at Dadar when the blush of the twilight sky was still a deep red at about 7 p.m. on the Arabian Sea skyline. Bombay in all its chaotic and dusty resplendence, the cacophony and cornucopia broken - or spliced - only by the sweetest irony of a temple bell tolling to its own, almost preset, rhythm. The slight hug, the hello - and I wonder if I have ever felt more grateful to have you around in my life. I wonder both in pride and shame. I wonder in wonderment.

Then I wonder about our struggles - enmeshed, as it were; the things we lost separately, the things each of us gained (I more than you) in the other's presence.

I wonder about the auto rides, the words whose spontaneity was as refreshing as the summer sky, the local trains and the samosa pav and shahi paneer .

I wonder about the dinners at the dhaba and Curry Twist among other things. I wonder how despite your sprightly presence I' did not grow wings!

I wonder what inspired me more - your ability to put your pain aside to make me feel stronger or Bombay's resilience? I decide that you exemplified Bombay and Bombay exemplified you, with a little more bias towards the former perspective.

Finally, I wonder about that early evening at Mumbai Central - a solemn silence, a sad goodbye, an A/C compartment and time had come for what would rank among my life's longest goodbyes (including the one that had made me understand that I had a crankier heart that I had thought). Time had also flown even though its passage had seemed like a painful vigil!

And all this while I wonder how life would have been without you during those few weeks in Bombay. The thought frightens me. Without you around, my life might have remained a ritual in fear, desperation and forlornness even now. There is no definite way to know but I still like to think so.

With gratitude and love, here's wishing you a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :)

Being behind other men!

2011-08-01T09:16:00.008+05:30

Note: No thought expressed here is intended to offend or judge persons I will refer to in this post. Just the same, I offer an unconditional apology if something here sounds judgmental or offensive to them.

When I was a young man - not that I am old, not in terms of the calendar at least - I had the longing that seemed fairly common among people of my age. I have never given a minnow for rank, titles, positions or effusive praise, but there was a part of me that wanted me to be a priority to someone outside my family. That is not to demean my family, rather it should convey how wonderful it has been through thick and thin and how I can always return to it even if I am in an utter mess! The longing was met sometimes, but almost always in fits and starts, the person(s) meeting it changing with time (in both the intended senses). Otherwise, I was always the person behind someone else or, worse, something else. Now that I look at it, I find the longing both very silly and extremely enlightening whence this post.

Being the man behind someone, generally a man, took an entirely different dimension in my life when it came to women. It is only to be expected. Back in school I was titled the "philosopher", most sonorously by the girls in class, a title that is supposed to mean nothing philosophical and everything jejune. I was also the last person a girl would have a natural conversation with. When that phase passed, there was the question of lunches and long walks with very good friends, some of whom have been women. With regard to more of them than I care to remember - two come to mind, always (and both remain very dear) - I invariably had their boyfriends for company as well. Not that the boyfriends in question are dullards (some of them are fine people and have become good friends of mine, too, along the way!) - and who am I, the don of the dullards, to judge anyway? - but it was consummately irritating to find them accompanying their ladies every single time. Once I questioned it politely - and got an "earful" in response. I thought: Srini, dude, unakkum relationships-kum romba dhooram (roughly: 'you and relationships are far apart!') , perhaps you don't understand it, so leave it. Leave it, I did.

Then, like a bolt out of a thousand blue skies, a relationship happened - yes, to me of all the men in the world! I often pinched myself in the middle of syntax classes at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday afternoons to recheck whether the butterflies in my tummy did not have to do with something I'd eaten at the humid cafeteria the previous night. Yet, the trend I observed in other relationships seemed to be reversed in my case (and this being a subject of controversy, I say it with some scepticism over my own viewpoint) with her best friend, I felt, having greater priority and his words, arguably, deemed as more sensible (I must admit it sounds schoolboyish when I say that). Not that the guy in question impinged on our time, but there was enough indication - and despite my predilections to be super-sensitive I don't come to conclusions based on overnight interpretations - that I was in the familiar territory of sticking (an invisible) no. 2 (sign) up my back. I must confess that there was a bit of possessiveness and insecurity involved in this latter case but even allowing for that my conclusion remains decidedly firm.

The realisation has dawned on me in the last three years that being the man behind men is not a unilateral imposition handed down by others to me. On the contrary, it may - or perhaps, has - everything to do with the essence of Srini the person - or lack thereof - or at the very least how people perceive that essence, something I cannot control, just like others cannot influence what I think of them beyond a point. It may also be the case that the boyfriends and best friends of women I know (or knew) have simply been superb company just being themselves. I on the other can be the most veritable human expression of an impasse. For starters, I am not the most "jolly" person around: people who know me closely might flag it and call it the "understatement of this still young century." If I imagine myself as two people and took myself out for a dinner, I think I would fall asleep a half hour into it. And then, I am both persistent - when it comes to things and people I care about - and laidback - when it comes to my general lifestyle - not the sparkling stuff of nice men who end up first, I admit! Finally, I seem to - even to my eyes at times - be around forev...er; and as you know familiarity breeds contempt especially when what became familiar was not the most exciting thing in the second place (to suit the tone of this post).

These days I do not take it to too much to heart when someone I consider to be special does not reply to four texts spread across a month; does not return calls for weeks on end; refuses to meet up without giving reasons (I am someone who accepts, "I hate you!" in as dignified a manner as my emotions admit); or just behaves cool. Nor do I raise the odd eyebrow I used to when I see someone I want to spend time with hang around with another person at a moment's notice. Perhaps, it is my lot in life. I am not indifferent to the people I care about but I have learned that sometimes wishing well and being away is the best thing I can do for them. When I find that insufficient, I talk to myself, heave a sigh, occasionally shed a tear, go on a brisk walk, take a hot water bath, go for a nice meal and settle down for a good night's sleep. I wake up and do some Phonology.

Calm returns.

A D-Delight! :)

2011-07-31T00:25:00.001+05:30

Some joys are unalloyed - like a Dravid hundred. When three come along within a space of five weeks and as many tests, especially with all the talk of him being past it yet again and my quiet decision to celebrate his past feats and take whatever comes along henceforth as a bonus, the joy becomes intensely personal. Don't ask me why, I do not know, but Dravid's stay at the crease, even in its strife, delights - in a way that poetry does, a distinctly remembered smile does and the acknowledgements page of a dissertation does. Perhaps, it is the man; more to the point, perhaps it is his mettle: the bat tapping on the stance, eyes widening a little more with every ball, a fine drive or a flick of the hip, then normal service and a solid block - not always pretty but safe as citadels. A friend while speaking of Dravid's spirit remarked (and rightly I think being a Dravid fan): "It might be a couple of centuries before cricket sees another Sachin. Another Dravid might never come again."

Tonight, however, technology conspired in thwarting my yearning to watch Dravid's hundred as I rushed home after dinner only to find all live stream websites refusing to load! Alas what a misfortune! But I did get around to watching the paddle sweep that Dravid played to get to his 34th hundred in the highlights. That is how many hundreds the great Sunil Gavaskar and Brian Charles Lara made. Yes, let the number roll of your tongue a little more and you would never again question the man's greatness. If being behind Ponting, Kallis and Tendulkar is bad, then cricket never had any greats.

