Intermission

Call it a lack of inspiration, ennui, inertia, a dearth of ideas or quite simply, just a mental block, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve hit a wall here and it’s impossible to move forward at this point. It’s been this way for a while now and even though I haven’t really expressed this feeling, its presence has been as unmistakable as that of a fly on a television screen. This isn’t your fault any more than it’s mine. Circumstances beyond our control. That’s really all it was.

And so I guess what I’m trying to say is that we should go our separate ways at this point. Maybe for a few days, more likely weeks, perhaps months... To put it a little more succinctly, I only know that now isn’t the time. Now would be a better time to go get some popcorn, perhaps a cold drink or even make a trip to the loo.

Normal programming will resume soon.

System Reboot

doof doof doof doof doof
thish thish thish
doof doof

Check 1, 2... Check...

ffsssshhhhhhhhhh *a smoke machine belches out a thick cloud forming a near-opaque mist*

It’s that tingly few seconds after the last support act of the evening has wrapped up. The drumkit’s been replaced, but you can’t see it because of that curtain. Sure, you can hear the mammoth sound the drumkit makes during a simple soundcheck, but you can’t see a thing, save for a tiny bit of smoke slipping out from below the curtain. If the weight of expectation, impatience and curiosity could be transformed into a physical object, it would most likely bring the curtain down to the ground and with it, smash the stage in half. Which is fair, considering this is the first show of a whole new tour, in support of a whole new album.

“I hear they’ve changed the musical style completely,” you hear one voice pipe up. A deeper voice rebuffs, “Yeah, but it’s not all that drastic a change... I hear”. Hmmm... That’s neither here not there. “The band’s changed its ideology though for this album. They’re less shrill about their viewpoints and more refined when it comes to putting them across,” squeaks a little voice. Is that a good thing? If it ain’t broke, why fix it?

You ask yourself questions, knowing full well that you don’t have the answers. But the answers are only a matter of a few seconds away. “What have they changed for this tour? Have they changed costumes, stage placements or props? Are there some new band members? Has the old guard been replaced? Will they still do that extremely childish-but-fun thing where an effigy of some idiot is set aflame on stage at every show?” Each second drags on and on and on...

Until the curtain rises...

Pompous? Perhaps
Self-aggrandising? Slightly
Overly indulgent? Possibly
Typical View from Beneath? You betcha!

Welcome to VfB version 5.0. Or Vv5-... no wait a minute!! VvV, if you REALLY wanna be cool (that is frickin’ awesome, if I do say so myself — Ed). It’s the first design revamp in over two years and I think it’s pretty cool. How the content will differ after this four-month hiatus, remains to be seen. In fact, that’s for you, the VfB Massiv’ (formerly known simply as the VfBers) to tell me. And now, on with the show.

Given that there’s a glut of terribly bitter bile waiting to be spilled, let’s kick off this new era on a positive note. In the time since my last communiqué, I managed to acquire an absolute beast of a computer. *Leans forward and kisses the starship-looking mofo of a black and white CPU* Oh. A speck of dust. Best get rid of that. There we go. So as I was saying, I finally have a machine capable of playing every single PC game available today (not counting old ones with backward compatibility issues *sniff* Full Throttle) and I decided to make the most of playing a tonne of different games. FPS, RPG, RTS and all the other little abbreviations you can think of. I binged like there was no tomorrow.

But just like a womaniser, who after years and years of fucking all sorts of women gets that little moment of clarity, that epiphany if you will and goes back and knocks on the door of his one true love, I too had my epiphany. So the womaniser goes and knocks on his one true love’s door. Most often, she’ll let him in and agree to talk. Or they talk on the porch. It’s all good. Mushy shit follows and they end up in each others’ arms, slobbering all over the other and marvel at the fact that their bodies still fit so snugly together like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

And then there’s those times when the one true love introduces our womaniser to her husband, who introduces himself with a finger-crushing shake of the hand. Obviously, he has a solid well-paying job and no vices whatsoever, as our womaniser nervously thumbs the top of a hastily ripped open pack of cigarettes in his pocket. If that wasn’t a big enough kick in the crotch of our womaniser, this guy who just happens to be in good physical shape, is a devoted husband, a doting father and a generous and gentle lover (the womaniser can only assume). The best part comes when the one true love politely requests our womaniser to leave, because the family needs to pack and head to the airport as their perfect little child enters the room to politely say that he has completed his homework for the week and the next and then jumps into his father’s arms. The perfect husband and father has, after all, planned a vacation in Galapagos Islands. As you do.

In a related scenario, the womaniser knocks on the door and finds that his one true love is dead. Okay, that’s not quite as funny, but you get my point. Fortunately for me, my one true love was neither dead nor in the arms of some guy with a laptop who was going to take it the Galapagos Islands.

In fact, my one true love had gone and gotten herself an almost complete makeover. The proud owner of what can only be compared to a body sculpted by angels, one true love hadn’t lost a shred of the intelligence and wit that I’d fallen in love with so many summers ago. Gorgeous, smart as ever and so understanding (no backward compatibility issues here). Sigh. Thank you for coming back into my life, Monkey Island.

This series by the infinitely talented team at LucasArts, originally launched in 1990 (so you can imagine what the graphics must have been like). I played The Secret of Monkey Island at the start of 1999, if memory serves and I played the sequel soon after. I remember how I laughed at the dialogue and some of the inane things that happened. Even with those blocky as hell graphics, the changes of expression were noticeable and added so much (surprisingly) to the experience. The games and indeed the series, were essentially point ‘n’ click adventures. It was a crisp and compelling storyline laced with memorable characters that kids could get into, combined with the kind of wit and satire that would make adults chuckle, that made the Monkey Island franchise such a tour de force.

