Danspeak

All By Myself

2011-10-17T01:15:00.000-07:00

What is it about living alone that amplifies everything?

In other circumstances, a cockroach in the bathroom would have been a cause for annoyance, leading to a joint witchhunt – or roach-hunt if you will – which wouldn’t rest till justice had been served on the wretched creature for shattering our idyllic existence.

Or I’d have just brushed it off, been too lazy to do anything about it, and just attempted to broach a level of peaceful coexistence with the creature.

Now?

Now, well. Late last night, as I opened the bathroom door to see that brown shelled menace, I screamed. Then I slammed the door shut. Heart pounding, I called a friend in Delhi, just to share with her the horror of being saddled with a calamity this extreme in my solitude. After discussing with some amount of exasperation the question why roaches of all creatures would survive nuclear wars, I hung up, gathered my wits, and went in for round 2. Putting on the heaviest shoes possible, armed with a newfound sense of vengeance, I opened the door – to find the damn thing had disappeared.

Out of sight, out of mind?

Of course not. The temporary physical disappearance of that vile vermin caused it to permanently lodge itself in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about it as I paced the house, tried to read a book, watched a bit of television. It was the world coming together against me, part of a giant conspiracy designed to make me as unhappy as possible. I felt successive pangs of self-pity and rage, coupled with the urge to rail to no one in particular about the wretchedness of my life. Everyone is out to get me, I screamed.

See?

Living alone really does amplify everything.

The Perils of Dating a Theatre Person

2011-10-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

You recount a monologue from Dorian Gray

Where a lover counts the ways

Sibyl Vane dies - night by night

And he dies with her, in vain.

You choose to end midway through,

When Dorian’s at his incredulous best,

When Dorian wonders how and why –

(And I question under what

authorial duress),

is the only thing worth loving

an actress?

Are you putting up an act -

When you show up drenched in the rain?

When you let your silences accrue?

When you deliberately avert your gaze?

Trace a finger down my face?

When –

When last night, and the night before,

I posed you a question, the simplest of all,

I asked you for affirmation, any sign would do,

And you played out, for theatrical effect,

That inevitable answer

We both knew you were coming to.

But is that answer inevitable?

Or was that look an act?

Were your words honest?

Or obscure literary extract?

To state it otherwise,

My stage man, my thespian lover,

Was it Shakespeare, Shaw or Sheikh,

Who whispered in my ear?

The Invention of Morel

2011-10-09T02:48:00.000-07:00

The first time this slender marvel of a novel was pushed at me, I was told it stood as the inspiration for Lost. Since I have gone about telling anyone who will listen that Lost is the best thing that will ever happen to tv (along with Arrested Development and Community perhaps), this stoked my interest. It helped that this "novel of ideas" clocked in at 103 pages - you don't want your dense reading to drag on too long. It was with these preset notions that I picked up Adolfo Bioy Casares' 1940 novel, The Invention of Morel.

I got some of what I bargained for, to be sure. Morel most certainly has elements which Lost would put to such atmospheric use, starting with its conception of a seemingly fantastical island to the mysterious experiment that it stands as a base for. It also satisfies the ideas criterion - the exposition heavy last third of the book throws dizzying ruminations on immortality and the nature of love at the reader.

Where it surprised me though, was on the count of it being, on the one hand, a furiously compelling ride, and on the other, a complex, devastating love story.

We start with a escaped fugitive who's found refuge in a remote island in the south seas. There exist concrete traces on the island of recent occupation: a museum, a chapel, even a swimming pool. He enters into a solitary routine, which is broken one day with the arrival of a group of people on the island - men and women who engage in dance and drink and merry chatter - whom he observes from a distance. One of these women captures his fancy, and he starts attempting to make contact with her. But nothing is what it seems ....

For any piece of science fiction to truly work (and this is a science fiction novel through and through), it needs to resonate in ways both political and emotional. That is to say, the technological aspect, the imagined creation, needs to function on some level as a commentary on some aspect of the world we inhabit. Of course, it's positively difficult for any such work to not, even unintentionally manage this task, but that's where the second level of resonance needs to take place. There needs to be weight and consequence, a sense of the characters involved, of their importance, and of our connection to them.

The Invention of Morel is a triumph in how it succeeds at both those goals - without giving too much away, I'll say that the invention in question mirrors ideas about cinema, and in extension, ideas about how we live our very lives. What does it mean for us that we cannot understand anything outside of time and space? That we will only know what someone else has already thought or felt, or the possible transpositions of those thoughts or feelings? And what kind of mortality accrues to an image that lingers on even as the subject dies and decays?

Tied into those ideas is that aforementioned love story. It's a love that may or may not be unrequited, depending on how you approach the questions above. It's a love that either destroys a perfectly lucid man, or salvages a madman and inserts him into a vision of immortality. Again, that depends on what you think about the ideas Casares places before you. Me, I'll take the easy route of ambivalence for now. Given my own issues with mortality, Morel presents an intoxicating alternative, a suggestion that the approach of looking at the body as the vessel for eternal life is a flawed one. I'd like to go with Casares' vision to the logical end-point - but there's a certain very physical reluctance holding me back.

Whatever side of the coin you choose, read this book. Whether it succeeds in pulling the veil off your eyes, or convinces you there isn't any in the first place, it's an essential piece of fiction I'm glad I had the chance to devour.

Day in, Day out

2011-10-04T02:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here’s the deal with present day “mature” relationships.

Wait, let me rephrase that – here’s my deal-of-the-week with present day “mature” relationships.

They’re frustratingly conflict-free. Not for us urban lovers the immediate conflicts of parental discord or civil war or act of god separation. Not that our wonderful country doesn’t have its share of honour killings or civilian police, but you know what I mean. The specificities of the situation I find myself in – a healthy, communication-rich, reasonably pleasant, live-in relationship – sort of finds itself floating in an island of aloofness, far removed from these conflicts.

What the friggin hell, you ask, could be the problem here?

I answer: Predictability. Creeping hints of boredom. A routine. Domesticity.

When you’ve become accustomed to various permutations of failed long distance romances, when none of your relationships has been allowed to blossom into steady complacency, well, the sheer perfectness of a normal relationship isn’t easy to swallow. All those dalliances in the past came coloured with a certain thrill of not knowing; everything in today’s domestic bliss comes with a very specific script.

Out goes “will we – won’t we”. In comes “who will wash the dishes- who will make the coffee”.

And then, the boyfriend comes down with a viral, relocates to his parents’ home to recuperate, and I walk back to an empty house. I turn on the lights, I put some music on, I pour myself a glass, I sit on the now too-large bed.

The routine has been broken.

And the voice in my head, the one that’s buried under layers of singleton-bravado and idioms of personal liberty comes bursting out –

“I want predictability. Complacency is comforting. The routine makes me feel safe.”

Get well soon, you.

B.A., LL.B. (Hons.)

2011-09-19T01:57:00.000-07:00

Convocation is an act of catharsis.

I mean, aside from it being a rite of passage, a moment of celebration, a hat throwing contest, and an occasion to buy spiffy new clothes that'll be hidden under the flowing gown. It's a time to meet the younger 'uns you left behind, and the peers who're managing the transition from the life imitating facade of college life to the realities of the modern day urban work life. It's about the moment your parents beam at you, faces bursting with pride - for, I suppose, managing the simple act of not getting expelled for drug possession over the wonder years. It's the moment where you physically hold the degree in your hand and marvel at the strangeness of having a permanent new appellation to your name.

And I reveled in each and every single one of those glorious moments, of course I did. But the real reason why the simple act of walking up to a stage and receiving a rectangular plastic encased degree had me fighting back tears was because of everything that had gone into getting to that little moment. Maddening, infuriating evenings before surprise tests; the dreariness of flopping into the library sofa and preparing to go over mind-numbing notes one last time; the helplessness of walking hungry into a dining hall to be confronted with food that at times made you lose your appetite; the innumerable, inexplicably stupid administrative decisions that had us coming up with innovative combinations of expletives; the protests that were regretted almost instantly and the ones that never took off.

You argue that the point of it all was the great people we met, the lasting friendships we made. Well, no. That wasn't the point of it - that was just a lucky accident. It was an act of chance that you managed to find atleast a handful of people in this mass of 80, and another handful in the other years. No, the point of it all was that we were here, 25 km from civilization and a hundred thousand miles from sanity, to get a stamp. A stamp of approval, a stamp of discipline, a stamp that meant we'd spent half a decade at an institution and managed to successfully jump through the hoops that it constantly placed before us, walked the line as well as we possibly could, actually elected to engage with a system that could sometimes be confused as imported from a bleak dystopian novel.

Don't get me wrong. Law school was brilliant.

It was also a mess.

Law school was home -

and ever so often, it could be hell.

The point I'm trying to make anyway: we deserve this degree.

We jolly fucking well earned it.

Say Goodbye to the World You Thought You Lived In

2011-06-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

More than 2 months have passed since the last exam of my undergraduate life - and just about 2 months since it was confirmed to be the last exam of my undergraduate life. A hop, skip and flying leap and I have landed square in the middle of work life.

Can I tempt fate for just a second and tell you it's all rather wonderful?

Well, it is. I want to break this month down into anecdote size chunks, to give each bizarre incident its own space to breathe, to explain the exact feeling I get when I'm in the process of beginning to comprehend the next piece of research I've embarked on, to convey the exhilaration of living by my rules - for that matter, the exhilaration of living at all whenever I cross yet another busy Bangalorean street.

I can't though, not just yet. I'll say this though - I'm reading more than I have in years. I'm reading books I would've shuddered at just a few months ago, and I'm coming back to unfinished texts. I'm learning, and with every new minutiae of knowledge I imbibe, comes this hunger for more, and I'm trying to learn that too. I have been able to have great dazzling conversations on creativity and poetry and eros and agape and I have been able to have even more wondrous discussions on frotting. Lots of frotting discussions actually.

I (finally) saw a Jean-Luc Godard film! And liked it!

Interesting new people have come into my life on a weekly basis - and the interesting people who were already around continue to remain.

I'm single. Never has that felt more empowering or less lonely.

Did I tell you I got a full page snap in the Forbes cover story? It was a nice snap too.

Did I mention the bit where I've successfully hoodwinked a Queer Anthology to accept one of my stories for publication? And the day after that found out it was the first of two anthologies that was making this giant mistake?

Fate, I'll tempt you just one more time today. Life is beautiful.

About a boy (or two) - Francois and Francois

2011-05-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

I sit at the Zurich airport, waiting for a connecting flight that is obviously never getting here. Huge glass windowpanes look out at the Swiss countryside - painfully unreachable thanks to an expired Schengen visa. A moment then, to brace for the jetlagged days ahead, for the upcoming intrusion of work life beyond that, and for the final spanner to be thrown into my practiced routine of daily reverie.

Canada was nice. But you probably knew that. Over the course of my travels, I met two people who happened to have the same first name - which was about the only thing they had in common. Oh that and their French Canadian roots. Here we go.

Francois 1

At first I think he's stood me up. I've been waiting on the street outside the hotel in Ottawa

for just about five minutes, but I am already certain he isnt getting here. These Canadians are obviously being over-friendly to hide darker character traits like the fact that they enjoy blowing off gullible travelers. Once again I gaze into the crowd, scan to the left, a flick to the right, back to the left again - when a figure in the distance waves at me. Well, atleast in my direction. I turn around to check if the wave was intended for someone else, but nope, this is indeed Francois my professed Ottawa guide for the next three hours, and I wave right back.

"So I need to learn how to pronounce your name".

"Ahhh. Well, okay, let's do this - Frrhhn-svaa".

"Fransaw".

"Ha, not quite. But it's fine, you can call me Frank. Or even, mmm, Roger if that works for you. So, coffee, beer, or would you like to just walk around?"

I elect to walk.

In 15 minutes I've figured the walk-talk is better left to Aaron Sorkin or Richard Linklater, and we find ourselves instead sitting by the banks of the Rideau Canal, which Francois informs me inadvertently becomes the world's largest ice skating rink, come Ottawa's minus 30 degree Celsius winters. Important nuggets of pop-culturese are exchanged, it turns out we will be able to hold a conversation or two after all, and with that, we start walking down the Canal. He doesn't seem to be too big a fan of this city, but heartily recommends Montreal. Turns out I'll be going there in a few days; turns out he will too. If our schedules manage, we feel it is important he shows me around that city as well.

We find ourselves in front of a giant glass building, flanked by a 15 foot high bronze spider.

"And that right there is Maman - there are 8 of its kind in the world".

This nugget of information comes from my side, much to Francois', consternation.

"You can't know more about my city than I do!" - but here he is also quick to point out this isn't infact his city. Montreal is the place he really identifies with, and when he goes back to speaking of it, he is rapturous.

I'm taking in bits and pieces of him too as we walk along; of his impossibly light eyes, of the way his mouth curls in a slight smirk; how his hair when caught in the sun makes me squint with its sharp inflections of gold. We've now progressed to the subject of relationships and men, but I'm trying to divulge as little as possible of my Pandora's box for a change - some other time perhaps. For now he will have to be content with knowing about my ideas regarding first marriage as a testing ground, and the second as the real deal, and the way my admittedly vague life plan dovetails around the two. He is mostly amused and mildly concerned by this; from his own talk I glean a sense of a man who is a relationship pragmatist himself. The undamaged, uncynical but guardedly cautious attitude to love. Interesting - and the more people I meet, the more I realize - rare.

Then he says the clincher.

"Well I suppose I'll settle down once I'm done with all the nationalities, you know?"

I gasp - I do in fact know. His goal is identical to mine, and we enthusiastically proceed to checklist our nation count so far, arriving at a roughly similar number. I am suitably impressed.

"You know what Francois? You'll make a good second husband".

He nods appreciatively at this most ultimate of honours.

I feel a twinge of sadness as we part ways. As I walk back towards my hotel, I'm hoping we get to meet in Montreal.

---

Francois 2

But before Montreal could - or would - happen, there was Quebec City. And in Quebec City, there was Francois 2. For him, I have 3 words:

Oh -My -God.

Okay fine, I have more than that. But, seriously.

"Okay, first you need zoo learn how zoo pronounce my name"

"I do?"

"Yes you zoo. I don't like people spoiling it - now say - Frrrhaaaan svois."

"Fransaw"

"Uh. NO. Frrrrhaaan svois."

"Frrrrransawwww?"

"Nooo, nooo, it iz Frrrhanswois say it like thaaaat."

"Farrhansaw?"

This went on for approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds. That is a lot of r's rolled per second, if you're counting.

It was 11 pm and we were sitting at Francois 2's home, located squarely opposite my hotel. Yeah, I know what you're thinking - hell I was thinking it too, even after that. I don't know about Francois 2 though. As we sat on his couch he looked wistfully at a table across the room.

"That was my boyfriend's"

"Ah. He doesn't own it anymore then?"

"Nooo. I mean - that iz my ex-boyfriend's".

"Ah"

"We broke up three days ago"

"Oh no - I'm sorry"

Oh no indeed - I had a sinking feeling in my stomach about where this evening was going to go. And sure enough, in another 15 minutes, Francois 2 and I were facebook stalking his ex, who it turns out Francois 2 had left due to the boy's drug problem. As we trawled through picture after picture, it was obvious that he really was the junkie Francois 2 accused him of being. There were also an alarmingly large number of pictures with him wearing a beer sipper hat and looking intensely bored.

"Ohhhh Coco ..."

"His name's Coco??"

"Nooo nooo - Coco izzz - what to say - it is like a name I give - like zoo give names to boyfriend - like - "

"Like honey?"

"Yes! like that. He was my honey. He was my Coco"

We both look mournfully at Coco sulking back at us from Facebook. I am furiously biting down the urge to gallop back to my room - and yet, this boy was obviously not doing too well, so if a sympathetic ear was what he needed, I supposed I could bear another half an hour of this.

Right?

I step up to go get some water. When I get back, he's headed off to his bedroom.

no no no.

"DAHneeesh. Come heeeere"

I walk in gingerly to find him grinning next to a tray of medicines.

"Uhhh"

"These are my diabetes medicines!"

Well, glad we were sharing.

"All subsidized - I don't have to pay!"

And glad the Canadian healthcare system's awesome.

"And look it iz not hurting one bit"

Okay - needles make me queasy. Not just when used on myself - though of course that's no picnic - but I'm not very good when it comes to other people subjecting themselves to this obviously inhumane form of administering medication. I once had to hold up my then 2 month old sister for a vaccine, and I almost dropped her - even as she managed to go through the procedure without a squeak of protest.

His next move of course was to gleefully offer me the injection - "I geeve you 10 dollar to say you will have NO pain when you inject. 10 dollar, on the table". To demonstrate the strength of his conviction, he plopped a 10 dollar note on the table. Meanwhile. the blood had swooped from my head down into my stomach as I found myself holding the syringe.

"Take ...gurgle ..... it ...gurgle .....back"

After a few seconds of sadistically enjoying my terror, he took the syringe from me, then gurgled in pleasure as he stabbed himself with it in the knee.

This really was my cue for running out screaming. I turned around to leave -

"It is strange sleeping alone"

Uh oh.

"You know I am having zoo leave the tv on through the night because I need constant prescence?"

I nod giving my best sympathetic look possible.

"I just wish someone could hold me through the night and be my Coco"

This was accompanied by a meaningful gaze at me. So he wanted me to curl up around him "Coco style" and lull him to sleep. Since I am not -

a) Florence Nightingale

b) completely insane

- I pointed out this was probably not a healthy idea.

"You know, I think - maybe it might be a good idea if you were trying to get over him. Not imagining other people as him"

"But we will also have sex!"

"Really not the point here".

And then I said the words I didn't think I'd ever hear myself say:

"You probably shouldn't sleep around with anyone for a bit"

Never has a cold night air chill felt more welcome.

---

You say Au Revoir - and I say Bonjour

Montreal is everything Francois promised it would be. For the first time in my trip, I feel that stab of traveler's sorrow experience from not really belonging to a place. This is a city I wish I could call my own, get into the daily grind of. I want to live here!

I can imagine Francois' good natured riff on the city as I walk its streets, and I think about how he must know the ins and outs of that lane and this, maybe frequented that spot on the Church steps across the street where a group of exhuasted tourists have collapsed upon. I'd like to say goodbye to this man, one of the best things about my time in Canada. Regretfully, turns out I have to be at the airport around the same time he reaches Montreal.

I decide I'd like to hear his voice once before I leave any which way. There are 8 coins of 25 cents left in my pockets as I walk the streets of the city one last time before heading back to my hotel. There's a payphone right up ahead. 2 coins in, the phone starts to ring, it goes to voicemail, and there go 50 cents.

With 6 coins in my pocket, I walk down another street, another pay phone. And once again, it goes to voicemail.

Okay, this isn't happening. Up on my left is a dollar store - I walk in trying to find some way to dispose off my last bit of Candian currency. I look around for a bit, but darnit I really want to make that call, so I walk right out, down another street, and another pay-phone.

He answers at the third ring. As soon as I hear his voice though, I realize I don't quite know what to say. I don't know what tone I want to use, if the inflection in my voice is allowed to be excitable or warm or faintly pleasant - and why that is even a consideration in the first place. All this flashes through my head between the two seconds it takes for him to answer:

"Francois?"

And I reply -

"Francois!"

When it is affirmed that it is indeed Francois on one side of the line, I confirm my identity. Thankfully the name Danish rings a bell, and I didn't have to resort to "oh you know, the boy who said he'd ensnare you in his second marriage 2 hours after you met".

" So - I just wanted to tell you how great I thought Montreal was."

This I truly did.

"And thanks again for being a great guide back in Ottawa"

That he was.

"And stay in touch?"

I hoped we would.

"And don't forget to marry me a decade from now"

So this last bit I didn't say. Quit when you're ahead, etc. in this case, quit before you've made a blubbering mess of yourself. To Francois' credit he responded to what must have clearly been an utterly bewildering rant with bravado. Yes it was really nice meeting me, and oh yes he was glad I had a great time and Montreal, and oh it was quite nice of me to call before I left and yes we could start discussing tentative marriage venues.

Okay fine, again not the last bit, buy hey I am an astute between the lines reader, okay?

Indore and Outdoors

2011-05-10T05:10:00.000-07:00

Towards the Summer of My Discontent ...

When the patriarch called me one Nalsar evening to announce an exciting new job he was taking up in Indore, the undutiful son that I am, I failed to mirror his enthusiasm. I'd just started getting used to the soul-crushiness of a Gurgaon, and even that was just because of the blessed lifeline that was the Delhi metro. But, Indore? Indore is - it's stuck uncomfortably in the centre of the country, too far from everything that matters, too irrelevant for anyone to even make fun of. You talk of Bombay's loneliness and Delhi's brashness and Kolkata's humidity.

What the hell did Indore have?

"That sounds great Dad", I managed a strangled, ambiguous tone.

The weeks since passed in constant wilful blindness to the fact that the plane from the Hyderabad airport wouldn't take me to the comforting bustle of Delhi. Occasional jibes were made about my new town of residence (darn its a town), but because its Irrelevant Indore, the most anyone could come up with was how isolated I'd be from law school insanity. It didn't help matters when I went on my cinemaniac trip and checked out the town's (town!) movie listings. A quick jolt of excitement, Thor and the Source Code were playing here too!

It took me another 2 seconds to follow the asterisk on each movie's name to its corresponding footnote: Shows dubbed in Hindi.

Oh Man.

---

The IIL Kids' Excellent Adventure

Been here for 10 days now. I don't know if it's because of those significantly lowered expectations, or the fact that this is my last stint at home before real life invades, but ... I like this place.

The first bit of ice-breaking happened on the ride back from the airport. As we drove into city -okay, townlimits (town!), a giant billboard advertising the Indore Institute of Law loomed past us.

"Winning isn't everything, but winning to win is".

I'll sing to that, IIL.

Right below that heartwarming thought was what IIL was using to

sell itself.

"Class trip to the Supreme Court!" screamed the banner, with a group of excited uniform clad college folk posing in front of the SC in a manner reminiscent of middle aged white couples outside the Taj Mahal.

Aww, IIL. Aww.

---

Furball!

Also keeping me amused is Pico, our new guinea pig.

Pico has the distinction of being the single laziest animal I have ever encountered. It's fine that the training wheel in her cage lies untouched - what she also is too lazy to get to is her food. Blades of grass will lie mere centimeters from her bloated self, and all the darn animal can manage is a piteous squeak. No, each individual strand is required to be placed before her quivering mouth which then simultaneously utters gurgles of pleasure as it lazily chomps down on the greens. The only thing Pico does take initiative to consume is fabric - the snap above was taken minutes before the darned thing bit off a snacky little tidbit from my shirt.

