Planespeak

I had this strange experience while flying out to Delhi from Bangalore. I got scared.
Yes, that means I was scared the plane would crash before I could do all those
seriously cool things in life. Here's what I did prior to taking the flight. Maybe it
will give a clue -

1. Read copiously about actress Soundarya's death by air crash.
2. Read the Prelude to Clive Cussler's Dragon which talks about a bomber
crashing into the Pacific Ocean.
3. Starting reading former New York mayor Rudolf Guiliani's book on Sept 11th
in which three planes crash, as you all know.

That very same morning I tried to vote. But since my name wasn't on the
rolls there was no use trying. Just accompanied my parents, and one friend
to the booth and tried to steal a glance at an EVM.

Needless to say, a policeman stopped me before I could enter a booth without
the pass.

Road trippin'

I'm baaack. After seven grimy days of pre-election stories on the road.
My route took me from Delhi to Bangalore (by flight) and from there to Mandya,
Mysore, Mangalore, Udupi, Shimoga and back to Bangalore (all by road).

It all began when someone in office decided I should be sent to tour
Karnataka because I know the lingo. Here's some of what I did -

Mandya - unlike Bangalore which is next to it, Mandya seems like an
amorphous collection of little settlements spread across acres of heavily
irrigated farm land. Met a few farmers. Saw how a field is ploughed with a pair
of bullocks for the first time. Waded through sugarcane plantation with
mike in hand, mouthing an inane intro to my story. Dipped a finger into the river
Cauvery.

Mysore - nice hotel, nice people, nice palace. Met Kannada film superstar Ambareesh who is standing for a Lok Sabha seat in Mandya. Was surprised
to see he acts and speaks exactly in the same way as he does in reel life.
Yes, even that patented "aaaaiii, baro illi!!" to those familiar with the lingo.
Met the current Wodeyar prince who bitched about people in Delhi, the
colour bias against South Indians and of course politics.

Mangalore - saw the house where I lived for the first 6 months of my life. Went
aboard a Persian fishing boat into what I call the deep sea to see how fish are
caught.

Shimoga - cool drive from Mangalore. Saw a thousand cardboard cutouts
of former Chief Minister Bangarappa.

Tailpiece - since I was on the move, I subsisted on fresh, sweet bakery bread. Mysore's is the best.

And yes, the BJP is going to win.

"Better to burn out...

...than to fade away." About 10 years back, when I was a bumbling teenageer
I discoverd Nirvana. I didn't know it then, but I started listening to the riffy, catchy
strains of Nevermind - their multi platinum album around the same time Kurt Cobain
took a shotgun to his head. And a few weeks later I even remember choking over his suicide
note, published in the Rock Street Journal.

Dead or not, Cobain was to be a major influence, along with bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains
and Stone Temple Pilots. We even had a band, called Moksha for a short time influenced by
the grunge scene. Anyway, the point of all this is that today is the 10th death anniversary of Kurt. And this my own
quixotic tribute to one of the few men who re-invented rock in the nineties.
More about him in here

Epiphany

I still can't become a professional blurb writer...

Damn.

Autistic differences

Christopher sees the world through literal eyes. Metaphor holds no meaning for him,
though similes come to him more easily. He understands logic and is very, very
good at maths. He is not capable of feeling, and even he is hurt
he cannot demonstrate it any socially acceptable manner.
Yet, are our worn coping skills, any better than his? (As one reviewer put it)

I'm talking about this book I recently read "The curious incident of the dog in the
night-time" by Mark Haddon. Yes, if you'd thought about it and made the connection,
the central character is Christopher. He is an autistic 15 year old, who embarks on a mission:
to solve the murder of a neighbourhood dog Wellingdon.
The writing is effective (deeply empathetic, funny, sad and crystal clear) and the story
also incorporates maps, diagrams, quadratic equations and some puzzles.

An unlikely story, but one that will keep you thinking for a long time.
Wanna know more? Here's the link

Piling it on

When team India beats Pakistan, and it's a historic test win, we go
beserk. (No I'm not talking about the fireworks which were very much
conspicious by their ABSENCE. Because it was a test match, not an
ODI encounter.)