The series was responsible for getting me hooked onto other point ‘n’ click adventures and later, full-blown role playing games, where a story-driven narrative (as opposed to bang! bang! driven narrative) had me hooked. Kudos Bioware for Knights of the Old Republic (obviously), Mass Effect and the delectable Dragonage: Origins. These restored my faith in gaming in an age when (without a sliver of offence meant, I assure you) games like Manhunt, GTA: San Andreas, Bully, Rapelay (utterly disgusting concept) and their ilk were all out to garner controversy by alienating gamers rather than draw in new gamers and watch the community multiply.

Anyway, it all came back full circle when I got hold of the Special Editions of the two Monkey Island games I’d mentioned. Totally revamped graphics (with the option to switch back to the classic look at the touch of a single key) and smooth voice acting make it seem like a new game, but the humour and wit that drives the story forward is classic old-skool stuff. While I’m sure the idea that something related to Lucas was going to be involved in retouching up a classic (RE: All the belly-aching about Star Wars and Indiana Jones), must have sent alarm bells ringing across the world in the minds of all sorts of fanboys (big and small), it’s incredible that the game’s charm and beauty has been preserved, while dressing it up for the 21st Century.

Sigh.

Right, well, seeing as how I’ve just gone on and on and on with the good stuff, I’ll leave you to bask in the warm and tingly sentiment expressed so far. The unpleasantness shall commence in the next post.

(Note: To you lazy members of the VfB Massiv’ who seem content to read this stuff on Facebook, I urge you to actually see the new look VfB and tell me what you think.)

Naïveté in the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque

As I kick off the fourth part — and probably not the last either — of the Grotesque series, I’d like to make a reference to a film I rather enjoy watching. It’s called Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I still recall my initial reluctance to watch it, but damn, is it ever good. The Depp plays Agent Sheldon Sands, a CIA agent who is in Mexico to try and bring “balance” to the country. His job is to eliminate anyone who’s either too much of a good guy or bad guy.

In other words, rather his own words, “My name is Sheldon Jeffery Sands. I work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I throw shapes, I set them up, I watch them fall.”

There’s this book I quite like, one of the few money and finance-related books I’ve actually finished reading (A half-read Economics for Dummies has been lying forlornly on my bedside table looking up at me for God-knows-how-long). This book is called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Written from the author’s own experiences, it details how he was covertly recruited by the US National Security Agency, put on the payroll of an international consulting firm and told to visit several developing countries and get them to accept massive World Bank loans or US Aid.

In the process of paying them back, the countries in debt would be crippled by the loans and would effectively find themselves at the mercy of the US. Secondly, according to Perkins, the other job of economic hit men was to approach “strategically important” countries and try and broker some deal that would effectively trigger off events in those nations that would profit the US. The fall of the Shah of Iran, the Iraq invasion and even the death of Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos were triggered off by economic hit men, who in that regard were a bit like Agent Sands — throwing shapes, setting them up and watching them fall.

I’ve had some suspicions in the past — unfounded, I used to say dismissively — but I’m more or less convinced of a few things. The first of which is that we’ve been incredibly naïve. It began with economic liberalisation in India in 1991. Well, there really was no choice as we were bankrupt around then and the IMF had to undertake the dirty job of bailing India out of the red. International trade also began at kick off around that time and with it came Nestlé, Levis, Coca Cola (which had been banned previously) and of course, McDonalds.

On the foreign relations side of things, it began with Bill Clinton warming up to India and India returning the warmth. Then came George W. Bush and with the September 11 attacks, the War on Terror® was launched and Bush soon managed to become good pals with India. Tony Blair was already Bush’s best friend at this point. The Hyde Pact nearly split India in half, with the Left and Right of the country not taking too kindly to the US humouring and entertaining India’s nuclear aspirations.

Soon came the Season of Change™ with Obama — a man who in his speeches opposed the outsourcing of jobs — winning the US elections and stacking his cabinet and crew of advisors with people of Indian origin. India’s really on the map now, people began thinking. Wow! Sunita Williams going into space. Of course she’s Indian, everyone told themselves. She made some statement like “I like Indian food” and the whole of this country goes into a crazy frenzy with certain people nominating the American (read that again) for national awards.

November 26 hit Mumbai soon after. Hit Mumbai hard. Pakistan and India suspended sporting ties and all other ties and got caught in a war of accusations, with neither party willing to back down. India claimed that the state of Pakistan (and not just terrorists from there) launched the 26/11 attacks, while Pakistan countered that India was financing terror in Pakistan’s Baluchistan region. All along, random drone attacks on Pakistan, empty threats of consequences that would follow if Pakistan didn’t cooperate in the War on Terror® and assurances of justice to India flowed thick and fast from the US.

Obama in his baritone, would talk about how India and the US were closer than ever and his smiley-gladhands in India (sometimes called Consul-Generals and Ambassadors) would talk about the immense respect Obama has for Dr Manmohan Singh and how the US is committed to Indo-US ties... blah blah blah. Raising India’s dreams of permanent membership on the UN Security Council, only to back Japan instead did not sour India’s post-Cold War love for the US. And trust in the US. And at some point Slumdog Millionaire and its slew of Oscars happened and idiots were convinced that the world and especially, the US loved India.