Far too often, Dravid's innings are described as substance over style and not without reason but the last two have showcased both at opportune moments, like necessary punctuations aiding a five narrative. Yet to shelve elegance in an attempt to stonewall for your team's sake is among the foremost, howbeit old-fashioned, acts of will on a cricket field - and there can neither be a tighter defence nor a mightier will than Rahul's. It may all seem like "oh so passe!" in these times when ugly freelance swipers earn in six-figures but ask the Indian dressing room and you will get mutters of disapproval.

It is sad that today's Dravid hundred was - again - overshadowed, but for a change by a man from the opposite ranks: Stuart Broad also seems to have undergone a personal renaissance and can do no wrong these days. I would love to see India draw level at Trent Bridge with two to play. But even if they fail to do so, the satisfaction of having witnessed, or at least kept excited tabs on, another sterling Dravid ton would remain with me till I breathe my last. After all, here is a man who has changed cricket for many in my generation and yet breathed its finest original virtues: gentlemanliness, integrity and grace.

I don't know how many more runs Dravid will make or hundreds he will score but I hope to watch him bat as much as my schedules allow before the sun sets on a cricket career not just characterised by excellence but also by as incredible a "team-first" attitude as seems unreal in this day and age. Andy Zaltzman funnily tweeted to someone in response to the latter's claim about renaming the Wall as Castle: "What I do know is Dravid's forward defensive is visible with the naked eye from space." It is a defence that perhaps needs to be patented. The future generations of batsmen around the world would do well to use it as a model.

Ten things about me that have not changed!

2011-07-27T22:21:00.005+05:30

Warning: Contains nothing of note; contains added nonsense.

(1) I am an incredibly dull person. So much so that if you wanted a directory listing the dullest people in the world and left my name out, the directory would still end up having it: it is a bit like Chuck Norris' relationship with roundhouse kicks or google jokes anyway. I am also credibly sane most of the time even if it entails I am driving others insane.

(2) I still talk to myself, even on the road, during my long walks. Admittedly, I am a little more self-conscious and talk only when there is nobody within earshot these days. Not so admittedly, much of it is crap.

(3) I don't like the noun form of "awesome", "-ly" adverbials from words like "soon", and "arrogant" in all its grammatical and semantic classes. Though a non-prescriptivist by thinking and a linguist by practice, I happen to think that syntax is nobody's appan veettu soththu! Before you ask, I feel the same way about thamizh, too. And if I had known French better - and Cantonese and Mandarin - I would feel the same way about their syntax as well.

(4) Know-it-alls anger me and tickle my funny bone (or the half of it that I evidently have) simultaneously: if I had my way I would leave know-it-alls with other know-it-alls and impose an order of silence on them for one full day. I would repeat the process for good measure if it does not succeed the first time around.

(5) I happen to think Tendulkar is not God (and before you raise slogans, here's why!); and that has nothing to do with my religious philosophy, or lack of it, anyway. My atheism, if you like to know, is founded based on a rather daft and shallow intellect than a perspicuous and deep-rooted one. To clear another misconception: it may be against theism, as expected, but not theists!

(6) I think 'morality' is, often if not always, like umbrellas on rainy days or jerkins on cold nights: it has another word where I come from - "convenience".

(7) I continue to believe that making people laugh is among the foremost acts of unconditional love (in consequence, if not design): I find Rowan Atkinson adorable - in a quirky way - Jim Carrey fascinating, Vadivelu authentic and Andy Zaltzman nothing short of brilliant. I also find myself banally insipid and starkly anti-life (especially in the face of those greats).

(8) I write predominantly for myself - to kill time or fill it, to relive a moment or get one out of my system, to soothe a throe or to recall another - and rarely go back to what I have written. I find it embarrassing to go back most of the time and a typo - or a convoluted sentence - often ruins a day.

(9) I am an incurable romantic at heart - so incurable that as a result of dating romance I am down with a fever (I know in the league of poor jokes, bad, jokes and terrible jokes, a new category needs to be created to fit that in; but the point stands. :D). Strangely enough, that tinge of romance which I am never far away from has made this phase of being single sweeter, not more bitter.

(10) Scepticism and belief both have designated trash cans in my life: the one for the latter is found in the hall of my academic pursuits, especially my own work, and the one for the former is in a space that encompasses my personal - "emotional" sounds like a more appropriate label - life. They are trash cans, not recycle bins; and though inanimate are never brought within talking distance of each other. :D

Goodnight!

PS: Some publicity: here is my latest piece from the cricket blog (I write with Venky), one which has been in the mental pipeline for a while.

An argument (reproduced!)

2011-07-22T15:27:00.002+05:30

Note: This is a result of a nice debate I had with someone with on FB. The core of the piece comes from my arguments in the FB thread but I have edited the argument a bit to make it more impersonal and cohesive.

I am partly in consensus with the observation that writing a verse and having pictures reflect the verse's mood kind of detracts from the latter. But a statement such as "anyone can take pictures" seems to, in my interpretation at least, brush aside photography, which has its own devoted practitioners who have spent a lifetime on it. At the end of the day, all arts have their own charm as their practitioners will tell you. Poets need not buy the quote that "a picture is worth a thousand words", but that does not mean they can stray to the other extreme and take a dig at photography or for that matter any other form of art.

Taking the temporal view, the fact that photography is recent compared to writing/poetry is a historical accident, an aberration of time. So, the mere fact that writing has been around for centuries, but photography has not, does not give the former a silver spoon sense of entitlement over the latter.

Secondly - and I say this with caution because my experience with photography, at least as a specialised craft, is limited to a few photojournalism classes and therefore virtually non-existent - good photography involves techniques, just like verses of the yesteryear when metrics and diction were taken more seriously than they are today. A simple example, and admittedly the only one I remember, is that different aperture settings and shutter speeds are required for capturing immobile objects, moving objects, fast moving ones and so on. In class, a trained photographer will tell you that such and such adjustments will suffice, but the adjustments are 'devilishly hard to excute' and require immense practice. [A Glenn McGrath is considered great because fast bowlers know that to keep pitching it in what is often casually labelled the 'corridor of uncertainty' is far from easy and involves the work of a lifetime]. Indeed, the modern camera may appear like an instrument of magic, making an amateur look something more. But only those well-credentialled in the field can decide what qualifies as photographic, just as what qualifies as 'literary' is not something anyone who writes can decide. [With all due respect to non-prescriptivists, among whom I am one, I think certain standards are there as "best practices", not to annoy us].

Finally, every art is different, which I guess reinforces, rather than conflicts with, the point that different artistic products need not come together. But to treat any two artistic endeavours as strictly separate, or as part of a continuum, is a choice that lies with the individual. Furthermore, there is no need, at least in my opinion, to compare one art with another. It is a bit like comparing a science student with an arts student and non-professional students with those pursuing professional courses and everybody with an engineering student (at least if you come from Southern India). I mean no offence to engineers - someone I talk to everyday and spend a lot of quality 'virtual' time with is an engineer in the making and she is excellent at what she does!- nor am I saying that "art rulez dudes!" At the end of the day, we do what we do and love what we love. It should ideally end there. But this compulsive need to establish what we do/have/are as superior than everything else is simply beyond me.

A Child of Dreams!

2011-07-21T10:52:00.000+05:30

Note: This was written on the eve of a very special child's birthday last year. I was just going through some of my earlier 'writes' and thought I should post it.

Oh child of dreams whose steps grey out seams!

A song that fills the air like children's smiles!
How wondrous is it that in time your gleams
Belie thy heart light, but hold thy mind's miles?
The shallow stares but see your climes to fray
Yet miss in rains and suns the One rainbow
Whose metaphor pervades thy work and play
As seamless realms where breath their life enforce?
Thou dawn of bird-winged words, dusk to cliche,
Thy genial genius is stars' gift to day!

