Passing the Baton

I could have updated the blog much earlier over the last thirty-two days. I haven't been particularly busy, but then free time has never really lent itself to substantial blogging has it? I did consider putting up a post about the Olympics, about how merely watching Usain bolt, Michael Phelps and Dara Torres scale their respective peaks of excellence was uplifting in itself. About my earliest memories, of Greg Louganis, Ben Johnson and showjumping during Seoul '88. And the relay. No event captures the spirit of from you to me as visibly as the relay. I'm currently mining the web for Doordarshan's old National Integration ad, featuring all those sportspersons (Gavaskar, Usha, Padukone and others) running the length and breadth of the country, passing on the blazing torch. Truly magical, that was. Find it and you'll make my day.

In the meantime, thanks to Swaroop I get to pass on a baton of sorts myself. Since I probably won't be buying him a beer anytime soon, I'll try to comply with the other terms and conditions on Swaroop's post and urge all of you to read his blog. Filled with satire, spice and other things nice, I can't recommend it nearly enough.

Choosing seven blogs to pass on is not quite the no-brainer it seems. I read a great many of them at random, sometimes without letting the writer know of my presence and each one has proved to be interesting in its own way. So finally, among the dozens of friends, family and arbits who have provided me generous hours of timepass with their writings, I've narrowed the list down to the following:

1. Ashanka: Hers was the first blog I used to read on a regular basis. Filled with quirky and witty accounts of life in the big city, and consistently solid writing.

2. Atulya: The Monkee is a seasoned traveller, and he sprinkles his blog with several tidbits about the places he visits. A highly readable blog I discovered belatedly.

3. Shom: His sports blog is the kind I aspired this blog to be back in the CTS days of 2006. No regrets because I have a great time reading his posts anyway. He earlier blogged here and a very good blog it was.

4. Prabha: This is the blog of a true junkie. Named food for thought, it is filled with food and just about everything else. She claims the blog is "mainly here for my entertainment", but behind all the timepass lies much love and effort.


The remaining three blogs are each owned by a senior of mine from RV. For various reasons, they seem to have been on a hiatus for a while and I hope this might compel them to write more frequently.

5. Soup: He always calls it as he sees it. Mostly forthright accounts about life while he was in France, now that he has returned there to study the updates might come in more regularly.

6. Nitish: A fun blog full of rants and raves. One of the earlier blogs I used to read during my CTS days.

7. Raghuray: Another one from the old days, when my blog never existed. Every time I go here, it's as if he throws the old Monty Python line at me "And now for something completely different".

I'm not imposing the fine print on anyone, but I'll do a quick copy-paste-edit job on the points from Swaroop's blog. Awardees may:
1. Award seven other people. (Or zero, or one, or two depending on how seriously you decide to take this).
2. Write a post about this award, and link to our blog in that post.(Optional)
3. Buy me any food or drink for this award, not necessarily a pitcher of beer.

Pass it on.

On Blogging

This is my fiftieth post. I've noticed a few bloggers using the same landmark as an opportunity to look back at how it all started for them and how their blog evolved, and I think I'll do the same. I've always liked milestones, even if most of my milestones have been small ones. Fifty posts in just over two years may not seem like a big deal; most of my favourite bloggers would be able to put out twice that number in the same time, and still exercise great quality control. On the other hand, a lot of people I know have let their blogs fall by the wayside so all things considered, I'm happy I've kept this going.

As with most things, I have an ambivalent attitude towards it. The name was taken from a cassette I have at home, featuring some highly entertaining discussions among BBC radio's cricket commentary team members. In June 2006, when the Bangalore monsoons were bringing about stop-start passages to my routine, blogging seemed to hold this 'rainy day and a cup of tea' sort of appeal, something to kill time with. I eventually found this picture to be very wrong; these days, all my posts inevitably get keyed in when I'm supposed to be working. A look through the posts from the beginning is actually a pretty good indicator of my lack of focus and general direction. I started off intending it to be a simple diary and a way of killing time at the workplace. I next wanted it to be an all-sports blog. I then went back to writing some general everyday crap, till I left Bangalore for Austin. When I was well and truly into the gradschool routine, there was a paucity of things to write about. I now took to posting cricket match reports and reviews involving the only institution I care about, the New Zealand team. This somehow didn't work out, so I shifted all that to another blog, Paint it Black which has been rather in a state of neglect. I've continued to blog ever since, but only occasionally. There's been the odd satisfying post, but most of the time I've been torn between writing a post that feels forced(for the sake of keeping the blog alive), or letting things drift.