In the last week, however... that’s when things turned interesting. David Coleman Headley in American custody, admitted to being involved in the 26/11 attacks and scouting out locations for the recent Pune blast. The US refused to extradite him to India so we could interrogate him. Until recently, they refused to even let us send a team to the US to quiz him (Note: The FBI merrily strolled down to India to interrogate people, including allegedly Mahesh Bhatt’s son, who from all indications, had nothing to do with anything). The final decision on an Indian investigating team getting access to Headley are still in limbo.

Why the US would be so cagey about letting India investigate Headley’s involvement is still a noodle-scratcher at this point. But let’s look at some points here.
- Headley visited Pakistan on numerous occasions on DEA work
- Headley claimed to be a CIA agent, a claim that the US has neither confirmed nor (more worryingly) refuted yet
- The 26/11 attacks brought India and Pakistan on the brink of another war
- In the aftermath of those attacks, India bulked up its armoury and set up the Force One commandos
- It’s all Taliban, Taliban, Taliban for the US; they’ve never been particularly keen on pursuing Lashkar-e-Tayyaba or any of the other terror outfits. It’s almost like they’re trying to sweep them under the rug. Hide them. Because-... No, that’s too whacky even for me.

Who else feels that something just isn’t kosher here?

I had written the phrase “In the last week” in bold letters above. This is why the last week turned not kosher into an all out paranoia attack. So, in this last week, the US gave indications that it would be signing a similar nuclear deal with Pakistan as it did with us. What the-...? But weren’t they just saying that Pakistan was a failed state, a short while ago? Would you really want to empower a failed state like that?

The claim from Washington now is that no such deal was actually planned, it was more a plan to discuss new energy sources for Pakistan. Well played. I’m not convinced.

Here’s what I do think. India for a while, enjoyed naïve childlike hoop-la over receiving all these gifts from the phoren, kinda like little kids go nuts when relatives from abroad — aka the phoren — bring them a little chocolate bar with some snazzy logo or some Made in China toy that they’ll forever cherish. And so with the secret sauce of a Maharaja Mac (the Indianised Big Mac, for the uninitiated) dripping from Mother India’s Maybelline-lined lips onto her Prada bag, that rested on her new Levi’s that look so cute with that new pair of Jimmy Choo peep-toe pair of shoes, she never saw Uncle Sam play her like a fiddle.

While ol’ Devious Sam was giving Mommy India all sorts of gifts and presents, she never saw him handing some out to Step-Uncle Pakistan just around the corner. She never realised that when Uncle Sam sold her his A-Class Merc and sold Uncle Pakistan his E-Class, it wasn’t by mistake! It was an intentional ploy. Hollywood and the Academy was in on it. How did you miss it, Mother India? Were you so blinded by the gaudiness on offer?

Did the bright lights and shiny pretty things make you lose focus? Or were you just being naïve? You better shake out of it soon, Mommy. Despite Tony’s submissiveness to George in modern times, the British did teach the Americans a few tricks. It’s divide and conquer all over again up in here. There’s never been a more urgent need for paranoia.

PS: Coming Soon — Paranoia in the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque

Daily (almost) deadweight disaster

So there I was in my “need to know” pose at a coffee shop I’ve begun frequenting quite regularly since LT’s visit, desperately waiting for a phone call. A doctor was supposed to call me back with a clincher quote that would put the exclamation point, as it were, on my story. Watching people walk by is overrated. So is sitting around twiddling a pen between your fingers. Actually, it wasn’t a total waste. I did see this absolute fool with a jauntily-angled cap on his head, a t-shirt that was at least 10 sizes too big and jeans that were probably slung just above his knees, judging by the fact that the crotch of the jeans nearly touched the ground. I’m sorry, but housing is just a stupid concept.

No, he wasn’t African-American. He was just a local moron, who seemed to be from Bandra (sorry, couldn’t resist it).

So anyway, once I finished shaking my head at the state of today’s youth and the clothes they wear, my eyes that were now in the highest state of alertness, caught sight of a street-dwelling woman carrying her baby. Seemed like a happy enough baby. 10 fingers. 10 toes. Curious eyes darting around like a peregrine falcon on speed. In the middle of a sip of my middling-to-decent shot of espresso, the baby gets pissed off at something and starts crying loudly.

In an effort that looked driven more towards shutting the baby up, rather than pacifying him/her, the mother starts whacking the baby over the head — albeit not as hard as the word “whacking” would imply, but still pretty hard, considering a baby’s soft skull and all that. It made me remember that I’ve always hated being hit on the head, top of the head or back of it. There’s something very very insulting about it and obviously dangerous about it too. My brain’s got a lot of mileage left in it. There’s a lot I plan to do with it. Hands off.

But throughout my life, I’ve seen people wantonly hitting each other over the head. Mark my words, it’s dangerous. Take daftie for instance. You know daftie. The guy who thought he was black a few paragraphs above. I bet that lad was beaten fairly mercilessly over the head as a child. Maybe he still is. Who knows? I just wish I’d taken a photo of his ludicrous appearance.

Another thing that has always freaked me out is the thought or sight of any sort of injury to the eyeballs or the sternum (breastbone). I’m cringing as I write it. Makes me shudder almost as much as the idea of Camilla Parker-Bowles in the nood. Super-Mega-Shudder.