Oh, Pico'll be getting a companion soon enough, but since the folks have forbidden a furball family, she'll have to make do with a same-sex partner. Name suggestions solicited!

---

Danish and the Strapless Co-Rider's Excellent Adventure

Don't let anyone tell you that Indore lacks its share of thrills. Why just yesterday at the friendly neighbourhood amusement park we came across this staple thrill-ride contraption:

You've seen this one before. You know the gig: the seats spin on their axis, then in a circle in those groups of four, and finally of course, the entire contraption rotates. It's an innocuous little ride in most places, with the twin competing centrifugal and centripetal forces nicely balancing themselves out to induce mild disorientation at the most. No great shakes, really.

That is, unless you're in Indore.

So here we are, the sister and I, strapped in securely to one of the seats. Across us was your standard macho Indore dude, arm cosily wrapped around girl. She shoots a weak smile at us - he is all pre-ride cool composure and collected nerves. A faint sneer plays across his face as the attendant straps them into their seats. Not for him are these shackles.

And then the ride starts out, and it turns out - not for him were those shackles indeed. A cry of terror pierces the Indore night, as our man finds himself unbuckled and holding onto the sidebars for dear life. He yells out to the attendant as we spin around at a dizzying speed, even managing to hold the belt up with one hand lest his voice not carry through. To this the attendant nods coolly - "Arey hota hai bhaiya. Hold On, Hold On". The operator smiled genially before increasing the ride's speed.

Ah, Indore.

---

The Indian summer isn't congenial to most touristy exploits - neither is an impending Dhanda paper. And yet my mother refused to register my protests one particularly hot morning when she insisted on us visiting Indore's (apparently) famous glass temple. Off we went, my sister and I with her, sulking at this inexplicable unwanted intrusion on our busy routine (she was halfway through a Kill Bill Marathon). We were sulking even as we walked past the front dome of the temple, tiptoe-ing to avoid the burning ground.

But then we walked in and - well, it really is quite pretty. When they call it the glass temple, they mean serious business; every square inch of the place inside is plastered with glass and mirror. This extends to the floor too, which also gives you the unfortunate impression that you may be treading on bits of broken glass. It's really just rice of course. I think.

As we were done (quietly) admiring the interiors, my mother looks around with a wistful smile.

"We came here the day after dad and I got married".

"What? But wasn't your honeymoon in Musoorie?"

"Yes, this was just after the wedding, I was travelling with your uncles, and everyone said we should see this place. Its beautiful, isn't it?"

Look. I managed to refrain from sulking for the remainder of the afternoon, anyway.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 - The trailer

2011-04-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

In a semester of lasts, a month of farewells, and this last threatening-to-devolve-into-teary-mess of a week, its fitting that the beautifully elegiac trailer of the final installment of the Harry Potter movies finds its release. I'm generally a huge fan of the well made movie trailer, and the Potter makers usually get that bit right. While as with a great majority of movies, the end product isn't quite near the heady thrill you experience whilst taking in the adrenaline of the 2 minute concentrated burst of the preview, this aspect has been particularly glaring in the Potter movie versions. The thrill ride that we often see promised has too often resulted in an anticlimactic film experience - an oft rewarding one, mind you, but anticlimactic nonetheless. There's a breathless sense of narrative momentum that Rowling's books have, which all the movies - even the artistically stellar Prisoner of Azkaban - have managed to miss out on.

Any which way, it remains a fact that every new Potter trailer gets my fanboy veins - though they have long since retired - pulsating. The final film in the franchise is pretty much THE appointment viewing for 2011, and I know I've said this before, but man, it looks epic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mObK5XD8udk

Its got all those grand moments visualized perfectly: the shield over Hogwarts, the charging wizards in the final battle, that great dragon-of-Gringotts escape. What really caught me off guard was the hushed beauty of some of the quieter moments in the trailer - notably that beautiful bit with a lily blossoming in an open hand. Longtime fans will know the exact context and perchance feel a lump in their throat. A similar feeling with the throwaway moment where Tonks and Lupin hold hands with a look of fierce resignation; again, we know what's coming, though in this case, I do hope David Yates does more justice with their ultimate fate than Rowling's casual glance-over. And don't get me started on Harry's "I never wanted any of you to die for me" playing over the scene of the Weasley's crying over one of their own.

Darnit Potter, you got me again.

I See You, You See Me - The Magic Numbers

2011-04-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

(as posted on Mylaw.net)

The Magic Numbers

Image above and on article thumbnail from Simon Fernandez Music Photographer's photostream on Flickr

When my wonderful editor at myLaw.net suggested I do a music video review, I took up the challenge without batting an eyelid - little did I know what I was in for. The problem starts with the fact that a logical segment of reviewing a music video would be to also review, well, the music. This is something better done by the experts – my comfort zone ends with squealing in excitement over which Glee covers are more gleefully gay. Add to this the fact that most music videos are too short to actually merit the analysis that a television or movie review would take and you begin to fathom an understanding of my dilemma. I set myself a compromise - instead of a traditional review, how about attempting to capture the mood of the video in words?

When it finally came down to it, it made sense to start with one of my favourite videos, frontlined by one of my favourite bands. Now you could say that the Magic Numbers are just another whimsical alternative pop act, but that unfair dismissal will have you missing the point. The two brother-sister duos that comprise the band are about as far from the art-directed-to-the-last-eyelash circus that we take for granted from so many artistes today.

No, the Magic Numbers are not one for image – they give the distinct impression of nine-to-five-ers who’ve just arisen from their afternoon slumber. And, like I mentioned, they also happen to be one of my favourite bands – to listen to one of the better songs by the group is to feel the safety of being tucked in a warm bed while the rain lashes outside, or the unexpected joy of

running into a dear acquaintance after years.

They translate this sense of joy to the video of I See You, You See Me – arguably their best song in a catalogue that now comprises three albums in addition to a host of singles. The six-minute number is at times a playful heartbroken duet that morphs into a paradoxically frustrated yet optimistic cry of yearning, finishing off with a long warmth-infused instrumental stretch. For those of us who’ve heard and loved the song before being treated to the video, it works as a great exercise in defying expectations. The lyrics are a give and take between lost lovers, looking back and realising they are trapped in the past. They come to the wistful realisation – “looks like it’s happened again”.

The video is anything but wistful. Shot entirely in black and white, we pan towards a young woman with a pixie cut and an impish smile – clearly up to no good. Just what mischief she is up to will be revealed in a bit, but for now we’re going to have to be content with the camera lovingly framing her as she shoots high-heeled shoes through basketball hoops, eyes a coterie of men pretty much all of whom seem to be wearing bowler hats, and walks around the city streets lost in some mysterious giddy wonder.

The music swells, and ah – we see her game plan. One by one, in quick succession, she latches on to the men in their different settings in a fierce kiss. By the bus stand, in a revolving supermarket door, in the middle of a street, on the car bonnet – even through a sheet of glass. Then, as they pull back in shocked laughter, she whips out her camera and takes a picture of their face.

“This is not what I’m like, This is not what I do”

A man sitting by himself reading a newspaper is interrupted by her kiss-camera combo, as is another unwitting passerby.

“This is not what I’m like – I think I’m falling for you”

She’s done for the day now, walking home in tired exhilaration. She sorts through the insta-snaps in her hands, reliving each moment of shock-delight.

“And I feel this something - rising, rising in my veins”

We walk into her room, where, plastered on the wall, are dozens upon dozens of such photographs - a wall of buoyant joy. She pastes her latest acquisitions upon empty spaces and sinks into bed with a wide eyed-smile.

“Looks like it’s happened again”.

All That You Can't Leave Behind

2011-04-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

This final week at law school is about farewells, about speeches, about looking forward, and inevitably, looking backward. Its also about packing.

5 years is a really long time to accumulate a room full of odds and ends, bursting to the seams. All the inconsequential little sheets of paper I've left lying around for years come alive with meaning again as I debate whether or not to throw them away. I smile thinking about the 80 other people around me facing quandaries of a similar nature.

So. What can you leave behind?

A scrap of paper, folded twice over, so old, so frayed, that the folds now give way to little cuts. Open it gingerly, and the words, "The play was good enough for us Harry ...." spring out at me. The Dorian Gray monologue. A swift tug back - four and a half years back - and we're back at that auditorium in IIT Madras, I'm getting ready to go up on stage to deliver it, more unsure of myself than I'll ever be. But there are 3 beaming faces in the crowd, and I keep my focus on Tejaswi, Mythili and Saha as I blunder my way through Oscar Wilde. That 5 minute piece of literature will come back and play with my life in mysterious, wonderful ways over the years. How do I throw this woebegone sheet of paper away?

One by one, I take the posters off my walls. In one corner are the lovingly crafted Movie Club adverts. Lekha, Suhasini and I'd argue almost fiercely over what piece of cinema we'd screen for our usual weekly audience of 5. This would then be followed by a tussle for the posters that were made. The movie club died with their graduation and my fourth year phlegmatic-ism, but these posters remain, markers of three people's valiant efforts to inject that little bit more of life (or, as Lekha would argue, "culture") into campus. Of course I'll be hanging these up on the walls of my room in Bangalore.

A succession of broken keychains falls out from my middle shelf. Aditya's gifts from those numerous foreign trips of his over the years, turning me into a closet keychain-collector. On the other side of my room is yet another of his contributions, a black white picture of "Gay Street, New York". As I take it down, I'm thinking back to his stunned disbelief at my coming out to him years ago. This year, well, he was the first of my friends to turn up for the TV9 protest.

Play scripts. So many play scripts, pages torn, scribbled over, highlighted. Drama Club practices, once led by Sowmya, then taking the lead with Subhadra. The ridiculous amount of yelling - and the ridiculous high of the opening (and closing) day applause. Milking Coupling dry, performances with 3 sets of casts. Performing the Affair of the Lonely Banana with Khalyaan at every opportunity we got. Perfecting the art of flirting onstage with Ishana: whether it was in English, or faux-Hebrew. Ah, Shadaim.

Back to the wall now, and off come the photographs. Our own Security Council smiles at me, frozen in time and space, on one of our many night-outs. A walk down the Hussainsagar lake on the 14th of February, 2009, clutching heart-shaped balloons, Srishti and I blowing celebratory birthday bubbles.

My violin's still around. Arunabh tried to help, but nothing can really go against the insurmountable wall that is my lack of musical talent. Arunabh, if it hasn't been relayed to you a gazillion times already - you're missed. Quite a bit.

My book stand's pretty much empty now, forlorn except for 2 books belonging to its original owner, Malak. He let me have it when we were moving into our single rooms - a parting gift, if you will. This stands bequeathed to the next occupant of this room, as does Swaraj's wooden laptop table.

Meghal's second gift of the year to me, after the first mysteriously vanished, reappears in my cupboard. A collage of things that I am - and things I want to be - I'd say its priceless, except it also has a 20 dollar note stuck inside.

My law and poverty reading material's at the bottom of the stack. The first of 7 Dhanda reading materials I'd eventually scour inside out. Professor Dhanda - that jolt of revitalizing energy to a fourth semester mind that had begun to close up. This stays, of course.

This is all a bit harder than I thought it would be, though it comes with that cold comfort of knowing there are those 80 people feeling this way around me. Five years is ... well its 2 million, six hundred twenty five thousand minutes. Its enough time to have known people inside out and then watch them change completely; to have hated bitterly and loved fiercely; to have been irresponsible about the big things, and take the smallest matters seriously - and be unsure which was which; to commit casually cruel acts as easily as random acts of kindness; to know yourself, then have to demolish and rebuild your identity bit by bit. Hell, I walked into the first year classroom having dated a girl for over a year, and now walk out, as flaming a queer boy as there ever was.

And right now, this very moment, its enough time to have one tiny little room almost collapse in upon itself with the sheer weight of memory. Irrespective of what I finally manage to pack into bright green Safexpress cartons, there's a truckload of baggage I'm carrying away from the hamlet of Shameerpet; memories that can't - and won't - be boxed in, compartmentalized, or strewn away.

Goodbye everyone. What a ride it has been.

Rohan Saha's Infinite Playlist

2011-04-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

(I thank Mythili for helping with factual accuracy for this piece. Occasional pieces of conversation have been telescoped to account for possible reader boredom, but this story remains painfully, heartrendingly, true. I additonally thank Tejaswi, Aditya, Pami, Jayeeta, Shazia and Nikhila for simply being there on the scene of the crime in Goa, experiencing this comedy of errors (horrors?) unfurl. If we survived that, guys, there’s really nothing we can’t take.)

Seen Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist?

It's a nice, cheerfully quirky, somewhat bland teen romance, set over the course of a long night where nothing much really happens, and every unfortunate event that does happen is machinated towards pushing our 2 leads closer together. A big part of the movie is a quest - a really, really trying one, as our female lead must track her incredibly drunk and lost friend across the nightscape of a bustling city. At crucial junctures, she receives cryptic calls from this friend of hers, clue-ing her in to possible locations. The redeeming factor to this hideously annoying search remains the fact that at the end of the day, all this is a means to the end of her getting the guy, etc.

Okay, so imagine now, a situation where you have an eerily similar story play out on the idyllic beaches of Goa. Except that you only get the bit with the drunk friend, without any of the grander romantic overtures happening in the background.

This is that unfortunate story.

"There could've been no better way to start this trip"

When Rohan Saha uttered these ominous words first, they went unchallenged. The euphoric haze of India's World Cup victory was still charging up all of us - including the usually phlegmatic-about-cricket yours truly. Beer was all around, a fresh round of those wonderful Goan prawns was coming right up, and the trip had, well, just begun. All was good.

It continued to be good on the next day too, as a substantial chunk of the Nalsar Class of 2011 graced the Candolim beach with their disruptive presence. About 15 layers of tan later, we'd called it a day, headed down to this restaurant where my aforementioned black-tongued friend would be joining us later. Once at Infantaria, we took the generous alcohol offers extremely seriously, and set about demolishing beer bucket after bucket in quick succession. Saha joined in, a few beers down from earlier in the evening.

All was still good.

Then came the decision to split the group 2 ways: some of us wanted to go beach-hopping, while the more traditional preferred to stick with club-hopping. I felt resolutely of the clubber's tribe that night, and found myself on a rather empty dance floor at Cape Town Cafe. The only point of interest here was a too-well intentioned queer boy who insisted on buying the entire gang drinks, then attempted to impress us with strangely meaningless drinking games. He was discarded by the group soon enough, and we walked out to the fleeting site of Saha smoking on the road. Our club exploring intentions were yelled at him from across the street, and we were off. All he had to do was drop our Heidi-obsessed exchange student, Marcella, off to the Baaga beach, just down the road. He’d join us in a bit. The cigarette in his hand swayed gently in tandem with his body, a warning sign none of us noticed. Rather the night breeze than the 20-odd beer pints he’d consumed, we thought.

Still good.

Another hour and we'd decided we were done with our share of partying for the night. It was just about 1 AM, and all everyone wanted to do was head back to the hotel room. Saha hadn't caught up with us yet though - upon calling him, he informed us he was just "down the road".

Ten minutes later, he was still “just down the road”. It struck us then to make him specify exactly where this road was. It turned out the road was more of a beach. The beach where he’d gone off to drop Marcella.

“Okay, so you’re on your way back to the main road then?”

Main road ……. Yes.

Another ten minutes. By this time we’d caught one of the taxi drivers, hoping to leave anytime soon. We were obviously asking for it.

“Hello, erm, Saha ?”

Yes.

“Where are you now?”

I can see Zanzibar.

We were standing in front of Zanzibar.

“We’re standing in front of Zanzibar”

Cool. I’ll see you guys there.

Fifteen uncomfortable minutes of the taxi driver glaring at us later, he still hadn’t seen us guys there.

“Where are you Saha?”

I don’t know.

“Oh.”

Yes.

“Hmm, there’s no one around you?”

No.

“On a crowded Goan beach, there’s no one around you to ask directions from?”

That’s right.

“Uh. Okay, what do you see around you?”

The beach.

“What else do you see around you?”

Its dark. Maybe I can ask someone if I can sleep here.

“So there IS someone around?”

No.

“Okay, Saha, how about you keep walking straight in one direction, you’ll come across someone atleast”

At 2 A.M, he still hadn’t come across anyone. Ready to drop with exhaustion, yet another call was made to his phone :

My battery's -

Gone.

At 2.15 A.M. we came up with the brilliantly misconceived idea of personally searching for him across the length of the beach. Note here that Baaga resolutely does not come in the category of Goa’s smaller beaches and that the moon hadn’t made an appearance that night.

“ SAAAAAAHAAAAAA …………”

Mythili started it. I blame her. She decided it was a good idea to shout his name out across the desolate beach, in the hope that his beer-sozzled mind would respond. It only felt right to join her.

“Oh SAAAAHAAAAAA …….”

Twice we mistook a down-turned boat for him. Then there was the bit where the pleasantly drunk beachgoers decided it would be funny to respond with a “here I am!” to our increasingly anguished yells. This was followed in quick succession by my fears about being accosted by shady Goan rapists as we neared the end of the beach. One end, atleast.

“He couldn’t be there!”

“But he said he was at a place where he couldn’t see anyone. You can’t see anyone there!”

“Well you can’t see him either can you?”

2.45 AM.

We recieve a call from the other group. Our man has apparently called them from a PCO booth next to the Candolim Taxi Stand.

“Well, atleast we can stop searching on the beach.”

“Maybe he only thinks it’s a taxi stand.”

“As opposed to?”

That question remained unanswered, when we got yet another call informing us he was at the Holiday Resort. This, wonder of wonders, was the hotel we were staying at. So, while we’d spent the better part of what felt like half the vacation searching for a Saha shaped lump on the beach, he’d managed to stumble his way to the hotel.

“So. Who wants to go dancing?”

They Can Keep Their Heaven

2011-04-08T02:51:00.000-07:00

Though he may be currently slandering one of the best pieces of art to disguise itself as a television show, George R. R. Martin has in the past given us this astonishingly beautiful piece of prose. To all lovers of fantasy, and escape and, well, prose :

"
The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real... for a moment at least... that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veiled with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smoke stacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreams that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to Middle Earth.”

Goodbye Carpe Diem

2011-03-31T06:09:00.000-07:00

And just like that, we're done with our final Carpe Diem at law school.

Thankfully, blessedly, Carpe Diem doesn't just go away. It stays on in the ridiculous amounts of photographs and videos that capture every single event over the course of a cultural overload of three days, indelible testaments mapping every single jubilant victory and every bitter embarrassing defeat. I find it amusing, rather, the trajectory that the fest - or rather, our perceptions of it - changed over the course of these 5 years of law school.

Way way back in the first year, that other lifetime, it was first and foremost a curiosity, a novelty, our first brush with an intra-college festival. It was a loud, often incoherent rumble of sound and colour, we enjoyed ourselves mildly, and it was over, our last place finish hardly an object of shame. Hey, first years are law school vermin, remember ? Not that the play with put up that year did anything to change that notion : we (well, mostly I considering I was responsible for it) went with the foolishly audacious decision of doing

an absurdist meditation on death and the afterlife, that involved scenes like the one in that picture above. Those human beings used as chairs ? Yeah, well, they're supposed to be ghosts.

Don't ask. Sigh.

In the second year of our participation in the college fest, things began to heat up. We'd picked up the ropes - well, we'd at the very least started picking at them. And so we knew that the dance practices couldn't actually begin on the day the fest began, that high concept theatre was a strict no-no. We saw the senior batches battling furiously for the win, allegations of underhandedness thrown all over the place, and we sniggered. It was just a stupid fest, who cared ?

This time the play was more of a crowd-pleaser : we went with a meet-cute rom-com formula that the Drama Club would go on to perfect over the next few years. The crowd was pleased; the judges not quite, and we didn't place. The dance fared better though, and we made a satisfactory third.

Again. who cared right ? And what was it these stupid seniors were fighting about anyway ?

And then, without warning, it began to matter in third year. This was the time of the first DJ Night : that now hallowed Nalsar tradition when the stadium decks up with massive speakers, accompanied by inexplicable black ribbons (seriously, what was that about ?), throngs of out-of-control-to-be-lawyers, all watched over warily by a row of wardens. That last bit might have been an issue, but honestly I think most of us were too drunk to notice or care.

We amped up the raunch in the play this time, induced by a great Coupling gag, and it paid off with us placing a respectable second for the first time in the Drama event. Also rewarding was trying to convince people that we did in fact speak Hebrew, borrowing from a gag in the play. The dance, for the first and only time, had a real and cohesive theme ("rags to riches", we were inspired by the Slumdog juggernaut !) and we cheered particularly hard as we finished second, ignoring the fact that two batches had tied for the first place.

Man, this winning business sure was satisfying. We whiffed the first scent of intoxication.

Thinking of my fourth year mostly bubbles up jaundice-induced memories. I'd just spent time recovering from the dreaded yellow at home, and suspiciously timed said-recovery to coincide with the starting day of Carpe Diem (hey, the stakes were high ! The play was a somewhat dismal Frasier-inspired choice, though the dances were again an incremental step up. I find it hard to recall too much more of this go-round of the fest though - blame it on the jaundice.

Oh, we did win it this time, though.

And with that victory came the bloodthirst. That motley little trophy had to belong to us again. It came to represent a lot more than just 3 days of fun - it was about this gloriously jingoistic concept of batch pride which even the past naysayers came to revel in, it was about holding dear those bragging rights we'd reserved for a year running, and some other intangible thing, which I can't quite explain, except to tell you it makes us all act in strangely irrational ways.

And so, we pulled out all the stops in our final year. We practiced for the dance event with a manic energy that had gone untapped in the years past. I pushed myself to write my first ever script for the theatre event. All around, there was this religious zeal in ensuring no event went ignored, no precious points left untallied.

For the final time, in our final year of law school, we won the trophy.

As we jumped on stage in sheer exhilaration, out of nowhere came an image of our second year of law school. I remembered the bit where we'd scoffed at the seniors for taking the stupid fest so seriously, where we'd complained they'd lost its sense of fun in pursuit of this crazed goal of needing to win at all costs.