I often wanted to rant, but instead ended up discovering that I don't overflow with enough bile. I wanted to review endlessly, but often couldn't summon up the attention to detail. I've tried writing about day-to-day life here, but it's hard because nothing ever happens in boring ol' Grad school(and I mean that in the nicest possible way. I like dormancy and the relative lack of blog-worthy happenings around me). Of course, there's also the issue of everyone in my family from my parents to my zillionth grand-aunt having discovered the blog and wanting to mention the same every time they meet me. That was quite weird to deal with in the beginning, and seemed to take some of the fun out of the whole exercise. I mean, I started becoming rather conscious of the material I was putting up because feedback from a lot of corners is guaranteed. On the other hand I seem to have earned something of a regular readership, not a bad thing at all. It's good to know that people care about how I'm getting along.

I suppose one starts to appreciate blogging for what it is when it gets likened to say, watching Dravid build a long innings, or Grad school life; a series of mostly mundane events with the occasional moments of brilliance that actually make the whole thing seem strangely worthwhile. For example, it was quite heartening to see the response to my critique of Mukul Kesavan's article last year, including a comment from Mukul himself. I really enjoyed coming up with the Beatles spoof, the lines of which occurred to me in a dream and that's as close as I'll get to feeling like Lennon on LSD. So overall it's been a satisfying exercise in timepass; no more, no less.

A shot in the arm

One of the best things about maintaining a big tape collection is the thrill of revisiting or rediscovering an album you've neglected for a long time. The other day, I was feeling quite listless having just moved into the new apartment when I suddenly fished out this Best of Junoon compilation out of a pile of tapes in a suitcase waiting to be unpacked. This was probably my first listen in three years (and certainly my first 'serious' listen) of the entire tracklist, and by the end it had sucked all the worthlessness out of my day. The tape seemed to scream and crackle into my eardrums of its own volition, perhaps out of those years of neglect.

As is my regular habit, I spent a couple of minutes glancing at the album cover and ridiculously thin sleeve and my mind immediately flashed back to 2004, when I purchased the tape in a nondescript corner of Brigade Road for 65 bucks. Being an EMI release, this was marketed in India by Virgin Records, a fucked-up company I have a major grudge against. Ever since they took over music licenses from their dependable predecessors HMV and Milestone, they have successfully marginalised listeners of audio cassettes (to the point of flogging tapes to a quick death in the market), by overpricing, compromising on their quality, leaving out lyrics booklets and sleeves, and also by simply refusing to release albums in the format. I've been hard hit ever since. Despite there still being a sizable number of cassette buyers in India (admittedly mostly for Hindi film music), it enraged me that the industry was trying to drive our kind to extinction. Anyway, enough ranting. Back to the album sleeve, lyrics to some songs were considerately included, with their English translations an added bonus. There's only so much Urdu I can fully comprehend.

The cuts on this compilation, in keeping with Junoon's reputation for creating images of beauty and despair with their strife-torn homeland as a backdrop, are sheer diamonds in the rough. Somehow the combination of Urdu verse, Sufi sensibilities, tablas and tastefully injected guitar riffs adds up to a sort of street-level authenticity which Indian counterparts rarely accomplish. 'Garaj Baras', contributed by Ali Azmat to the soundtrack of Pooja Bhatt's Paap, has an a Rolling Stones-like intensity to it. 'Meri Awaz Suno', probably the best known song off Azadi after Sayonee, is the typical cry-for-help that characterises Junoon's more resigned songs, as they lament the situation back home. 'Kyon Pareshan hai tu' is brilliantly resonant. 'Pappu yaar', one of two Punjabi songs on the album, opens up the formula a bit by adding elements of funk.