That’s what makes me queasy. What amuses me no end, in retrospect however, is a numb arm. It’s amused me for a while, but I’ve surprisingly never felt the need to articulate my thoughts about that peculiar form of temporary paralysis. Reminds me of a song actually. One that was introduced to me by a fellow who was pretty peculiar, himself. The song’s a lot of fun and it pays homage/mocks the musical style of a number of bands including Rage against the Machine with this particular line, done in their style.

Corporate America makes pencils
For the man with the left hand
They make pencils for the man with the right hand
But what about the man with the numb hand?

Did I mention that the whole song is about falling asleep on one’s arm and it going numb? I meant to. The track is by The Aquabats and is called I fell asleep on my arm. But back to the real issue, waking up to a numb arm is one of the scariest things I’ve ever encountered. You’re in the middle of a bomb-ass dream and out of nowhere, you wake up... a little dazed... incredibly disoriented... and suddenly, you can’t breathe.

Damn straight you can’t breath. There’s this heavy thing on your chest. And worse, you only have one arm! So you use that arm to lift the heavy thing off you. No luck. It’s deadweight. But what the hell happened to your other arm? That’s right. It’s dead and lying across your chest suffocating you. Sweet sweet irony. Being killed by your right arm (right hand would sound better, but a hand is pretty light).

You try to throw your arm off you and once in a while it lands smack! on your nose, causing the involuntary watering of your eyes. Stop for a second. Regain composure. And then you aim to hurl the arm off your face. You succeed! Boo-yah! Except the momentum of the arm flying away, often carries your body off the bed and onto the floor, with a dull thwap!-sort of slapping sound. How appropriate. You just got bitch-slapped by your own stupidity. Well done! That shit is funny as hell in retrospect.

Why is any of this relevant? Because it bloody damn near happened to me again last night. Previous occasions have seen me get a black eye from falling on my alarm clock or the edge of a bedside table. This time though, my consciousness was slowly taking over and I stopped myself on the very edge of the bed. A semi-Matrix semi-Mission Impossible scene was what I had going on there. Go me!

But seriously, numb arms scare me. It’s all fun and games until you sever or damage a nerve or something. And this happens to me almost on a daily basis. Shudder.

S(qu)iddy, s(qu)iddy, s(qu)iddy

I’ve been reporting for over a year and a half now and in that time, I’ve been to a fair few press conferences. Some of them begin on time, the press notes are precise and have all the info and the people addressing them are willing to answer all questions unflinchingly. Unless there’s some product or service to promote, these are usually very rare. Then there are those press conferencesthat start late, because after declaring a start time of 3 pm, the person holding the conference, doesn’t see fit to turn up before 3.40 pm. Said person goes on to evade questions and then promptly declares the conference over at 4 pm.

(I know who I’m talking about, some of you know who I’m talking about. There really is no need to try and be smart and mention the person or go, “He he yeah, I know. So true” in the comments section. If on the other hand, you don’t know who I’m on about and haven’t had the fortune of crossing paths with him, consider him to be merely a hypothetical example. Thanks)

Similarly, people have different motivating factors to go to press conferences. For a bunch of people, it’s the chance to get a story and get questions answered with minimal fuss that does it. For others, it’s a chance to network. For some, it’s a chance for some good ol’ fashioned free food and for another group, it’s a surrogate social life. And for one particular set of chumps, well, I frankly haven’t a clue as to why they go to press conferences at all.

I’m sure you, gentle readers, have watched a rap or hip hop video before. And you must have noticed that behind the rapper is a group of around a dozen bizarrely-dressed (fluorescent suits with matching hats, shades and walking sticks, for instance) half-wits who basically sway with the music. Every now and then, one of them will yell, “Hail Yeah” in a deep as the sea, gravelly-ass voice. That’s only once in a while. For the rest of the time, they’re just standing around taking up space on the stage.

It is exactly like that at politically-oriented press conferences. There are tons of examples, but I’ll only cite two. After the results of the 2009 General Elections were declared, the leaders of the Congress came and sat along a dais to meet the press and share their joy. However, what the group of around 35 (no lie) behind them was doing, I’ll never know. Standing around. Looking into different cameras. Nodding. That’s it. Not even a courtesy “Hail Yeah!” to get the crowd going. Nothing.

Just yesterday, a major union dispute was sorted and as such, the leader of the union saw fit to barge into a room where the media had been assembled to watch the premiere of a new “save water” ad. So, Mr Union Leader walks in to speak to the press accompanied by a glut of clowns, who push their way through an already packed room and just stand at the back doing... well, doing nothing. Just standing. And taking up breathing air and space in that little room that was being fought for by mediapersons gathered there.

And just as with these hip hop or rap shows, nobody there makes any sense. What “Maananiya this” and “Saheb that” have to do with the most obscure things on the planet I will never know. The person may just as well be reciting the lyrics to Snow’s Informer or be yelling “Is... New... York up in the house?” for all I know. My point is that the similarities are numerous and profound. Go see for yourself.

That being said, in case, you felt I was exonerating the role of, or saying “aww poor thing” to mediapersons a paragraph ago, you are mistaken. Mediapersons are usually the biggest clowns in the whole circus. Just like a rap show again, where the crowd is generally, the biggest set of fools. Who’d pay good money to see that nonsense, I ask you? (I kid... I kid... Oi crowds are far stupider) Long story short, despite the delay yesterday, caused by Mr Union, most mediapersons didn’t think it prudent to get on with the whole scheduled conference. Instead, they kept interrupting every two seconds, with that whole my question or query or demand for language of communication is more important.