And yet, here we were, all 80 of us, the motliest of motley crews, picked up from different corners of a very diverse country - and in some cases from other countries - and thrown together in a room for 5 years, in the pursuit of a final goal that would inevitably put us all at odds with one another, in the end often competing for that elusive "greatness", even though the paths for getting there were different. And then there was Carpe Diem, with its three days of cultural, literary and sporting events throwing those 80 people together into one common crazed goal. We shouldn't logically care about this collective - the one that being with this disparative group of 80 makes us privy to - and yet in some inexplicable way, we do. We've managed to forge this external bond irrespective of our many, many personal differences, and Carpe Diem in the end is the affirmation of that bond, the solidifying of these invisible chains that'll keep this collective together even as we hurtle towards our individuals paths, drifting away from each other one by one.

So in the end, when the time comes when we have to struggle to recall each other's names, when the idea of 7 PM curfews becomes a laughable memory, when we find ourselves changing beyond recognition, faint echoes of our former selves - well, it doesn't matter.

We'll always have Carpe Diem.

Battling Beethoven

2011-03-18T06:01:00.000-07:00

Last winter, the boy I like referring to as Fuhrer (for purely ironic reasons of course) introduced me to classical music. This falls into a general trend of learning-from-the-men, a resolution that has allowed me to pick up bits of philosophy, engineering jargon, politics, and most recently, the wonderful academic research tool, Mendeley.

Anyway, my knowledge of classical music till then extended to a vague recollection of Beethoven's Fifth, and a coterie of jumbled tunes that I couldn't really ascribe to composers. Then Fuhrer came along, and in hushed sessions of listening to the rise and fall of the orchestra, he'd come alive. Not that he wasn't animated otherwise, but the moments he was telling me about fugues and preludes, about how Bach was too clinical and how he preferred the uncontrolled peaks of Tchaikovsky - it was at those times the tempered diplomat-in-training vanished. In his place was a child frozen in rapture, losing sense of time and place, losing even, the panicked look on my face as he put to play yet another 30 minute long symphony.

As the end of our dalliance approached, I knew this was what I wanted to take away from the whole thing : if I could, for once, just be able to respond in that primal way to this extremely inaccessible form of music, that would be good enough. And so I tried hard, really hard, to follow him as he he walked me through, composition by composition, explanations rising in technical intensity. I took selected pieces from him - a "beginners guide to western classical" as we put it. I left the Delhi winter behind and attempted to put together what he'd said with what I felt about the music, and the pitiful tidbits that I could glean from wikipedia.

Didn't work of course.

The entire exercise was a painfully laboured one, right from me trying to pause the music every few seconds and read another commentary on it, in the process ignoring what was actually cascading through my ears. I gave up with the commentary and proceeded to just focus on the music. This was slightly better, and I could certainly tell I liked X composition more than Y sonata, but darn it, it wasn't affecting me the way I wanted it to.

I gave up.

Then, weeks later, in the escalation to Oscar fever, I got myself a copy of Black Swan. And there, right there, in the masterful opening scene, Tchaikovsky's already uneasy Swan Lake was being clinically, masterfully, distorted by Clint Mansell's Kronos Quartet. As anyone who has watched and loved Black Swan will identify with, the next 2 hours were a blur, a phantasmagorical ride, an operatic ballet by itself rivalling anything that the studio in the movie was trying to produce. And through it all, that skullduggery of a score, seeping insidiously into my head, the stuff of the most gorgeous nightmares and dreamscapes. There, right there, was my own primal response to a piece of classical music.

But of course, I wasn't just responding to the score. It was just as much about Aronofsky's remarkable marriage of every beat with a corresponding visual motif (as clunky as some might allege they are). I'm reminded of a Howard Gardner reading we did in the Pedagogy seminar where he talked about the situation where students tend to discard their learned educational tools in assessing problems, and dive back into a pre-education mode of analysis, where problems are dealt with on a more intuitive level.

And that's me with the music. I'm not a musician, I can't respond "technically" to music and I'm never going to write a single piece of credible music criticism. But you know, great man Ebert throws his hands in defeat at that too. The one instrument I have ever been able to play was the violin, and now even that lies forlorn in a corner of my room, untouched for years. Music to me is going to always, always be about the image, the association I make between the song and whatever strand of memory it taps into. I'm not complaining about this though - I really am glad that it does have atleast that effect on me, that consciously or subconsciously, I can be so tremendously moved by a simple 5 megabyte sized recording.

I've been informed that were a soundtrack of my life to be displayed, it would feature an endless list of obscure indie bands plucked off from the soundtracks of Grey's Anatomy or Chuck. This was of course vociferously disputed by me (The Beatles, guys !!) but I couldn't help noticing a hint of truth in the allegation.

Never mind people. You can now chalk in a bit of Mansell-altered Tchaikovsky to that list.

Alternate takes on Glee Sexuality

2011-03-11T03:01:00.000-08:00

Unless you’ve been hiding out in a bomb shelter or are too ragingly-heterosexual-male for your own good, chances are you’ve come across the pop cultural blitzkrieg that is Glee. This is the show where an earnest schoolteacher rallies a group of misfits and popular kids to come together as the high school’s show choir team, in the face of stiff opposition from a scheming cheerleading coach, better-equipped-and-prepared rival show choir teams, and most fiercely of all, from amongst themselves.

Oh, and they do most of this through song.

I noted last year how Glee had given us what was probably the most well-defined gay character on television, in the form of Kurt, played wonderfully by now Golden Globe winner Chris Colfer. The one point of criticism I did have with his character was how he was always necessarily the sanctimonious little saint, always the victim – and always ran away with the sympathy vote. While it’s great that television was giving us this wholesome gay lead character, some part of this portrayal ultimately rang untrue. What also didn’t quite fly with me were the “sweet lady kisses” that cheerleaders Brittany and Santana would occasionally exchange : the show treated this development with an annoyingly casual indifference, leaving the struggling viewers to scope out where this part of their sexuality fell within the spectrum of their varied dalliances.

Which is why the second season of Glee in general, and the latest episode featuring a guest-starring Gwyneth Paltrow in particular, has me so kicked. In the middle of a hugely inconsistent string of episodes, the writers have managed to recalibrate these characters in some fascinating ways, instantly making storylines involving their sexuality into the more memorable moments of a show where showstopping musical numbers are thrown at you before every commercial break. So what is it that the trio of Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk have done so wisely ?

To start with, Kurt finally gets called out for his victim complex. The road to the character coming to terms with his sexuality was plagued with him taking fault at his (perfectly reasonable) father’s bonding with his straight fellow-Glee clubber Finn. This was further complicated by Kurt’s own coming onto Finn, in a refusal to settle for the understanding that Finn could infact be perfectly heterosexual. Finn’s resultant anger at Kurt was then bluntly categorized as homophobia, without any attempt to negotiate the much finer undercurrents cutting through these relationships. This season, though, not only is Kurt forced to confront his own internalized set of prejudices when it comes to questions of sexuality, he also gets to interact (platonically for now) with the voice-of-reason gay classmate, Blaine.

“Sure, I’m in love with him, but atleast this time he’s gay !”

Also catalyzed by Blaine, Glee gives us what is possibly the best inter-generational discussion on sex I have seen on any medium, as Kurt’s father pushes aside his discomfort on the topic to do the best he can with his son. What results is a surprisingly moving take on this classic pop culture trope :

“You’ve got to know that it means something. It’s doing something to you, to your heart, to your self-esteem, even though it feels like you’re just having fun…. When you’re ready, I want you to be able to do everything, but when you’re ready, I want you to use it as a way to connect to another person. Don’t throw yourself around like you don’t matter. Because you matter, Kurt.”

If that wasn’t enough, look at the wonderful work that was done with Santana’s character on this last Glee episode. The season one finale informed us about Santana and Brittany’s occasional lesbian encounters, introduced as a little side bauble of a joke, to be occasionally brought back at the fringes only for further laughs. And then, without warning, Gwyneth Paltrow makes her second appearance in the Glee-verse and catalyzes a dialogue between the two of them. Cue an achingly beautiful cover of Stevie Nicks’ Landslide, as Santana tearfully implores “time makes you bolder, children get older … and I’m getting older too“. A moment of epiphany follows, and with it, another wonderful, wonderful little conversation as Santana finally opens her heart to Brittany. Again, the writers deftly manoeuvre conflicting ideas of alternate sexuality and love : Brittany reciprocates Santana’s feelings, but is also tied into a heterosexual relationship that she feels equally strongly about.

There do exist other commendable representations of alternate sexuality on major network shows – Grey’s Anatomy and Brothers and Sisters to call out 2 prominent ones – but what Glee does with its blazing marriage of music and emotion is something more unique and powerful.

I for one, cannot wait to see where the road to these representations of alternate sexuality takes us.

(as posted on Critical Twenties)

Critical Twenties gives us a home !

2011-03-10T06:31:00.000-08:00

So, the wonderful folk at Critical Twenties have asked Lekha and yours truly to write more regularly for their Media and Popular Culture Section. This, Lekha and I intend to do with a vengeance as we inch ever closer to world-movie-critic-domination.

For the uninitiated (gasp !) Crit Twenties, in their own well-put words "is a community blog, comprising a motley bunch of young 20-something Indians with little in common, from diverse fields coming together to speak their mind on issues of contemporary relevance to modern India. From the Radia tapes and their implications for Indian journalism to the role of ethics in Indian scientific research, the new age of cerebral movie-making in Bollywood to the contested place of religion in modern Indian life, from the future of commercial arbitration in India to how the Supreme Court missed getting its first woman Chief Justice, topics and opinions on this site are as eclectic as the contributors".

Anyway, we're obviously quite excited about this development, and hope we're up to the challenge of reaching out to a larger, more diverse set of readers. Amongst other things, I've had a long held desire to write more incisive takes on television as a format, being of the firm belief that we are definitively in the golden era of the medium, and Crit Twenties looks like a great forum to generate some discussion on the same. This blog will of course continue to regularly feature the myriad woes of my life (woes which look to take even more myriad forms as I transition in two months from a law student to a lawyer), while Reviewers without Borders will continue to churn out movie reviews as long as there exist evil movie critics.

See you on the other side !

Legal Maxims and the Lover's Dilemma

2011-03-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

De Minimis Non Curat Lex. That's one of the first maxims we learnt at law school : the law does not deal in trifles.

Sure, leave that to us law students.

Volenti Non Fit Injuria anyone ? No injury is done to a person who consents. Sure, there is a limit to the extent of the injury that can be done, but the core idea is simple enough : when you know what you're getting into, you do not get to complain about it.

And then of course, my personal favourite, the most overused and simultaneously relevant of them all : Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat. Well, of course, ignorance of the law is no excuse : a law broken is an act unlawful, irrespective of what you thought you were doing at the time of commission. Again, the degrees differ, but don't you dare tell us you had no clue.

Here you go then, a few of the fundamental governing rules that any half decent law student will rattle off in an instant. These are also, unfortunately, the rules that this particular law student finds especially difficult to abide by. So, yes. It is a trifling matter that you will not voluntarily contract into an injurious situation that breaks a set of rules that were clearly laid out for you. It would be nothing more than rational and logical and heck, even legal - and yet ... it can be a baffling challenge to abide by these rules outside the law's formal domain.

Its easy, all too easy, to drop everything for a bit and escape. Here I am - I've just come back from a little getaway of my own. It was pretty darn great of course, just that letting go of everything at the drop of a hat. In the process though, I may have escaped the bit of my life that was going to rationally abide by the rules. And during the great escape, during the time when I could afford to be a different person, maybe even be more of the real person I was - breaking these rules was just part of the temporary new me. And then, before I know it, I'm back at safe harbour, shaking sand from my shoes, and things should feel the same.

But of course they don't.

The law is mediated by reason and rational thinking. The heart though, is almost unconstitutionally arbitrary. And so it is that we deal with the most trifling of trifles, and so it is that we get into situations of potential harm still hoping for the best, and so it is that we are prepared to be willfully blind to any of the consequences even as we sit in isolated alcoves, safe and simultaneously at war with ourselves.

To be atleast partially fair and less lacerating to myself, rational thought oftentimes cannot go logically with emotion. My favourite example is when Julian Baggini applies the classic Prisoner's Dilemma (John Nash's Game Theory came from here !) to the idea of commitment. The prisoner's dilemma premises the situation of two isolated prisoners in different cells who've committed a crime together. There's a combination of different kinds of testimonies they can give to different results : the absolute best for both of them would be to maintain silence. Rationally they'd both get off with the least charge possible. But of course, into this rational discourse comes the very irrational emotion of trust - how is either of them to ensure the other won't cheat and try to get a better deal for himself ? And so wouldn't the rational thing then be to simply both tell on each other, and still bargain for a limited decent deal ?

Anyway, Baggini, bless his pop-philosophical soul, riffs on this example to give us a situation of a couple exchanging marriage vows. The idea there too, is to put the marriage before self. And yet, how is one to put any kind of commitment on such a grand pedestal ? Sure, as the prisoners would have found, if both parties had given in to these ideas of trust, and actually put the relationship before themself, well, there you go, that would've been perfect. And yet we've all seen too much bitterness and heartache to every truly be able to trust innocently, so of course we will bargain out the most advantageous position for ourself.

We'll be insured from the worst, sure.

We'll also be insured from the best.

There you go again - emotions get in the way of brutally simple rules that we'd be so much better off abiding by blindly. More and more, I find that, yeah, sure, the one true gift of a half decent legal education has been in gaining the ability to rationalize every event down to its bare fundamentals. But it is countered at every step of the way by that one true burden of years of inundating self with wistful thought (encouraged, I admit, by overexposure to wistful/melancholic British pop music) resulting in losing precisely that ability when it comes to the more important decisions.

So we can make all the rules we want and crave to live in logical, responsible, rational ways. Its just that something more primal than the law will pretty much always come in the way.

Here's the thing at the end of the day though. You don't just get to break rules without a cost. Which brings us to our final maxim :

For every wrong - there is a remedy.

Ubi Jus Ibi Remedium, baby.

Everyone pays.

Writer's Paradox

2011-03-02T05:26:00.000-08:00

Out of the myriad of writerly afflictions, too much time and emphasis is given to writer's block. While this is of course an issue that has weighed heavy on the minds of pretty much everyone who has set pen to paper or keypad to computer screen for pleasure, it tends to outshine other maladies we must be examining. Of these, none is as beguiling and deceptively cruel as the writer's paradox.

Before you go imagining some complicated Einsteinian theorem, let me clarify this simple enough idea.

Now as a writer, or an aspiring one (the difference between the two being a degree of sitzfleisch) will understand, you are to never be attracted to a fellow writer. Such a union, if it happens, only serves to devolve to intense frustration and heartburn for whoever of the two proves to be the lesser writer. This is more intense, too, than any other form of professional rivalry simply based on the fact that writers are the most egotistical sub-category of human beings. Hey, we're presumptious to the extent of spewing out our inner thoughts and then wanting to be paid for other folks experiencing them ! The only other group which comes close to the writer clique in terms of ego would be, as pointed out by my friend Mythili, well, the lawyers.

Please note at this juncture that I claim allegiance to both groups.

So, right, you have this issue of writers being toxic companionship fodder to fellow writers. But see, this is where the paradox creeps in. Like it or not, want it or not, it is to these very walking time-bombs that one tends to be most attracted to. Its not just a passing spark of attraction either - volumes of their output only give you what you think is a window into their soul. And regardless of how black this soul might be, if the journey to its centre is written with grace and clarity, one is doomed. It happens without warning of course. One minute they tell you they write for this college paper or churn material on that blog, and the next thing you know, you're diligently scanning through every single piece of theirs. These works of writing you will obviously anoint as literature, in the futile attempt to sieve out their influences, part of the even more futile project to, well, sieve them out.

My favourite pop culture illustration of this plays out over the course of Seasons 5 and 6 of Sex and the City. Carrie meets the impossibly charming Berger - and how could he not be, considering he's, well, a published author ! Sparks fly, there is incredible crackling chemistry. They exchange literary banter. And then, well, he asks her to read his unpublished manuscript.

Whoops.

Before you can say oh no Manolo, Carrie's signed the relationship's death warrant by giving him qualified praise for the book. Even that, though, is something the publishers are unwilling to give him. Gone is the contract, even as Carrie's literary success peaks. Ever true to his authorial instincts, Berger scribbles a breakup note on a post-it.

Sorry, Carrie, writer's paradox got your man.

Gayatri Mantra Pop and other Gokarna delicacies

2011-02-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

We're back from Gokarna, and darn it, I still have sand in my shoes. Maybe I'm inspired by this one book I'm devouring on how-not-to-be-a-conventional-travel-writer, or maybe its the mid-afternoon-ennui, or maybe just the fact that the place was pretty freaking fantastic but, well, I can't resist talking about it.

Getting there is one-twentieth the fun

A train ride from Hyderabad to Hubli, and a cab from there to Gokarna - that was the plan. The train ride was uneventful - which made it somewhat of a palace-on-wheels in comparison to my last stint on a train. That particular odyssey was rocked by the somewhat calamitous event of me slowly contracting jaundice - which I'd done accompanied by piteous whimpers whilst curled up on the uppermost berth of the compartment. This time round though, I managed to curl up on the uppermost berth with Chetan Bhagat's hugely mediocre, though compellingly readable "Two States". In a book marred by shudder-inducingly clunky writing, the slices of life from the ever reigning north-south war save the day; my favourite being the Punjabi mother-in-law's venom-fueled rejoinder to the South : "Black from the outside, black from inside". Tejaswi to my right (white-ish from outside, can't vouch for the inside) had her own north-south battle for the upper berth, which she lost midway through the night to a passenger who wouldn't take "can we switch ?" for an answer.

A 4 hour cab ride post the train, and we caught the first glimpse of the sea near Gokarna. The first salty whiff of the ocean was to come a bit later though, as we trekked down an implausible route to Kudle beach - our abode for the next few days. Trundling luggage down rocky hills is hard enough, but the real endurance test was the trudge down the sand on the beach - and the horrific realization that out pre-booked room did not, in fact, exist. The succeeding hunt for accommodation on the beach was carried out under the increasingly relentless sun, with tempting, teasing waves just out of hand's reach. We finally chanced upon a dingy room at the Sea-View Resort, with one low wattage bulb and clouds of dust for company. Meanwhile, I was racked with bouts of worry about the boy.

Oh wait, the boy. Right, rewind.

Boy goes Solo

Tyler's a young American in the middle of one of those extremely cool scholarships that never seem to exist when you need them - this particular one being a travelling gig that has thus far sent him to the likes of Jordan, Serbia and Tunisia, before landing up in the confines of my playground of Hyderabad. Less than two weeks of acquaintance - and that many dates - later, we decide his simultaneously made Goa plan will include a detour to Gokarna. What I don't know then is that he will decide to make this detour with the aid of a motorcycle. This is in addition to the fact that it will be the first time he is proceeding with actually riding the said vehicle.

The new face of Hell's Angels

I am justifiably nervous.

As I sit in the wonderful little Oasis Cafe, listening to some truly dreadful 90s Bollywood music, the sky turns resolutely darker, until it is pitch black save for the moonlight. My nerves are heightened at the prospect of his journey down the mountain at this hour. Then of course, there's the fact that there is virtually no phone signal on this gloriously remote beach. I jump slightly at every second person entering the place, but I will be made to wait for atleast another hour until .....

Until, well, my fears prove to be very much founded.

He stumbles into the cafe, looking intensely dazed. He's crashed his bike TWICE. As he lifts his shirt up in the room 5 minutes later, he reveals a string of bruises down the left side of his body, culminating in an inexplicable massive black crusted wound on his shoulder. Any movement of his right arm evinces a pained wince on his face, which I involuntarily mimic.

Grey's Anatomy has not prepared me for this.

Well, atleast he's alive.

---

Midnight St. Valentine !

Before you know it, things get a whole lot better. A trip to the hospital the next day informs us that he will infact live, and even better, live a non-crippled existence soon enough. The day passes by in uneventful bliss, and before we know it, we're half an hour from my birthday.

My friends display the most tact they have shown in our 5 years of acquaintance and decide they are feeling cold leaving me and injured boy on the beach. It takes quite an effort for him to sit down, but once we've found our place on the sand I can feel the sea holding its breath. The moon hits the wave froth, the shacks all the way down have the faintest of lights burning, and here I sit, transitioning into the 22nd year of my life in one perfectly sculpted moment, that I couldn't have scripted better if I tried.

The Sea, The Sea

Early on the morning of my birthday, I walk back to the hotel room, a vague sense of loss weighing me down as the boy heads off on his journey back to Hyderabad.

"Come for a dip ?" Saha's just woken up. The weight lifts. Hell yeah !

There's a simple enough pattern for our seafaring ways on the trip : the obligatory morning dip to greet the day, and then the late afternoon swim to transition to an evening of heavy face-stuffing. Finally there are the late night walks down the beach, tip-toeing precariously close to the surf.

One afternoon, fresh off a half-decent full body massage at the shack, found 3 of us having an anyday-at-the-law-school conversation, that would've been unremarkable save for that it was conducted while we stood neck deep in sea water. This gave way to the daily game of Wavewatch : lie in wait for the next significant swell hoping it would be the-big-one. All our sea-sessions before - and all the ones after - disappointed us, but that one day we were rewarded. We'd been standing much further from where the waves were breaking near the shore, so it came as a surprise when this one seemingly unthreatening bump heightened 5 metres away from us, before rising high in our unsuspecting faces, and engulfing us whole.

It was magnificent. We aptly monikered it the Tsunami Wave.

It was never to be encountered again.

Hippie Muzak

No travel experience to a stoners paradise beach can and should be complete without atleast one run-in with the friendly neighourbood hippie band. We encountered ours on the final night : trolling down the beach, we saw from a distance, candles dug into the sand lighting up a gathering of musicians and admirers. All prepared to be regaled by this motley orchestra, we made ourselves comfortable next to them.

At first, I thought the violinist was tuning his instrument. A few practise runs maybe. With a rising sense of horror, I realized that the practise runs were his performance. To evoke the sound that emanated from his talented fingertips, imagine if you will, a fleet of husky throated mosquitoes humming away in panic to the smell of odomos.

Either because we were the only ones who still had some semblance of musical taste, or weren't stoned witless, we noticed we were alone in expressing disdain at this concert. All around us sat entranced firangs, in different stages of rapture. It was horrifying. Then, as if to test our endurance (we were trying really really hard to not laugh too loud and divert attention from the music) , one of the more ardent followers stood up.

"Why don't you play that song from the cafe ?"

My mind instantly flashed to the violinist playing along to the Dhadkan soundtrack.

"You know, that song - Om Bhuur bhuva swaha tat savitur varenyam ......"

Oh Sweet Hippie Jesus.

