Another day with a pair'a'dice

Here I am in Dubai. Or rather, I have been in Dubai for the last ten days on work. But it seems like I've not left home (Bangalore)!

I get off the flight and the immigration officer at passport control speaks to me in Hindi, the cab drivers pushing and shoving to get my attention are speaking Hindi. I walk into the hotel and the receptionist and the manager are speaking in Malayalam. The room next to mine seems to have Tamil music on at top volume. Everyone seems to speak an Indian language, even the Arabs themselves!

Where have I come, I think to myself!

But the comparison doesn't end there. Especially when you know what Bangalore is like nowadays. Two words! Traffic Jams.

With endless road improvement and a huge number of new complexes coming up, it feels just like home. In fact, two hour commutes to work (in Jebel Ali) are the norm rather than the exception.

But there are differences. The primary one being cleanliness. For a city in the middle of a desert you might expect it to be dirtier, but it's quite clean, except in certain parts where the red tobacco stains line the walls! The other is the obvious wealth. Ferrari's and Porche's are seen regularly, while the idea of a small car is a Hyundai Accent!


There are the obviously beautiful things too, like the Dubai creek, which you can see above. But then you have the really, really weird. At the Mall of the Emirates - a new shopping mall designed to look somewhat like a Middle-Eastern palace - you will find a ski-slope! In the middle of a desert country! But that's not the weirdest. The weirdest thing about this, is that the ski slope is the shiny metal structure sticking out of the palace building, complete with changing lights! You can't see the lights in the picture, but trust me, it looks like Steven Spielberg crossed with Lawrence of Arabia!



But I still miss my home. I still have another 4 days to go, but I am counting down the days!

despondent recently had an entry Open Your Mouth and Die about the shooting of Meher Bhargav. When I was writing about the furore about Rang De Basanti (see earlier posts), what I was most upset about was the fact that there could be very few things in the world that would make people take up arms and kill a defence minister. I felt that people couldn't be more wrong. What about Meher Bhargav? If I were her husband/son/daughter, I would very strongly like to take a gun and... Okay, maybe I am more prone to violence than other people. But I still feel outraged about the lack of anger for her and her family. It's like people don't care anymore.

Coming back to Rang De Basanti, there were those who came out of the movie saying that it was too idealistic. But is anger against the shooting of Mehar Bhargav too idealistic? Was she being 'too idealistic' when she tried to stop the b***** eve-teasers? Or are we expected to sit back and say Chalta Hai or Let it go?

While I have pretty radical views on what to do with rapists and eve-teasers (castrate the bloody b********!), I think the law is still far too lenient with such individuals. And in the case of Meher Bhargav, I would still like to shoot the perpetrators in the b***s even if I don't kill them.

Stand up! Make yourself heard. Change the attitude because of which people can get away with such an atrocity!

Because Meher Bhargav stood up for what she believed in, she was killed. But there are only 6 bullets in a revolver. If we all stand up, at least the 7th person will still be able to make a difference. In a country of a billion people, that's not too big a sacrifice to make for what's right.

A long time ago, I was tagged by anjaan. I started this post, and then didn't finish for whatever reasons. Now I bring you my tag!

The Rules of the game are:
1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.
2. You need to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game and leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.

My 8 points for a perfect woman! Wow, that's tough! It got me thinking - why eight? Why not 5 or 10 or 50? Hmmm.... anyway, leaving all that aside - and without further ado -

1. She should be slim (but curvaceous), shorter than me (so that she can rest her head on my chest while we're watching a romantic movie). She should have large expressive eyes and a cute face (I know this is subjective, but my decision is final!).
2. She should be able to give and take space. I hate clingy people. I should be able to get some time to myself during a day without having to fight for it.
3. She should be able to stick with me through vast jumps of thought from Kafka to Rang De Basanti, to Mexican Food. I think like that. If you can't keep up, too bad. But she should still keep me focussed when neccesary.
   
4. She should be willing to experiment in bed... nothing weird, just different. Maybe the word bed is too limiting?
5. Wine, long walks on the beach, starry nights. If she doesn't like them then she doesn't like me.
6. Books - that's a biggy - Shakespeare to Dan Brown - brilliant to time-pass; even if she's not read everything, she should know what's what.
7. Writing and speaking good English. I don't want or need perfect Queen's English, but I can't deal with people who have too strong an accent, or translate from some other language when speaking english.
8. And most importantly, she should have her own personality. I don't want a shadow. But I don't want a dominating partner. Someone with her own identity with whom I form a new entity - bigger (and hopefully better) than either of us.