I kid you not, there was a point where all I could hear was the fishmarket sounds of “Hindi, hindi, hindi” by certain sections that wanted the medium of communication to be Hindi. “Marathi, Marathi, Marathi” by those who wanted it in... obviously... Marathi. And finally, “Siddy, siddy, siddy” by those who couldn’t care less about the language and just wanted to watch the “siddy” that contained the ad. Computer fucking up and not being able to play the actual “siddy” was another fun little delay.

P.S - I must’ve been quite irritated by that whole set of events yesterday, which doesn’t usually happen to me. Not with press conferences anyway. Last night, I dreamt I was a Sentinel (a squiddy, if you will) — an autonomous sentient being on a search humans and destroy humans mission. I usually have fun dreams.

What happened to the likely lads?

This one’s a little technical, I must warn you in advance.
This is an issue that’s been sitting latently in the back of my head for a while now. I never realised it had taken a comfortable seat in that last row in my head, until last night when I was watching some cricket show on TV called err… I can’t remember but it showcased old matches interspersed with historians and former players waxing eloquent about some particularly profound moments in the match.

Fairly pedestrian stuff, if I’m to be absolutely honest. Hearing some old bat (no pun intended and none needed) warbling on about how 1996 was a defining year for Indo-Pak cricket (when India was in no way even connected to the match) is not my idea of analysis. And neither is a former cricketer whose one claim to fame is as old as time itself, telling me exactly what I just saw. No kidding. He described the ball bowled and the stroke played. “And it went all the way to the boundary!” That’s great, halfwit… But so what?

The match on show last night was a 1996 Wills World Cup - Group B match between New Zealand and Pakistan. The refreshing lack of reverse pulls, power plays, free hits, “Dilscoops” or whatever the fuck they’re called and reams of advertising running across the screen, gladdened my heart. Also, the game seemed to be played at a less frantic pace, but seemed to be just as intense. As Denzel once said, “The shit’s chess… It ain’t checkers”, cricket is best played as a slow-burning mind game. This new brand of “boom boom” cricket just turns this delightful sport from chess to checkers.

Sure, the game back then had its own problems, with dodgy rain laws, no mechanism as such to replace spoiled white balls and… well, I can’t think of any more. That’s probably why the televised game had me captivated far more back in 1996 than it does today. Nevertheless, we’re not going to discuss which era of cricket was better or whether Twenty20 is the death of real cricket. Instead, we’re going to look at a character that for some reason or the other, has been sidelined from world cricket and for which, the sport is poorer.

We’re talking bowling here. And you have your express pace bowlers, you’ve got your fast medium or medium fast guys, who can once in a while get the ball right up your nose. Then you’ve got the medium pacers, who can’t really be called “fast” at all, but the wicketkeeper still shows them a bit of respect by standing back. Leggies, offies, Chinamen, left arm orthodox etc. etc. make up the spinners.

I was watching Pakistani Salim Malik and Kiwis Gavin Larsen, Roger Twose and Chris Harris display their skills with the ball, when it suddenly hit me. What the hell has happened to the slow medium, dibbly-dobbly (as some commentator used to call them) liquorice allsorts bowlers? Apart from the four I mentioned already, there was Ajay Jadeja for India, Arjuna Ranutanga for Sri Lanka, Akram Khan from Bangladesh and a ton more that aren’t really coming to me right now. These guys could be gamebreakers on their day.
You would think that a bowler capable of using the shine of the ball to extract lateral movement in the air, who can use the seam and bowl with the guile and flight of a spinner would be a lethal commodity in world cricket. You would think that a bowler like this would be a real force in the death overs. You would think that someone who could bowl like that could really make use of flatter tracks where pace, bounce and spin aren’t on your side… only your brains are.

You would think so. I would think so. Sadly, the people running the game these days don’t think so. This Twenty20 mentality actually makes people shake in their little boots when they imagine playing such a bowler in their team, worried that he could be smashed all over the park because he isn’t quick and he doesn’t spin the ball much. What’s wrong with plain simple smarts? Don’t those count for something?

What Messers Harris and Larsen had by the bucketload was smarts. They knew they weren’t quick or particularly big spinners of the ball, but that’s where subtle variations of the same ball earned them scalps. Today it’s hard to imagine anyone other than a frontline quick or frontline spinner bowling the final over of a match, whether to contain the opposition or dismiss them. Back in the early 90s, a couple of matches were won for India by a similar dibbly dobbly bowler who took the ball from his captain and bowled the final over. (NOTE: There will be claims that he is a leg-break bowler and not technically a slow medium bowler, but in 1993, Sachin was a slow medium who could bowl balls that spun square)

In today’s batsman-friendly setup, where bowlers are largely accepted as being mere props, fast bowlers get their pace used against them and spinners who lack pace see mishits go for six. In this system, could you imagine a short stout(ish) slow medium bowler bowling the final over of a game to protect something like 3 runs? ‘Fraid not! Throw it to Sreesanth instead. Oh crap! Four off the first ball. Well played, lads.

It is my honest belief that the re-emergence of the dibbly dobbly bowler will bring bowlers back in a huge way into a game that is slowly turning so batsman-centric, that you may as well set up a bowling machine and play 11 batsmen on your team. That’s it. I’m done. Toldja it was a little technical. Nooch!