The Great Metropolis of Guntakal

Five. Hour. Stopover.

The town of Guntakal was waiting for us on our journey back, in all its glory : a glory that we enjoyed speculating would comprise a couple-o world class bistros, atleast one neighbourhood multiplex, and oh why not throw in a pulsating bar ? We were met instead, with streets thronging with my Muslim bretheren marching along observing Milaad-un-Nabi. The festivities were highlighted by charming young bikers removing silencers from their vehicles, presumably so that all of Andhra Pradesh would know they were celebrating. We spend most of our time in Nandini veg restaurant, the highlight of which is a particularly inspired game of Guess-Who ?

Before you knew it, we were back in the train, my eyes heavy with sleep, with the looming inevitability of reopening them in Hyderabad. And so I lay in my nice little upper berth thinking ... well. I don't know if it sounds trite, if its too pat a conclusion, if it rings true for any of the others - but Gokarna in the end wasn't really about the treks, or the sand, or the waves, or the food - Labani Pita ! - or the hippies. I'd been told this one thing about the place - that I'd need a lot of alcohol to get me through 4 days of stay there, that I'd probably get bored, that it was just fine, but there wasn't much to be expected. But as I think back to it - I had maybe 2 bottles of beer and 3 heavily diluted cocktails over the course of the trip. I don't recall a moment of despairing inactivity. And no, it wasn't just fine it was pretty damn great.

I don't know what made it that much more special than it had any right to be. And then, as I rolled over, still in my upper berth, I caught a snatch of inane conversation from my friends below. Now that I'm out of the fog of sleep, the details have left me - what I do recall was my drowsy self snorting with laughter. These people, all of them, they're absolute loons, in the best possible way. They've all managed to go quietly insane, just about the same level I have over these 5 years of law school. They make the hamlet of Shameerpet tolerable .... and they make sleepy seaside towns like Gokarna unforgettable.

There you go.

P.S. Ok, the boy may have also been a contributing factor to the awesomeness of the place. But hey, the loons are still awesome.

Dancing with Fuhrer

2011-01-17T07:05:00.001-08:00

As wonderful as I think the world that the queer community has constructed for itself is — and heck, it can be pretty darn brilliant — I can’t help but feel sometimes that we may have paid a rather big price for it.

Sometimes, I think, we may just have sacrificed our romantics.

This past week, there was a much looked-forward-to date with The German. Let’s call him Fuhrer. Fuhrer’s going to be a diplomat soon; while I don’t know the extent of his eventual workplace skills, he was perfectly adequate at international-affairs-oriented-flirtation-humour. Yes, apparently they have that now.

So here we are, Fuhrer and I, going down the perfect date trajectory, with the great dinner followed by Frank Sinatra-induced dancing, followed by other, several (still) perfectly adequate date-related hijinks.

Then, at three in the morning, a research query on female genital mutilation from his friend across the Mediterranean results in transposing the date from perfectly-adequate to hell-this-is-awesome-in-a-post-coital-joint-academic-research-can-be-awesome kind of way. The night stretches into the early hours of the morning, promises of morning sex drift away in the fog of exhaustion, but something about the past 12 hours makes me want to spend a lot more time with him.

Tentatively then, I ask — “So, what are your evening plans ?”

Non-tentative is the answer — “Oh, I have this date with this guy from out of town, so yeah, I’ll be spending the evening with him.”

And here kick in those darned rules that we’ve constructed. The rules where we’ve done away with the rules. Here, when I’d like to let my smile falter just a little bit, but I am not allowed to. No, these wonderful brutal rules that we’ve made, dictate that my response be utter nonchalance — anything else would be hypocrisy, of course.

Stupid gay world.

Am I making broad, inaccurate and unfair generalisations here ?

Well, obviously. When have you heard of bitter lovers being objective ?

I am distracted by Pride, the following afternoon. My throat is hoarse from chanting, my left ankle feels the constant bouncing it was subjected to. Drinks are on the house, its T’s birthday. I am phlegmatic at best about the Pride after-party, but of course I must go. Can’t let Fuhrer be the only one with a hot date this evening now, can I?

Soon enough, I catch someone’s eye. Soon enough, we make conversation over drinks. The evening is fast evolving into a mini-date. We head off to continue the conversation, my internal man-SWOT analysis hasn’t really

returned a negative result. Yet.

Mistake.

He is utterly, incredibly, astonishingly full of himself. My eyes are glazing over from boredom. I let the kiss happen only to realise it’s more of a furious bite. He hulks, lumbering over me, I bear it all for a minute more, then pull away. I can feel my lower lip swelling up, and a bruise form around my waist at the point he “playfully” squeezed at.

“Erm, good night then.”

Multiple levels of bitterness surge through me in the freezing cold auto ride back. Annoyance at the man, annoyance at the cold, annoyance at a potentially nice evening wasted, and finally, annoyance at that Fuhrer. I imagine him now with his date for the evening, warm, nestled in a tangle of sheets in the room I was in just 12 hours ago.

But this is our world and these are our rules and this is my choice and I’m as guilty as anyone else I feel angry with. Fuhrer of course, didn’t promise me anything, and as I think back to our conversation over the night — neither did I. All I’d done was make the unreasonable expectation of clairvoyance from his side — that he reach into my muddled mind, and extract the idea that within only the second week of us knowing each other, I was uncomfortable with him being with other men.

Our rules, no rules, right? And I think — how difficult can this deal be, anyway? Casual dating’s underrated — and we do have fun together. And sure, it’s terrifying that there are no paths laid out for what we’re doing, not enough pop cultural bread crumbs to help find our way — but I’ll be darned if it isn’t exciting as hell.

And so I pick up the phone. Instead of texting Fuhrer to dream a little dream of me, I tell him about the lousy date I had. I half-expect no

reply — it was probably just all about the sex, obviously. Right ?

But the buzz of my phone leaps through my fingers, and as I read his reply, I’m smiling.

“Oh my goodness, I’m going to call you in a bit — need details! :P”

Okay, Fuhrer.

Let’s play.

As published in the New Indian Express - Sexualities on 15 January, 2011.

Q and A

2011-01-12T05:50:00.000-08:00

Did we speak that day, you and I,
Did we voice our bitter regret ?
Did we glance, or gaze, or brush against - or,
Did we simply deign to forget ?

Do you hope to meet me again, someday,
Do you hope to see me cry ?
Do you hope I'll see your strength, your form - or,
Do you hope I'll curl up and die ?

I think, a thought, a thousand years,
I think you through and through
I think I'll talk - but a million fears,
They keep me, I think, from you

Barter

2011-01-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

I barter sleep for a restless night,

exchange talk for a drowsy gaze,

then look away for cold comfort

and pull away from your embrace.

We barter away our time today,

For a future we cannot see.

A compromise, a delayed wish,

A chance for you and me.

I sit in a cold damp room in the south,

Waiting for your warm northern reply.

Ignoring the warning voice in my head,

That cautions against love’s decry.

So we’ll trade in stocks of lust and loss,

And gift each other regret.

And we’ll barter, haggle, borrow and beg,

For one more chance to forget.

But whatever I say,

Whatever I do,

Whatever words I rhyme -

They’re all halfhearted and untrue,

And ring as hollow as this line.

For the biggest barter I have made,

The one exchange I’ll forever rue,

Is trading my heart, my beating soul,

For a sliver, a whiff, of you .

For Auld Lang Syne, my dear

2011-01-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

You know all that tosh about new year's day being just another false temporal blip on our gullible collective consciousness ?

Nonsense.

No year is bad enough that you don't have moments to look back on fondly as you sit waiting for that clock to strike 12 - and of course no year is perfect enough for you to avoid twinges of regret as the hours dry up. Whatever the case be, New Year's Eve is mankind's way of telling us to take stock of our lives - its every single person's joint birthday.

Most of my new year's eves in the past have gone by in watching my folks doze off by 11.45 pm, then sleepily acknowledging the intrusion of the new year while I grumble unhappily looking on at televised bursts of the world having fun. This year though, I got to cheer the midnight chime in the company of dear-and-very-much-awake friends, followed soon after by a brief outing at the neighbourhood gay party, quickly succeeded by Baileys and conversation with the ol' friends right till the crack of dawn.

Late next morning, I was taking the metro ride back to Gurgaon. There's a lovely bit where the underground train moves swiftly upwards, and sunlight floods the compartment. I enjoy this moment generally, but today it was elevated by the refreshing new-ness of the day, the delicious promises that the year had to offer, by the Magic Numbers album I was playing on my ipod, and just simply by the wonderfully pleasant night before.

Since this blog is at any rate, at all times a document of introspection, I see little point in looking further within on this lovely day. Instead, I'll just sign off by thanking everyone who made a mark on my life over the year - the good, and the bad. To the friends who were indulgent beyond belief, to the lovers who grew cold, to the relationships that grew old, and heck, to every single one of you - thank you, thank you so much.

I do wish you a wonderful, wonderful new year.

Bad Santa

2010-12-28T00:49:00.000-08:00

Christmas this year was in Manali.

This was all very well during the moments I was actually exploring Manali. Its one of the nicer, more unspoilt hillstations than the likes of Shimla and Mussoorie, and actually qualifies for the tag of "Getaway".

In this pretty little getaway though, is located the Holiday Inn.

Now, Holiday Inn is a nice enough place mind you. They've got the whole creepers-on-walls effect down to an art, the rooms are comfortable, and the view of the valley is lovely. However, what Holiday Inn also has is its annual Christmas gala dinner.

It is not for the fainthearted.

For the uninitiated (and I hope there are many, MANY of you), this "dinner" is regaled by a group of 4 extremely bored men, and one supremely sullen woman, dressed in Santa suits, belting out famous recent Bollywood hits. Occasionally, these are in tune, but way too much of my evening went by in staring pointedly at the opposite wall trying to fill my head with happier sounds.

"Please enjoy the cozy dancefloor for your Christmas pleasure !", the lead singer yelled, in his first acknowledgment of the audience for the evening. The audience was curiously unmoved. At this point, he decided that it was probably because we preferred badly rendered Western music, over badly rendered Indian music, and decided to switch gears.

And so, on a dreamy Christmas night in Manali, one lucky audience was serenaded to Floyd's "We don't Need no Education". Whatever the desired effect of the rendition, it failed to happen - I suspect his interpretation of the lyrics might have helped ?

For -

"We don't need no educationsssss .....
We don't need no self contrrrrol ......."

Oh dear

"No black sarcasmss in the classesss"

Seriously, Holiday Inn ?

"Teachers leave us kids alone"

Ah finally, one line correct.

"After all its just another brick in the wall"

Right, there you go.

Worried by the lack of enthusiasm from the audience side, even as the pianist on stage inched perilously close to keeling over his keyboard in sleep, lead-singer-santa decided to accompany the final bit of the song with John Travolta's swivel from Saturday Night Live.

This finally elicited a cheer from the audience - though it may have been a strangled yell of horror.

Anyway. Hope y'all had a great Christmas !

The Year in Queer

2010-12-25T04:09:00.000-08:00

In the first year of the second decade of the third millennium — people came, and went; new sets of international and domestic relations were forged and destroyed; embarrassing secrets leaked out into the open for everyone to see, only to be forgotten with the next new scandalous bit of gossip.

But enough about my sex life.

This here, was the year, in queer. And no, I’m not going to be exhaustive.

Glee continued to explode onto our television screens and into our hearts; first with Chris Colfer’s unflinchingly honest portrayal of out and proud gay teen Kurt, and in a satisfying story arc, his slow inching towards everyone’s new Teenage Dream, Darren Criss. Covering the otherwise mediocre Katy Perry track in his role as model high schooler Blaine, our dear singular sensation managed to get the track to soar right to the top of the Billboard charts — not bad at all for that rare, rare genre of female-music-covered-by-men.

Stateside, the critics loved Phillip Morris, with Jim Carrey getting much praise for a career-best performance as a gay, very-much-in-love con artist. Ewan Mcgregor made the cons easier to swallow. The audience here though, hasn’t been getting too much of a chance to savour it, with the movie still in limited release.

The Kids Are All Right gave us a lesbian couple for the ages, with Annette Bening and Julianne Moore also getting major Oscar buzz for their performances.

Across the Pacific, we were subjected to Dunno Y… Na Jaane Kyun? We wondered the same thing, as the next big gay hope for Bollywood cinema quickly disintegrated into a messy so-bad-it’s-good-embarrassing pile of cinematic tripe.

The posters were hot though.

The American military is one step closer to asking and telling, with the Senate having voted on the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ even as I write these words. Amongst the high profile faces associated with the campaign against DADT, we went Gaga over the Lady’s impassioned rally; less so on her meat dress. Looks like Alejandro won’t be calling anytime soon.

Iceland, Portugal and Argentina became the latest countries to allow for same-sex marriage. Mexico-City too, now allows same-sex couples to marry, though a federal law remains unlikely.

Back here in India, we celebrated one year of the Naz verdict; we laughed a little louder, and we stood a little prouder on the 2nd of July, one step closer to full citizenhood, out of the shadow of the penal code. The Pride parades got much bigger, the masked faces at them decreased.

Decriminalisation still couldn’t stop the persecution and eventual suicide of Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras. What it could, however do, was hark the Allahabad High Court order which called for Aligarh Muslim University to reinstate the professor, and move the Uttar Pradesh State police to take action against the accused responsible for filming Siras in the confines of his house. The contours of our debates have shifted, though in the end the system murdered Siras any which way.

This was a system which also took the lives of Tyler Clementi and Corey Jackson and Billy Lucas and too many other gay teenagers this year. Out of their deaths though, came the astonishing “It Gets Better” project, with the world coming together on YouTube with radiant messages of hope for gay youth everywhere. Barack Obama has a video, Hillary Clinton has one too, and look out for those wonderfully crafted Google and Pixar employee videos. Watch any single one of these heartfelt pleas to life, and try not tearing up just a little.

Ricky Martin told us he was gay; so did Will and Grace’s Sean Hayes. Back in India, we had to make do with Ranbir Kapoor going gay for a Pepsi commercial, and then for Karan Johar’s talk show. Unfortunate how our biggest gay icons remain ragingly self-identified heterosexual men.

A steady stream of Indian queer fiction trickled out — we had Parvati Sharma’s The Dead Camel and Other Stories of Love, Rahul Mehta Quarantine-d us, R Raja Rao gave us a gay love story in his Hostel Room 131, while Mahesh Natarajan (who, incidentally, and I will namedrop here, is a friend!) let the Pink Sheep out of their flock, and A Revathi’s The Truth About Me gave a voice to the struggles of the Hijra community in India.

But seriously, dear reader — my sex life.

I met an Ecuadorian, a German, an Engineer (they really are a different race) and a Poet (them too). Right, maybe I’m not being completely exhaustive here either. I fell wildly in love, and tumbled bitterly out. All of these men were incredible — and for a brief while, I hated their guts. Most of us are good friends now.

Every step of the way I got one step closer to realising I’d never quite understand the queer world. Every step of the way I realised that being gay is the best journey I didn’t voluntarily embark on.

So if you’re reading these words and you identify within the wonderfully broad lexicon of queer — congratulations my friend. And if you’re straight, and you hopefully have a hint of a smile on your face — well, thank you. Everything that we fight for only truly stands with your support.

As published in the New Indian Express on Saturday, 25th December, 2010.

Cities of Blinding Light

2010-12-08T01:18:00.000-08:00

What does the city mean to you ?

Way back in our second semester in law school, we had this one reading in sociology about the origins of the modern city - how ideas of community evolved over space and time. It was an ambitious piece, with the writer working forwards from around the time of Mohenjodaro. Anyway, he lost me somewhere around the 18th century.

So I don't really have a theoretical grounding in what a city is supposed to mean. But, regardless, what does the city mean ?

Is it the roads you can't navigate or the litter of malls that flag your way (gurgaon people alert !) or the definitive eating joints - perhaps that familiar whiff of vada pao that'll inform you you're in Mumbai, or the Jalebi and milk morning feast characteristic of many an Indore morning ?

For me, its pretty simple really. Cities are - to put my thoughts roughly - collective bundles of shared experience. So Bangalore will always be the city which induces me to fall in love - the city of my first real relationship, as also the city with whose denizens I was to repeatedly fall into entanglements with before and after that defining event. It was inside a ratty old Bangalore one-bedroom apartment that I spent one of the most incredible nights of my life, steadily falling in love with someone I'd met only a few hours ago.

Hyderabad's the city where I deal with the consequent heartbreak - it often is the cause of that very heartbreak. Its the anchor which has kept me away from a lot of these beautiful people, and over the years has earned my resentment, my frustration - misplaced anger perhaps, but there you go. Sure, we've had our great moments, Hyderabad and I, but still - just not a big Hyderabad fan here.

And Mumbai - Mumbai will always be the city I escaped to, wanting to lose myself after a bitter competitive defeat, with its promise of anonymity, with its sheltered cloak I wore in my obsolescent state. There's a sense that you can be anyone when you're walking down the streets of Colaba, right down to the Gateway looking out into the sea. You can be anyone - or nothing at all. And its all okay. So that's Mumbai for you.

But really now, this conversation - started in; began because of; and always was going to be centred around - Delhi. For Delhi has at one point been all of these things, crushed and jammed and wrapped up together into one incredibly messy and hugely endearing package. Delhi is the metro, and the metro is its numerous comings and goings, the farewells and meetings. This momentary ambiguous pang as the final station approaches, as you steel yourself to part ways with yet another beloved acquaintance. Delhi will also inextricably be the unreasonable, pernicious, winter cold, instinctively bidding you on to clasping other warm hands, and warmer bodies. The kind of winter that conspires to force you inside a tangle of sheets for that extra minute, which invariably turns into that extra hour, reluctant lovers finding the usual challenge of separating themselves becoming that much harder.

And so .... I love in Bangalore, and I hurt in Hyderabad, and I hide in Mumbai.

In Delhi though, I just let myself be.

Delhi, you see, simply loves me back.

Reviewers without Borders !

2010-12-06T03:04:00.000-08:00

.... is the name of the new pop-culture review blog I'm starting with the wonderful Lekha Sridhar. Catch more regular movie, television and book reviews out there folks !

http://reviewerswithoutborders.blogspot.com/

Here's the first review up on the blog :

Never Let Me Go

Okay, movie version of one of my favourite books of all time : The dice was loaded from the start.

The trailers for Mark Romanek's adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker shortlisted novel point out that its based on "the greatest novel of the decade", atleast according to TIME. Which gives it astonishingly strong source material, of course, but also the curse of ridiculously high expectations. Add to that, a cast that includes Carey Mulligan, fresh off an incredibly winning performance in "An Education", and Keira Knightley, who, say what you might, was born to play the casually cruel and selfish character of Ruth.

So does the movie acquit itself of its burden ?

Well, no. Not completely, not in the smashingly triumphant way I wanted it to. Blame it on the fact that I was too intent on comparing it with its source novel, or that I'd walked in with the preconcieved notion that the book was un-adaptable - the movie wasn't everything I wanted it to be. However, simply based on the incredible hook of the story, on the fact that the performances do deliver, and on the fact that the director gets the wistful tone of the novel down to every last melancholic frame, I'd still say this is a good, well-made film : just with the unfortunate tag that it could've been much more.

So what do we have here ? Well - a hell of a premise. Hailsham, where the action starts, is a boarding school - but not quite like your everyday Malory Towers. The children here are "special", they're often reminded, they must keep healthy, they must keep fit, they have a higher purpose. This devastating "purpose" is revealed early enough into the film : they were brought into the world to serve as organ donors. A few years after they hit adulthood, they will start their duty of donations. Around the 3rd or 4th donation, most of them will, as Ishiguro delicately put it, "complete".

But Never Let Me Go isn't really about the ethics of organ donation at all. In the masterstroke of the novel, and in a thankfully faithful screen transition, the focus is on the relationship between its 3 central characters : all of whom will one day serve as donors. Carey Mulligan is the gentle, reflective Kathy, Keira Knightley is ruthless little Ruth, and Andrew Garfield (the best friend from the social network !)is the rage prone Tommy. Tommy is the object of both Kathy and Ruth's affection : he truly loves one of them, and is in a relationship with the other. The cruelly shortened love story is the most successful transition from the novel to the screen : the pivotal scenes where one character repents their decade-old decision/ a long delayed kiss/ the final look 2 lovers share as one lies on an operating table destined for death : the moments are all quietly devastating, and wonderfully played out.

Carey Mulligan is really the one to watch here - it starts off as an innocuous performance, as she lets Keira Knightley's character play off her, but watch as she slowly builds in quiet desperation, never quite letting herself go. In the movie's best scene, she sits next to Tommy as they are informed gradually that there is no escape, not even a delay, from the fate that awaits them. Kathy realizes this much before Tommy - and observe how beautifully Mulligan lets her eyes convey the infinite sadness of this revelation, and at the same time the trepidation of what this discovery is going to do to Tommy. If there was one word you'd use to describe Kathy's character from the book, it'd be graceful - and here, Mulligan positively radiates that grace.

So where does the movie falter ?

Simply put - it's not enough. It's an economical little 1 hour and 35 minutes, a neat running time, which seems to rob away some of the power from every frame. You get the sense that we're being presented with a quick succession of events that don't flow into each other seamlessly, that moments aren't allowed to breath, and conversations are cut short. Ishiguro's novel has several fascinating instances of internal monologue where Kathy dissects a conversation she's having whilst its on, a device which manages to get you right into the heads of all these different characters. While I realize it would've been extremely difficult to work that idea into the movie, the fact that its not there is a big blow.

But, watch it. For a movie that's so pivotally bound to the notion of death, Kathy's final words are wonderfully life-affirming.

Weekend Watch : Guzaarish and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

2010-11-24T23:05:00.000-08:00

I’m a bit of a Sanjay Leela Bhansali apologist, I’ll admit. In almost everything he’s directed – barring the blue haze phantasmagoria that was Saawariya – he’s managed to sweep me along giddily in his grand visions of opulent art direction, soaring musical scores, and bluntly emotional beats.

So, that works for him, that kind of grand, unabashed cinema. That lack of cynicism is why I’d plunge into a Bhansali film without reservations, waiting to be taken along for the ride. And that kind of expectation is what ultimately makes Guzaarish the hugely frustrating exercise it is.