Now, about the tagging 8 other people... well, all the people I'd like to tag have already been tagged, so... I will avoid for now. If I feel the need to tag someone, I will edit this post again.

What is it with the Templars and bestsellers? Currently three out of the top ten hardcover fiction works on the New York Times bestseller list have to do with the Templars. Heading the list is of course The Da Vinci Code followed in sixth and eight places by The Templar Legacy and The Last Templar respectively.

Most of us have heard about the Knight's Templar. We've read about them in school and we've seen books and movies either denigrating them (remember Ivanhoe?) or making them objects of intense curiosity, as in Dan Brown's most famous book.

I seem to have been interested in the Templar worlds for as long as I can remember, well before the latest fad. (This may of course be largely due to my thirst for lots of bits of useless facts!) I had done my reading and one of my favourites was Umberto Eco's brilliant tragic parody of the Templar legacy in Foucault's Pendulum.

Short Recap about the Templars:

Here were these bunch of guys who went out around the world fighting the enemies of civilization (read: Christian Church). Now, the thing is, although these guys were supposedly monastic, they decided to accumulate a whole lot of wealth. They took money from Kings to fight the Arabs; they took money from the church because they were upholding Christianity in a Pagan part of the world; the took money from traders, priest and other sundries to protect them while they travelled to the Holy Land. And then they became the world's first truly international bankers. Give them some money, they'd look after it, and give it back to you when and where you wanted, for a fee.

Now, King Philip IV of France wanted some of the Templar's money, so, he said that they didn't believe in Christ and were guilty of a dozen odd crimes against the Lord and his Church and he had them all rounded up and tortured.

Of course he never found the money. The then Grand Master Jaques Molay was burnt at the stake apparently not having breathed a word as to the whereabouts of the great wealth of the Templars (which also supposedly included the Holy Grail - another topic of great literary value - also included in DVC!).

End Recap!

The big thing among writers nowadays is the great treasure hunt. Find the pot of gold at the end of the Templar rainbow!

But it doesn't exist!!!! That's my point.

Ok. Assume that there were a few million gold coins or whatever among the remaining Templars. They needed to live, so they spent a few. So over the centuries there'd be a hundred thousand less left. And you've forgotten inflation. The equivalent of 1 gold coin in the 15th century might be equal to 1 US Dollar (though unlikely - far less to buy beyond food and clothes!) but look around you today. Even if there were half a billion gold coins (highly unlikely to start off with) there are enough people with far more than that nowadays. And that money had to be split up among the few templars! So it has almost no value today!

But coming back to the books themselves. Ok, fine, you've got yourself some sort of idea as to how to go about finding the money. If your idea was really practical, would you spend five years writing it into a book that other people would read? No. You'd get on the next flight to Israel and dig up the money with your grubby little hands and tell as few people as possible!

Unless you know that your ideas are a crock of s**t. So you put them down somehow into a 500 page or more page-turner (hopefully) and send it out to the publishers to earn your 10% per book royalty! That's the good way to make the money.

The only people who suffer are the long-suffering readers. On one hand you've got those who buy the book as a way to pass time in hotel airports. This kind of book is okay for them because it's better than staring at the blank airport walls or at TV screens filled with people speaking in a language you don't understand. The second kind is the people who read pulp. Whether they read only pulp or whether they also read pulp is besides the point. They know that what they're reading ain't exactly literature. So it's time-pass (as we Indians say!).

The third kind of reader comes into this thinking - Wow! A LITERARY thriller! Now I can boast to all my friends about my LITERARY reading habits. I can talk about the HOLY GRAIL and the KNIGHTS TEMPLAR and can be well read like that show-offy Aditya down the hall!

These are the people I feel sorry for. Because these books are junk. Pure and simple. Da Vinci Code was passable as a thriller, but had nothing great style-wise. The Templar Legacy, which I have the good(?) fortune to be reading now, isn't even that good. In fact the writing is so bad it's hard to not put down.

In the second chapter of the book, a bookseller is being questioned at gun point:
He picked up his mug and savored another gulp of beer.

I mean who savors their beer when they are afraid of being shot? And does anyone savor anything when you gulp it down? Wow!

One of the main protagonists, Stephanie, is supposedly someone high up in the US Justice Department. But she is so stupid, that she never listens to any advice, always manages to get into trouble, depends on the help of the man (Malone) she never listens to, and is rude to people she meets even without having met them before!

Also, the classic bad pulp elements are there- two sets of bad guys, or rather one bad guy out to get the money and one bad/good guy out to save the church, the supposedly clever but actually dumb heroine, the ex-SAS type hero who always forgets just the one important thing which would compress the story into just 40 pages, the rich helpful friend, the dying master and the helpful servant.