A tone that carries joy and calm-ed awe
My gratitude picks when 'fore you it stands
For thanking thee in barest terms too thaws
The snow conceit and sadness spread on lands!
To hear you just lisp 'uncle' is to live;
To see those smileys is to feel suns' shine
At thresholds when routines fail to forgive
The rust from yore that razes tales' life-lines!

A world thou art to those whose halls thou walk,

And life for strife with which you sit and talk!

As blithe as clear clear skies but vast with wins
Thy countenance is shrine to the confluence
Where easy earnest meets instep whose prints
Do laud a child's walk in a lady dense!
What praise be to you whose dwelling is grace
In praise, a pen knows not in jest or truth;
For truth and jest dissolve in thy calm's face
That teases fondly lofty themes for troth!
From oceans seen, some seas you flush from thought
Where Easts of old with waning suns are brought!

Fertile my memory moves through mauve memoirs
Of Mangalore's breathy heart, a home's retreat
Whose every speck echoes as reservoirs
Unto my breath bereaved by houses' beat!
Through all of it, unsaid though, care endures -
My comfort checked, my nicknames boosted lots;
My farewell timed, my rest in text(s) insured -
Like gravity where air signs breaths in spots!
When parched by pause, I draw from thy home's well
The balms and books engaged in soothing bells!

The arches lit by stars do try but fade
Framing thy years that dulls them in their wake
For beacons are thy brocades that make jades
Of jungles seem like marsh that fringes lakes!
Ere aught's said, after all is done, thou art
The fest and feted famed of mind and heart;
Fireworks and cakes and gifts and verse wan joys
Before thy life's sense-weaved skies that yet don't cloy!

Oh child of dreams whose day too greys out gleams;

Today, let dreams marooned too meet sunbeams!

Disparate Strands!

2011-07-19T21:37:00.001+05:30

There are some questions which may not be answered at the time of their being asked. Just the same, they are answered during the course of life.

There are other questions which seem integral to our basic understanding of life and thereupon its progress. While some questions in this category linger on, many become irrelevant over time, especially when the immediate effects of a crisis, which triggered the questions in the first place, have worn off.

There are still other questions which remain, ever relevant, their answers yet to be revealed - or revealed piecemeal through different experiences and events. I am not too sure if such questions will ever be fully answered. I hope the answer is affirmative.

**********************************************************************************

Contrary to what the above lines may suggest, I have had an excellent start to the week. A Monday that began well past midday for me ended quite beautifully what with impromptu decisions that broke the routine turning out to be a blessing. After doing my laundry in the afternoon, I decided rather late - at about quarter to five - to visit the Stanley Beach. Under partly overcast skies, the plan seemed dubious and it went from dubious to close to impossible when I still found myself waiting for a bus to the beach at quarter to seven. The delay was due to a, again unplanned, forty-minute break for a meal, comprising the most delicious vegeterian pizza I have had in Hong Kong and a stiff drink, at a very tempting pizzeria which overlooks the harbour. But I am grateful that I did not back off from the plan of going to the beach. Taking a 7:10 bus, I reached Stanley at 8:20 and spent the next forty-five minutes there. After many days, a partial moon shone on the sky and it made the semi-darkness romantic. I walked for a bit, sat on a rock at the far-end for a while, hummed a favourite tune, listened, as always with awe, to the "lowing" of the waves which are much gentler here compared to those back home and cast a few stones into the water, feeling grateful for all that life has given me. I then returned to Tsim Sha Tsui for a bowl of hot steamed rice and delicious dal makhani to wind up a glorious six hours or so. [With all due respect to the happily married, committed and engaged, being single felt delightful last night. :)]

Today has been a quieter - at-home - but more fruitful day. Another late wake-up, a trend I must remember to arrest sooner than later, was followed by readings on two different areas of phonology. After a shower and snack early in the evening, I read some more and slept again. As evening beckoned from beyond the Lion Rock, I woke up, refreshed myself and went on a brisk walk that lasted close to an hour before getting back to my room for a simple dinner, a little more reading and the regular late evening session on gtalk with a very good friend. Oh, and it is ice-cream time now - after ten years or so, I am having ice-creams again, that too on a regular basis - and then sleep! I hope to be back at office tomorrow to make best use of a week that has begun quite well. On that note, wish you all a great latter half of the week and July, too.

*********************************************************************************

The 2000th cricket test match, to be played at Lord's between India and England, begins on Thursday. As a lover of test cricket, I am more than just looking forward to that. On that note, let me leave you with something else that I have loved over the years - a (famous) melody that has made me cry, sigh, shrug and just smile in awe at all that life has to offer:

http://www.raaga.com/player4/?id=181612&mode=100&rand=0.7239822558183271

Goodnight and bye.

Stories along the harbour!

2011-07-15T14:46:00.002+05:30

It is arguable that few sights are more beautiful than seeing the lights of the night reflected on still waters that run deep. And when the stretch of water extends into the lights of city on either side, as if its depths were pages of a deeply felt book bound together by bright cover, the overall impression left behind by the landscape has to be seen to be believed. Living at Kowloon Tong, with Tsim sha Tsui which is at the water's edge on the Kowloon side being a twenty-minutes' commute, I have been able to see the harbour front several times. During the last two weeks, I have had three occasions to walk on the esplanade that dots the harbour. And each time, I have returned home, my mind with a firmer hold on perspectives and my heart far more relaxed.

On the esplanade, you see and hear life in its variety projected towards you, if you are concerned enough to look and careful enough to listen. As with all places where sky, sea and land come together, here, too, you see an ocean of humanity - solitary strollers like yours truly; tourists from elsewhere in Asia and from the West; people, locals and expats, returning from work; lovers holding their hand before the tantalising goodbye sends them to their respective homes for another long night; pedestrians, who, you momentarily recognise, as having been defeated by life from their gaunt structures and hollow eyes; children who are as from the lover's and the lonely pedestrian's world's as anyone can be; photographers with their placards, which spell out a price, trying to get one more traveller to have himself clicked so that they can take an extra ten/fifteen/twenty dollars home that night; and groups of friends or relatives, energy in their throat, beer or a soft drink in their hands, celebrating the young night and with it the spirit of all life.

That is only the human side of the story, solemn and stoical in itself, soulful, and therefore arguably more significant than any other, especially given that it is puctuated with such variegations. Somehow, Salman Rushdie's Fury, based in New York, comes to mind and so does Bombay, another city that pits everyone on a par at various times, especially in a crisis - and my heart goes out to it and its people. You walk further on towards Star Ferry and there are restaurants and restaurants and bars and bars. Like with all the so-called 'great cities', the choice is yours - if affordability does not determine it, or precisely when it does. The smell of food and drink that wafts down in the mildest of breeze is exquisite; the smell is beyond the philosophies of food and does not offend this vegetarian at least. Food outlets, or is 'inlets' the word, pass and you then see edifices that house places of historical and intellectual importance. If you have your back to Hung Hom, Hong Kong Science Museum comes first, followed by a convention centre similar to - but not half as beautiful as - the one in Wanchai and then a majestic Clock Tower, without the likes of which no city seems complete. No wonder many Tamil movies open showing the clock at the Chennai Central!