We have a quadriplegic Hrithik Roshan as the protagonist, aided by a devoted nurse who’s been by his side for 12 years and counting. A former magician injured in his prime, he’s managed to overcome his disability to come out on the other side as a crusader for others like him. And now, as the film starts, he has one simple request : death. He wants it all to end. His lawyer, thankfully, is aware of the existence of Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, but our paraplegic will fight to die. Into the mix comes a young man clamouring to be the sorcerer’s apprentice. So the stage is set for a heartwarming fable about rediscovering life – or accepting death gracefully – or, darn it, something minorly transcendental.

But it is here that Guzaarish fumbles. Poised with a gutbuster of a premise it decides to frustratingly undercut itself almost every step of the way : the plot simply chugs along without any narrative momentum, character arcs are replaced by flashbacks of trite magic performances, and oh Bhansali – you decide to go low key in places when you should’ve let go with all your filmmakerly candour. So, no, we don’t get the grand courtroom scenes we want and deserve - neither do we get a coming-of-age story for the apprentice – OR a passionate love-that-cannot-be between the nurse and her charge. No, our once adventurous filmmaker has decided to reign it in.

And that’s a shame.

Because in the bits where Bhansali does decide to let go – those are the ones where Guzaarish actually soars. Take the two instances where “What a Wonderful World” is sung by two different characters – with most other directors that moment would have been mildly embarrassing, but see how shamelessly and effectively emotionally manipulative it is. Or the throwaway moments – the nurse takes a cigarette drag with all her poise intact only to devolve into a coughing clown, or the way the waves below the protagonist’s right foot gently inch it sideways on the sand. The director hasn’t necessarily lost it, you realize – he’s just decided to tone things down.

Imagine a black and white Moulin Rouge.

Sigh.

p.s. : Aishwarya Rai’s performance as the nurse is one of the little wonders of this movie, and a reminder that Bhansali should be the only filmmaker allowed to direct her. Powerfully self-composed from the opening frames, little flashes of fire and brimstone here and there, and a gradual letting go erupting in one of the most joyous scenes of the film as she throws off her scarf and leaps on stage to join in a dance. How, Bhansali, do you manage to extract such craft from what often passes off as a nicely shaped lump of ivory in most of her roles ?

--

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 continues the trend of reliably entertaining movie events that the Harry Potter series have become in our lives since the year 2001. Not since the first 2 movies has an adaptation been this slavishly faithful to the book – and yet you see here the difference that a good director can make. So while Chris Columbus did translate almost every page to the screen, he left out squarely in the book, the alternate sense of wonder and dread that characterized the series. Now I’m not saying that any of the movies have been completely effective in that department, but Columbus’ 2 adaptations really were the prime offenders.

So it’s a bit of a wonder that this particular slavish adaptation manages the difficult task of evoking the feel of the book particularly well. Again, that’s part of the problem – the feel of the book, atleast over the course of the first part, was primarily that building sense of unrest and despair, continually rising with every aborted plan that Harry, Ron and Hermione make. This movie feels exactly the same way – take it or leave it.

But if you weren’t going to take it, you wouldn’t be reading this far would you ?

This part of Deathly Hallows will stand out for Yates’ very unique flourishes : a poignant opening sequence with Hermione casting the most emotionally draining spell you’ve seen in the course of the series; or an unexpected and gorgeous little piece of animation outlining the story of the Deathly Hallows; or even an impromptu dance between Harry and Hermione at a particularly dark moment. This is easily the hardest of her books to adapt to the screen in a satisfying way, and if Yates doesn’t always succeed, he still comes quite close. While an audacious sequence at the Ministry of Magic lacks the nervous tension that it crackled with in the book, the encounter with Bathilda Bagshot is chillingly effective. Emma Watson in particular fires on all cylinders as Hermione – the torture sequence with Bellatrix Lestrange at the end (oddly sexually charged, by the way) is a particularly strong showcase for her hugely improved skills.

And yet in the end, Hallows is an unsatisfying experience – but that’s more because it is necessarily a midway point rather than any other faults with the movie itself.

So, Potterfolk, and Muggles alike - July brings with it the end of the end.

I, for one, cannot wait.

Farewell my huckleberry friend

2010-11-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

I like goodbyes, you know. I like the moment when both of us become aware that every passing word brings us one closer to the last. The bit where you know you can see the last little embrace coming.

Goodbyes, they’re warm and suffused with goodwill. Every little rough edge has been chiselled out by the time you stand there waiting for the ride that will take one of you away even as the other is left grappling with a momentary sense of loss, going back to life as you knew it before.

Goodbyes are celebratory. They are, they will be, the time when tumbleweeds of memory come bouncing out, when allusions will be made to that-moment-that-night, when personal history is recounted casually, and yet fondly.

So I have liked, I have loved goodbyes past.

But late last night

as you hurtled away into the Delhi night

Encased in steel, through a tunnel of dark

a part of me went down the tunnel too

a part of me rushed out into the night

No. I don’t like goodbyes all that much.

Not a little.

Not a lot.

Not at all.

Goodbye, then.

There’s such a lot of world to see.

Midday Song Request

2010-11-14T02:22:00.001-08:00

You should write about me,
And not in the spaces between words -
I’ll just get lost there,
Write about me.
Indulge me.
Please ?

Write me a tune that cant be sung
Or string me through the bars of a rhyme
Or verse that’s as blank as your nondescript face
Or as empty as our final embrace

You love Prufrock don’t you ?
Can’t resist a line here, a reference there.
See, I’m trying to sieve out your influences –
I really could do a study on you

But we digress,
And before you grow terse,
I’d like my piece of verse.

You can make it rhyme,
You can make me hurt,
Elliptical references wont be a problem
Neither will obtuse irony

And me ?
I’ll sing you into a song,
I’ll brush you into a palette,
And while I’m busy
Composing the refrain
Won’t you please
Verbalize me ?

Droplets of Rum

2010-11-11T05:37:00.000-08:00

I hate the nights it rains rum.

Vodka too, sometimes, when it’s unflavoured, but it thankfully rarely is.

The Bailey’s rain is the best of course, and you can feel the thick coffee vapours rise about you.
But Rum, I hate it when it comes down in little droplets.

Its not really the rum’s fault, more yours. As is everything, I keep saying. No but, it really is your fault that I can’t stand rum because you love it – loved it atleast – and now everytime I hear the drip-drip and smell the tell-tale tang … I know. And I think of you, and I feel rage.

Tonight we have a blessed little breeze of cinnamon. I’ve left the window a tad bit open so it can waft deliciously through the room.

I sit in my bed, and fill my glass with music. Just about to the brim. I’m not being too discerning about what goes in, we’ll play it by ear. A little sip now, and I can taste the layered guitar harmonies of “white blank page” – and the telltale plodding piano of “the scientist”.

I lean back and close my eyes – and then instantaneously have to reopen them. The image that flashed before me was that of a burning bright sun, and it lacerated my eyelids. I open them, the image disappears, and the cool air rushes about my spectacles. No air for my eyes though, they will not breathe.

Blue lights are entwined around my bed posts, and every 5 minutes, they twinkle in synchronization. I can hear them float and rest gently onto my ears. The light seeps right through my eardrum, into my head – and triggers a memory involving another light.
I smell light rain begin to fall outside. The cinnamon stops blowing now, and in swirls the tell-tale-tang.

Rum.

I give up.

Let’s go daydreaming.

The Delhi Metro is Haunted

2010-11-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

Okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating. And maybe this "incident" was the result of sleep deprivation due to 5 AM alcohol binging sessions the night before. I don't know.

But, the merits of the case.

Its just another wintry afternoon here in Delhi (the weather's been gorgeous this past week). My resident token Ecuadorian friend, Kevin, has been regaled by another round of conversations with the Great-Extended-Law-School family over the course of the last 24 hours. Mildly hungover, we part ways at the Khan Market metro, as I prepare to embark upon a marathon multiple-line-changing ride. Tokens bought, security crossed, train boarded, EMPTY SEAT - all is good.

We reach Rajiv Chowk, and I must now leave this wonderful seat and change over to a train on the yellow line.

Fine.

ANOTHER empty seat !

Good heavens. Absolutely fine.

The train prepares to leave Rajiv Chowk, i switch to the Rocky Horror Soundtrack on the ol' ipod, and prepare for the next part of the odyssey. Eyes closed, the gentle motion of the train is intoxicating, i feel it stop once, twice, and then :

"Agla station Rajiv Chowk"

What ?

"Next station Rajiv Chowk"

WHAT ?

That's right. I'd started, around 10 minutes/ 2 songs ago FROM Rajiv Chowk and managed to travel right back to it. AND I was somehow going in the direction opposite to home.

Look, there's no two ways around it.

The Delhi Metro is haunted.

Codes and Conduct

2010-10-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

“Stud !” yells a classmate.

As I turn around, I figure the word is not being used to refer to me (for a change). No, she is staring at the glittering silver ornament embedded in my newly pierced earlobe.

“The right ear – that’s the gay thing right ?”

Yep. The right ear is the gay thing.

Or so I’d told myself as I’d braved my paralyzing fear of needles at the seedy (is there any other kind ?) piercing salon. A quick Google search a few days later dampens my resolve : “Recent consensus”, the Grand-Oracle-of-the-Internet a.k.a. Wikipedia informs me, “is that no ear is currently associated withsexual orientation”. Looks like “left is right and right is wrong” is an idea past its prime.

Oh well – atleast it looked pretty.

I found myself wondering though – why had this particular code faded away ? Was it indicative of a
trend of codes of sexuality passing off into the realm of the obsolete ? Maybe its just that the codes themselves have evolved ? Maybe the right ear piercing of yesterday is the fitted linen trouser of today ?

One of the more famous (infamous ?) of these markers is the hanky code popularized in the seventies in the gay subcultures of the U.S. and Europe. Differently coloured handkerchiefs placed strategically in different pockets could indicate a veritable cornucopia of sexual preference : so a navy blue on the left could indicate simply that you were a top , while a mauve on the right indicated a navel fetish. This also meant the code was initially, and for quite some time, restricted to male sexual encounters : a trend which seems to be in the process of reconfiguration. As queer flagging blog Flagging Opinicus Rampant informs me , “young queers, especially queer women and trans men, are getting together to rewriteflagging language to reflect (and construct) their ideas about sex and sexuality.”

Interestingly enough, the flaggers exalt the code to a revolutionary way of having frank conversations about sex. In the end, they maintain, talking about the specifics of sex is an essential part of practicing safer sex.

Can you, however, be too obvious to the point of ridicule ? I’ve managed it – there’s a proud triangular rainbow sticker my slung-around-shoulder bag has displayed prominently for a year and a half now. What was once a symbol of my out-and-proudness became an embarrassing intrusion as I walked into one of the more judgmental gay bars in London. A potentially friendly figure draped his hand around my shoulder, stared at the little triangle, looked around at his crew for approval and wisecracked, “oh boys, looks like this one MIGHT be gay”. Even Madonna wailing in the background couldn’t drown out the
titters .

The Rainbow symbol itself is only six-sevenths rainbow, comprised of six colours with the indigo missing. This version seems to have been popular since 1979, with the Oracle informing me that the number of stripes were reduced to an even number to prevent the middle colour from being hidden when hung vertically on lamp-posts.

“Frank conversations” aside, maybe codes simply aren’t required anymore. Considering that these
markers of identity came up at a time when alternative sexuality was buried deep underground, smoke signals to a reality that remained oft-unacknowlegded. Perhaps, its also that the code simply can’t be used anymore. Now, with multiple realities emerging day by day, in a freewheeling world where men can be women who like women who don’t have to necessarily be either – what permutations and combinations could we possibly use to flag and tag this multitude of identity ?

Me, I’m old school. I often bluster about the fluidity of sexuality, I occasionally wax eloquent on moving past posited notions of identity and yet in the end – I’ve always been one for tags.

Sadly, it seemed that for me, an ear piercing was just going to mean a, well, ear piercing.

The other day, I was standing on one side of a busy street as a downpour built up. A good samaritan offered dry passage across under his umbrella. “Nice earring” he winked at me as we reached the other side, even as I noticed his disarming smile.

And then again, maybe not ?

As published in the Zeitgeist, New Indian Express on Saturday, October 23, 2010

One Year Later ....

2010-10-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

A year ago this month, a fellow law student jumped off a water tank on campus to his death.

For some of us, he was a friend, for others a casual acquaintance, for yet others he barely registered on the horizon.

And a year ago, he jumped.

As someone who fell in the third category of persons with regard to him, I can’t begin to imagine what he was thinking – and for that matter perhaps, neither can his closest friends. While the “why”s were tossed around then, and continue to be now, the interrogation seemingly stopped at the particular set of incidents that led him to take the leap.

Somewhere in the process, we stopped thinking about the larger questions.

There is something fundamentally skewed about Nalsar, in its location and its set-up as an institution. While no magical transplantation can be done to move us out of the wilderness, there was a need for introspection a year ago : a need which continues to be felt even as I write these words. But that’s it, right ? That’s all there is to it, it’s a need that while expressed now and then, popping up in the odd conversation here and there, is lost in the haze of the daily grind.

The pursuit of knowledge is one thing. When such pursuit becomes a daily battle, an all out war with the administration, the staff, even fellow students - we’re doing something wrong.

When concerns of fairness are mocked, sheets of paper on which they’re expressed torn up, when unreason becomes the norm – we’re doing something wrong

When I know intimate details about what you and that boy who I think you were eyeing that other day but then let go off because your other friend who I’ve never spoken to either wanted him but I really know that secretly you’re going to go after him anyway and hey I know the two – no wait, the three of you – better than you know yourselves, well, love – we’re doing something wrong.

And finally, when I sit here in my room, and suddenly, without reason to, feel the sense of despair seeping through the walls, think of where his body lay just metres away on that morning, when really I could be – should be – doing any other act of craziness that your average college boy would be doing at this hour of the night – we’re really, truly, absolutely doing something wrong.

And you know what ?

We just haven’t learnt.

Maybe this raises memories that most of us don’t want to deal with again. I know that it makes me uncomfortable. But that’s the point – there’s a horrifying sense of complacency we've been lulled into, one which has gradually wrapped us into a mesh of docility. It is at this point that we need to remember that this system which we grudgingly accept – yet accept at the end – worked in a way to make that boy jump a year ago.

So remember we must.

One foot in the past ...

2010-10-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

Been writing about Sherwood this past fortnight. Being the responsible method writer that I proclaim self to be, I took important steps to immerse myself 5 - 6 years in the past. This has involved going through letters written by people I was dating, which in 2004-05 tended to be women. Recollecting the events the letters describe has been a bit of a task though. For that, I have my other set of trusty pensieves - my journals from that period. Before the internet took over my life, and I began to spill intimate details into cyberspace, there was a time when beautifully handcrafted books contained the stories and musings of my days. I've been systematically going through these now, laughing and cringing at myself making younger versions of mistakes I continue to make even today.

This kind of sustained reflection is having its share of strange effects : I sometimes awake thinking i'm back in the wooden dormitory in Sherwood, before the musical alarm from my mobile phone brings me back to Shameerpet. Interactions with people now find me comparing them to classmates from that time, as I inevitably find reflections of traits from the past.

I simultaneously write it all down. The memories, the letters, the entries, they're coming together to form a narrative - and since its my narrative, it obviously has to be a cinematic one. As is wont to happen in any case of rethinking a memory, I think about the alternate patterns, the different roads I could have chosen, the decisions I made instinctively. I see patterns, and irony, unintentional humour, and even parody. Mostly though, more than anything, I’m overwhelmed by how incredibly transformative those few years in a boarding school were for me.

Sherwood was intensely brutal, harsh, and unforgiving.

It was also probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

Fever

2010-10-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

You could ignite me with a touch –
I’m flaring, burning up.
And it doesn’t help that you
Stay incandescently warm

Burn, Burn, Burn
Toss, Sigh, Turn
Awake through the night
Water, another fight

I could melt a pane of glass
Cauterize you with a touch
And it doesn’t help when you
Whisper and make me burn

Steamed vapour, sweat
Dusty, tear streaked, wet
Aching head, broken sweat
Aching, breaking heart

My breath is flaring up,
My body’s giving up.
And it doesn’t help that you
See right through my burnt gaze

I was drenched in rain yesterday ,
Today I’m soaked in sweat,
And it doesn’t help to think of you,
And wallow in regret.

Now you’re freezing,
Cold to the touch
I’m parched,
Shrivelled up.
Fire to your ice -
Untouched.

Gay Night

2010-09-20T23:45:00.000-07:00

These dim lights are thankless
They hide the crease I spent 10 minutes ironing out
They hide, I hope,
The uncertainty on my face.
They hide, I fear,
The truth in yours.

Invisible lights, they’ve seen it all
Looks that went unreturned,
Caresses on the dancefloor,
And Parched lips that burn.

Every conversation is a conquest
On this night of possibility
Every kiss a disappointment
Hollow, untrue, empty

Dark light, Stark light, Broke-down-night light
I’ll buy into your tricks, deceptive light
Another drink, you’re blurred light
Oh I’ll find someone tonight, alright
It just won’t be me

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

2010-09-07T10:19:00.001-07:00

In a book that’s filled to the brim with dark invention, one of Ishiguro’s most fascinating ideas comes with the concept of the Lost-and-Found region of Norfolk :

In the world that he creates, the world of Hailsham, of children raised to be ”donors” and “carers”, of them having their destinies sealed from before they are even born – or created rather, the region Norfolk, at the fringes of the map, is the largest lost-and-found deposit possible. The protagonists imagine this to be the place where misplaced possessions will eventually turn up, possibly in out-of-the-way stores, or strewn carelessly down a beachside.

In a hauntingly poignant scene, it is where a character imagines the memory of a lost lover will show up as well.

Works of science fiction periodically transcend their genre trappings to reach the realm of literature; this book takes it up a notch to something akin to a literary marvel. It uses the framework of a science-fiction story - a variant of something we’ve been exposed to before - and then marvelously disregards any potential that could be reaped from the genre itself, instead electing to dart into much darker, much more heartbreaking territory,

I will avoid talking about the details of the story : it works much more effectively the way Ishiguro slowly, tantalizingly gives little bits to be pieced together. It is enthralling, the number of levels this book succeeds on :

It works as a dystopian puzzle, a mystery langourously teased out over the course of the characters’s lives, layer by chilling layer.

It works as a character study, in the incisively sketched give-and-takes that its characters participate in, the cause-and-effect trajectories that Ishiguro maps their conversations to have.

It works - incredibly, so - as a story about mortality, about memory, about letting go and holding on. In this, it really does wonders, in the way it plays around with the protagonists’ placid sense of acceptance of their fates - “completion” it is euphemistically referred to in the novel - contrasted with the strange banality of this evil as we see it happen, as we realize that the world in which the novel is taking place is one where the debates raging in our head have long since been played out, and set aside.

And it works finally as a heartbreaking love story, a sense of loss permeating every conversation : there is a glimmer of hope at an alternate fate, a chance of a “deferral” and yet, even that hoped for alternate fate is merely a delay to an inevitability the characters constantly refrain from questioning.

Never Let Me Go has now been made into a movie starring Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan, to be released later in the year. From what I can tell so far, it looks like they’ve got the tone of the book right, and the casting is spot on. In the intervening months before this hits the screens, I’d say, run, grab your copy of the book, and let Kazuo Ishiguro play mindgames with you.

Must we love ?

2010-09-03T03:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to be in love. Starting from the most unexpected, battle-hardened cynics, to the usual suspects, love really does seem to be all around.

Well, except for me. I’m out of the game for a bit, its been a rough innings, and this player needs a rest. So I thought, at the very least.

The other day, I was at Jaaga, which my friend Kevin describes as “an alternative art place … in Bangalore … a movable building that looks more like a contemporary art installation”.

Spot on – its precarious, and looks unwieldy and is an absolute joy to sit at and while away an afternoon dedicated to creativity. Which is exactly what I did the other day, following a creative writing workshop there. Everyone had left, it was just me at the table on the lowest floor – if that installation could be said to have floors per se – and I felt a sudden warm glow of joy. It was the vicarious burst of pleasure that comes from conversing with someone very clearly in love; in this case, my aforementioned friend At any rate, I began to write, on and on, and only stopped when I reached 15 pages. It wasn’t exceptional, it wasn’t particularly profound, and it possibly wouldn’t have meant too much for anyone else, and yet there I was, grinning over my handiwork, alone in a mesh of steel railings and spiral stairwells.

Julian Barnes says – “I can’t tell you who to love, or how to love, but I can tell you why to love. Because the history of the world is ridiculous without it. The history of the world becomes brutally self-important without love.” And love may make us unhappy – infact, there is an inexorable inevitability to love’s inspired unhappiness – but because it continues to be anti-mechanical and anti-imperialist it transcends everything else.

Religion, says Barnes, has become either wimpishly workaday or terminally crazy or merely businesslike – confusing spirituality with charitable donations. Art, picking up confidence from the decline of religion, announces its transcendence of the world (and it lasts ! art beats death !), but this announcement isn’t accesible to all, or where accesible isn’t always inspiring or welcome. So religion and art must yield to love. It gives us our humanity and also our mysticism. There is more to us than us.
I want to pick up on this bit where Barnes talks about art – true, yes, that art isn’t truly transcendent in the way that we see love to be - and yet, what about the moment when you realize you are in love … with your art ?

For that, then, was the realization I had sitting by myself at that “contemporary art installation”. With every page of words that flowed effortlessly, I felt that prior vicarious pleasure only rising, and it was simply something that came from within me that was giving me this amount of joy. It didn’t matter, at that moment, whether anyone else saw the words that I was writing, or how they would receive them when they did. No, those words were for me. They were my art, and they will stay that way for me.

Barnes says … Barnes says a lot more. Barnes says that objective truth is not attainable. That when some event occurs, we shall have a multiplicity of subjective truths which we assess and then fabulate into history, into some God-eyed version of what “really” happened. But while we know this, we must believe that objective truth is obtainable – that atleast it is 99 percent obtainable, or if we can’t believe that we must believe that 43 percent objective truth is better than 41 percent, because if we don’t, we’re lost, we fall into beguiling subjectivity, we value one liar’s version as much as another liar’s, we throw our hands up at the puzzle of it all.

And so it is with love. We must believe in it, or we’re lost. We may not obtain it, or we may obtain it and find it renders us unhappy; we must still believe in it. If we don’t, then we merely surrender to the history of the world and to someone else’s truth.

Barnes says that too.