Snippety-snip snap shenanigoats

I was never particularly in love with a festival to the extent that I’d wait impatiently for it to arrive. As far back as I can remember, it’s always been the festivity in the air that appealed to me. And by festivity, I don’t mean long poojas and prayers, fireworks, coloured powder, eggs, halls decked with boughs of holly... Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la and so on and so forth. Festivity to me is the unpredictable mood in the air around those times of the year. You never can say for certain what someone’s going to say or do next.

Sometimes you get doses of great unpredictability like a different city’s bureau of your publication sending you pages early in the night. Sometimes it’s shady unpredictability with a friend pissing all over your collective plans because of a family function he/she simply must attend. So yeah... that’s why I like festivity.

In the festive mood that I presently find myself, I decided to walk on down to the ol’ barber and get a haircut for the whole “ushering in the New Year” thing. It’s times like these that I really hate Hollywood for selling me a false dream. I’m talking about the films Barbershop and Barbershop 2, where said barbershops are bursting with conversation, people cracking jokes and odd characters throwing down some heavy socio-political discourse. The barbershop I frequent, which for some reason is called Air-Cool, is nothing like that.

In fact, Air-Cool is so damn cool that some geezer has immortalised it with this black and white photograph I found online. Upon looking closely at it, I found that the man posing at the front is the same idiot who cut my sideburns too damn short this morning.

As I’m getting weary of repeatedly pointing out, I’ve just gone and digressed again. Now this is one of those places where piped instrumental versions of old Hindi music plays over the chorus of clicking scissors, the hum of electric clippers and of course, the swishing sound of the sweeper clearing away freshly cut hair from the barbershop floor. Peaceful and calm is great, but where’s the conversation?

Faced with that predicament, you sometimes try and engage a barber in a conversation, but the high-levels of stress that emanate from him, with each word you say seemingly adding a wrinkle on his forehead, the desire to talk disappears pretty damn quick. Sometimes the barber is too lazy to respond in any more than monosyllables. So whatcha gonna do? You sit and look around at the people, see if they’re having more fun than you.

Some people make faces as they’re being shaved, others have their faces buried in magazines and a third group just glare at you for looking at them. Fortunately, as I was waiting for my turn in the chair, I got a fair bit of entertainment as well as an important lesson in human psychology and I do believe I’ve come up with some sort of theory that would be admissable in scientific journals.

I’ve seen toddlers get haircuts before. I’ve never before seen two toddlers getting haircuts in the same barbershop at the same time. So naturally, curiosity got the better of me and after sharing a sympathetic half-smile with a seriously harrowed-looking dad, the show began. Toddler A was with his dad (the harrowed guy) and Toddler B was with his mom and dad. Toddler A was first off the mark and unlike any wee ‘un I’ve ever seen, this guy was wide-eyed and wore a wider grin and followed the electrical clippers as they buzzed around his head. I think it’s safe to say he was loving it.

Meanwhile, mom and dad put Toddler B into the chair after a lot of coercion, including a promise to show him crows after the haircut. Seeing the barber wield some long scissors, mom asks him to swap the scissors for electric clippers. While in the red corner, ol’ Toddler A is gurgling to himself and the harrowed dad suddenly seems at peace.

Just then, the peace and quiet is interrupted by a piercing little scream, followed by the loud bawling of Toddler B. He’s not liking it. Not liking it one bit. Thrashing his neck from side to side to avoid the buzzing machine. His little hands clench into tiny baby potato-size fists, while his toes curl up with irritation. Toddler A’s peaceful reverie smashed, he turns to see what all the commotion is about. This is the crucial moment.

He sees Toddler B crying his little lungs out and looks down, Toddler A that is, looks down at his hands and sees little wisps of hair. Hair that’s just been cut from his head. His eyebrows very slowly turn from a flat line like a calm sea to a growing wave and finally a raging tsunami. Running concurrently to all this, his lip starts to quiver and KABOOM!! The weepy bomb explodes. Now, we have crying and screaming and weeping in stereo surround sound.

By then of course, it was time for me to be seated and Toddler A was done with his haircut and Toddler B’s parents had given up. But one thing really stuck out for me. Go back to that crucial moment I spoke about. Toddler A was perfectly happy and then when he saw Toddler B crying, he suddenly started crying. My theory is that it is at this age where the concept of peer pressure or the herd mentality (I’m not sure which) is built into the human system.

Maybe if babies were isolated from one another, they could grow to be individual ladies and gents with their own sets of views, not just some noise about bitches and Nike shoes. You know? Think of the potential for advancement in all of life’s fields. More focussed human beings. Like androids. Or cyborgs.

Then again, maybe Toddler A just got scared.

“What have you achieved?”

Long long ago in a city of steel far far away...
A smokey student hostel room
A tiny television set with a PS2 plugged in
Four pairs of eyes glued to the screen
A burly and hairy beast of a man crushes the PS2 controller’s keys to within an inch of their lives
A relatively smaller and yet almost as hirsute man with a taste for things profane nimbly taps the keys of his battered old PS2 controller.

Enough mood... Now on with the story. The beast man known henceforth as GC and the littler man called AMSTM were playing Pro-Evolution Soccer and were in the middle of a hotly contested match — That being said, most PES matches played in said room were fairly hotly contested anyway. This time though, it was personal... If memory serves, it was the 82nd minute and AMSTM pulled off a screamer of a goal, much to GC’s bitter disappointment.