As you walk towards the ferry pier, there are alleys that will lead you back to the main road, steps that will take you into the airconditioned confines of hotels and supermarkets - which depending on the way you look at it is uber cool or supremely irritating - and a mini foot-over-bridge from which you get a slightly higher view of the waterfront. The Star Ferry junction itself is an old and rundown place, the surprisingly unclean lavatories near it probably a throwback to another era of complacency and carelessness and the make-shift waiting hall with concrete benches a place to hang out during the day and a berth for the homeless at night. Contiguous to the ferry stop, you see the unmistakably yellow and curved M against the red backdrop - another McDonalds, and there are at least eight within four kilometres of Tsim sha Tsui. Sometimes, as long as it is not very late at night, you see a ferry just come in or hear one chugging its way out. Other times, you tend to miss it because everything seems like a part of a picture - dynamic for a moment and then static.

Ladies and Gentleman, this is Hong Kong; for many Asia's World City, its stage and backstage fused during the dying hours of the day, its heart and mind excitedly or achingly swaying between the remnants of the colonial age, which ended thirteen years ago, and the now as it tries to fit itself into the Chinese embrace, at least culturally and politically. Some say the standard of English spoken by the locals has suffered; others say that it is good they have had to learn Putonghua at an early age. And when you see a traveller along the harbour asking someone for the route to a place, you stand at a distance, curiously awaiting the response: does the local flounder with his/her English? Does the traveller understand him/her? Then, you smile because you understand that during a transition it is not about right or wrong, but about getting by. You look at the waterfront that has been a mute spectator for generations and its gentle rustle says pretty much the same. Sometimes, one needs to just get by, for life is not all the time about great delights or deep sorrows, but about the here and now regardless of whether we realise it.

Spirit and the Struggle!

2011-07-13T16:33:00.002+05:30

She is all of five feet - but no more than that. Yet she stands tall, in a way only those like she can. You do not often see her on those alleys, which have made life difficult, miserable and often tragic for her, but a familiar person does elicit the slightest trace of a smile from her face, the eyes widening for a millisecond, a quiet nod - and she would be gone, without a trace, a fish back unto her ocean. The smile may seem weak, but the weakness is not affected, let alone an instrument that seeks attention. It is, rather, simultaneously a sign of what she has been through and a symbol of her resistance. If you are one of those few people who have been blessed to have had a substantial conversation with her or taken a walk with her, her voice and her steps would both echo with a strange delicateness that you might wonder may break anytime, but they never do, not in spirit anyway. What you see outwardly may truly be her attributes but they are only a small part of her, a miniscule, for will occupies the rest of her person: if you get the impression that it is not something that is in her, but it is who she is, you will not be mistaken.

Three years, almost to the month, have gone by since she revised her Masters dissertation in less than three days, intermittently nursing a grieving heart (to put it mildly!) that had been broken barely weeks ago. I thought one found references to such things only in novels or self-help books. And during these years, she has not had it better, only worse. In her I have found validity for the claim - the gift of good health is known only to those who do not have it. For every week I have seen her well, there have often been weeks when she has turned out to be terribly unwell. And while she has obviously expressed disappointment about her frequent battles with health, among other things, they have never been complaints, comparing her position with others', or excuses for things occasionally left undone. On the contrary, the disappointment spoke of an uncompromising individual who was hurting because she felt she'd let herself (and her well-wishers) down, never mind the adversities she had to encounter, almost on a day-to-day basis, and never mind those who would not sleep in peace for a single day without robbing her of her sleep. I tell her that the very fact she has hung on through all this when she could easily have quit or snapped speaks volumes. Not for the fighter in her, though, such nice consolations. She has seen worse in life and will emerge from the tunnel intact, all right, probably even with a smile that makes the light on the other side seem dull.

I have always believed that inspiration has springs wherever resilience has its dwellings. In her, however, there is something more inspiring than even her tenacity - her naturalness. As someone who has taken care of herself and others for years, she has developed genuine tolerance that does not shield a bitter heart within. The fact that she is sensitive, has the ability/tendency to trust people too soon and has not had the best time of it with her health or emotions have found occasional reflections in the form of insecurity. But she is never petty. When she cooks for her friends - and frequently at that - and takes 'kids' who are unwell to hospital, you wonder whether she is indeed the superwoman she lisps she is with that mysterious smile of hers! If the general spirit of generosity deserves applause, which it does, the spirit of generosity when one's own life is fundamentally a struggle deserves, at the very least, a standing ovation and perhaps a recognition of how many of our crises are not real, but manufactured.

In a few weeks, it will be time for her to submit her dissertation. As if on cue, her health is playing spoilsport again: I feel extremely guilty when I think that illness seems to have almost become a fact about her life. But she will soldier on, I am sure, and hand in those bound copies at the COE office on time. It is a moment I am eagerly waiting for - pride not too far away. I am not taking her indomitability for granted; I just happen to trust it too much, and believe in it a whole lot more than I believe in destiny, deterrents (chiefly in human form) or the vagaries of life, which may all be considered to have played a role in thwarting her progress. She is beyond all that and so is her spirit of life and survival. And I hope she knows that and keeps the knowledge close to her heart, long after time is called on this dissertation.

On this Day!

2011-07-11T01:01:00.000+05:30

11 is a special number because appa's birthday falls on October 11. July is a special month, too, among other things because a sister, who almost literally saved my life, was born this month - yesterday was her birthday in fact. Today, July 11, P's daughter turns two!

I would have written a nice short poem for the child had I met her and known her quirks. There may be time yet for that. Besides, the child herself is sheer poetry, as children are. :) Not to force anything on her, but in P she has both a strong woman to emulate and a wonderful mother to go back to. I hope the occasion marks the beginning of a wonderful phase in the lives of both daughter and mother.

P's life exemplifies fortitude best. I wish she goes only one way from here - up!

My Sister's Wedding: Day Zero!

2011-07-10T11:53:00.004+05:30

To understand the climate that my heart found itself in on June 5, 2011, I need to go back a further 18 months and 15 days to November 19, 2009. On November 18, 2009 I'd received an email which had brought both immense relief - in terms of removing a sense of guilt - and the latest challenge to my emotional endurance. The following day I was with appa in a cosy hotel room getting ready for the muhurtham of my cousin's wedding. I sulked again, as had become a habit by then, and appa, being the man he is, assured me with silence and the choicest of words, but only a few of them, that things would get better. They did.

On June 5, I was once again with appa, in an air-conditioned room opposite the hall where my sister's wedding was being held, my mind in a slight spin, although this time did not need verbal expression. About twenty kilometres away, probably less, the anticipated coup de grace the said email had heralded was also going to culminate in a wedding. Also, I did not look forward to the dilemma that was to ensue later in the day: who was going to accompany sister and brother-in-law to ThiruvaNNamalai? If I went I could not attend the reception for that evening which I, from the bottom of my heart, wanted? Some might think that the divisiveness I felt on the morning of an occasion as important as my sister's wedding perhaps makes me a bad brother. May be, but I have always put heart over head and frankness over diplomacy, so let the jury judge!