'Best of' albums are usually far from the finished article. I straightaway wondered about the exclusion of three tracks which would have made the set feel more complete. The Punjabi ode 'Bulleya', which pre-dates Rabbi Shergill, 'Jazba e Junoon', their anthem for the 1996 World Cup (and an abject lesson to Indian songwriters on how to get behind your team), and the Political satire 'Ehtesaab'. The last one was the song that got Junoon banned in Pakistan for the video, and I remember being fascinated upon reading about in 2000, when my rebel phase had well and truly kicked in. While the song is simplistic, the video is pretty clever and biting.

(After looking up the album online, I discovered that the actual compilation, presumably on CD, does have Bulleya and a few more songs on it, seemingly confirming my suspicions about the music industry's blatant attitude towards the cassette. Ah, life's a Virgin. Fuck it.)

Repeated listens bring nostalgia attacks with them. 1998 was the year Sayonee was in heavy rotation on MTV and Channel V, and Junoon were suddenly established as superstars, and the toast of various music award ceremonies. The song itself is a masterpiece, and for me invokes a sort of optimism-pessimism feel (even though the song and the video are both pretty despairing); a feel achieved and bettered only by Sultans of Swing. The influx of Pakistani singers and Sufi rhythms into Bollywood music can be traced back to these foundations in 1998, and while Indian-artists-versus-their-Pakistani-counterparts is the next logical talking point, it'll have to be left for later discussion.

The compilation may not be perfect, but it served its purpose. Which was to cry out to me "If you think this is good, HOW DO YOU THINK THE MAIN ALBUMS SOUND?". I'll definitely get around to acquiring most of Junoon's output. I'm also looking forward to hearing Ali Azmat's solo stuff, and will be glad if someone would be willing to share the same.

Rediff on Bahadur's funeral

Rediff in many ways is a sign of the decade. They started out as an excellent Indian portal, full of high quality writing and a solid webmail service. These days they seem to put out mostly sensationalist tripe, but occasionally there is some good stuff to be read on the site. This article makes a good point.

I didn't know of the Field Marshal's death, or the fact that he had been based in Wellington until I chanced upon the article a couple of days ago. It's nice to learn of the public reaction and I hope the media acted suitably as well. Apart from that, the article says it all and there's not much to add. But a glance at the comments section was quite telling. It features the inevitable crass mudslinging between two camps that seems to characterise any feedback on articles related to politics, cricket, films or the weather. In this case, the bone seems to be between supporters of the Congress and the BJP (read:'secular' and 'communal'), and they use the article to try to highlight the apathy of the opposition while absolving their leaders of any blame. Reading the comments proves to be disappointing not only because the readers appear to ignore the point of the article, but also as it shows the privileged class in poor light. We urbanites (and I use the term in the assumption that all of the estimated 60 million Indian Internet users are English-knowing city dwellers)seem unable to evolve beyond name-calling and a clannish us vs them mentality. But then, as a 52 percent voter turnout in Bangalore showed, we are probably indifferent to the real cause, and more concerned with satisfying our own pet propaganda.

Picture Imperfect

I've made a few seemingly inconsequential vows in my lifetime, with or without reason. Never to own an I-Pod, which still stands. Never to set foot in Bangalore Central, which I broke during my last visit to the city. And never to put up any images on this blog, for what I never knew. The last one is about to be broken, because this comic is right on the button:



I guess this puts my ranting about the insomnia problem in perspective, which is not a bad thing at all.

This of a hot Southern evening....

Tomorrow I'll be shifting house.

Just when I thought I'd come to terms with American lingo, it turns out you don't shift, you move. So yeah, I stand corrected, I'm moving to a new apartment.

A new place is kind of like a new pair of slippers. Uncomfortable in the beginning, but soon enough you fit in and life goes on. Until it's time to hunt for a new one. I like living in the past, but this place has definitely run its course. The furniture provided to us right at the beginning has become useless, the sofa has long become a breeding ground for bedbugs, and the bursts of tap (sorry, faucet) water upstairs has been reduced to a trickle. And of course, Splinter had been a regular visitor over the spring. We kept him at bay by placing big bottles against the kitchen cupboards and cutting out his food supply. But he still comes out at night, almost as an unseen roomie. The casings on the lamp lights have come off as well, so I expect they'll slap a heavy fine on us. But then we'd do well to get back even a small fraction of the deposit from them, so maybe we're even.

