Paheli, etc

The conversation began in German and I then switched to English. He was a young German, perhaps in his late twenties, and was seated next to me. He was alone, and although there were many other Germans in the cinema hall, I was filled with curiosity to learn more about his interest in Hindi movies.

I started by asking him if he understood Hindi (to which replied that he managed with sub-titles) and then went on to ask if he liked Shah Rukh Khan (he liked the women, actually) and what movies he had watched recently (Veer-Zaara, Parineeta, Bunty aur Babli!). He thought of Bollywood movies as musicals, although on occasion they suddenly switched – without good reason – to an exotic locale for a few dance steps; he liked Parineeta a lot, and would be watching it again at the Stuttgart film festival this month; he often travelled to London where he got to watch many Hindi movies; he found it natural that many Hindi movies were now being dubbed into German, but thought the German translations inappropriate in places and preferred sub-titles.

Paheli was spellbinding. Although the scenes leading to the climax lacked the slow-paced flow one finds throughout the movie, it was probably the finest Hindi movie I’ve watched in a long time.

My neighbour, though, found Paheli too slow moving. He’d seen better ones, he said. We bid each other goodbye, and hoped that we would get to meet in Stuttgart. If he turns up for Parineeta, it is quite likely that we will.

* * *

Rash’s post about going to KV has brought back fond memories of KV days. The five years at KV Picket form an unforgettable part of school-day memories.

I sometimes think of how life would be if I were a teacher at KV. I would cycle to school each morning and reach in time for the 9 am assembly. Then there would be classes during the day, where I would watch – and perhaps influence – nascent minds of the next generation. In between classes I would sit in the staff room correcting answers from the test I recently conducted, hovering a little longer over some answers than others, thinking of the mind that wrote those sentences and wondering what such a mind would grow up into. When these are finished I would listen to my colleagues gossiping about happenings in their classes, and get to hear the same rants on how children these days are so different from those of the previous generation, and how things are getting worse each year. On my way to the next class, while crossing students in the corridor I would sometimes wonder if the students have a nickname for me, just has we had one for almost every other teacher. At 3:15 pm, after the school bell rang, I would pick up my textbooks and leave for home. I would then have a long evening ahead, to be spent reading, writing, taking long walks, meeting friends…

A blog and an anthology

I spent the afternoon catching up with one month of blog entries I’d missed reading. Vivaldi was playing in the background, and after a while all I could feel was music flowing in through all my senses. I was reading Abdul-Walid.

His writing reminded me of my English course in my second year at NCJ, where “Things fall apart” was one of our texts. Our English teacher – I miss his name now – was in love with the book, and I cannot forget the manner in which he swooned over each African proverb he came across in the text while reading it to the class. Like a fan intoxicated by the poetry in the air at a kavi-sammelan, he would go “wah-wah” each time, leaving us in no doubt – whether we understood it or not – that we were in the presence of genius. It was only much later – long after the exams were gone and I no longer had to think of conjuring up half a page of text explaining the relevance of the novel’s title – that I really enjoyed the book. And somehow, I now tend to associate Abdul-Walid with the essence of African wisdom I carried out of that book.

He writes:

“The hippopotamus does not attempt to school the crocodile in the art of swimming.”

” There’s a debt to pleasure. At times, the payment plan is tolerable. “

The recent edition of The New Yorker featured three “debut-fiction” writers, one of them an Afro-American of Nigerian origin. When I first saw the photograph of the three authors, I instantly turned to the contributors page to learn more about the young black male in that photo. Could that be Abdul-Walid? I wondered. The first sentence was about his origin (Abdul-Walid is also from Nigeria!) but the next one dashed my hopes: this man was a Jesuit priest, and I cannot imagine Abdul-Walid leaning towards any institution, leave alone an orthodox church.

But I should have looked at the story first – the prose offered clues that could not be mistaken. It lacked the sharpness (acerbity?) and melody of an Abdul-Walid sentence; I also could not find much poetry in that prose.

* * * * *

The Harper’s collection of articles I picked up last month from the library is turning out to be a collector’s item. Spanning 150 years of the magazine, this eclectic collection contains host of well-known American authors. There’s a letter from E.B.White to Henry David Thoreau, two diary entries (one from Adam, one from Eve) by Mark Twain, a justification for having dropped the Atom bomb, an argument in favour of art for art’s sake by E.M.Forster and many others I haven’t yet read.