It was coming close to half past four in the morning and after stirring in the bed for a little more, I had a shower and got ready: if it had been a brahmin wedding, people would have insisted on my wearing a veshti. In the event, I got away with wearing trousers, as mom's predicted glares amounted to no more than an amusement for me. Once dad was ready we got out, the sky a shade of indigo, as dawn took over from night, an odd automobile whizzing by on the high way and a mild breeze that did enough to suppress the humidity that was already quite obvious so early in the morning. At five to five when we entered the hall, my sister and brother-in-law were already sitting on the medai, patiently withstanding - or accepting; I think it makes little difference sometimes - the sandalwood smearing they received from maami after maami, their eyes speaking of a sleepless night and a yearning for rest. My uncle's first daughter clicked pictures on her phone, as the cameraman was not due for a half hour yet, as we waited for the priests, coffee and 6:30 to arrive. (I have never understood why marriages in our part of the world have a one-hour muhurtham slot, in my sister's case: aarara yezhara, and it made me feel like an ara paythiyam. But on that day I understood the necessity, if not the rationale behind it).

As indigo brightened considerably into a shade that looked increasingly like blue, guests, friends who had stayed closed by - or in the lodge where appa, I and a couple of cousins had rested overnight - drivers and others started to arrive. Deep down, however, I knew, and I reckoned dad would have felt it too, that there would be little to worry about from the crowd perspective because we had expected more people to come in for the reception; they had and we had handled it reasonably well. Before I realised, an hour and had passed, and at a few minutes past six the priest from the groom's side arrived, a man with a rebellious streak, who spoke fast and who seemed to value commonsense and convenience as much as the rituals his job entailed. What a relief I thought when I was called into the proceedings! The relief ended and the fun began.

I was cast in a double role - as maapiLLai thozhan (equivalent of a best man) and maithunan/machunan/machaan (brother-in-law) depending on the dialect of Tamil you prefer - only this would not yield an award but a ponn modharam. For his part, the priest would go onto irritate the living daylights out of me so much by mentioning ponn modharam a hundred times that at one point I thought of telling him that he could keep it. Anyway, the thing was I had to be with my BIL all the time, and lead him with my little finger locked against his (why the entire hand or any other finger could not do the business beats me!) As if to make my role "clearer", and I had not been so hard pressed to laugh even when I read through the final draft of my doctoral dissertation before turning it in last year, the priest from our side arrived and whispered in my ear: "andha maamaa solravarikkum nee maapillayodayee irukkaNum!" For the life of me I wondered whether people thought of me as a 5 year old - or whether priests just took abundant pleasure in overdoing their job which involved repeating and over-dramatising things. It seemed like a bit of both on that sacred morning.

What happened between 6:15 and 7:00 is a bit hazy now that I try to recall. Sister must have gone in and changed saree a couple of times. I have always wondered why brides had to change saree nineteen thousand times while the groom did not have to change his veshti: if you're the kind of girl who loves doing that, please keep your demurs, I am speaking for others who find it a pain! Then the trio of me, BIL and sister encircled the stage some four times before going to the entrance of the hall for the kaasi yaatrai when their priest suddenly realised that it was getting late and he started yelling randomly at everyone to come out to witness the event.

kaasi yaatrai turned out to be my favourite part of the wedding because it cracked me up big time: it seems the bridegroom would be stubborn in his decision to head for kaasi, in jest of course, and I, the BIL, had to intervene and convince him to stay by telling him (I will say this in English because it's hilarious), "Bridegroom, bridegroom, please don't go to kaasi; we are giving you my sister in marriage. And we'll all go to Kaasi together!" (To what joy would an entire family with newlyweds go to Kasi, even hypothetically, I wondered?) The groom being the epitome of masculinity and all that should not accept it immediately. In the event, neither was my BIL stubborn nor was my tone even as persuasive as normal because we were more focused on not making one another laugh. I wondered if my sister was witnessing all the fun, or thinking about her next phase in life, or simply imagining when she would sleep again.

The kaasi (non-)yaatrai had been preceded by some sort of ritual when I had to wash my BIL's feet with a lot of stuff, among them milk and sandalwood; of course with H2O around. Not that I'd a problem with washing someone's feet, although prostrations are a strict no, but the very thought of doing it with milk was not my idea of respectful joy. So, I am glad I did not make a face or laugh out loud thinking of my condition. The yaatrai was followed by an event of epic proportions where, as it turned out, epic-sized uncles lifted their relatively limerick-sized nephew and niece, who had to somehow throw (for lack of a better word) the garland around the other's neck. This was again supposed to be an ingenious exercise in strength as the uncles as well as the couple needed to make sure that the garland was not received easily; as it turned out the uncles resisted and the couple received the garland from the other end with a lot of glee as if they had been looking forward to it or get it done with. I had a hard time trying not to laugh.

And then we all scampered back inside the hall with only ten minutes of the murhurtham time left: then it happened. There was this final rite whereby my BIL, sis and I had to all consign some pori into the fire - and we had to do it three times, encircling the fire after doing it every time. While we were at it, the priest said, "pori itta veralukku pon modharam!" some thirty times that I'd half a mind to go and tell him, "Dude, chill! And please find something else that is half-alliterative." Eventually, I got the ring and receded to a corner of the stage, happy to be feeling sane again. At about a minute to 7:30, the thirumaangalyam that had been passed around returned to the stage, and some elderly relative from the groom's end gestured "getti meLam". As the sound of the naayanam and naadhswaram filled our ears, atchadhai poured in from all corners of the hall. I would later learn that my BIL had insisted that he would tie all the three knots and he had (how sweet!). My parents were at the other end of the hall, and my dad, his eyes closed, was chanting away in typical fashion: gayathri mantra, I thought, something which he had often told me gave him strength. There were handshakes among known relatives in front of the stage, a few thumbs-up in the direction of my parents and my sister and brother-in-law. And then cutting through the cornucopia and the cacophony came a clear voice whose words at once stunned me and made me proud: "nenachadha saadhichuteenga Sujatha!" (roughly: "You have achieved what you set out to do, Sujatha (and Saravanan)!") were the words, and it was my sister's mother-in-law. Elsewhere, if the muhurtham slot had been the same, another couple, the groom and bride both three years younger than my sister and brother-in-law, would have, I am sure, felt much the same. It would have been nice to be there.

After getting down from the stage, I met a few of my father's friends who congratulated me as they were wont to. Frankly, however, it was embarrassing because I had not done much at all, en route to or during the wedding. I thanked them for being there. Then I met Daniel who had kept his word about coming for the muhurtham as well. Amidst confusion as to whether I should wait for my BIL and sister or whether I could go and have breakfast, I decided to do the latter and ate with Daniel. A half hour later I spotted Iyshwarya, the genuine euphoria of a newlywed writ unmistakably on her face, and her husband. After chatting with them for a bit, I took them to the stage and introduced them to the couple. Once they left, I knew the last of my friends had come and gone. I'd invited about twelve but only three had turned up. I am not a man who questions others' reasons - June 5 was full of muhurthams I heard - but it would have been nice to have hade two or three more friends.

By 9:00 a.m., the marriage hall bore that typical look of a place that had hosted a union but was now slowly returning to its self-like bareness. Many had left, and a few close relatives would, too, in a while. Most would not wait for lunch as they had had a heavy breakfast. I messaged Preethi, another dear friend who I had desperately wanted to see at the wedding not having met her for seven years, wondering if I could call her because I had nothing to do. Then, I settled down with Ramesh uncle for a long chat after sending off the bride, groom, my parents and the groom's parents to the temple. Even as we were chatting, the chairs were being taken away and piled up in a corner. Yesterday, we had got the place four hours late. Today, albeit the major things were done, the hall people were preparing the place for the next event at 3 p.m. Business men I thought - and yelled at the lady who was in charge even if it was not going to make a difference!