GC’s anguish was compounded moments later, when one of the carefully crafted onscreen sprites scored another goal, doubling AMSTM’s lead. Being a sporting loser isn’t one of GC’s more well known qualities and so he stood up, like a gorilla in battle (making itself large) and bellowed at AMSTM, “WHAT HAVE YOU ACHIEVED?”

Silence....

I’ve been thinking of that line since the time I woke up this morning. Not for the same reasons as above obviously. For what it’s worth, I recall AMSTM being stunned witless by that outburst and the rest of the room cracking up with laughter. But anyway, back to the point... As we roll into December, the last month of this , the double-O decade, I found me asking that question of myself. “What have you achieved?”.

For sure, it’s been a tumultous and exciting decade, which saw me do a ton of foolish, fun and worthwhile things (sometimes all at once), it saw me meet a wide array of people; from the weird to the downright bizarre (you know who you are). I read a number of good books, saw some brilliant films, heard some awesome music — saw every single live music show I’ve ever been to, in this decade.

There’ve also been disappointments, failures, times that I’ve let myself, my family and my friends down, times I’ve been despondent, times when I felt tomorrow would suck even more. But none of this really amounts to having achieved anything. Educational qualifications happen. I don’t consider them achievements. News stories too, happen. They’re hardly achievements.

So what have I achieved? That being asked, what the hell have you achieved lately?

The Art of Un-fucking a Situation...

... and sometimes just watching a sufficiently fucked scene crumble
(That’s part of the title too, but too long to fit, you see, so I had to bring it down here)

Anyway, I don’t have a lot of time to luxuriate on each word and sentence and roll it around in the batter of excessive prepositions and punctuation marks before throwing it down here, so I’ll cut right to brass tacks. People around me don’t think I’m a very good listener. Perhaps not, but the reasoning is what I find peculiar.

It’s the theory that when they tell me about a problem or come to me with one, I’m reluctant to just listen to it and make the right noises (the hmmms, ohhhs and awwws expected, presumably) and would rather take the time to think up a solution — maybe not a very good one, but a solution nonetheless. Trying to un-fuck the situation. That doesn’t always go down well but such is life.

Problem-solving and of course cancelling out the fornication that a situation has undergone are two things that one deals with regularly in most walks of life. As I only know about how these two things are done in my walk of life, that’s gonna be my point of reference from here on end. I’ve seen people around me who are very very good at problem-solving in my workplace. Whether it’s the problem of a lack of stories, a rapidly-evolving event that’s hard to keep tabs on or the problem of there being work to do, but preferring to be a lazy bastard and dawdle or stand around chit-chatting (so as to do the minimum work possible), I’ve seen some brilliantly fucked situations being un-fucked.

So much so, that I consider it an art to un-fuck a situation. It takes an artist to take a potentially bad scene and paint it in different colours and end up brightening up the whole scene.

Then again, at times, it’s worth watching the spectacle of chaos and enjoying the sight of everything falling apart. Just as it happened last night and a new Chief Minister was picked for the state around a whole half hour after the last page of the newspaper was ready to go to the printers. Changing one of the main stories on page 1 brought to us the realisation that it completely contradicted a story we had on page 2 and at that time, nothing could be done to change it.

So whatcha gonna do?
a) cry about it?
b) yell at everyone about it, but in effect do nothing?
c) call up 9,412 people in the span of 13 minutes and get a new story?
d) kick back and watch it crumble?

(Answers on a postcard or in the comments section)
(I love these abrupt endings)

Whether tis nobler in the mind...

To be mainstream or alternative, is what you should have been pondering. For you see, Hamlet, my good fellow, you messed up and messed up big time. The question of being or not being is trivial. You have to be. Without being, you may as well be dead.

And people who aren’t, are almost guaranteed of being forgotten as soon as they are off the page and out of the mind. The page, in this case, is not necessarily an actual page — of the paper or virtual variety. It could be in a relationship, for all you know. You may be forgotten without a second though by someone you considered a friend, if you choose not to be (by be, I’m not sure exactly what I mean, but vaguely, being something... something memorable).

Being forgotten is one of the worst things around; far worse than being written off, I’d go as far as to say. To write someone off is to claim that what they can offer is not worthwhile, but to forget, is almost to make it seem like it never was.

In the true tradition of The View, I digress.

Returning to my point, To be mainstream or to be alternative? That is the question. For something as vast as this, let’s narrow it down and keep it simple so the most of me and the least of you understands. Let’s look at the blogosphere. I concede I’m a fairly unremarkable blogger. The sight of someone saying, “Yes, that’s what I was thinking” when they read the contents of a post I’ve blasted up on this here site, comes as a happy surprise to me and makes me smile. But for the majority of the time, my blog slips under the radar. Fair enough, it is not your usual pack of rants... ermmm... most of the time.

And I can assure you that you are some of the minutely few people who take the time to read it. Even fewer of you take the time to pick my rants to the roots of their origin (not saying I’m dying to be interpreted or anything). This is not a blog that racks up 40 plus hits a day.

What perturbs me most is that the fact that it isn’t racking up those kinda hits after being around since 2007... doesn’t seem to bother me all that much. A lack of killer instinct? A false pretext of being the alternative to the mainstream? I’m not sure. I do know that I struggle to write for an audience. My boss knows this. But surely, a few more hits wouldn’t kill. Throw in some Bollywood, some “how fucked up the world is” or alternatively, a dash of “how pretty my morning is and everything around me too”. That’ll get more hits,... (maybe).