The chronological order gives the reader an idea of the major themes or ideas passing through each decade: for instance, the 1940’s section has many war related entries.

It’s going to keep me busy for months, which means I’ll have to purchase a copy.

Barber

Had been to the barber today. The good old chef was
in a talkative mood. “Would you like an Indian summer cut this time?” he asked.
“Quite a few Indians are asking for it this summer.” When I declined, he came out with his usual question: “It’s been approximately six weeks since you were here last, isn’t it?”

There was a new girl working there, and he was up to his
usual antics, flattering her with compliments (“How clean the floor looks
now!”) and getting her to blush. It is a recurring pattern. When a girl is new he is at his flirtatious best and gets quite a warm response, but six weeks later I see the same girl ignoring him altogether. It doesn’t seem to discourage him, though. Today he sprayed some water on the plump Turkish lady, who calmly wiped her hand with a towel and
continued talking.

The place was full of old ladies, as usual. I’ve gotten used to them now, but in the beginning I was amazed at the pains these octogenarians went through to decorate the few dozen strands of hair that remained. I tried imagining my eighty-year-old grandma sitting there, with curlers sticking out of her head. Almost made me choke. (Later, I was reminded of Baby Kocchamma whom Rahel found “living her life in reverse”).

* * *

Watched “Seven years in Tibet” in the afternoon. The rugged Tibetan landscape takes your breath away. An encounter between East and West, such as one shown in the movie
(where Brad Pitt’s pride brushes against Buddhist humility and compassion), always has the potential of interesting outcomes. Although at a point one feels that Brad Pitt will be the one who would take home a part of the East with him, it turns out that the Dalai Lama has a lot to learn about the West too, from Brad Pitt. The parts depicting Tibet’s troubled relationship with China, and the eventual Chinese occupation leave you disturbed and feeling sorry for this peace-loving nation. In one scene the Dalai Lama, watching scenes of a revolution being projected on a screen, asks Brad Pitt: “Will people watch Tibet too on the screen someday, and wonder what happened to it?”

Entering diary mode

A few definitions from Dictionary.com:

Diary:

A daily record, especially a personal record of events, experiences, and observations; a journal.

A book for use in keeping a personal record, as of experiences.

Memoir:

An account of the personal experiences of an author.

An autobiography. Often used in the plural.

Blog:

To author an online diary or chronology of thoughts.

An online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog,
Web log

A personal Web site that provides updated headlines and news articles of other sites that are of interest to
the user, also may include journal entries, commentaries and recommendations compiled by the user; also written web log, Weblog; also called blog.

How appropriate are these definitions, and what have I been writing here?

* * * * *

L has some interesting views on blogs. “We now have more writers than readers”, he said, during a conversation some weeks back. “And most of them do not know how to write.”

This offhand remark made me think again about the nature of blogging.

It is true that there are now many more people who jot down their thoughts, but can we classify most of what we see in blogs as “writing”? To me, most blogs seem like asynchronous conversations, where people write of things they would normally talk about at a social gathering. When you meet someone, you narrate a funny incident, discuss local or world news, show a recent photo you’ve taken, or talk about that trip you recently made – these conversations are now also taking place through blogs, with people writing about their experiences, sharing photos, linking to interesting stuff they’ve found, and so on. To say that there are now more writers than readers is like saying there are more people who speak than listen. Speaking and listening are elements so common to social interaction that few think in terms of people who “know how to speak”; similarly, it is pointless to say that most bloggers do not know how to write, because a lot of them are not “writing” in the literary sense of the word – they are merely sharing their thoughts as they would do when they converse with others. Their imperfections are more visible in this medium because the conversation is all there for you to see and dissect.

Unlike real-world conversations, the conversations over blogs are asynchronous – you post a message and only later someone comments or writes about it. This element of extended time (to write, and to respond) gives such conversations a depth that is usually lacking in real-world conversations. It slows things down and makes people think, and that is what I like about this medium.

* * * *

Conversations are fine, but I want to get into a diary writing mode.

Most blogs I’ve encountered are not diaries. Every now and then a diary-like entry turns up, but they are predominantly conversations: short articles, episodes or news items linking elsewhere.

When I think of a diarist, I think of Inkspill. I think of entries such as this, this and this.

I want to try and write more dairy-like entries. One characteristic of a diary (which differentiates it from other forms of personal accounts) is that it is written without a specific audience in mind. To retain this trait in a blog is difficult due to the constant awareness (brought about mainly by comments) of people reading what you have written. I want to try and keep away from this awareness, so I’m going to turn off comments for a while.

