Children of the Sun God

There’s this thing about Leos and me. First, loads of them in my life. Dying days of July and the first week of August, I'm calling, writing or mailing one nearly everyday.

I'm Aquarius, and according to Goodman, this is one of those polarity things, with fascination and exasperation nicely blended. Complementarity, competition and a rare sense of kinship. True. No one can goad me to reluctant debate like a Leo. I find myself surprisingly more competitive when it comes to them. I’m also often amazed at their generosity, their vitality, and their sharp, nuanced intelligence. Their immense drive and motivation that comes almost completely from within. I love them for their warmth, and am extraordinarily flattered by their interest in me.

My sister Shweta, one of those Leos herself, gave me a sidelong look the other day: ‘You have so many Leo friends – I think you secretly like us.’ That’s no secret at all: keepers, every one of you.
Happy Birthday, y'all.

Agreement

Afterthought:
I put up these two pieces because the similarities were so clear to me. What does one do at the end of a love affair? Tending wounds apart, how does one behave at an accidental meeting? Wave, or not? Meet eyes? for how long? Go over and talk? Pretend it never happened?

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done: you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
-Michael Drayton


chalo ik baar phir se ajnabi ban jaaen ham dono
na main tumse koi ummeed rakhun dilnavaazi ki
na tum meri taraf dekho galat andaaz nazaron se
na mere dil ki dhadkan ladkhadaaye meri baaton se
na zaahir ho tumhaari kashmkash ka raaz nazaron se...
chalo ik baar phir se ajnabi ban jaaen ham dono
-Sahir Ludhianvi

Now what?

Mozilla, Mozilla, Firefox everywhere! OK, so I downloaded the damn thing. Looks just the same, appears to do the same thing IE does and loads slower on my comp. So what's the big deal?

The perfect democrat

Back. Calm deep breaths for the first time in weeks. Temporary files deleted, mind space freed up. Time enough to drop into the pensieve and come up with my next list, which is overdue.

My six best chai/coffee memories

Over second and third cups flow matters of high finance, high state, common gossip and low comedy. Coffee is a social binder, a warmer of tongues, a soberer of minds, a stimulant of wit, a foiler of sleep if you want it so. From roadside mugs to the classic demitasse, it is the perfect democrat.
~Anon.

I’m South Indian and coffee is life’s breath to me, or close. Plus the mother makes award winning coffee almost every time. So the six best aren’t necessarily about good coffee or tea, but the memories were great.


1. Lemon tea on BN’s sets
I was working on a telefilm and a historical series at the time. First, food and drink on sets are terrific – the teas and coffees keep coming, and the meals are really special. As the director’s assistants, Sharu and I were treated like royalty. Our comfort, it seemed, was top priority, particularly for the F&B unit. We got pampered silly and it was the mostest fun.
Shooting is stressful business. When you factor in double shifts, coming home at 3.00 in the morning and being up again at 7.00 am, it’s worse. And when you’re in charge of costume continuity in a historical with over a dozen important characters, and a boss who’s rather unforgiving of goof-ups, it can give you serious ulcers.
I survived thanks to those glorious lemon teas. The F&B man-in-charge experimented one day and it caught on wildly. We Three – B, Sharu and I – would get our generous portions in big glasses; a deep orange colour, warm ambrosia that you could nurse for half an hour, and have anxiety just seep away. He’d get the balance right every time – sweetness and tartness. Nice.

2. Parvati Valley, Himachal Pradesh
On a trek, this one. From Manikaran to Malana. Quite shocked at how much sharper the gradient was in the Himalayan foothills after piddly hills in the south. Not even halfway into the climb, and we were winded. A charming little tea shop with rough hewn benches. We propped against the packs and called for a cuppa. It wasn’t terrific, but how we needed it!

3. Johnson’s tea kadai, Golden Threshold
University. Rounds of ghazals, rounds of samosas, rounds of smokes. Prof CVS keeping rhythm on his match box. Circles forming, reforming. Endless days, bottomless kettles.

4. Tibetan brothers’, Kodaikanal
We went August last year, Nish, Sudha and I. Stayed in a cottage, stared at hypnotic fires for about half the time we were there. Even more memorably, the whole trip was one glutfest… I remember every meal. Nish made us her famous pancakes (famous because that’s item one of two on her ‘can cook’ list).
One drizzly afternoon, post lunch butter tea at the Tibetan brothers'. It actually works, butter in tea. Yumm.

5. Masala chai in Delhi
I’d had a terrible cough. We were at my godmother’s in Delhi. Mum was worried and Vidu had a chai ‘kashaya’ recipe, so they made it together – herbs, pepper and a dozen other spices with tea. I had it with milk and felt loved, loved, loved.