And the events are so unimaginative themselves. I've got to a point in the book where the hero and the heroine are asking the rich for information at his isolated house in Europe. He lives austerely and has few servants. There is no guard at the gate. The bad guys just walk into his compund and start listening to their conversation through the window. Sounds familiar?

Of course I am going to finish the book, if for no other reason than the fact that I'm travelling on work and prefer reading crap to staring at blank hotel walls in the middle of the night.

But unless you are like me, or have a good understanding that this is not even good pulp, I really suggest that you don't read it. Read Eco instead, or if you don't want something so heavy, Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown is far more entertaining.

This is not a review of Rang de Basanti. For my own review you can read it at my other blog.

I am disappointed that many people have felt the movie is bad because of personal prejudice. The contentions raised by these individuals varies from 'Advocating violence is wrong' to 'the characters are daft' to 'nobody in their right minds would do such a thing' to 'Bhagat Singh & Co. were seriously stupid' and of course the grand-daddy of them all 'non-violence is the only true solution!'

*Please note that I am using Bhagat Singh & Co. as a mere shortcut. Each member of the group had his/her own very important part to play in their activities. No flaming please, in this regard at least!

I have nothing personally against any of the individuals linked to above, and while they have every right to their own opinions, I do feel the need to balance the perspectives somewhat.

Firstly, let's look at the historical perspective.

1. Indian independence was not won by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. For those of you who think I'm being blasphemous, let me clarify: Mahatma Gandhi was a brilliant leader of the masses. But he did not act in isolation. It took every single person who participated in the freedom movement to make any impact on the Raj. Both the violent and non-violent protests were necessary. And more importantly, the British left India, only because their hold on the country had become tenuous following WWII. They no longer had the men and money to fight to keep ruling over the country. And the protests (both violent and non violent) were getting too difficult to handle.

2. If Bhagat Singh & Co. had not decided to act in the fashion they did nearly 80 years ago, how many people would have realised that the machinery of the Raj could actually be damaged? One must remember that for over a century people believed that the power of the Queen over the country was inviolate. We were a country of people who had been ruled by kings for as long as we could remember. Nobody attacked the kings except for family and other kings. Bhagat Singh & Co. stood up to the establishment and the rest of the country realised that it was possible to change the system themselves. Not everyone decided to take arms against the Raj. Many of them joined the Gandhian movement. But people were jolted out of their current existence by the hope of a new order largely due to these men's actions. Ask your grandparents about it if you don't believe me.

3. There were many many people back then who decided that Bhagat Singh & Co. had no right to take the 'law into their own hands'. If it hadn't been for the others who did not sit back and agree with the 'law', we might not have gained freedom, because the British would not have to fight to keep control over India.

4. Bhagat Singh & Co. did not use assassination as their only tool. They participated in more non-violent protests than most people living in India today have ever done. The bombs they threw in the parliament were most clearly designed not to hurt anyone (a fact borne-out by the British themselves). They killed Saunders because they believed that he was responsible for murder.

To take a modern example. Today Saddam Hussein is under trial for genocide. The country that brought him to trial is America. American troops have killed more innocent Iraqis than the number of Americans killed by Iraqi troops. Shouldn't Bush be under trial for genocide too?

You will state that this argument is fallacious. And it is. My point is, why shouldn't Bhagat Singh & Co. have the right to decide if Saunders was guilty of murder? Who does have that right? Either one should say that nobody has that right. In which case anarchy would reign based on who has the greatest power (America in the example). Or one should say that it depends. On what? In Bhagat Singh & Co's case, they believed that Saunders was guilty as charged and should be taken away and hanged (or rather - shot). By law in most countries, 12 jury members are enough to convict a man of murder. So we've got half a dozen men convicting Saunders of murder. And there was no need for any defence. It was public knowledge that he was responsible for the deaths of many innocent lives. The 'law' at that time protected him from any action taken against any 'native' person. Who is to say that Bhagat Singh & Co. were wrong in what they did. Not me. None of us might be living the lives we are if it weren't for them.

Coming back to the film itself.

1. Even though some people find it disagreeable, the fact is that the events of our bunch of modern 'revolutionaries' (DJ & Co in short), paralleled the actions of BS & Co. almost exactly.
a. Systemic failure of some kind (Jalianwala Bagh vs. MIG crash)
b. Non violent protest (Simon go home vs. candles at Amar Jawan)
c. Police brutality at non-violent protest.
d. Violent retaliation against a single person identified as cause of said Systemic failure (Saunders vs. Defence Minister).
e. Death of the conspirators (Hanging vs. Shootout)

2. At no point during the film do any of the group advocate violence as a solution to any problem. Karan most clearly says at the end that he agrees that what they have done is wrong. He encourages everyone to change the system by joining the IAS or politics. He does not pretend to be a hero of any kind. Anyone who watches the movie and comes out saying that the movie is advocating violence needs to have his head checked. It's like saying that because Harry must kill Voldemort, JK Rowling is advocating violence. RDB is a movie that incites us to change our society just like HP is a series of books talking about good vs evil. Neither of them say use violence. They just point of that at times, when people are pushed too far, violence is the method that they used. Not that violence is the method you should use. Change what you can.