And I think about all of this, and I realize that I’m not completely out of love. I am, in fact, very much in love. I am in love with the way the words I write will surprise me when I suddenly peruse them weeks later. I am in love with the involuntary shudder of happiness I will feel as I walk down a road in Bangalore, inspite of the fact that it may be a nightmare for most pedestrians. I am in love with the idea I had of the city of Paris, an idea that did not falter, did not fail me, when I finally managed to spend time in it this summer. I am in love, with the idea of love, though love has often failed me, or convinced me it did not exist in the first place, or left much much before I was ready to let it go. Love hasn’t always been fair to me, but I see that without love, my own story becomes ridiculous, my personal history brutally self-important.

As W.H. Auden didn’t quite manage to say – we must love one another or die.

More Notes from Auroville

2010-08-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

Three of us on the beach – its pitch black, except for the sharp flashes of lightning. The rain lashes down harder than ever, I can barely see. In this vast open space, with no overhead structures, the lightning is making me nervous. I ask Khalyaan if we could not go too far out towards the beach – move back a bit, near some building, anything. But he’s oblivious to me. He looks the complete opposite of how I feel; manic energy is pulsating through him and he runs, plunges into the water, holding his phone above his head. I feel a genuine pang of fear as I recall those monsoon headlines back in Bombay, the horror stories of people with mobile phones getting struck by lightning on the beach. I am yelling out at him to come back, and Raadhika, sensing my fear, joins me. I can barely make him out in the storm, but that light from his phone shines through the night, and I feel lightheaded with relief as I see the light growing brighter as it nears.

-----

My nights here seem to be destined to be trying affairs - the next one finds me stranded on a quiet street. The moped I was riding had broken down, and Khalyaan had sped off in his very-functional bike to find the mechanic. The first half an hour of waiting was pleasant enough, with a pleasant chill in the Pondicherry air. The next half-hour was when my woes began.

I called Khalyaan to find that he's suceeded in finding the mechanic. "So he'll come get you, then".

Ah great, and i hang up.

It strikes me that the mechanic wouldn't quite know where i am though, and i redial Khalyaan immediately to find this consideration hasn't struck him either. Directions are conveyed.

Over the next half an hour, it begins to drizzle. I shuffle awkwardly under a tin roof jutting out from the building next to me. This brings me close to red street light, and a halo of angry mosquitoes around my feet. I call Khalyaan again.

"Oh yes, the mechanic came to the place where you were"

And ?

"Well, there was no ... you"

I take a deep breath. Must stay calm. Must not get angry. Will save anger for later. Must get out of this situation now.

AAAARGH !

After i'm done shouting, we renegotiate my rescue plan. I will stand towards the centre of the road so i am easily visible. I go along with this plan, even though it leaves me soaking wet within a minute's time.

10 minutes go by, and no mechanic comes. I am drenched, my clothes shrivelled and clinging to my frame, i lean against the lamp-post. A black Maruti slows down as it nears, the window rolls down and a heavily-mustached man leers at me and -

"How much ?"

I am a bit confused, i look around to see if he's seen the moped and is wondering if i'm some sort of travelling salesman. But no, the moped is safely hidden behind the wall.

Again - "How much ??"

And then it dawns what price he is enquiring about.

And THAT, kids, is the story of how i was mistaken for a gigolo.

Love in the Time of Prison Breaks

2010-08-15T02:37:00.000-07:00

Queer Cinema.

It’s a genre that one would think is slowly moving into the realms of the obsolete, at least as far as Hollywood is concerned, with an increasing volume of mainstream movies featuring lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender characters in prominent roles. With such rainbow-tinged splashes onscreen, it would seem that the idea of the “gay movie” is giving way to stories where the alternate sexuality of the characters is merely incidental to the narrative.

And yet, as I looked back over the last decade, the 2 prime mainstream movies that jumped out at me were Brokeback Mountain and Milk. Where Brokeback gave us a heartbreaking, star-crossed gay romance, Milk chronicled the rise and tragic fall of the Mayor of Castro Street. Both constituted well-told, complex cinema, with sympathetic characters at the core, one drawing from the well of real life, the other, from fiction. But what both these movies, and a large proportion of other mainstream fare with queer characters at the fore in Hollywood feature, is the idea of the sexuality of the characters at the fulcrum of the narrative: sexuality as an issue so to speak, either personal, as in Brokeback, or political, as in Milk. And yes, that kind of cinema was necessary. It was absolutely integral, and served its purpose of dispelling the cloak of invisibility that seemed to remain permanently cast over the idea. But what about the next step, the point where we have a movie that gives us 2 A-listers in the lead, a queer romance to boot, but somehow manages to not actually be ABOUT the sexuality of the characters at all? Where we establish the queerness of the characters from the onset, issues be damned, and set off to spin a rollicking good yarn?

Well, Hollywood’s finally given us that story too. It’s called I Love you, Phillip Morris, it’s got Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor in the lead, it manages to check off the criteria I’ve named, and its — hold your breath- also very, very good.

Phillip Morris tells us the story of Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey) a gay man whose penchant for the decadent life finds him doing con jobs — lots of them. He’s good, but not good enough to avoid getting caught, and soon enough he’s in prison, and very much in love with fellow inmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor).

As their relationship progresses, the movie centres around Carrey’s increasingly desperate – and hilarious – attempts at getting the couple out of prison.

Successful prison breaks often prove to be rather ineffective when Russell is unable to control his inner con man even on the run.

Sounds like an incredulous tale? Here’s the best bit – it’s all true. Based on the slice of biography I Love You Phillip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, and Prison Breaks penned by Steve McVicker, Phillip Morris goes to show that sometimes, life really is stranger ( and grander, and larger) than fiction.

Jim Carrey gets the somewhat tricky job of essaying the manipulative, near-sociopathic protagonist – and rises magnificently to the challenge. I’ve seen reviewers calling this his best performance, and while I wouldn’t go so far (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind anyone?), his manic energy really does carry the movie throw some of its more incredulous stretches. This is a character who’d be rather hard to like on paper, and yet, buoyed with Carrey’s winning charm and leavened with a few key sympathetic moments, you’re rooting for him to get what he wants – his way.

It helps that what he wants most of all is Phillip Morris, of course. Ewan McGregor is heartbreakingly endearing, an oft-wronged man who resolutely refuses to see the bad side in anyone (thus blinding him to his con man boyfriend), and gives a wonderfully restrained performance that balances out the thousand volt jolt Carrey constantly exudes.

For all the con games in the movie — and there are many — it comes down to being a bruisingly romantic tale, often funny, and finally very moving. And as mentioned earlier, there is the wonderful way the issue of sexuality is handled here – by not making it an issue at all. Except for one instance where Russell decides to take a few tentative steps back in the closet at his workplace, the universe of the movie is a joyously freewheeling one : starting from the matter-of-fact meet cute between Carrey and McGregor, through a montage of their prison-romance, down to the obligatory final impassioned speech : this is a story about two people in love, fighting to stay together inspite of the choices they’ve made, and inspite of each other.

And that really is a story for the ages – gay or straight.

(As published in Zeitgeist, the New Indian Express - Saturday, August 14, 2010.)

Notes from Auroville - 1

2010-08-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

Bye, Hyderabad

Wet, wet, wet. Soaking, dripping, rain-lashed city, rain-lashed campus, rain-lashed us. I wince everytime a particularly strong spray of rain catches me as i balance myself precariously next to the auto driver. Water in my sandals, toes soaked in water, shrivelled, crevice formed toes, and still more water around the crevices. Enough, Hyderabad. Enough.

Are we there yet ?

The term overnight journey has been universally understood as encompassing the idea that the journey ends the next morning. Early-ish. This, unfortunately, was not to be for the 9 of us who'd set out on the bus from Hyderabad to Chennai. A night of fitful sleep was followed by bright sunlight that meant we'd escaped the rain - and a signboard telling us Chennai was 168 km away. We were going to have to earn this vacation, clearly.

In the Dark

One very very long journey and wondrously refreshing shower later, we were picking at the last bits of the malabar barotta at the restaurant down the road, when the storm hit. It began innocuously enough - a light drizzle. I decided to go leave my precious iphone in the hotel room, to keep from from worrying about it during our planned beach-at-night shenanigans. As i stepped out of the hotel, it all happened simultaneously : i saw the first bolt of lighting - the sky opened up, the drizzle mutating into torrential downpour, and Auroville got its power supply cut off. All of these factors also meant that i had my vision cut off - keep the glasses on and they were a liability with the constant rain, take them off and my minus 9 myopia was a bigger issue. Either which way, i found myself stumbling in the pitch dark, oddly exhilarated at the helplessness of the situation.

This event however, was going to be small fry compared to what happened an hour later. More soon.

Loaded Dice

2010-07-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

“Maybe I will, Maybe I won't
Find my way tonight
But I hear you're calling me soon ?”

- Love’s a Game, The Magic Numbers

Let’s play a game.

Chess, let’s play chess. I’ll make a move, calculating your next two. I have the techniques down pat – master players have pummeled me into crushing checkmates.

Check.

There you go, distracted you.

Let’s play another game. Card games, I like card games.

Bluff ? I’ll pretend to care, and you’ll pretend that its important that I do. It’s going to be a long game too, one of those games where you call my bluff just when I have 2 cards left, and I have to then pick up the entire damn pile lying between us. Finally, we’ll get tired of lying, and stick with the truth, just hoping for the game to end that way. We’ll probably just fall asleep without any eventual winner, and wake up to a messy pile of cards, waiting to be lied about.

Or Patience. We could try Patience. I could channel my anger, my annoyance, my frustration into a few bars of rhyming verse. Or paragraphs of systematic cold fury. And when we do speak, I’d attempt to cloak my gritting teeth, and look forward to the lines I’ll be putting to paper. And of course the roles will switch, and I’ll have to practice a different kind of patience. And as I wait for your call, and feel every jitter of my phone in my throat, I’ll tell myself I need to win this round.

We’ll try Tennis too. But the ball’s always in your court. I look at the score. You’ve gone so far ahead.

I’m still at Love.

Walking, trudging, moving

2010-07-27T08:56:00.001-07:00

You battle-hardened warrior
You weather-beaten man
Your sleeve is bloodied
With the heart you've stitched on

The danger of this couture
Fashionable though it may be
Is that you're so swallowed up in yourself
You've forgotten all about me

You say it beats for another,
You say it beats true,
but really now, don't you realize
It'll always be about you ?

I walk away now, without the spring in my step
while the spark in my eye is fading
but in a week - maybe two - perhaps three
I'll have walked so far away
that all i leave behind
is a sea of regret
and your ocean of self pity

Happy, Gay, and Filled with Glee

2010-07-23T23:40:00.000-07:00

“So here’s what happened on Glee – in case you live in a cave or just got out of prison”

The opening voiceover for the second half of Glee’s freshman season couldn’t be more appropriate – but in case you may have missed the madness : Glee is the real deal. An earnest schoolteacher rallies a group of misfits and popular kids to come together as the high school’s show choir team, in the face of stiff opposition from a scheming cheerleading coach, better-equipped-and-prepared rival show choir teams, and most fiercely of all, from amongst themselves. Oh, and they do most of this through song. From big, elaborately choreographed numbers such as a fast-paced version of Amy Winehouse’s Rehab, to smaller, more intimate performances – a wonderfully stripped down acoustic performance of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face comes to mind – Glee does it all, and it does it with a madcap exuberance. The insanity is occasionally leavened with dark moments that remind us that any kind of difference in a world which often forces you to conform comes at a price.

This last bit is just one of the many ways I think the show appeals to its large gay audience in India. Sure, we love musicals, and Madonna (who gets an entire episode as a homage !) and the fact that it plays out like one big coming-out metaphor. What Glee also gives us, with note-perfect honesty, is a well played gay character, who actually gets a sensible arc. Kurt Hummel, played by Chris Colfer, is a member of the Glee club, who over the course of the season, takes tentative steps out of the closet, goes through the motions of an unrequited straight- boy crush, senses alienation from what he assumes is a disappointed father, and even puts on the straight-jacket for a while.

Kurt is often the beating heart of the show – one which, while titled Glee, can go to some very dark places at times. Its not always about happy endings, and not everyone gets what they want (though in the midseason finale, most of them manage to get what they need. Rolling Stones style).

While Glee just might be the most popular American show playing on Indian television to feature a memorable gay character, let’s not forget the others – Kevin, the lawyer sibling in Brothers and Sisters, is the sanest character in an ensemble featuring a family that takes its alcohol a little too seriously, at large social gatherings at that. Driving down to Wisteria Lane, Andrew Van de Kamp as Desperate Housewife Bree’s gay son has had his own tortured, rather dark storyline over the course of the show – but also one that has remained remarkably sympathetic to the character. And let’s not forget Will and Grace – possibly the first mass-appeal show in the country to bring gay lead characters into the living room. Finally, the innocuous Oscar Martinez in The Office, and Six Feet Under’s funeral director David Fisher round off this reasonably large list.

However, when it comes to queer women, the arena is considerably narrowed : we have , rather memorably, the recurring role of Ross’ ex-wife in Friends, while hearts and scalpels drama Grey’s Anatomy gives us the tangled love life of Callie Torres, decidedly straight till the third season of the show, and then going on to give Seattle Grace hospital much lesbian angst from the fourth season onwards . Coming to transgender characters, the situation gets even worse : Ugly Betty is the only prime feature, with Rebecca-Romjin Stamos potraying Mode chief editor Daniel Meade’s brother-turned-sister.

But even this is extravagant considering the slim pickings that Indian television itself has to offer :

Maddy, the flamboyant fashion designer of Jassi fame was all the queerness that the Hindi-television viewing audience had for years, following the short-lived Tanaav featuring a closeted sexually conflicted character. At present, we seem to have precisely one queer character – the YRF produced Mahi Way’s Siddharth.

Yes, he’s a fashion designer.

Oh well. Till the time we decide to defy gravity, as Kurt would sing, its back to Glee.

as published in the New Indian Express on 24 July, 2010.

Cold Comfort ?

2010-07-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

She walks into the internet centre at 2 – I am the only other person there. A sleepy hello, and when I turn around after 2 minutes, she’s leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed. I get back to work on my computer.

Two hours pass and as I get up to walk out for a break, I notice that she is fast asleep. Strange girl. There’s something very vulnerable about her in this moment, reclining in the flimsy chair, hair falling over her face, her shawl breaking its fall on the floor . I wonder if I should wake her up – surely she didn’t come here to sleep – but I decide against it, and proceed with my coffee break.

When I walk back in, she is awake and working away at her laptop.

“Hey ..you just slept in the internet centre for the entire afternoon !”

She’s been grinning at her computer screen, the smile falls as she looks at me – “I wanted to”.

“You specifically came to the net centre to sleep ?”

“I’ve been doing it for days”.

She goes back to her computer screen, but of course I continue to stare at her.

“I’ve been having these terrible nightmares in my room. Sometimes I’m falling down a cliff, sometimes I get burnt. I die in all of them. And I can’t sleep. In my room. I’m scared of sleeping there now.”

Again, that aching vulnerability. I should comfort her, or tell her she’s being stupid or atleast probe a little deeper. Be a friend ?
Something.

“One of the dreams was about this giant ant eating me. I woke to find an ant on my arm.”

Instead I end up laughing at this last line and turn back to my computer, feeling her gaze at the back of my neck, waiting for a reply.

Not your everyday Man

2010-07-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

He starts by calling me out on the band-aid plastered on my forehead.

Obvious Man.

And then the cracks begin. An unfortunately worded story about a bisexual boy in law school will haunt me for the rest of the evening. He has the uncanny knack of bringing it up into every second sentence I utter.

Obvious, Annoying Man.

And then I narrate a story – destined to be half-finished like most of my stories this evening, for of course he will interrupt it midway by a burst of unwelcome snark.

Obvious, Annoying, Patronizing Man.

And then ….
And then as he is lying in bed next to me, and I play music from my phone, and I prepare myself for the next comment on my taste in music, and change the song because he will say something nasty about it and I have told him how I am protective about my taste in music so of course he will feel the need to rise to the bait because he is obvious and annoying and patronizing and ……

“So I’m just going to change the song –“

“No. Its nice, let it play”

Oh.

Not completely hopeless man.

And then I observe him with half his face buried in the pillow. He’s been focusing on the lyrics, and asks me about one line. I like that. I feel my defensiveness built up over the course of the evening come down. Some portion of the promise of this evening – not that I knew what the promise was – seems to be salvaging itself.

As we kiss, I finally let go of my petty indignation. Wordlessly.

And then, over the course of the long ride back to law school, I am lost in last evening. And now every thing which annoyed me feels brushed over- every moment of indignation I felt seems ever so slightly petty. Every rough moment of annoyance over the course of the evening stands smoothened over by every tender kiss over the course of the night.

I am confused, and happy. And thankful I don’t have to think about this beyond the one night – thankful that he is gone, with no chance of a future meeting for a long long time. For all the strangeness of the night, it feels note-perfect now.

Bizzare, wonderful, now far away man.

Courts of Love

2010-07-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

I want to haul you down to a Love Court
You’ll get the notice any day now
Probably on pink paper
Or atleast an angry shade of red
It’ll come enveloped in a heart-shaped folder
Which you’ll have to rip apart at the seams
But then, you’re good at that kind of thing -
Aren’t you ?

You broke my heart in the winter,
And again in the summer rain,
And if I didn’t drag you to court,
You’d just do it again

This Court of Love, it’s not a happy place,
Its title isn’t quite apt,
You appear before it, when love is lost,
And of course, no judge can get it back

The Court of love is a criminal court,
You can’t pay your way out of your mess,
But it takes no prisoners, atleast not in chains,
Though honestly, heartbreak should be a life-term offence

The trial procedure is a bit harsh,
That even I must admit,
The exhibits are the moments you hurt me,
Read out before a large audience

Of course we believe in a fair hearing,
You’ll get your audi alteram partem
But I have a feeling, that any defence you make
Will only weaken further
Your completely flimsy case

You might say –
“Ah I thought it was the right thing at that point..”
Clearly, you didn’t think enough
You might argue –
“It wasn’t you, it was me …”
Well then, you’ll just have to pay for your damn fault

The court will actually surprise you
Right at the very end
For all the harsh procedure,
The punishment is plain and simple –
Acknowledgment

A sincere apology, demands the judge,
One from the bottom of your heart,
Understand the hurt you’ve caused,
And this Court lets you off.

But really, honestly, to tell you the truth
This Love Court’s just a scam
I’m still heartbroken at the end of it all
And you get off with barely a rap on your hand

Three Beats of the Parisian Heart

2010-07-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

And then, something happened. Something that is hard to describe. Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job, and all the people I knew, a feeling came over me. As if I recalled something, something that I had never known, and for which I had been waiting. But I didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was something I had forgotten. Or something I had missed my whole life. I can only tell you that at the same time I felt …. joy and sadness. But not a great sadness. Because I felt alive.

Yes.

Alive.

- Paris, Je T’aime

A Moment
Boating down the Seine in the evening. Down, Paris’ most beautiful buildings, all the way down, passing by people on the riverbank. People kissing, writing, reading, drawing, sitting. In one instance, getting married. The bride throws her bouquet out towards another boat. French music plays on our boat. I don’t understand a single word.

Perfect.

Another
A metro ride to the Eiffel near midnight. I’m thinking of the Coen brothers’ short in Paris Je T’aime, but how can you avoid anyone’s eyes here ? A moment of alarm before I realize this train is old world enough to have manually opening doors. A moment of confusion as the station adjacent to the Eiffel is reached – where is that hunk of metal – and bright light catches my spectacles, reflected from around a corner.

I walk around to see –

There are little radiant, fluorescent flying tops, that go spinning high up into the sky, cross each other even, tossed up by the dozens of street salesmen on the square. There is a hint of celebration in the air – the giant canvas in the square below us blinks out the 4-1 thrashing of England, even as a pair of jubilant German supporters go trooping past. The street side violin player looks unhappy though. Clearly not a good night for him.

But of course, I’m not looking at any of that. In front of me, lit up from within and without, a revolving light at its helm that pierces both ends of the horizon as far as I can see, stands Gustave Eiffel’s initially much-hated-now-ubiquitious-with-the-city iron lattice tower. I’ve seen it just a few hours before in sunlight, even travelled up to the balcony, even decided I’d gotten bored of it really, but now –

As the clock strikes twelve, the hourly twinkling lights on the Eiffel are switched on. I participate in the collective gasp from the crowd on the square as the iron behemoth begins to sparkle. Loud excited chatter has given way to hushed whispers, or is it just that I’ve blocked out everything else ? A couple next to me ask me to take their snap, and I oblige, absentmindedly, still in awe of the sight before me.

12.05, the twinkling stops, the normal lights are restored. A collective groan, now.

I feel completely alone. And so full of life.

And Finally
Again, the Seine. Cooler now, a slight chill in the air. I see the people milling round the banks even more closely. I think of someone back in Delhi, so far away now. Something new began just before I left, and I have managed to not dwell on it too much, so far. Heartbreak remains a terrifying prospect, and people are so unpredictable. But now, in this quietest of moments, there is no defence, no wall I have. I can’t remember the last time I have felt this sense of absolute peace, or undiluted joy. I’ve lived this moment and now … how can I ever be truly unhappy again ?

And then, a shameless, uncontrolled urge, for this city, and then for him. Rapidly now, my mind flashes forward to how things will go when I'm back in Delhi, and I am letting myself dream, a rapturous, perfect little dream.

Soon, I am going to leave this city, this place that I am so utterly in love with. To go back to the promise of love ?

It’s a fair trade, I think.

Researching Love

2010-06-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have often been rightfully accused of (lauded for ?) wearing my heart on my sleeve. I will also lay claim to being an incorrigible romantic. My first critical thoughts about love itself though came rather late, inspired - fuelled in fact - by someone who flared very brightly in my life for a bit, and has now receded to the margins. Whether this is a place he will occupy permanently, time will tell. For now though, I have this bit of verse to account for through our little story.

Though these lines of verse were not met with even token acknowledgement, they continue to mean a lot to me. Maybe they will faintly amuse you ?

I researched love.
You found it easy to dismiss me
My grandiose claims to it
And suggested I read.

And so I researched love.
I read about eros and agape and philia
Union, trifles, like,
Disdain, war, strife

I read the Symposium ,
And I struggled through Aeshchylus,
And I made little check boxes
Which my feelings didn’t fit into

I made excited little post-its
When a theory seemed to fit,
But on closer scrutiny
Something remained amiss

Love is mere appraisal says Nozick,
Yet I don’t think enough
of your intrinsic worth,
Respect is self-love says Kant
And I say you love yourself too much

And don’t get me started
On how I disagree
With Stone’s idea of a union
A federal “us” from a unitary me

There is merit to the claim
I’m in an epistemic rut,
Or to use Singer’s words,
You’re a non-teleological construct

I don’t think we’re one
I don’t feel we’re “there”
I don’t dare to dream
And I am terrified to care

And so I combine rational thought,
And every philosopher’s lament,
And I conclude – it is not love,
That I for you felt.