6. TOI
My two years with Hyderabad Times were almost entirely fun. We were a great team. How we bonded and how much we laughed. The coffee dispenser one floor down wasn’t imaginative but it seldom ran out. Any two of us would go down the stairs, bring back a tray full of beverages, and we’d sit on desks and talk. What a good paper it would’ve been if they’d let us have our way.

Anti climax

It is done. Marathon session is over, book has been consumed in one greedy gulp. Cannot talk about it, cannot post about it till everyone in my life has turned the last page.
Agony! I think I'll go do a little mugglenet chatting.

My little pebble-heap of troubles

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to have finished everything, to keep July 16 completely free for you know what. Instead I feel like a harassed student in my OWL year and will need a calming draught any minute.
There are a thousand things I need to do, and everyone is calling to remind me of deadlines. I still have over 100 pages to go in OotP. Shweta has annoyingly started reading it whenever I put it down and there are two bookmarks in the book. Grr. Plus have a cold and fever which makes me slower at everything and oh, chickpea is still a bad word.

Pour quoi eet ees like zat?

Isn’t it odd how the Tour de France throws all these exotic, unpronounceable names at us? The recent storming of tennis bastions by the Russians is a bit like that too, but the Tour is an onslaught… Thomas Voeckler, Dave Zabriskie, Jose Azevedo, Yaroslav Popyvych, Axel Merckx, Jens Voigt, Thor Hushovd. Gobblybumblemdleymee.

How is it cyclists can last so long? With long careers upto their mid thirties, maybe more? Why are tennis stars so young, for instance? How come they burn out relatively faster? Do upper bodies give out sooner, while legs get stronger with fitness regimes? Is it that you get better at cycling races as you get more experienced?

And then little matter of average speeds - 57 frigging kilometres an hour. How they fall, brush off and then ride over 200 km? How how? Men or what beings these be? Eet ees vairy misteerieuse, ze humaan body.

Hatnur Diary

I went yesterday to a couple of villages in Medak. Photographer Michel Maruca and I were trying to scope out a story we could work on together. Quite revealing, one way or the other.

++++

When people tell me that someone isn’t blessed with a son but has several daughters instead, my reaction is to roll my eyes and dismiss them. How archaic and how utterly silly. Bring up your daughter to be worth two men and that’s that. Obviously that reaction is a bit too pat, unconsidered – I live in an ivory tower where a child’s gender doesn’t matter. It does to many people.

We were taken to visit Pochamma and Eesawariah in Hatnur. Old couple – friendly, hospitable. We got told all about their circumstances without my having to pose very many impertinent questions. How transparent they are.

It’s an old story, of course – a cliché almost. Five daughters, no sons. Eeswariah has always farmed for a living and made enough to marry off four of them. Consider that each took with her about three lakhs in dowry and you realise that he has been remarkably successful. He would have still fended for himself, except that the rains haven’t come… again. The field is furrowed, rice seed worth Rs 10,000 has been sown, but the rains haven’t come. It is already too late. There is nothing he can do, nowhere he can go. The daughters help with whatever they can but the old couple is seriously worried.

The most pucca room in the house is reserved for grain, the plough and implements. There used to be sacks piled to the roof, Pochamma tells me, but there was just one bag yesterday. Not propped neatly against the wall, but plonked in the middle of the room, perhaps with a subconscious need to have it appear filled. Pochamma tells me they – paddy growers – have had to buy rice to eat. She is shamed, and it is heartbreaking.

Our visit was supposed to be brief but extends beyond lunch time. Pochamma brings out jowar rotis and pickle. Trapped in a scene I’ve seen in a dozen movies, I worry that we are making inroads into their lunch and their meagre supplies. It would not do to refuse, though. “God will provide,” she tells me with more optimism than I can muster at the moment.

I am asked quietly if I can enquire about government pensions for farmers over sixty – they are entitled to about Rs 200 a month apparently, but the Sarpanch doesn’t seem to pass it on. Eeswariah is too old to find a job now in the city; every plan for a new livelihood involves further investment: the bank loan of Rs 25000 has to be repaid first.
It is desperate. But I had not still understood the extent of it. It sent a chill down my spine when the daughter told me her father had spoken of bringing home some ‘mandu’ and ending it all.

How on earth are we to stop this man from adding to the statistics?

Scraping the barrel

Did I tell you guys I saw a lion in the Van Vihar National Park, in Bhopal? I didn't? Hmm.

Well, I did.

Nothing to say

A week’s gone by,
On a whispered sigh
I have nothing to say

No opinions to air, no views to share
No wise words, no nonsense fare,
No random recollection of a nightmare
Life’s in limbo? Or the mood’s not there?

Whatever it is,
the bottomline’s this
Nothing new for the ones who seek
No new posts for an entire week

The buzz goes around: Sheetal’s got nothing to say, nothing to say, nothing to say…

Abida, Kabir and the Sufis

I’ve been listening to Abida Parveen sing Kabir.