3. Some bloggers believe that nobody living the life of DJ & Co would do such a thing. Why not? Bhagat Singh & Co. did the same thing 80 years ago. They could have also lived 'normal' lives had they chosen to. My grandfather himself had a choice of joining the ICS and decided against it (during the Quit India movement). Had he joined it, he would have had a cushier life than most people in our country even today. When you love and care about someone or something (whether it is a friend, a lover, a child or even a country) enough, you will be willing to take up arms against injustice done to the object of your love. And you will be willing to die in that cause. It has happened in the past, and continues to happen today. A young person in college is highly likely to not use the long winding route to justice. Give him a gun and he will go out and kill someone. Babri Masjid anyone? Many of the people who brought the structure down were young students caught up in the moment. Ordinary young men from ordinary middle-class families. Many of them agreed later on that they had done something wrong and would not advocate it. What makes it so unbelievable that DJ & Co would so something so hot headed and then agree that they have done something wrong.

4. Do you really believe that suicide bombers go and attack their targets while pissing in their pants? Far from it. Most of them believe in their cause so strongly that it would take an army to stop them from achieving their purpose. (Of course now a huge number of people will link what DJ & Co did with terrorism. It is a wrong assumption. According to one of the primary working definitions of terrorism, it is the unconventional use of violence against civilians for political gain. The aim of terrorism is to terrify. The aim of DJ & Co was most clearly to administer justice in their eyes. They were not terrorising the government or the people of the country. It is very clear in that regard. If of course you did not recognise that - too bad)

5. Other bloggers believe that the government would not act the way it did. There would not be any attacks on unarmed peaceful protests in the heart of the capital. Nor would there be massed public killings of the group at the AIR headquarters. Wake up and smell the humus. The government in India and around the world does exactly that. Time and again. It can and will do that because it has the power to attack those who oppose it. The media is powerless to report on this beyond a point because most forms of mass media are commercial entities and can be bribed, bullied or coerced into reporting the news (or not) in the way the government wants. Look at Google in China!

But most importantly, this movie is NOT advocating violence. For those of you who misread this, it is NOT ADVOCATING VIOLENCE. Rather it is a movie that tries to tell you that things are wrong with our country in much the same way that things were wrong 80 years ago. If we sit back on our fat asses and type on our computers arguing about whether violence is right or wrong, nothing will change.

It is a MOVIE after all. It is NOT a documentary. It is designed to get your minds out from the little hole that it has dragged itself into and make you look at the world around you. And in that, it has achieved it purpose adequately. Because you are sitting there and criticising it, you have been affected. Good or bad. It doesn't matter. But criticise the right things. Don't go on about how the movie advocates violence or how violence doesn't change anything. Violence exists in this world. It does change things. For good or bad. The war on Iraq can be directly linked to the twin tower attacks. Did it improve life for the Al-Qaeda? Maybe not. But it changed things - most certainly. (Again I am not linking Dj & Co with Al-Qaeda. I am just pointing out that the effects of violence are far from negligible). And the movie most definitely does not advocate violence. Watch it again if you don't believe me. And this time, watch it with an open mind. And remember that you can watch a movie like this, today, in a free India, because of people like Bhagat Singh & Co.

Over the last two weeks, my wife has been out of town nearly every single day... In fact last week, she came back on Thursday night (and the flight was so late that it was nearly Friday morning!) and unexpectedly, she had to travel over the weekend as well. She got home last night, and will be out again on Tuesday.

This, not unexpectedly, has had both of us worrying about the time we get to spend together... and she believes that I am feeling upset or angry that she isn't at home more. How can I explain to her that maybe she needs to have a little more faith in me.

Yes, I do miss her a lot when she's not around. But that's not reason enough for her to feel insecure about our marriage. I remember when we got married, we said, we're young now. If we can't work hard and make a career over the next few years, then we'll be doing it when we're older, with kids and other responsibilities... and maybe we should agree that we might not get as much time as we would like.

Have you ever tried to contact those old school mates of yours. The ones with whom you seemed to have a good time with, while in school, but later... somehow you wonder - what the f***ing hell was I doing hanging out with x,y or z.