At eleven o' clock those who had gone to the temple returned. By then my sister's close friends, including the lady whose son had been asked to call me chithappa, had left and even among relatives only those immediately related to my parents remained: my cousins and their parents. The time had also arrived when the question of which male member would accompany the couple alongside my aunt, viz., maternal uncle's, wife was broached and I was quite literally torn apart. While I could not look amma on the eye and tell her, "I need to attend the reception," I was able to tell her, "Amma, this is the last time I may be able to see her and wish her. I don't want the chance to pass." However, it was agreed that if nobody else was willing I would: responsibility, I told myself, came first. When I heard that my mother's cousin and his wife had agreed to go, I was relieved but the relief was short-lived when I came to know that my sister was perhaps feeling bad that none of us was coming. I went and met her in her room and told her, "If you need be to come, tell me da and I shall." Even though my thoughts would be on the reception, I would not let my sister hurt. For her part - and she has always been accommodating and understanding - she knew how much going to that reception meant to me even though well-meaning friends and relatives had thought it unwise. When it was decided I would not go to ThiruvaNNamalai, I felt relieved although another part of me was chipping away at my heart whispering the word "disappointing, Srini; disappointing Srini!"

But at the marriage hall, the tale of twists which had begun with our not getting the hall on time a little over twenty-four hours ago was not over. When I returned to the hall after being away at home briefly, I heard that not a lot of food had been left for the people on the groom's side (of course, my parents had not eaten either). Rumours abounded as always and some said that since the bride and bridegroom had eaten, they had assumed everybody had. Once again, much to our gratitude, the issue did not spiral into anything of consequence though it left my dad angry and understandably so. Perhaps, in the light of the fact that the reception food had been excellent, most people condoned it; it showed their grace but what happened was not fair and my parents would belabour the point, and rightly so, to the caterer when he visited us for payment a week later.

As the afternoon meandered along, I met my brother-in-law and sister and wished them well. For the first time since the previous afternoon, I'd some time alone with them. We didn't talk much - they were tired but had to be on the road again and I was tired, too, both physically and emotionally - but it felt solemnly good to be just around them. They were supposed to have left before 12:00 p.m. but since that had not happened, they would not leave till half past one. When they did leave at ten past two, my aunt, mom's cousin and his wife in a Tavera, the couple and the groom's family in a van in which they had come the previous day, appa apparently wept, and profusely! I don't remember now, but I guess I was on the other side of the van. I have seen, or heard of, my old man crying four times in his life and whenever he cries, just like whenever he shouts, another rare event, the impact stuns everyone into silence. Mom and I are, if anything, more emotional than my father, but somehow good occasions, even if they entailed separations, do not bring forth the same reaction from us. Besides, sis was going to reside in a place barely five kilometres from my place. But it did feel strange and somewhat hollow. There would be two homes to visit whenever I go to Chennai henceforth: sister's and my parent's.

What happened during the rest of the day is irrelevant. I could not attend the reception I wanted to attend  because I'd deleted the wedding invite and I could not locate it in the other id I thought I'd forwarded it to. My memory failed too and google did not help. I did not want to know the name of the venue from a mutual friend because (i) he would have given it half-heartedly; (ii) I'd put him through enough; and (iii) it simply did not seem right.

Perhaps, popular opinion had prevailed; perhaps destiny - though I don't believe it - had won the day. Three days later a sister would tell me this when we met for dinner and although it hurt it made sense: "Even if you had gone to the reception only to wish, it's the person's wedding day, and seeing you would not have made it the most ideal one [for her]." I agreed even as I swallowed the mixture of emotions I felt. Strangely enough, I smiled and the sister in question said, "It's good to see you genuinely happy after a number of years." I was.

I don't regret not having accompanied my sister on June 5th. For the record, these days I don't regret anything much. Back to my sister and brother-in-law, when they returned home with the trio who had accompanied them to ThiruvaNNamalai, it had already become June 6. They were, together, a day old already. Perhaps, their views on June 5 would be a lot broader, or a lot more significant, than mine. But I don't think anyone can sum up the day better than my sister's mother-in-law: Sujatha, nenachadha saadhijuteenga. The words will always ring in my ears whenever I think of the day.

(concluded)

Randomly with love!

2011-07-07T22:44:00.005+05:30

To look back at "sunned" horizons, and be simply thankful;

To relieve the pain - and pangs - without having to cringe, only to find in them a reservoir where beauty and toughness coalesce;

To look into myself and know that I was, and am, limited but it is not shameful or dishonourable to acknowledge it as long as I am sincere;

To know that another's smile, however superior, sarcastic or condescending, would never subdue my spirit to front up to a new dawn;

To have happily realised that it is beyond me to seek/conspire to bring down any human relationship, especially those I am not a part of ;

To understand that a loss hurts, but only less than one handled without grace ;

To wake up every morning and recall, without elation or sadness but with equanimity, that one more day has come between an ocean that is now as good as a distant dot, and whatever is to come;

And most of all to feel no regret about whatever good, bad and ugly there was and is -

This to me has been love's greatest gift. And what more could I ever ask for?

(curtains)

Life goes on, gently and well. Goodnight!

Test Match Number 2000!

2011-07-04T09:01:00.004+05:30

On the 21st of this month, cricket will return to its headquarters, Lord's, to host England and India in the first of four test matches. It will also be the 2000th (official) test match in cricketing history. There cannot be a more befitting venue for the milestone match, Lord's being the home of the Marylebone Cricket Club which embodies the game's rich history and finest traditions. The Home of Cricket, as it is frequently called, also has a batting and bowling Honours' Boards for those who score hundreds and pick up five wickets an innings respectively. The media box is an unmistakable signature and generations of cricketers have waxed eloquent about the "atmosphere" of the Lord's dressing room(s). I don't know about you, but I am waiting for July 21.

You can read my reflections on test cricket, about which I am extremely passionate, here. Friends on Facebook can also find the piece in my notes.

The Tale of a Trait!

2011-07-02T17:01:00.005+05:30

This is a random strand of reflection I thought I should file for future reference. More so for my future reference, than anybody else's!

As the clouds gathered from every visible speck of the sky last evening, seemingly mooting the idea of another thunderstorm, I was on my way to the Hong Kong airport to pick up a couple of ladies who were visiting the place for the first time. My mind, not used to keeping quiet when it has more than ten minutes of time without serious activity, returned to a rare temporal utopia in my life, the frustrations and the furore that followed, as well as the more recent attempts to genuinely take stock, forget, forgive, as long as forgiveness is a genuine need and not a symbol of moral high ground, amd move on. Naturally, I thought about people, their ways, myself in relationship with them and the whole dynamic of me with reference to the world (and, of course, vice versa).

To my surprise I discovered that qualities I thought of as generally objectionable, or at least a "no-no" given my disposition, were common among the people I really loved and those who I have had falling outs with over the years or those with whom I have simply lost the most basic thread of contact. "Pursuit of the best" presented a case in point last evening. While there are some of us for whom "best" is a word restricted to our spheres of work, there are others for whom it is a (healthy) fixation that keeps life on track, a meta-artform (a reflection of one's personage) that needs to be cultivated and perfected as one lives on and a religion one needs to be ever loyal to. More to the point, I know (at least) two individuals who take "best" along the latter lines and both are enormously talented, particularly magnetic and frequently inspiring young women. And yet I had, until last evening at least - or may be a phone call two weeks ago - thought of the blind pursuit of the best, leaving direct and indirect consequences in its wake, as somewhat ruthless ('ruthlessness', a word I always employ with a negative connotation).