I didn't have any great friends in this place, but there were these people I would encounter while strolling barefoot through the premises, walkman in hand. Most of them had a smile ready, some would stop for conversation. They made my evenings. The Filipino who's been around, the punk who had a strange habit of leaving his beachball to bob about in the pool, the Japanese girl who seemed nocturnal, the jamming trio who took a fancy to Bob Dylan songs, the IITan who invited me in for tea, and the chap who compiles his thesis outdoors on his laptop. Maybe I could have got to know them better. Maybe I didn't feel like worming my way into new places.

The new apartment doesn't look all that promising. There's not much around, just wide open fields; this one was closer to the university. There aren't any places to grab a bite in the immediate vicinity. Maybe the crowd there will compensate. The manager seems a bit cold and rude, but that's how they all are apparently. It's their job to be as detached as possible from the tenants. Thesis boy has this theory that you only find women in such positions of power; a man would probably invite you in for a beer and ask you the score.

I'm almost apathetic to this change of apartment, but when it happens I won't know what I'm hoping to find, or what I'm leaving behind. Better to keep it that way.

Return to two cities: Madras

(Continued from the previous post)

In the middle of the vacation was a three day visit to Madras. Considering my first ever post was about my previous trip to the city, it feels appropriate to give a nod to the return-visit on this post. Now, few places divide opinion like Madras. I have this typically middling attitude towards the city; a nice place, but I'll take Bangalore over it any day. This is a bit ungrateful on my part, because back in the day when Bangalore was a sleepy town, Madras was the closest we were to a big city. And it provided me all the entertainment Bangalore couldn't over the summer holidays. Endless spaces where you could play cricket, video libraries which boasted tapes of the 1975 ashes and the 1994 survivor series, libraries from where I read my comics, and of course the Nungambakkam Landmark - the best bookshop ever. Even better than Premier.

Madras is generally everything Bangalore isn't (which is not intended either as a compliment or criticism), but this time the city did its best to seduce me. The roads, cleanliness, shops and overall efficiency gave me the feeling of a big but not bursting city completely at ease with itself in this funny decade. Part of the trip was spent at Mahabalipuram and the Crocodile Bank (which I didn't enjoy to the full because it was way too hot, the reptiles decided submerging was the best policy). Back in the city, I did eventually return to Landmark - and this time it was the one in Spencer Plaza, which I hadn't visited till date. This branch thankfully keeps up the standards of the Nungabakkam one, including a highly knowledgeable staff which the Bangalore Landmark sorely lacks. What blew me away however, was the plaza itself. I'm not a malls person, but if you must visit one Indian mall Spencer's would be it. I can't put my finger on it, but the ambiance which felt like a cross between forum and Dubai plaza actually worked for me. Add to this the eye candy all around and it was a great place to be at.

I met up with my cousin for a drink that evening. Getting a drink in Madras is still not the simple matter it is in Bangalore, for ever since Amma imposed complete government control over the sale of liquor, options are limited to shady wine shops and big hotels, and a pub can only be granted a license if attached to a hotel. We headed to the Maris, a purely veggie hotel that's been around for ages. If the thought of having no meat to go along with the beer was a dampener, I wasn't very happy with my first impression of the pub/bar either. It was dingy as hell, and undoubtedly a 100% male preserve, which seemed to reinforce the 'permit room' picture I had in mind. However, the place won me over by doing the basics right: Blissfully powerful air-con, ice cold beer (a detail certain Bangalore pubs often neglect - the ice cold bit, I mean) and no loud music (Bangalore pubs, take note again), just the IPL on a big screen. The crowd was pretty decent too - average joes but no drunken louts, happy to relax after a presumably hard day's work. The simplicity of it all kind of summed up Madras for me, although I was only too happy to get back to Bangalore. And of course, nothing could beat the sheer novelty of being being served rasam-vadai and sundal with the beer!

The vacation ended too soon, and I can only wonder what the two cities will be like next time around. Dickens' London and Paris is a different world in a different era, so I'll have to twist his opening line as I steal it for an ending: it isn't the best of times, it isn't the worst of times.