Although a diary is written without an audience in mind, it does not mean it should be unreadable, or be left unread. To keep a diary interesting (while sticking to its private themes) is a challenge worth taking up.

Persepolis – the graphic memoir

A few years ago we met an Iranian family in Frankfurt. My wife knew Ali through her work and had met him in San Diego; he was now on his way to Iran with wife and son. We spent a few hours together during their transit halt at Frankfurt.

Ali’s Persian looks presented an unmistakable contrast to his American accent and mannerisms; his wife and teenage son seemed to blend in better with the western surroundings. Over lunch we spoke of life in the US (good), cars in Germany (not as big as those in US), and other trivial matters. Towards the end Ali casually remarked that they would have to change into traditional clothes before their flight landed in Iran. I was surprised, and pressed for an explanation.

“Women there cannot walk freely in western clothes,” he replied, in a matter-of-fact manner. “She will have to wear a veil before she leaves the plane.” Then pointing to his son he said: “Even he cannot walk out like this, wearing shorts.”

They had left Iran for the US soon after the revolution in 1979. When the religious fundamentalists had begun to alter the culture through strict rules and restrictions, it had become difficult to continue. They now visited their homeland every few years, to meet relatives and to keep in touch with their roots. He would love to return home, but not until the fundamentalists and their ways were removed.

I was reminded of this meeting today as I read Persepolis, a childhood story of a woman who spent her early years in Iran through those years of transition. I borrowed the book from the library because it was based on comic-strips, a genre I’ve stumbled upon recently (and enjoy very much).

Telling the story of living in a repressed society through the eyes of a child gives Persepolis a force that would otherwise be difficult to convey through the graphic form. The innocence behind the perception and understanding of the revolution, the childlike fears of facing its consequences, and the helplessness of the little girl and her parents leave you feeling shattered.

This is only my second book in the graphic/comic-book form (I’ve read Joe Sacco’s Palestine), and to me it seems like a medium with immense possibilities. I’ve often wondered why I don’t see blogs that express ideas through graphics (It is hard to believe that so few bloggers can draw, and although the difficulty of scanning and uploading sketches may deter some, the serious ones should not find that an obstacle; a more likely reason is that very few artists are into blogging.) When this thought recurred after reading Persepolis, I made an attempt to draw the first image in the book (shown above). The sketch showed clearly that my talent lay elsewhere, but with some effort I believe one can “fine-tune” ones skills enough to draw something acceptable for a journal. Let me see where this takes me…

Keukenhof

We were in Holland last weekend, to see tulips before the season was over.

The Keukenhof, a large and beautifully landscaped garden filled with varieties of tulips, reminded me of the botanical garden at Ooty. The differences were obvious, the most significant one being the large number of tourists (We caught some in amusing positions, photographing flowers from every conceivable angle).

Around the garden there were tulip fields, some in full bloom and some already harvested; we rented bicycles and rode around the fields, sometimes on narrow roads that ran along a stretch of water.

The next day we spent some time at the beach, watching kids play in the sand. Children make very good subjects for photographs, and I could capture a few memorable pictures.

Those few moments during the bike ride and at the beach seemed timeless, and we wished we could stay longer. The weekend was over in no time, and we returned both happy and sad.

Another week

On Monday, when I met some students who evaluated our product, I wondered what made them stand out from the rest of the graduates in the field. And I found one answer in what they were doing at that moment: interacting with people in the industry. Industry exposure is an area Indian universities need to focus more on.

On Tuesday, a day that ended on a sad note, I learned of Leela’s sister’s unfortunate condition. Tragic and extraordinary. Tragic not just because of the sudden turn of events for the worse – how one’s life can change in so short a time! – but also because of the manner in which Preeti first contracted her illness. And extraordinary because of the strength and resolve that comes across in an account written under those circumstances. I was reminded of one of Leela’s older posts where, recounting the remarkable attitude of her friend Ro, she wrote: “People with the real problems are busy counting their blessings.” Those words were in response to someone else living through a difficult time; now Leela, passing through a very difficult phase herself, shows no trace of self-pity – instead she is counting her blessings, seeing beauty in human compassion, expressing gratitude towards all her well-wishers. Remarkable, in every way.