I'm talking about what poor sports tv producers have to do to please
the news hungry public and the leech-like bosses. It's sordid.
It's obscene and it's profane.
We did 16 stories. Sixteeeeeen stories. Imagine! All in one shift.
And they call tv journalists self-indulgent*.


* heh, heh, heh (evil grin spreads slowly across the face).

Backward glance

I feel I must talk about the last piece of fiction I truly enjoyed. This was about 3 months back, before
I decided to jettison all 'stories' in favour of biographies. This was my reaction to it:

In a I-don't-know-what-else-to-do trip to the British Council Library (a regular feature of my life in Delhi)
I came away with "Espedair Street" by Iain Banks and two other books. Just last night I finished reading
"Espedair Street" - and felt insanely happy. Read on and I'll try and explain why.

"Two days ago I decided to kill myself...
Last night I changed my mind and decided to stay alive.
Everything that follows is...just to try and explain"

For starters, this blurb on the back of the book hooked me. Because I'm a sucker for inspiration.
(Maybe that's why I read so many biographies) But we're meandering, let's get back.
Espedair Street is about Daniel Weir, an ex-rockstar in a late-seventies behemothic rock band.
Now he's 31 years old - 6 years after Frozen Gold (the band) reached dizzy fame doing the sex,
drugs & rock n roll routine.

It is a journey of self-discovery (ha! which book isn't these days) but where Espedair
Street differs is its written by a master. Iain Banks manages to get into the skin of Wier
and about half-way through you begin to feel what Wier feels and heck, you can almost
predict what he will do next. Its sad without being depressing, sentimental without
being maudlin, and rip-roariously funny. And, it has a nice ending.

Not like some of those books which are so depressing that you're trying hard to see what was the frickin
point in the first place. Sometimes you need to be stoned to understand these Brit writers.
(Nothing against the Brits at all - they are after all the best writers you get these days).
The Americans are incomprehensible, and we are trying hard to write the next Great Big Indian novel.

Now lets see what the other two books bring. I have a good feeling.

Postscript: I only read one of the remaining two - Twelve Bar Blues. Another nice book.
I'm dying to read fiction again.

The old cliche?

India and Pakistan. These three words are enough to make me want to skip the article,
change channels or just switch off completely.

Pity really, because the cricket series so far has gone beyond any stereotype. And I'm not just talking
about the matches. It's the little things you don't see on tv or even in the newspapers.
I can't really appreciate the whole thing as much as the lucky few who're covering the series in
Pakistan. But this much I know - that India and Pakistan cricket have been more about
emotional cricket than we can even imagine. And in a good way, that too.

There are a few articles on the net which tell it like it is. One link to many such reads is here

Disorder.

Didn't I mention something about reading only autobiographies and bios this year?
Well, it's not going too well. No, not because fiction has led me astray, but rather...
i'm not able to finish what I've started.
Here's what I've read since December -
Rahul Dravid - by Vedam Jaishankar (informative but otherwise nothing more to it)
Lee Iacocca - by Lee Iacocca (cool even if a bit outdated)
And Why Not? - by Barry Norman (a good read)
The story of My Experiments with Truth - by M K Gandhi (more on this in future posts)

Now here's a list of false starts -
Living to tell the tale - by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (deferred until I can appreciate the prose)
Straight from the gut - by Jack Welch (finished one chapter, then friend took it back)
Dalai Lama - by Dalai Lama (finished two chapters, left it with my dad in B'lore)
Man's search for meaning - by Dr Viktor Frankl (finished half the book, left it with friend in Bombay)
Krishna - author forgotten (my current read)
From Bengalooru to Bangalore - author forgotten (planning to tackle it after Krishna)

By the way, am back in Delhi.

>>>ff>>>

Okay, I'm back from Dharamshala, but in the meanwhile, I've had to
go down to hometown Bangalore. Laats of happenings. Full fast forward.

Shall update in a couple of days.