As I walked through the opulent arrival hall at the Hong Kong International, I learned that this was not the case at all. Yes, the fierce ambition to want the best of everything - comforts, people, education, job etc - is not something that sits serenely in my heart, so it is not something I may personally ever subscribe too. Yet, I find the single-mindedness all right, sometimes even good, in one of the individuals referred to above and alternatingly confusing and frightening in the other. In fact, single-mindedness is something I have found to be admirable and have often appreciated: Dravid's defence, a junior's obduracy when the chips were down, S' being hard on herself even when she should/need not be, P's sense of fortitude, a senior's continued - and not cynical - pursuit of love, mom's rebellious streak, dad's commitment and fairness towards the ex...tended family (regardless of their (re)actions), sister's ability to do her work well on the most torrid days - the examples, even among people in my immediate circle, are plenty.

And then it dawned upon me: a trait, principle or quality can manifest itself in a variety of ways - admitted, they themselves are abstractions - and I may like some of these manifestations, not all. I do not have to, but that does not give me the right to pass judgments on, be cruel to and hold grudges over the persons in whom I see those variegated manifestations of traits. Not, especially, when those manifestations tie in inextricably with one's own life - past, present or future is all the same - and therefore the politics of the mind. Among the two who have taken "best" to a raison d' etre, one has become wonderful company and a friend for all seasons in my life, while the other does not even know that her words of yore have, unbeknownst myself, become (simple; neither positive nor negative) reference points. Both ladies want the best of everything in their life: it is just that one is around and the other is not. How I view them therefore is simply a product of my own bias, a bias I have to clean up before I need to be anywhere near the completely fair-minded person I want to be. And each commands respect from my end, even though their pursuit of excellent remains a bridge the invites from which I will not take up.

I read somewhere that human beings frequently make the mistake of seeing a person at one point in time and life and noting him/her down mentally as a (would-be) failure, success, socialite, family person, globetrotter and so on and so forth, only to see the predictions turn out to be horribly wrong. The piece likens phases in people's lives to seasons and indicates how judging a person based on the phase you have observed him/her in is akin to judging a land, well or badly, after seeing it during one season: both judgments are likely to be incorrect, and often have been and continue to be so. Seeing a plethora of flowers breach the soils that were camouflaged with water months ago is not amazing if you view it in the context of the internal balance nature tries to maintain. Seeing a would-be star collapse and a dogged little idiot make it big in life may be incredible for an observer who has not seen them for years, but not for someone who has watched their tales unwind from close quarters. We need not celebrate somebody else's success or be hurt by somebody's failure, but so long as we do not grudge the former and gloat secretly seeing the latter - especially if we have passed through them only when clouds were thick on our skies or the Sun moved about his glittering arc - Life would still be in good hands. After all, there is no human being who can say that (s)he has only weaknesses or only strengths. It is important to understand that.

My sister's wedding: the day before (part-II)!

2011-06-30T23:20:00.003+05:30

If there had been no reception on June 4, 2011, I would have simply said that Rajagopal uncle, Krishnamoorthy Uncle and company - who made up the appa's department friends from office - were the cynosures of the evening, unsung as they were, or perhaps because they were unsung. In the event, their presence was spinal for the events to follow during the evening and the next morning. Krishnamoorthy uncle had already been instrumental in being with my family through the preparatory stages and here he was, a dark man in thick spectacles, blessed by the colour of hard work, overseeing proceedings as I returned after my light-hearted confabs with my BIL's relatives. I felt instant gratitude and surprise: gratitude because there were people who took my home's wedding as theirs and surprise because appa has been, or so I thought, a giant whose inner core was solitary despite his ability to melt into any social occasion; and given that mental picture that he had a group of four or five people at his beck and call made me feel happy. May be, there is more to my old man that I have come to know in the last twenty-six years. But the mystery is delectable: kavidhai variyin suvai artham puriyum varai, illayaa?

And so the late afternoon began, in excitement, expectation and hope. I met my chithi's first son-in-law, who would abide by my mom's words to the last punctuation mark, "Mahesh, could you please take care that things are all right at dinner later this evening?", by staying in the crowd and heat for close to three hours: his tale, as he has himself said it, holds my sister as an object of superabundant gratitude; it felt good to have people like him around and to know that my sister had made a difference to their lives. And even as I met his father-in-law - my chithappa who I call maamaa - I felt a lump in my throat - for in an amusing conspiracy of time someone who had made a huge difference to my own life, I knew, would be preparing for her own big step. I could have given anything to be at both places, to experience the sheer delight borne by pride on the one hand and the agonised ecstasy spawned by life's levellers on the other. Since daydreaming is not good for health, not on a day such as that anyway, I decided to hunt down the man responsible for the name boards.

At half past three, I was told that they would do it a little later because it was too hot. The sensitive and sympathetic idiot in me muttered words that impersonated weakly for anger. If I'd heard myself, I would have laughed and infinitely postponed what I wanted myself to do. R uncle who entered the scene made instant impact, his command wrapped in a dose of good humour, something I would hear more of from him the next week during our trip to Thirupati. And considering that he had just suffered a personal disappointment only recently, his presence there, leave alone the humour, was inspiring. At about four o' clock, they started work on the board: the thermocol letter 'R' needed - or was it something else? I don't recall now - to make up my father's name (Sampath) Kumar was missing. Of course, in some, admittedly non-Indian, proununciations of the name, the 'R' is silent. But I would not have dared to say that there especially because I have, for years, terrorised people for even spelling noises wrong: "hmmm" as "mmm" for instance. I did not intercede; they decided to drop 'Kumar' I think (or this may be fictitious). And then for some other reason 'welcomes you' became 'welcomes all' before I noticed that 'S' was missing in my father's initials 'K.S'. The 'S' from the 'Sri' was brought in, another 'S' was found and 'Sri' was moved leftward (this was decidedly as real as I was that day). Half past four.

Time for coffee - at least for the elders (when it comes to coffee the cut-off age is about twenty-two and half to be called elderly) and though I was not desperate I could have done with one. Don't believe anyone who is not a Tamilian who says Tambrams don't like filter coffee, or anything with that name, unless you have been with that someone or you are one of my mom's friends or you are mom who likes tea - and would rather not talk for two days rather than drink coffee. I digress. Sister's beauticians had arrived and brother-in-law's, the ones arranged for three hours ago in a hurry, yet to. If I was anxious, I did not show it: if I am the thesis of punctuality, and admittedly joblessness, my dear BIL is its antithesis. But what could the poor bridegroom do for others' faults? I was impressed that I was behaving like a great brother-in-law by giving benefit of the doubt ~~and not giving LBW~~ and all.

The next hour and half are a blur now that I think of it: I remember visiting my sister a couple of times, saying hi, asking her if she was ready for the leap and trying to get a glimpse of her amidst the group of two girls from the beauty parlour, her friends and our cousins, which I did for five seconds - and to put it normally, it seemed she would look stunning that evening. Not that she had looked anything else all her life! More relatives arrived from my father's side and I greeted them with as much "colgate toothpaste" I can evoke from teeth for relatives in general; some of them are really nice, more so because they would have seen me as some six year old with a chronic habit of asking idiotic questions and constantly being around dad, it's just me! More of my father's friends, especially those who were going to sit on the gifts' section and an efficient assistant who would be called onto do things at a moment's notice, arrived, fresh despite the blaze that was the late evening Sun. It was that time of the day when I feel lost at home but that evening I felt solemn. Twixt the chirps emanating from the interior monologues, the thoughts about the coming evening - at two places - and the hellos and hi's and "I want some tea/coffee", we would forget one thing that had to be followed up on. That too would be messed up.