And yet, look at me now
Pathetic, inscrutable fool
Scribbling furiously at this midnight hour,
Words that may never reach you

You are two continents, an ocean,
Ten thousand miles away
Out of sight – not out of mind
Though my night is your day.

And so while I am
By definition excluded
Your philosophers shut me out
Of love’s claim
While the square pegs don’t fit
My obtuse thoughts

But you should Understand
And I need you to Know.
Scoff all you might,
But just so you know

I am in -
(non –philosophical, but still rather true !)
irreconcilable, irrational
Love
With you.

And you say you are tired of being
The catalyst, the reactor, the change ?
You say it is aggravating,
And someone needs to amaze you
for a change.

Well I’ll make you now a promise,
(And this is my hope)
In all earnestness I swear,
This here is my vow

I don’t know how I will do it
And how much it will ring true,
But someday, .................,
I will astonish you.

365 Days without 377

2010-06-08T07:49:00.001-07:00

We’re fast approaching the 2nd of July : the date of the Naz Foundation judgment. You know the one, the one with the operative paragraph that went something like this :

We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.

I look back at how a 105 page document has affected my life over the last year.

The Day of the Judgment

Class hour. I feel the buzz of a new message on my phone, but I can’t check it just yet. I know what it should be about, of course. Today is the day, and it’s 10.45 AM, Court’s open, and yes, I know what it’s about alright . And if I check it now, things change. As long as I don’t look, I can revel in this glorious uncertainty. I hold on to the moment.

And then it buzzes again. Another message. And again. 4 more.

Nerves get the better of me, and I excuse myself from the room, run out and check my phone. Half-crazed smile on my face as I walk in tells my friends what they need to know. I hear a whoop of joy from across the room, even as the professor stops writing.

A call now, and I run back out to receive it. It’s a friend from Delhi, who’s just stepped out of the courtroom.

5 minutes later when I walk back into the class again, the news had been relayed all round. There is spontaneous applause, my manic grin continues unbroken, and the Professor enquires about the cause of commotion. “377 ‘s been struck down sir !” mis-answers someone : but I am not going to point out legal nuances at this moment. He gets the point. The Professor gives his congratulations to the “concerned parties” even as the applause gives way to excited chatter.

This moment is real. This moment is happening.

--

The Day After

24 hours have passed, and I’m sitting in the library.

My head buzzes with emotion, thoughts, ideas. I have just sent mails to the people I know concerned with the case – furiously proud, gushing emails. I wear the shirt I wore at the Bangalore pride – “Closets are for Clothes” it VIBGYORs out. The channels are saturated with interviews, debates. I walk into the common room of the hostel at night to the sight of half my batch sitting around the screen caught up in one of these. Another familiar face flashes on screen.

This moment is real.

---

The Month After

We’re discussing the judgment. In class. AGAIN.

Someone groans from a corner, as, for the umpteenth time, the jurisprudential- soundness-of-the analogous-grounds-extension-point is discussed.
I catch myself grinning. I think of reading about places, times, too many to start, where the mention of the subject is taboo. So many in this country, perhaps still in the overwhelming majority, where it continues to be. And yet here, in this classroom, generally vocal gay boy that I might be, I still feel Naz-discussion-fatigue. We’ve spoken so much about LGBT rights that we’ve finally placed them on the same pedestal as everything eventually gets to in law school – boring.

This is progress !

--

6 Months After

The newly founded NALSAR Gender and Sexuality Forum has its inaugural meeting. The “jurisdiction of Delhi High Court judgment over the rest of the country” argument has long been forgotten; as the meeting starts, the unchallenged proclamation is made that homosexuality stands decriminalized in India. A large group of people has gathered for this first meet – too large, infact, to see the same numbers turn up for the next. Nevermind though, it remains a fact that we have this forum at all, and that’s going to be good enough for me.

--

8 Months After

The first signs of backlash are amusing.

“Have you heard of AAG ?” asks a friend at breakfast.

Turns out she didn’t mean the atrocious Ram Gopal Verma remake.

“It stands for Abhorrently Anti-Gay”.

That gets my attention. Almost.

Turns out our Forum has riled up enough momentum to pluck at the heartstrings of the more homophobic at college : AAG comes as a rejoinder to the “pro-gay propaganda of the Gender and Sexuality Forum meetings”. Particularly amusing is the idea of the Forum as a recruiting ground for “more of them”.

AAG eventually burns out - the founding members graduate, with no one taking up the mantle.

Even as the smoke clears, the Forum prepares for its next meeting.
--

Today

Is the 8th of June.

Soon, a year will have passed since the judgment. Voices of change within the walls of my college walk in tandem with whispers of change outside.

At home, we deal with it by, well, not dealing with it. The walls of my bookshelf are stacked with gay literature, my mother looks at them wordlessly as I rearrange my books. Soon, we will have the conversation. I feel a surge of confidence with every new positive image that plays on the television when we’re both watching. I wonder if she has passed the stage of a passive onlooker, whether every news item for her carries a glimmer of something more, some personal stake which she has yet to fully acknowledge.

My father types away furiously at his laptop on the other end of the room. Do his ears occasionally prick up at the mention of some permutation of “LGBT” in the news too ? Its been more than a year since I received a forced-casual call from him, asking about this “academic piece on homosexuals you wrote which I just found online”. I registered his emphasis on the word “academic”; it was almost like a plea – let it just be academic interest.

Soon.

as published in the New Indian Express

Weekend Watch : Scorcese and What Politics is Apparently About

2010-06-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

One question. Is it better to live as a monster, or die as a good man ?

Ah Scorcese, you effing genius !

Shutter Island is a neat little sucker-punch of a movie, nothing on the level of the epic narratives you've come to expect from the man. It plays on a small scale, over the period of 48 hours, and tells a tightly wound story. But, WHAT a story. I won't reveal much, because yes, there is a twist. It's a twist you'll probably see coming - my father and I had effectively puzzled it out by the intermission - and yet, the joys of this movie are seeing how it all comes together.

The basic plot is simple enough - its 1954. 2 federal marshalls are called to investigate the disappearance of a patient at an institute for the clinically insane, a forbidding institution on a seemingly remote island. The patient's past involves drowning her 3 children and then placing them around a table for dinner, the chief marshall's past involves a wife murdered by a pyromaniac, and the island's past (and present) may involve a set of increasingly horrific clinical trials. And so the stage is set.

The movie is drenched in atmosphere - an extended storm that takes up a big chunk of the movie is almost as much of a character as the actors themselves. Props for the cinematography - flashbacks into Leonardi di Caprio's past provide some particularly lyrical moments. One image stands out in my mind : his character stands in a room with flakes of ash dreamily swirling around, holding onto his wife as she literally dissolves in his arms. Also notable is how the devices used in the hallucinations and dream sequences serve as metaphors for the events the movie later uncovers : its not bizarre for bizarre's sake.

Minor quibbles - it goes on for a bit too long, the background music can be annoyingly obvious, and atleast one minor mystery goes completely unexplained.

Ah. BUT. All is made up the time we reach the closing minute - the final ideas the movie leaves you with are bound to stoke some interesting post-movie conversation.

----

I have no minor quibbles with Rajneeti, on the other hand. Nothing small enough to be called "minor" at least. Rajneeti, for my non-Hindi-understanding friends, translates to "Politics". Except, this movie has the most stunningly, ridiculously warped idea of the same. What starts off as a faintly promising mishmash of the Godfather and the Mahabharata (actually had me engaged initially, considering these stories would be hard to completely muck up) - starts to come apart at the seams after the first explosion.

That's right, you read it correctly - explosion. This movie, has lots and lots of them. It's like Jerry Bruckheimer with Nehru Jackets.

So yeah, there goes any semblance of engaging political drama out of the window. So you can't figure out a way to defeat that stubborn party elect at the polls ? Simple ! Rig up the ol' Merc and watch him blow to the heavens.

There are of course, many, many other problems with this trainwreck of a movie. As a rule, i generally enjoy shades-of-grey characters, but here, even that idea is taken too seriously. Everyone is so hugely flawed, in stupid irredemeeable ways, that I found it impossible to root for any side, or even any one person. The only thing I enjoyed about the aforementioned bomb blasts was that they took one more infuriating character with them. Except that that left me with just that bit more of Katrina Kaif.

Oh Katrina Kaif. I know you've heard this so many times. I know it won't matter. But. Let me say to get it off my chest. You're bad. Really bad. You're so bad, you stick out like a sore thumb in a particularly bad movie like this one. I mean, this is a shockingly misogynistic film, one that does particularly nasty things non-femnist-pleasing things to your character. And again, i was really enjoying all of that, because, DEAR LORD its satisfying seeing you cry. This also allows you to not utter any more painfully stilted dialogue, so that's another plus.

Look, people. Don't watch. Or watch if you want to laugh about it with me.

P.S. Can we all stone Nikhat Kazmi to death ? This is the TOI reviewer who has tricked legions of gullible parents into buying tickets for masterpieces like Dhoom 2, Prince of Persia, and now this cinema verite by awarding them a rating of 4 stars on 5, even as their more enlightened children protest helplessly.

If you're averse to violence, i suggest we catch her, lock him up in a room, then force her to watch these movies on repeat for a week. And we won't give her popcorn ( 90% of Nikhat Kazmi reviews have atleast one paragraph devoted to how you will either forget you are holding some item from the cinema concessions stand in your hand because of how engrossing the movie is, or telling you the movie is perfect popcorn-complementing material. Right. I go to the cinema so I can incidentally have things to watch while i'm really only there to guzzle down mass-produced lard).

Con-versing with Khalyaan : Part 2

2010-05-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

In which Khalyaan and I continue our poetic flirtation.

Khalyaan :

I take it you're not single. :( And afflicted.

Insanity's a symptom.
And rhymes too.
And knowing that you're sick,...
prevents a cure.

Me :

Ah my friend.

I am as single
As any digit before ten
As uncommitted...
As a Wodehousian heroine

And even if I were
To engage in liasons
Were I to be caught
In romantic entanglement

A whisper from you would cause
This insanity to turn,
To divert its attention,
And for this Seychellois, yearn

Khalyaan :

It's been so long,
that I can't remember,
the last time I heard,
such sweet words of surrender....

There hasn't ever been,
a verse of poetry,
written from the heart,
with love, for me.

I hear you say,
love is not sane,
for one must be mad,
to comprehend the arcane,

but now I know,
my mind has no part,
in the workings of God,
and the workings of the heart.

So I'll hold your hand,
and toss reason aside,
and we'll bare our feet,
for the sand before the tide,

Listen now,
to my wordless whisper,
that kisses your ear,
though we be asunder.

"We hold onto each other,
as we fall,
and we never drop each other,
and we never fall."

So yeah, this is the boy I am going to marry.

Con - versing with Khalyaan

2010-05-29T03:09:00.000-07:00

Early one morning. I message my Seychellois-philosopher-law school friend Khalyaan on facebook, following the start of my extensive reading on eros, agape, and philia. I complain of the dehumanizing effect it is having on me, and appreciate simultaneously the odd sense of comfort i derive from it.

He responds in verse, and inspires further from me. This was our exchange :

Khalyaan :

Odd, I agree with you..
But comforting while dehumanising ?
Tell me more.
Definitely interesting.

My research, if I could call it that,
is inconclusive at best.
The usual reductionism
doesn't put the questions to rest.

Thought-provoking emotions,
or emotion-provoking thought ?
Or just spontaneity.
Could be random. Or maybe not.

The passage of Time,
is highly corrosive, and seems
to introduce wild fluctuations,
in one's thoughts and dreams.

Good old Will,
couldn't solve this ruse,
but merely cushioned it,
in words that amuse;

"This thought is as a death,
which cannot choose,
But weep to have,
that which it fears to lose."

However, I must note
something, this time.
It sure helps,
to make things rhyme.

I'll shortly send you some material,
that will, your brain cells, tingle,
And we can experiment on the topic,
provided you're still single. :D

Me :

It comforts me to know,
That wiser men than I,
Have laid down their lives,
To understand this stimuli.

Its nice to know you see,
This myriad of expertise,
And one hypothesis atleast,
will justify my dementia,
and lay a tortured soul to peace

And yet, i feel detached,
When i see these theories,
For how can what i feel,
Be as simple as A + B = C ?

For I believe in chance,
And cosmic divergence,
I keep the faith alive,
When it should've been
long ago broken.

And with such insanity,
Isn't rational thought treason ?
And who can within this rhyme
Find any reason ?

Ah. I do love my friends. :)

This One Night

2010-05-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

This One Kiss

“Stop”, you tell me, and break off the kiss.

“Don’t do anything. Keep your lips slightly apart. Don’t move.”

And you press your lips against mine. I feel the sense of purpose, I am dimly aware of “While my guitar gently weeps” playing in the background, and then even that is blotted out.

A minute later, and we break apart. I am breathless and exhilarated.

“And that”, you say, “is a Latino kiss”.

A few minutes later I ask you to give me another one. “One of those, you know, Latin kisses” I say, trying to use ironic veneer as a shield for my earnestness. You oblige, and this time, I am furiously trying to grasp the memory, so that when it inevitably plays in my head later, it can be as accurate as possible.

And yet, days later, as I sit replaying the moment, I find the details fading. While I can still feel that surge of pleasure from the kiss, those details - those precious little details – elude me.

Where did your lips go first ?

Did you start with my upper lip or the lower one ?

At what point did your tongue slide into my bemused mouth ?

When was the moment I realized I wasn’t breathing ?

What were our hands doing at this moment ?

Oh it is all a haze now. The more I grasp at the memory, the more I alter it ever so slightly and so I stop, scared of changing it beyond recognition. I recall chuckling inwardly at the cinematic cliché of the moment – the Latin lothario rendering his victim breathless - even as all the barriers of irony I put up crumble down with the sheer ecstacy of the moment.

Oh well. Time to figure out an “Indian kiss”. Maybe I can surprise you with it sometime ?

--------------

This one non-Dream

The lights are off and I can’t see your face. I do not approve. I wait for your silhouette to appear, impatiently, as my eyes adjust to the light.

Too little, not enough.

I sigh as I roll back into you and pull your arm over mine. Failing to resist one final look back to catch further details of your face, I attempt a clumsy kiss and go back to resisting sleep. I don’t want to fall asleep. Every minute of sleep robs me a minute of this moment. I don’t want to dream – the dreams will at any rate be cheap imitations of here and now.

No, let me stay this way.

Back in the Day

2010-05-22T11:22:00.000-07:00

Steps, outside a bookshop. You know the one.

I walk out, giddy as usual with my latest treasure trove. And then, those steps - and then, the memory of you sitting there.

It’s an unremarkable memory really, no reason it should exist in the first place. But then, as with so many memories of you, it stubbornly refuses to go away. It’s as simple as this : me inside the store, you sitting outside on the steps. Someone stops to talk to you. One snatch of the conversation drifts into the store - “my boyfriend’s over for the week” – and I grin. Of course.

You’re mine.

Maybe it’s the slight chill in the air, or the surge of this memory, but I shudder, ever so slightly. I want to sit down, on those steps. Right on the spot where you sat. Actually, a bit to the right, I imagine. And then, because not much time has passed since the day, and I’m still letting myself think about you, I let myself drift back into that memory. As with almost every memory of you lately, I alter it. Make it perfect. Well, even more perfect, at any rate.
And so it’s a different memory now. Now I’m sitting on the steps there with you. I wouldn’t break the comfortable silence we’d be sharing with another of my meaningless, unnecessary jabs at conversation. (Constant talking isn’t necessarily communicating, says Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

I miss your silence.

I miss –
Beating you to the door and unlocking it first –
Having you slog over the ginger tea even though I really prefer the watery Horlicks –
That last conscious look at your face before I drift to sleep –
And the first conscious look when I wake up –
The crazy drumroll I feel just before I know I’m going to see you again –
And even the strange deadweight when we part –

I miss it all. Every single bit.

Another shudder – and this time it really is the evening chill.

Love at First Jurist

2010-05-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

“Elope with me, miss private, and we’ll drink ourselves awake”

- Piazza New York Catcher, Belle and Sebastian

I love love. It’s a fascinating idea. Often devastating too, but so ingenious !

Insidiously clever, even.

I like to think that I’ve figured out how it works. That it’s a grand cosmic equation, and I’ve solved it. There was a point where I experienced the deliciously cynical feeling of thinking I’ve beaten the system, and figured the damn thing doesn’t exist. And then I’ve had the glorious swooping feeling of relief when I proved myself wrong.

Love. You gotta give it props.

I figured at one point, it was safe to take into account a time limit. Louis Ironson in Angels in America puts a ballpark figure at falling in love at “4 years 6 months – minimum” but I say that’s tosh. If only because I haven’t know anyone except family for that long, and I’m pretty sure I’ve felt the damn thing. And no, I don’t think the time limit thing works, at all. I’m no proponent of love at first sight either ( as the makers of Closer would have you think : if you believe in THAT, you never stop looking), but I think the idea of love in one night – it’s possible. And don’t give me the “infatuation” spiel. Stupid technicalities really. No it doesn’t have to be love only when you still like the person despite all their flaws. Bollocks. You gain 10 kgs when you’re with me, and no matter how into you I might have been, its, goodbye. Okay, fine , I’ll give you 12 kgs. Still.

Right, but this love in one night nonsense.

It’s possible people.

There are requirements of course. If this were a legal textbook, and this were a statutory offence I was describing , I would list out the ingredients of said offence. Now, since the only way I know how to write IS that way, I’m still going to go with the ingredients :

There must be

a) a great opening scene (as distinguished from opening line. But a good opening line helps the opening scene)

b) the opening scene must lead to a conversation with at least One and a half witticisms. These may be divided between the 2 parties (we’re doing a conventional love story here) in equal proportion, with a possible tilt of 60:40

c) It REALLY helps if one of the parties is smoking

d) And the other one asks for a drag

e) This conveys :
- instant intimacy
- Shared interests
- And that you’re not the jerk who has issues with people smoking next to him

f) Conversation must follow. Quality conversation. The content of this is negotiable : I define my quality conversation to circumscribe at least ONE good book, TWO good movies (with atleast 3 academy award nominations apiece. Main categories only), and ONE good philosopher/eminent jurist (depending on how many lawyers are involved in the dialogue. If there’s one, RUN. If there’s two, you deserve each other, so its fine). Jurist references can be combined with a sense of humour to great effect : “Oh that’s so Plato of you, hahaha” or “Nothing like a good Foucault, eh ?”.

g) At the obligatory party which follows this first conversation, the to-be-lovers must stay at the bar and continue to engage in witticisms and meaningful conversation. A trip to the dance floor is advisable to the extent that it makes you realize how much you’d rather be talking instead.

h) The end of the party must be accompanied with a non-pick up, pick-up line. Our subjects, for instance, may just want to “continue the conversation”. Such lines may be used as long as the one at the receiving end doesn’t catch the direct reference to “Before Sunrise”. Which is only really a problem since you then have to stand in comparison to Ethan Hawke, and let’s face it, love or no love, that’s a TOUGH deal.

i) At his/his place. On the bed. And you’re …. Talking. Still. Talking.

j) And it hits you. This is enough. Just this. Sure you’re attracted to them, and it would be nice to lean over and kiss them, but this conversation, this amazing connection – that’s good enough. It’s worth it. You don’t need things to go anywhere. Not really.

k) But then he leans forward to kiss you.

l) Ah.

m) Wake up next to the person.
That sinking feeling ?
Its not like the one you get after a particularly bad one-night stand.
Nope, that sinking feeling, it’s the first pang of –

Unfortunate-
Unwanted-
Unnecessary-
Devious-
Ingenious-
Wonderful –

Love.

Congratulations, you’re doomed. Sucker.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

2010-05-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Philip Pullman.

The Church has marked this man as its sworn enemy. Maybe they have good reason to –the His Dark Materials trilogy pivoted its plot on an inversion of the Biblical idea of original sin. Perhaps it was good for all of us, it said, that Eve took that bite from the apple – maybe the fool’s paradise wasn’t such a great place after all. The figure of God was nothing more than the first angel – and angels themselves were weaker beings than humans, devoid of flesh, and longing for it. They could also be gay, as the characters of Balthamus and Baruch so memorably demonstrated.

So yes, the Church was furious, and accused the man of heresy, alarmingly echoing the Magisterium Pullman was so grandly lashing out against in the Book. And now, Pullman has given us “The Good Man Jesus, and the Scoundrel Christ”. I came across the title in the Hyderabad airport, and it sent a shiver down my spine – he’d clearly outdone himself, they’d have his head this time.

I’ve just put the book down, 24 hours later and ... well, he has outdone himself. Just not in the way I was expecting, which makes it all the more wonderful. Good Man Jesus is a revisionist take on the Bible, yes. Surprisingly, fascinatingly, and seeing that it comes from Pullman, the anti-christ as far as the Church is concerned - it’s a deeply moving, spiritual, and layered take on the New Testament. The central conceit of the book is ingenious : Mary actually gives birth to a set of twins in that stable in Bethlehem. On one hand, you have the strong, healthy Jesus, and then there’s the sickly, weak Christ. The twins grow to find their paths diverging, but leading towards the same ultimate goal : the Kingdom of God. Only Christ believes that the road to the Kingdom must be mediated by some authority from the land of men – “to facilitate the transition”. Jesus, now he rejects that altogether : “Do you think your mighty organization would even recognize the Kingdom if it arrived ? Is that all you’ve learnt from the scriptures ? To put a sensational show on for the credulous ?” And so the book chronicles the story with Jesus as the leader, the “rabble-rouser”, even as Christ takes it upon himself to document his brother’s ascent – to lead truth into history. Importantly though, this not a story of good twin vs. evil twin, even though it is deceptively set up to go down that route. Christ comes off as a much more sympathetic character than we might have imagined, while Jesus has his moments of hubris and hypocrisy.

What it also does is help me understand Pullman much better. It really is the Church, the conduit of organized religion that he is after – the teachings themselves, the story of the man (or men rather) – those he seems to have much respect for. Yes, at the end, he grounds the story in non-heavenly terms. Every miracle has an explanation, every act of selflessness a motive. The resurrection itself is a well – rehearsed stunt. Stories feed into history which feeds into myth. Paradise continues to be lost for Pullman, and we’re all the better for it, he continues to say.