On Wednesday, while waiting for the dentist to come and fill the cavity she had cleaned a little while ago, I thought of how her daily work consisted of helping patients – her customers – by solving their problems. Over a career spanning a few decades, this is what a dentist does: solve problems, day-in day-out. And how different we in the software industry are, where the general tendency – among developers in product-based companies – is to create products and (preferably) leave the problem-solving part (labelled “maintenance”, as if it were inferior to “development” of new products) to someone else. Another difference: being a dentist implies independent work throughout (where growth is defined in terms of the number of customers you serve, and the depth of your expertise in your area of specialization), while working in a software company implies working in a organizational hierarchy (where growth is linked to your position in the hierarchy, so you would rather climb up the hierarchy than specialize, a tendency that results in most programmers nurturing dreams of becoming a manager). I then wondered to what extent these attributes – like “independent contributor Vs player-in-a-hierarchy”, which are closely linked to one’s personality – are considered by someone deciding on a profession. At least, I never thought of such aspects back then.

On Thursday, when I was finding it hard to concentrate in the afternoon, I was reminded again of how the language barrier can at times act as a shield. An year ago I could work undisturbed sitting in the midst of a few German colleagues arguing passionately over a technical matter: the background noise made little sense unless I concentrated, and I was shielded by my lack of understanding of the spoken language. Now-a-days, as the barrier gets smaller each passing week, I can no longer easily summon the weapon I earlier possessed: sentences spoken within earshot make sense and trigger a reaction, and it takes a effort not to listen, not to get disturbed.

On Friday, while watching Swades again on DVD, I was struck by the distinctive character portraits, a feature it shared with Lagaan. And to me, at that moment, those portraits seemed to convey that there is always a place for everyone, true to one’s nature, and how important the place is depends on which world you view the place in, on whose story you view the character in. The postmaster who wants to bring Internet to the village, the dhaba-wallah who wants to open a dhaba next to a freeway in the US, the colleague at NASA who works on a complex project involving satellites – all have their unique places within the story. Their role may be small, but that is only because the movie is Mohan’s story. Had it been the story of the postmaster, his role would have been magnified. Find your unique place, the movie seemed to tell me, and don’t lose sight of whose story you view yourself in.

Saturday diary

It was a damp, cloudy morning; traces of overnight rain were visible on the street and car windshields. The neighbourhood green had turned glossy, and all this morning freshness made it seem, for a moment, like Kerala. I picked up the newspaper from the letterbox and returned inside.

Few things can match the leisure that seeps in as you settle down on a Saturday morning with the weekend newspapers on your lap. While weekday papers are full of news that ring with a tone of immediacy, pages of the weekend edition – with essays on art, culture and society – convey a quality of slowness and relaxation, as if in writing these pieces journalists were taking a break from their regular news-articles. You would not notice the difference if you hadn’t read the weekday editions; a weekend acquires its quality of leisure from the busy week gone past.

After breakfast – toast with cheese and tomato slices, and grape juice – I drove to MacroMarkt, a nearby super-market. I had to collect a few digital photo prints ordered some weeks back, and since this was my first attempt at using this channel (of uploading photos to their website, and later collecting prints from the store), I approached an attendant. He was an old, bespectacled man with a shock of white hair, and the warmth in his “Was kann ich für sie tun?” made me forget for an instant that he probably repeated this line a few dozen times each day. I asked where I could collect my prints. He appeared surprised, and replied that photos from film-rolls were all kept “hier” – he took me to the section – but added he wasn’t sure if this was what I was looking for. I thanked him, and after a small search found my prints. When I crossed him on my way out of the section, he wanted to look at my envelope. He then read aloud the letters “Online print 10er Format” and smiled, nodding to himself, perhaps happy he had learned something new this day.

The drive to Heidelberg reminded me – yet again – of how rapidly Spring had covered all traces of Winter; it seemed difficult to believe that this green landscape was snow-white only a few weeks back. Does Spring lie hidden in the earth, waiting to burst forth? Or does Winter, tired of making nature shiver, recede on its own accord? I had written of the sudden and beautiful transformation brought about by a snowfall; this changeover into green seems equally quick, and beautiful. How dull life would be without seasons.

The sun had slowly broken through the clouds, and I found Heidelberg wearing its best outfit: streets filled with locals and tourists in summer clothes; a lightness in the air; a spring in every step; gaiety all around. The charm of this city can never wear down.