But where would that leave me? Would I feel any happier? You can bet your entire life savings — for most of the readers who come to this here blog, that isn’t a whole lot, so let’s change that. You can rob seven banks and beat up an old woman on the way and bet your entire bounty that I would not feel an iota of a difference. Why?

Why? Because The View lets me pepper you, the readers with this kind of a pointless and meandering tirade, with zero accountability for me to bear. Ultimately, the reading of this stuff is your burden to bear. And I wouldn’t cha-...

(You see? I don’t even have to complete my blog. Being in the alternative bracket of genre-allocation kicks ass!)

A Nation Built on Sweat...

A Nation built on Blood
A Nation built on Dreams
A Nation - A Nation!
A Struggle - A Struggle!
A Weapon - A Weapon!

— Sepultura - Sepulnation

I’m feeling patriotic today... I don’t quite know why... It’s not that jingoistic, chest-beating and making an anus of myself kind of patriotism. I didn’t just finish watching Lagaan.It’s not Independence Day or Republic Day... Hell, it’s not even a dry day. Well, now that I know what it ain’t, let’s look at the amalgamation of what it is...

As with most things I blather on about, the reasoning is manifold. Part of it is the fact that I’m just happy, in general. Another contributing factor is that I recently read the rant of an ungrateful sod (I refuse to name you. I have dignity), selling out his country, in a bid to earn sympathy and dare I say it, friends (?) to a bunch of strangers — who are probably going to think, “Oh no, what a hell-hole India must be... poor guy”. How much or how little sympathy he got is none of my concern, but that letter did make me look around and appreciate my country for what it is.

Another potential contributing factor could be the fact that the elections are just around the corner... and watching people whip themselves into a frenzy with campaigning, bringing down their opponents or trying to win the faith of citizens is just... well, it’s a trip. Then of course there’s the feeling of dazed exhaustion at the end of a hard day’s work (No, I’m not claiming I’ve paid my “dues” or any such shit) in your own homeland, where people treat you (unless you’re a film actor, cricketer or dynastic politician) like you deserve to on the basis of what you’ve done. Actually done. Not who you are or who your daddy is.

Then of course, there’s the buzz I still have from last night. There’s a Guns ‘n’ Roses video I remember watching where Slash busts out a solo of The Godfather Theme and everyone in the audience is spellbound. I recall getting a similar vibe through the way popular culture defines Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock ’69. That’s kinda what it was like watching Motherjane’s Baiju belt out a Carnatic Music-infused version of Vande Mataram — India’s National Song, for the uninitiated. And for the even less initiated, it’s not to be confused with the National Anthem. Ever.

Yes, I’m aware that I don’t need to hear National pieces of music for my love for my country to be realised. And yet, I sat there last night with my heart thumping like a bass drum as I heard every strain and note of that song resonate inside me. We’re by no means, a perfect Nation. Far from it. I dislike most of my fellow Indians

whom I meet on a daily basis — that’s never a good thing. But every country has its problems. The bureaucracy and corruption are two of the major problems we have, but we’ll find ways around it... We have no other choice. We’ve got major problems to resolve. And we’ll do it. We don’t need the Commonwealth Games, a Cricket World Cup or an Obama approval to prove we’re a serious country.

But, I digress as always.

Sigh, what a rendition of Vande Mataram that was..
What a performance...
What a band...
Sigh.

As for the aforementioned, ungrateful sod, I doubt I’ll be hearing from him any time soon. I’m an Indian after all. With the things he’s said, he’d either have to be really shameless or really stupid to talk to this Indian again... Hmmm.. Now that I think about it—...

Jai Hind

Inhale... Exhale... Inhale...

I believe I can see the future
Cause I repeat the same routine
I think I used to have a purpose
But then again
That might have been a dream
I think I used to have a voice
Now I never make a sound
I just do what I've been told
I really don't want them to come around

— Every Day is exactly the Same (Nine Inch Nails)

I think it was a couple of days ago when I was typing in the dateline for a news report I was filing when typing “September” (actually it was just “Sept.”) caught me off guard and made me look at it again because it seemed so wrong. September? It cannot bloody be September already, I said to myself. Wasn’t so much that I had big plans for September, but really, September? I remember like it was just yesterday that I was adjusting to writing “2009” at the end of the date.

Where the hell did the year go?

And since I’m asking, why does most of it seem like a blur? And I answer, I think living on a day-to-day basis tends to do that. As Vinnie D said in the first Fast and the Furious, “I live my life a quarter-mile at a time”. Wake up. Do the bathroom thing. Eat. Walk around trying to find other people’s agony and ecstacy that can turn into words that will take up space. Actually sit down and turn life into statistics and words. Go home. Sleep. No wonder everyday seems like it was the one that came before it and the one that will follow.

Everyday, it’s drilled into my head that yesterday’s laurels are gone. Go out there and earn some more of them laurels. I suppose that’s why a daily newspaper is so much more disposable than say, a magazine. And then I think about it and I find it’s not that I dislike my job. It isn’t like I dislike the work. Dunno what it bloody is. I’ve never particularly hated or overly loved the idea of routine.

I’ve been pretty apathetic to it and accepted it as is. But I never expected myself to get so dragged into it that the only thing that changes from day-to-day and month-to-month are a few letters and numbers. Do I dislike it? Not especially... So what the hell am I ranting about? Or is this my feeble attempt at keeping you, the readers interested with some new material? Answers on a postcard or of course, you could comment here...