What he also still says however, and what finally makes this such a rich, complex work despite the deceptively simple writing is this : that power to challenge, to inspire, to create – it’s a power grounded in humanity. This is the world, this is all there is to it, there is no other, and no, that’s not a bad thing at all. In a particularly memorable inversion of Jesus’ lament in the garden, Pullman writes :

“And slander’s what it is; you made this world, and it’s lovely, every inch if it. When I think of these things I’ve loved I find myself choking with happiness, or maybe sorrow, I don’t know; and every one of them has been something in this world that you made. If anyone can smell frying fish on an evening by the lake, or feel a cool breeze on a hot day, or see a little animal trying to run around and tumbling over and getting up again, or kiss a pair of soft and willing lips, if anyone can feel those things and still maintain they’re nothing but crude imperfect copies of something much better in another world, they are slandering you, Lord, as surely as words mean anything at all.”

Amen.

Admonitions and Apologies

2010-04-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL THE IDIOTS I’VE ALLOWED TO MESS AROUND WITH ME

You.

Idiot.

This, here, is the chief issue. When you engage me in your wonderful dervish of romance and dizzying joy and then decide to jump out midway – you don’t do me justice.

No, hold that thought. You do me grave, grave Injustice. Yeah, that’s more like it.

You, dear FOOL, make me stop believing. Or at least want to stop believing. This is dangerous.

You make me want to stop letting myself go. You make me want to NOT dream or write or perform. You make me want to be bitter and cynical. You make me DELIVER such bitter and cynical advice to other people who deserve better. I deserve better. There you go, made me bitter and cynical didn’t you ?

What else do you do ?

Oh right. You make me want to NOT do crazy/impulsive things. In doing that, you rob the universe one little speck of chance, of randomness, of divergence from its grand cosmic plan. Because I will not do the unexpected/ crazy thing, and go for the boring/ staid pattern and not shake things up and that will be that. And the universe will be that little, tiny speck more boring.

YOU IRRESPONSIBLE. ALTERING-UNIVERSE-DISADVANTAGEOUSLY, IDIOT.

What else ?
You make me want to change. That’s a travesty ! Nobody should cause anyone to want to change, especially when it’s me. I mean, hell, I’m kind of awesome. Why fix it when it ain’t broke ?
Sure, you get to help me grow. Evolve. Blah. But no changing, please ?

Oh and “Its not you, its me” ?

Of course its YOU, you moron.
You’re the one with the half-pitying, semi-complacent, infuriating sad smile on your face. You’re the one who gets to pull the plug. You’re the one who gets to walk out of this mess unscathed. You’re the one who won’t be writing this anguished message in the middle of reading insurance law because you felt a sudden uncontrollable burst of anger.

Of course its You.

.....................

AN OPEN APOLOGY TO EVERYONE I’VE MESSED AROUND WITH

I’ve been in your place. See above. You’ll get over it.
Cheers !

p.s. DON’T CHANGE.
p.p.s. Except, well, you with the OCD. Not fun.

Poet Law-reate

2010-04-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

It happened in the middle of a particularly stressful assignment. There I was, sitting at my laptop, at the desolate hour of 2.20 AM, when I decided.

Enough. Nyet. Nimph. Nope. No More. I’d had it.
And before I knew it .... I was ....

composing poetry.

Yes, you read that right. There I was, spewing down line upon line of blank verse in the document where my taxation case comment was being typed out.

And that’s how it started. My inner poet awoke, and has refused to die out since then. While this is all very well, I’ve been compelled to find out more about this strange condition. Was there a nexus between law and poetry I wondered - and embarked on some research.

The results were …. surprising. Starting with our own courts – 300 plus cite Tagore’s poetry to supplement their judgments – right down to the more adventurous US courts featuring a wealth of judgments with definitive portions composed as poetry. Sample this verse by a member of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, about a premarital contract gone awry :

Conrad Busch filed a timely appeal,
Trying to avoid a premarital deal
Which says appellee need not pay him support,
He brings his case, properly, before this Court.

They wanted to marry, their lives to enhance,
Not for the dollars--it was for romance.
When they said "I do," had their wedding day kiss,
It was not about money--only marital bliss.

But a deal's a deal, if fairly undertaken,
And we find disclosure was fair and unshaken.
Appellant may shun that made once upon a time,
But his appeal must fail, lacking reason (if not rhyme).

The propriety of such acts of verbal gymnastics in the traditionally ”solemn” realm of court judgments has been the focus of debate. Criticism comes from quarters that find this an exercise which may trivialize the parties and decision itself. The supporting arguments centre around how such tactics often tend expand a judgment’s appeal, and audience. Further, consider how it might stand for the poet-judge himself : the way a poem might break the monotony of legal writing, the manner in which the tight-knit structure of verse would reduce much of the rambling that has became the unfortunate stamp of legal writing.

The U.S. Courts don’t stop at conventional poetry either : a large field of judgments even has them taking recourse to song lyrics. Bob Dylan for instance, manages citations in as many as 26 judicial opinions, while Simon and Garfunkel manage a tally of 10.

And finally, we have (drumbeats) : the poet-lawyer ! The precision and sense of a good legal argument it seems is not unlike a good poem – quick, irrefutable and pressured by precedent. As Tim Nolan, a law firm partner moonlighting as a poet notes : “Lawyers cite to state and federal appellate courts. Poets use the precedent of Walt Whitman or Rainer Maria Rilke. The mind -- sorting through history, memory, emotion, personal experience -- ought to inform both poetry and the practice of law."

Famous poets who were also lawyers ? We have E.E.Cummings, Wallace Stevens, Goethe and Schiller to name a few. And it works the other way round too : many poets have worked the theme of law into their poetry - Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Shelley – the list goes on.

It made me think, all of this. About how we often necessarily perceive the law has to be – of structured-to-perfection briefs, of crisp black robes, of over-drafted statutes, of staid legal writing.

And then we have verse – blank verse, rhyming verse, transcribed-from music verse – which has its haunting innate power.

I like the thought that the two can intersect. I like the idea that lawyers can actually be poets, not just an occasional rhyming couplet here and there. And I like the potential that legal writing has when coupled with the power of verse – the right verse, that is. This of course throws up its own set of questions : poetry itself is so subjective, one man’s Eliot is another man’s Klingon. Context is essential for verse to retain its power : I hark back to those 300 plus Tagore-citing-Indian-Court judgments that tend to arbitrarily throw in a profound-sounding line or two from the man just for a flourish.

We Need to Talk

2010-04-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

“We need to talk”
No. We don’t.
I don’t need to hear you say
“Sure, but -“
“Yes, however –“
This is fine, really.

“We need to talk”
Not really.
I didn’t, I was happy all along
Really, dapper, fine.
We’re good.

“We need to talk”
Why though !
I’ve said the right things haven’t I ?
Did it by the book
Sealed the deal
So really, a little less conversation ?

“But we do”
Fine, let’s talk.
Can I put in a few good words for myself though ?
Not lavish praise mind you
Just the standard recommendation letter

“…..”
I help you make me a better person
I want to be ridiculous. With you. Around you. About you.
I want to be relevant to you
Learn a language (to converse with you in more ways than one)
Learn to let go (so I can hold on to you that bit more)
Learn you

“?”
See, friend.
If I see you better than you see yourself
That makes your life simpler
I’ll give you the answers before you ask the questions
And when that’s not good enough
I’ll give you the right questions.

“??”
And if I see you better than you see yourself
Then I have known you
I have known the joy of unbroken conversation
I have known the joy of conversation broken by a kiss
And a kiss broken by sleep where I dreamt of conversation with you
I have known you

“!”
So let’s talk then
And really, say what you’d like to say
And even if you say things that hurt
Its your voice.
And I could listen to it for ever.

That’s it then
“So now then, we can talk.
And since you’ve monologued on a bit
I suppose I’m entitled to my own little piece
Here, then, friend.”

Go ahead …
“I see why you might be a safe bet
I see why you may be right
And I know, I’ve held you
You’ve kept me warm, through the night”

Yes , and –
“And again you’re a safe bet. You’re nice.
You’re what makes sense.
You’re what should be right”

Here it comes …
“And yet. And though.
Safe may be good, and safe may be right
And yes, safe will keep me warm through the night.
“But can’t you see, its got to be a bit wrong
Not becalmed seas
I need a dash – a hint- of a storm
You’re great, I’ll give you that
And yet ! – there … I just said that
You’ll keep me happy, and you’ll keep me well
And yet, you’ll never be enough
Just a decent bet”

An Ode to Upendra Baxi

2010-04-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

The last word on everything in Law School
The First Syllable in Dhanda’s gob
You give us praxis, at a 180 degree axis,
By Foucault ! you make critiquing an easy job

I love you for your SALs
You make me belong !
Fly now pay later you say
With you, its First Class all along

Ah Upendra, you magical man
You’ve turned our IOS professor into a courtesan
And for Academia’s most enduring love triangle
Its you, great man, that we thank

The Midnight oil is burning now,
My tasks loom on,
But with you to CCP from,
I know they won’t take long !

Ain't Life Grand ?

2010-03-19T03:15:00.000-07:00

So here, I am down at the Bangalore Queer Film Festival 2010 : 3 days of films, documentaries, shorts, panel discussions, and cultural performances. Me, I was slotted to do a performance myself on the evening of the final day. Nice little monologue by Julian Barnes. Nice opening line too.

The scheduled time arrived, and there we were, us performers, sitting on the side of the stage. And in walked the compere who happened to be - my ex. Siddharth.

So Siddharth starts with introducing the first person who proceeds to go onstage, says a nice little "Thank you, Siddharth", and proceeds with her piece. I was next. So I have Siddharth introducing me and the piece, after which i followed in my predeccessors fashion and muttered a "thank you Siddharth" before starting my piece.

Then launched straight into it.

Oh, the nice opening line of my piece ?

"I love you".

Decade Top 10

2010-01-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

I love this making-a-big-deal-of-the-new-decade business. I'm helping make it a bigger !

Here then, is a list of what I think are the greatest 10 movies of the decade. The criteria has been completlely unscientific, and based on the first 10 names i could think of movies I loved/rewatched/couldn't rewatch because they made me feel rotten, but damn that was powerful, etc.

1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot !
The world forgetting, by the world forgot,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
Each prayer accepted, Each wish resigned

1st January, 2005, was the first time I saw this movie. I've seen it around 15 times since. It has so, so much to say about love and relationships and how we remember the two - especially when they don't always go together. And it says it all with such panache, such mind-bending trippy -ness, such wonderful performances, such heart, and such fluorescent hair colour changes for Kate Winslet ( Blue Ruin ! Tangerine ! ) - its quite ironic how a movie about the consequences of erasing your memory is the most memorable one i've ever seen.

2) Mullholand Dr.

Okay, you're dreaming. You know you're dreaming. You wake up. Except that the bit where you woke up might be a dream too. Or Not. I don't know. Do you ? No ? Okay.

I don't GET the movie, in the conventional sense of having figured out exactly what the plot is, and what's true and what's not. The great news - it doesn't matter. This movie is all about the experience - you're as bewildered as the amnesiac who may also be the jilted lesbian lover of a Hollywood star - and the darn thing sucks you in right from the ominous opening chords till the head-scratching ending.

And in that way, it works like the perfect nightmare - you can't quite escape from it while its on, and you can't quite figure it out when it's over. But feel your heart pounding when the lights come on, and know it's hard to have such an intensely visceral experience ...

3) Dark Knight

.... except if you're this movie. Again, a master class in mood and atmosphere, but also nerve-wrackingly thrilling, Heath Ledger giving us the definitive, now immortalized version of the Joker, and enough food for thought on the Social Contract Theory to keep a Jurisprudence Class engaged for a lesson.

A truly smart movie about a man in a rubber suit ?
Hmm. This should be higher on the list.

4) A.I.

I hate how underrated this movie is. How can the scene with Haley Joel Osment being abandoned in the woods by his "mother" not tear anyone up ?
Science fiction, with heart. Love the visual effects here - and for a change, they actually enhance the plot of the movie, as opposed to serving as mere eye candy. Of course, there's eye candy here any which way - Jude Law plays a robot-gigolo ....

5) Closer

... a less human version of which he plays in this movie.

So, this doesn't sound great on paper. 4 people, over the course of 2 years, drift in and out of relationships with each other. Yawn ?

Not quite. Sample this exchange between Clive Owen as Larry, getting a lap dance at a strip club from Alice (Natalie Portman). Oh, and their respective spouses have cheated on them with each other.

Alice: No, I don't desire you.
Larry: Thank you. Thank you sincerely for your honesty. ... You think you haven't given us anything of yourselves. You think because you don't love us or desire us or even like us, you think you've won.
Alice: It's not a war.
Larry: If I ask you to strip right now, would you?
Alice: Of course. Do you want me to?
Larry: No. Alice--tell me something true.
Alice: Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off--but it's better if you do.
Larry: You're cold. You're all cold at heart. What do you have to do to get a bit of intimacy around here?!
Alice: Maybe next time I'll have worked on my intimacy.
Larry: No, I'll tell you what's going to work. That you're going to take your gear off right now and you're going to turn around very slowly and you're going to bend over and you're going to touch the fucking floor for my viewing pleasure.
Alice: Is that what you want?
Larry: What else could I want?

Great performances again, and the structure of the movie - 2 person conversations/confrontations all the way - serves in making it all the more powerful, and the final denouement all the more satisfying.

6) Spirited Away

The first Hayao Miyazaki film I saw, at a time when I considered any form of anime below me. And then, well ...
There's a scene near the ending of this movie - the young female protagonist takes a train ride over an ocean, where her fellow travellers are an assorted amalgam of spirits. Imagine the possibilites. Know what Miyazaki does ?

He plays the scene in a way that makes you feel serene. At peace. What could be more pleasant than this otherworldly journey, you think ?

Beautiful animation. Solid evidence that animation should be considered a medium as opposed to just another genre.

7)My Neighbour Totoro

ALSO a Miyazaki film. One summer in the life of 2 little children. That's it really. And it made me almost dizzy with longing for those summer vacations from my schooldays, when the holidays stretched beyond you vast and never-ending, and when there wasn't anything to worry about, other than what a nice place to hide for the next hide and seek game would be.

You know. Before life happened.

8) Love Actually

The mother of all romantic comedies. No actually, the great-great-grandmother of all romantic comedies.
How do you make a new movie in that overcrowded genre and make it stand out ?
Simple. Take 10 different movie plot strands, meld and twist them together, get the most charming cast you can to bring it to life, and throw in a killer soundtrack.

That's how.

9) Chicago

I cheered. I cheered when Renee Zellwegger fakes her pregnancy to get back in the spotlight. I cheered when Catherine Zeta Jones is belting out "All that Jazz" and being lifted by the background dancers, with the camera flashing a quick cut to another pair of hands gripping a wrought iron bed railing with the same amount of gusto. And when Richard Gere does his own special Act in the courtroom. And at the moment we see Queen Latifa's Mama Morton singing about the princeton rub, and sneaking in a slight demo of the same.

This movie celebrates amorality and vice and very-very-flawed protagonists, and does it in such style, all you can really do is just give in. And Cheer along.

10) Identity

Slasher Movie ? Maybe
Supernatural elements ? Possibly
Psychological thriller ? There's a chance

Best twist ending ever ? Definitely, i say.

Know those fraud claims other movies might have - "you'll never see it coming" ?
Here, you really truly don't.

Why Bella is a stupid bitch

2009-12-26T06:36:00.000-08:00

So Stephanie Meyer gets accused for using the fictional character of Bella as a pedestal for her own sweet wish fulfillment fantasies. You know the drill - staid, ordinary, unremarkable, vocab-challenged, unusually insecure teenage girl becomes object of undying affection for 2 very fine supernaturally-inclined men.

Right.

No, but a viewing of New Moon had me thinking - considering its possible those strips of celluloid can evoke a reaction possibly termed as mental stimulus - maybe Meyer should get cut some slack. Maybe she is indeed trying to (gasp !) craft a realistic portrayal of an ordinary teenage girl, who, given the circumstances, tends to make some pretty extraordinary mistakes. Because, honestly. Edward over Jacob ?
Bad call, Isabella Swan. Here's why.

1) Edward's Gay.
No, seriously. Put all that ooh-look-shiny-sparkly-diamond-skin symbolism aside. The man does everything possible to distance himself from the "girl of his dreams." Oh no, i might hurt you. Oh no, someone else might hurt you. Oh you're so irrestible ... i CAN'T be with you.
And did anyone else notice the sparks between him and Jacob in the last bit of New Moon ?

Now THAT movie I want to see.

2) It is possible to make out with Jacob and NOT get brain freeze.

To reasonably gauge how unerotic the idea of having a vampire lover whose skin is ice cold to the touch is do this sexy little experiment. Take an ice lolly, and place it against your neck. Roll it down your back sexily. Place it against your lips and keep it there, enjoying the sexually charged experience of them turning numb.

And then, there's Jacob,
"You're so ...warm .... to the touch. (dialogues in a twilight movie are contractually required to have 5 second pauses between every few syllables. this helps the target audience keep track of onscreen proceedings). Its like ... you have ... fever."
"Its always like this Bella. (taylor lautner is too hot to speak abnormally) A little known fact about werewolves is that we also serve as incandescent sources of heat. Global warming and the rise of shirtlessness in werewolf culture are significantly connected."

Or something like that.

3) Edward shirtless vs. Jacob shirtless.

Come on. COME ON.

So that's Jacob, 3 against 0.

The Church of good taste excommunicates you, Isabella Swan.

Now for those who try to point out the logical flaw in comparing Meyer's vision to that of the filmmakers', or other subtler problems with my reasoning, I have an answer.

Shut up. You're stupid. You've clearly read the books atleast once, resulting in your i.q. plummeting by 10 points, and since you only went through the damn book because said i.q. level hovered uncomfortably around the 100 mark, you're too stupid to have this conversation with me. Hell, you're too stupid to make conversation with anyone but Bella. ( Isabel. FAIL !)

For those twi-hards (blech) who find all this unnecessarily harsh, I have this to say. These jibes have not been made in good faith. I genuinely feel you deserve to get staked through the heart. I'll past a little brooding pic of Edward on the side of the stake as a concession.

The Hypocrisy of the Lazy Native

2009-12-23T02:26:00.000-08:00

"Its not their fault. They just ARE stupider than any other race you know. Its genetic !"

My spoon drops from my hand, as the heretofore benign elderly gentleman discloses some very un-benign sentiments. Said sentiments pertain to his stay in Africa, where he found -

"Its true ! You can't tell an African to "Come here" just like that. You make actions ! You point, you gesticulate ! This must go along with the words you say. Only then will the average African manage to understand you'd like him to get to where you are."

- Yes, that.

I'm at a loss for words, and the muffled strangled noise emanating from my throat is possibly not very clear. I manage to choke out something about the perpetuation of the myth of the lazy native, how those colonial constructs were used by the British against us - against most of their colonies - how it was a tool of subjugation. To which I get - "But you know. They have a point. We lack discipline, and we needed someone to show us the way. Look at China ! Look at the wonders they've worked ! Its disciplined. Its how things should be."

I politely attempt to point out how extremely wrong this sounds - forget political incorrectness, our man here was coming dangerously close to channeling Dyer. Perfect tool for power play - close the conversation at the onset. Institutionalize incapacity. Make sure the playing field's not level from the start - and they fall right into your hands. Or under your boots.

And it's full circle too, isn't it ? SO we complain about the "racist" attacks in Australia, about the problems that Indians have to face across the world. And yet we're part of that vicious circle. We're as good at racism as the best of them. Heck, we might even trump the best of the them, seeing as we can also simultaneously play the "victim" card.

Pulp History

2009-12-22T19:40:00.001-08:00

SPOILER ALERT –( Reveals the extremely audacious ending of Inglourious Basterds)

And THAT people, is why Tarantino is el geniuso.

He can kill off Hitler. In a movie hall. With a machine gun that systematically rips off chunks of said Fuhrer’s face. And have you whooping with joy at the gory mess of it all.

There was a book reading I’d been to a couple of weeks back, where the writer, Jaishree Mishra, talked about the problems with writing history-based novels, the need for authenticity, etc. I remember speculating right then, on why there was this overwhelming need for authenticity at all. Wasn’t the world of popular culture made for the kind of wish-fulfillment the bare facts of documented history rarely give us ?

To that, Tarantino resoundingly answers – Hell Yeah !

Not that I didn’t expect anything less than the staggering brilliance that was Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino, you see, gave me one of the first movies that I truly loved.

You might find the idea of a 10 year old watching Pulp Fiction – with its sado-masochistic masked basement leather fetishists, its visceral, gut-busting gore, its profanity – well, a tad bit objectionable.

You’d be right, too.

That’s not the point though. As wrong as it might be that one of my enduring childhood memories is of John Travolta accidently blowing out a poor black kid’s brains all over a car seat, and then systematically mopping the mess up with a sponge, Pulp Fiction made me the crazy movie maniac that I continue to be, right to this day. It had that crazy, twisty wordplay (which, fine, took me a repeat viewing 5 years later to fully understand, let alone appreciate), it had loopy crazy ideas (Samuel L. Jackson’s Ezekiel monologue inspired a religious fervour in my 10 year old brain that took quite a while to die out), and oh, it was dizzyingly, ridiculously, fun.

I saw it yet again, a few weeks back, and marveled again, appreciated in a new light, those delightful conversations – here is a writer who can swing the course of a 10 minute dialogue from a rumination on the excellence of a 5 dollar milkshake, to a wonderfully telling observation on the nature of uncomfortable silence, and wrap it all up with a long, unbroken shot of these 2 people grooving to an Elvis tune.

Then there’s the anything-goes playing-with-expectations. Aforementioned date between Uma Thurman and John Travolta memorably disintegrates into night-from-hell, as opposed to the slow burn night of passion (where of COURSE they get caught) that we think should logically follow.

Sure he’s made other brilliant cinema, all marked with these characteristic traits. Reservoir Dogs is pretty much the last word on the heist-gone-wrong , Kill Bill’s “battle without honour or humanity” is one of the most gleefully bloody sequences in movie history and Death Proof features possibly the wildest extended car chase this side of insane. Jackie Brown I regret to say, I haven’t watched.

Point being. Any new Tarantino movie is basically an event. And I have loads more hyperbole on Basterds. Sure, it might not be as … freewheeling as his earlier work, but what the heck. They kill Hitler !

For now. Repeat after me.

Say "auf Wiedersehen" to your Nazi balls!