And then five, ten, twenty years later, you look back at your phone book and wonder... do these numbers still work. And then you wonder whether to call them, or to just delete the number.

Or you do like me, wait for their birthday and send them a message... Hi! Remember Me? Happy Birthday... or something along those lines.

Still waiting for replies here though...

Maybe I should delete those numbers.

What do you think?

It's been a terrible one and a half years for my wife and my in-laws. My father-in-law has been battling with cancer since Feb 2002. In the beginning, the prognosis was not good. Lung cancer which had spread to the brain.

It seemed at that time that the doctors had all but written him off. And it all seemed hopeless considering that he wasn't able to quit smoking either.

But he survived for a long 18 months - with ups and downs, one must admit - but still quite admirably. And he did this only with his will power - the famed mind over body bit. Every time he hit a down - he'd collapse with a seizure and have to be rushed to hospital - he was back up in a few days, seemingly stronger than before. Before each seizure he wasn't being able to sit up in bed; but here he was going out shopping and discussing his pet ideas with all comers.

And he defied all expectations.

After one trip to the hospital (for regular treatment), the doctor looking after him told my mother-in-law that it was incredible that he was still alive (this was a year after he was diagnosed).

Two days ago, he collapsed in the bathroom. This time, the doctors have said that it's just a matter of days. They've put him on morphine patches; and for the first time in the last two years he hasn't been able to pull himself out.

Somewhere though, the feelings are mixed. Everyone wants him to live; but no one wants to see him in pain.

It's too hard.

Cancer is such a terrible disease.

My wife and I were reading poetry to each other yesterday. WH Auden. We started off our romance like that. And though it seemed in the last two years since we got married, that we've been doing it less and less, yesterday showed that the magic hasn't gone away at all.

Poetry is such a wonderful thing, when you stop to think about it. Especially when you read it out to someone, or have it read out to you. Hidden meanings, perhaps some that the poet didn't intend, come across and you feel things that you might have forgotten, or mistaken to be a touch of heart-burn.

For those of who you haven't really understood how poetry can do things like that, just read some of the greats. T.S Eliot, WH Auden, eecummings, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas are some of my favourites. You I'm sure can find your own. Read it out aloud. Read what you feel not what you see.

Because yesterday I found words in unexpected places, with unexpected meaning. Words that I had wanted to use and hadn't know that I had.

This is how to express yourself.

It's been over a month since I last posted. It's been a tough month for me, and tougher for my wife. Our dog, Piggy, died a month ago, on the 5th. We decided to just drop everything and drive down (up?) to Bombay (Mumbai). For the week we were there we managed to forget, but when we came back, the house seemed so empty.

Little things that I didn't recognise earlier were gone now, and they were sorely missed. Like how he used to bounce about waiting for me to take him for his walk. Lot's and lots of things like that.

I had once thought that I didn't understand what love is. But first my wife, and then my Piggy, taught me that I was wrong.

The worst part is that we didn't expect it at all. We thought he was fine and healthy. How wrong can you be.

For my wife, it's been even tougher. Her father is dying of lung cancer. And then Piggy's death was really terrible.

And I don't know what to do. I love her terribly, and can't bear to see her so sad.

---

We've got another pup, a black mini pomeranian called Dobby (yes, the Harry Potter house-elf).

It seems that life can go on in the midst of death.

And we can go on loving.

Another thing to learn.

Just seemed to realise how much of a difference a good amount of memory can make. Both for you and for your system. For example the eternal clean-out your... from your wife/mother/partner etc. is a great thing to remember; my wife was about to yell at me today for forgetting to do the usual dah-dah-dah, but my having remembered to do so earlier in the week allowed me to make my point noted (that I don't forget things like this etc.) and therefore now allows me to forget to do other things for some time to come.

My system is the same; it's grunting along on 128MB with a dual boot xp and redhat, but everything was dreadfully slow. then i remembered i had an old block of ram lying around and i plugged it in, and now things are just zipping along.

good memory can make a difference - don't forget

This is the first time I'm trying out blogging. It doesn't seem to be much better than a diary (albeit a rather public diary). But then again, there is the other viewpoint. It's not meant to be private. It's meant to be like a soap box. You can rant and rave all you want, and if you are lucky (and if you publicize your site properly) the whole world can hear your viewpoint.

How the world has changed. It's become so small, my soapbox is so big. (usual stuff etc about the information age! :-) )

So what is my soapbox (sorry blog) all about. I guess it's going to be a mix of things. technology (as i see it), open source software, life the universe and everything, and anything else i feel like ranting (or talking calmly) about.