Admittedly, Kabir’s not easy. Not easy to understand, not easy to translate, not easy to sing. Easy to recite, though. The mystic sant may have taken many liberties with grammar, but he knew his sounds: Kabir’s cadences are so smooth. Say this aloud:

Maya mari na man mara, mar mar gaye sareer
Asha trishna na mari, keh gaye das Kabir

Beautiful.

Kabir’s dohas are particularly difficult to set to music. For one, each is a disparate piece, with its own theme. Like the ghazal. However, unlike the ghazal, in which each sher at least follows the same meter and rhyme, Kabir’s dohas are somewhat uneven in length and rhyme differently.

It has been done, though. T Series has a long line of Kabir’s work, and you might stumble upon any one travelling in long distance buses in North India; the drivers hugely favour Kabir for early morning listening. I have one of those too, Kabir Amritvani. The producers choose one tune only and set scores and scores of dohe in the same pattern. Repetitive, and a bit jarring, but the enunciation is clear, and soon you find yourself listening to Kabir with minimal interpretation, almost unadulterated, so to speak.

Not so with Abida. The album is surprisingly disappointing, because she neither does justice to Kabir’s verses by allowing their inherent rhythm to show, nor does she treat her material as a vehicle for a purely musical exercise. She takes the middle road and disappoints with both. This was only a first listen, and a first impression. If it grows on me, I’ll just have to come back and let you know.

Abida has sung many greats: Khusrau, Bulleh Shah, Hazrat Shah Hussain, Sachal Sarmast… there is no faulting the literature. I persistently feel dissatisfied with her melody, though. It’s not a priority with many Sufi singers – feeling is rated higher, and most important is how you can carry your listeners into higher and higher realms. That is as it should be, but it needn’t be at the cost of sweetness. The greatest of them were sublime musicians as well as sufis. There was no either/or.

This is also why I’m uncomfortable with people calling Abida the true successor to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. First, she’s not a qawwal, she sings sufi music – there’s a difference. Second, Abida’s style of rendition needs a rather active participation from the listener. Nusrat was like this fragrance that wafted. Even casual listeners would be seduced, drawn by the tendrils and reeled in. Abida needs a commitment from you to begin with.

PS. What a great job they do with album sleeve notes these days. Complete with profiles of everyone involved, notes on history and context, and they include every word sung. Precious, too, because with sufi music, the verses they’re printing are usually difficult to find in English. Educative, and worth nearly half the price of the album.

Wanted: Quality Control

I’ve been thinking about Bollywood. Particularly after Parineeta and Paheli. The first was a pleasant enough movie. Nothing more, I think. Just the normal ingredients, well and tastefully mixed… a good plot, decent characters, a setting, a few plot twists….
Filmmakers Vinod Chopra and Pradeep Sarkar haven’t really interfered with Saratchandra's narrative. There is no particularly individual point of view they’re putting across, and they stay subservient to the story. They do not, by word or gesture, frame or juxtaposition, say anything remarkable. In the final analysis, Parineeta is a competent work of storytelling.
Paheli was a bit subtler for all its opulence, and indefinably had a little more. Earthier, with breathtaking attention to detail, more stylised, but again, a competent work of storytelling. Which brings me to the point: surely this is a standard Bollywood can rise to?

What does it take to make watchable entertainment, after all? A good story, a solid script and characterisation, decent actors, behind-the-scenes professionals who know what they’re about and reasonably high productions standards. Is that over-simplifying it? Watchable entertainment, we said, remember, not great cinema.

Abandon the formula, forget what has worked. Pick up a story that moves you, clothe it well (as we know Bollywood can) and present it as truthfully, as earnestly as you can. If you have nothing else to say, at least have a story.

How can producers willing to spend crores on lavish budgets, not be willing to spend the time to dream up their film and see it in their mind’s eye? How can they not pore over the pages of their script, their storyboards – chipping, polishing, carving? How can they make movies without doing their homework? Why is that not worth the effort? They put in effort with everything else – not the industry’s worst critics can accuse it of laziness. Innumerable shifts, unending dance rehearsals till every one of the hundred dancers in the frame has got it right to the millimetre, darzis, fittings, art hands, lavish sets, properties… they’re a hardworking lot. Why not divert a little of that energy to focus on what you’re saying?

It mightn’t work after all, but then very little else seems to. The hits : releases ratio would daunt any but the most determined risk takers, but Bollywood is filled with them. So what’s another risk?
Take it, give us a little quality. Give us a Parineeta one week, a Paheli the next, consistently. Perhaps there will occasionally be filmmakers who have a little more to give, and will raise a movie above the competent to the special. Wouldn't that be nice.