At a few minutes before six, dad and I left finally to the lodge, after arranging for the light music troupe to get the extra benches they wanted, to freshen up and change: both of us had sherwanis for the evening, and I a yellow one with a dhupatta (or is it stoll? or is it called something else in the case of boys? Pardon my ignorance; I think North-Indian angavastharam, which I would call niangi, although suspiciously Japanese-sounding, would do). When we returned to the hall by ten past six, we would not have been admonished had we suspected that pandemonium had descended upon us. We had to have been at the temple by 6 and should have been performing the rituals that needed to be performed. And at quarter past six, people from both sides were running all over the place at the hall, gathering things that needed to be taken; incoming and outgoing cars spewed out smoke; horns honked; phones buzzed; the bride and groom left by separate cars, neither one designated previously; and some of us followed by walk.

AND... the temple turned out to be locked (all inklings of rhyme are purely accidental, I am NO TR fan)! Rumours abounded - the priest had been told by the hall management but didn't turn up; he was out of town; he was an egotist and had not got his cut in the money; thankfully nobody said the priest was a figment of the hall owner's imagination, which, if it had been anywhere near as big as belly, would have killed me. Eventually, the requisite rituals were performed under the spill of torch lights, the fading light of a summer's day and the flashes of cameras, the idol of the goddess partly visible. The romantic in me revelled in the scene silently. I am sure a lot of people, including my parents, sister and BIL, would have been disappointed. Inwardly, though, 'I' was elated for it was wonderful to see both sides trying to get on with it keeping time and the occasion in mind, and not resort to arguments. Besides, I have always felt that godliness resides firm in fine human hearts. The ten minutes at the temple on June 4, 2011 was merely another testimony to that.

Back at the hall, my maternal uncle waited, that familiar admixture of tension and anxiety in his eyes. We had left him without a lady/girl to welcome the incoming crowd. He had a point but there was no time to argue. The inflow of guests was augmenting by the minute; somebody had to go up and tell the fools to switch on the focus light - though I could not see my dad in the crowd and semi-darkness/brightness I could hear his nerves jangle - as the bride and groom re-entered the hall; I felt a touch on my shoulder and it was one of my sister's close friends, a favourite junior from school; and the clock was ticking. It was nearing the last quarter of 1900 hours.

At 7 o' clock sharp, the light music troupe began their melodies which everybody later said was a good mix of old and new songs. By quarter past seven, my sister was ready, while my BIL's beauticians waited for him to come out of his shower so that they could apply his reception make-up, take their cash, eat and scoot - doubt, sir, I would have asked if I'd had a moment to breathe: what on earth had they applied earlier? Many of dad's friends, especially distinguished auditors and people in the executive cadre, had already arrived. Someone, perhaps dad or one of his four friends who were with us right through, hit upon a bright idea: request them to go for their meal and return to meet the couple.

Finally, the couple took the stage at a few minutes after half past seven; I was fortunate to be near the stage when they came, trying to adjust niangi for the three-hundredth time in less than two hours. Sis was in a saree punctuated by a rich splurge of gold and red and BIL's sherwani matched hers. For many more minutes, that was the last I saw of them. Mostly, I hung out near the entrance, welcoming recognised faces, being polite with others I did not recognise and checking on the thamboola pai. Every now and then I checked at the dining hall: Mahesh anna was there, directing, serving every now and then and making sure everybody had what they wanted. I tried my best at upsaraNai too - but I hope they did not shoot a video of that. Enough said.

At about eight, there were already about thirty people on a queue to get to the stage. The crowd had clearly beaten my imagination - probably because even my imagination cannot conjure up the fact that my mom, dad, sister and I (as an afterthought) put together knew so many people. Two of my sister's friends from school, the mother of another friend's and the junior I had met after returning from the temple waited to see when the next pandhi would be. One of them, a lawyer, caught me off guard by asking: "innikkum English dhaanaa!" To be honest, it was embarrassing. niangi was frankly irritating when I'd thought it would make me look "handsome": lesson learned, there is nothing better or more comfortable in the world than an old kurta and an older pair of jeans!Don't look at me like that, I did like my sherwani but what's the point of wearing something if you cannot carry it off?

Over the next hours I met a few friends, the best of them - my mother's when she had been in school, the Nairs, to whom my dad and mom owe a lot from their days in Kolkata, and mine: first there was Daniel, the best of my friends, the most unobtrusive of my allies, a man of a few but impeccable words, and then there was Sudha, someone who has put up with my silliness for thirteen long years, with her husband Shyam. Before she could ask, I myself volunteered saying, "No time for the tooth cap yet da!" She gave me that "you-are-incorrigible" look that defeats any response before the response is made. So I didn't try giving one. And then we talked about why I looked like I'd been eating too much. We argued - her hubby must have thought of me as an idiot - like in the old days, talked and laughed. It was special to have them. I introduced Daniel to them and after some waiting went to the stage to meet the couple. I then took them to dinner, and while waitingm heard praise about the food. Our cook, in whom we have had utmost trust for close to thirteen years, had flopped during the engagement. He had made amends in every department on the night that mattered. Somehow, resilience enthralls me - regardless of where I see it and of what form it lies veiled in. The man was evidently called "useless" once by his dad. His life has been a struggle though his food - try it if you want I can give you the contact details - is one of the best in my knowledge. Yet he has not given up on life. I did not obviously think of these things as I stood with my friends that day, but now that I think of it, inspiration does not seem far away.

Then came the time for group snaps. I am not a very photo person but I "didn't put too much scene" that night given that it was a special evening for BIL and sis. They looked tired; the hot evening and the endless effort involved in making your jaw direct your lips to smile can be hard I guess: for me, it would be downright impossible. After the photos, I needed to go home with appa to leave the gifts received during the evening. Krishnamoorthi uncle, the attendant, R uncle and Ramesh uncle, who has played a significant role in my life, were just returning after a sumptuous meal. The small man beside me shook their hands and thanked them, adding, "See you tomorrow before 6:30." It was my father.

Minutes later, I got into the van which had the gifts, and appa followed in his car driven by our chauffeur. As the vehicle hit the dark - but not as dark as it used to be - Medavakkam Main Road, I felt spent, tired and satisfied. But I also wanted to shed a couple of drops from my eyes. "If only..." I started saying and corrected myself. It amazed me that I still blamed myself. I realised it was one of those downsides of being an intense man. When I got down, the momentary mental monsoon had subsided and been replaced by genuinely warm goodwill: this time tomorrow, you shall have entered a new phase. Happy married, it said, and prefixed a name. It felt good to say those words though it would have felt better had I done it in person the next evening. My quirky memory, I would discover, would thwart the attempt.

Dad and I stayed at home for ten minutes, drank some iced water and returned to the hall just before eleven. Amma had not eaten; she, I, appa and our chauffeur sat down for the meal. The couple and everyone else, we had heard, had eaten to their heart's content so it did not matter much that we did not have a lot of items left. Outside, another humid May night had set in. Nine days had already passed since my arrival. The same time next week I would be at the Anna International, awaiting the boarding call for SQ 529 to Singapore. But... tomorrow was what mattered! For two women who had had an incredible influence in my life. Both would be celebrated with gratitude, one with the pride of being in the same bloodline as I.

(to be continued)