At the library I returned my books – with a fine – and borrowed a couple more. I usually spend some time reading in the library, but on this day I wanted to be outdoors (one does not get many sunny weekends here). I walked over to the edge of the Neckar, and sat on one of the benches with a nice view of the river. There were some kids playing football on the stretch of green in front. Further ahead a group of canoe enthusiasts were preparing to enter the river. A pair of geese flew across a little above water, wings skimming the surface. A couple took photographs with the river as background. Cyclists, joggers and pedestrians crossed by, sometimes leaving snippets of their conversation behind:

“…auf der anderen seite…Neckar…”

“…I almost brought the roof down….”

“…ich weis nicht warum…”

I sat there for a while, enjoying the sun’s warmth on the back of my neck, reading and looking around. It was a lovely Saturday.

Then and now

In the April edition of the National Geographic magazine, I read a story on the ‘boat graves’ of Aha, an Egyptian ruler of the 1st dynasty.

“Arranged like a fleet moored at a wharf, mud-brick graves hold 5,000-year-old planked boats – the oldest ever found. Awaiting royal command, the vessels were likely meant to transport supplies to the next world and to enable the king to tour his realm in death as he had in life.”

The article explained that these fully functional boats had been used to “travel up and down the Nile in a powerful display of wealth and military might”, and after the ruler’s death they had been brought into the desert, which made “quite a statement of royal power and prestige.”

As I read the article, I was filled with wonder thinking of the length those Egyptians went to bid farewell to their dead Kings. A few hours later I switched on the TV and saw images from the elaborate funeral of the Pope, a funeral reported as “one of the biggest in history”.

How little Man has changed in 5000 years.

Losing a fortune

My dear wife Colours said goodbye to me yesterday. Don’t get it wrong – she was only leaving for the U.S, to visit her parents for a week. And if you are wondering if this has anything to do with the change in the template of this blog, you couldn’t be closer to the truth. The blog template reflects my present state – Colourless.

Last week I cancelled my subscription to the Fortune magazine. It was a tearful experience. The online cancellation form indicated that Fortune was sad to lose a customer like me, and asked for a reason for my cancellation. The reasons listed were the usual formal ones (couldn’t they think of something like “My dog doesn’t like the taste of the magazine” ?), and unable to find one that applied to me I chose “Other” and clicked the “Submit” button. They weren’t satisfied. The next page displayed a large box with a message that repeated their sentiments on losing a customer (They really regretted anything wrong they might have done to me, the message said) and invited me to write an essay on why I wished to cancel my subscription. I wrote, briefly, that my local library had recently subscribed to the magazine (which was a lie, of course; they had been getting the magazine all along), and clicked “Submit” again. This brought me to a page with another message that described how much they regretted breaking this relationship, and how much they would miss me. If I still wished to go ahead with my cancellation, the message said, I could press “Confirm”. I thought for a while – a few weak moments – and then, summoning all my determination, I clicked “Confirm”.

I slept little that night, thinking of a Fortune employee verifying if any library in my vicinity had recently subscribed to the magazine. I expected a mail next morning that informed how pleased Fortune was to revoke my cancellation since my reason had proved false. It’s been a week since cancellation, and I have received no such mail.

The real reason for my cancellation was hidden in a stack of old magazines I spent sifting through last weekend. Among them was an old copy of The New Yorker – dated June 2001 – purchased at an airport in the U.S. As I browsed through the magazine, reading some articles and looking at the cartoons, I realised how little of good journalism had come my way of late (my failing, of course) and how satisfying a few hours with The New Yorker would be, each weekend. The decision was made in that moment: Fortune out, The New Yorker in.

That copy of The New Yorker had an amusing “antidote to ‘The Elements of Style’ “. It began: “The reader of the fifth edition of ‘The Elements of Style’ will find many of the rules changed from the previous edition. The elementary principles have been modified as a result of the recent discovery that a talent for composing complicated prose early in life can stave off the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s later in life, or, at least, make it much more difficult to detect – a fact that writers can ignore no longer.”

The article went on to list a few new principles of composition. It suggested that people should employ fancy words, should use “the fact that”, should express co-ordinate ideas in different form, and should not underwrite (“Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, fattening, and sometimes nauseating, but it is very, very good for you”). It also gave some examples; here’s one:

“The Mother Superior tried a little harder to explain to the pretty dissappointed (but not really that dissappointed) Dick that Sister Jane, perhaps for her own good, had been sent kind of far away.”

I have a copy of the fourth edition “The Elements of Style”, but this fifth edition seems to hold much promise. I wonder when they’re publishing it.