Something I presented in class for a creative writing course last semester.
These are times when plurality and an open minded nature are all the rage. Everybody seems to be exploring avenues to demonstrate to the whole wide world the breadth of their outlook. Authors as a class are no exception. They are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that they do not ignore the realities of life. In the days of the old fashioned novel or short story, your hero would be Dr. Blank or Mr. Asterisk I.A.S. But not so today. You walk out on to the road and you see writers everywhere whose latest heroes are taxi drivers and stadium curates.
And yet, no writer has been plucky enough to make his hero bald.
Novelists go into every class to construct heroes and surely, some of them must have had a receding hairline. I’m sure that this was the case at least with the originals. Then why not say so? Authors are moving with the times on every other aspect. Then why not in this? It is futile to suggest that bald men are not romantic. I have spotted signs of a receding hairline on my head and have a strong family history of the same, but I am singularly romantic. For commercial reasons, if not for others, writers ought to take some of that fuzz from the tops of their heroes.
It is an established fact that the reader likes to imagine himself as the hero, while reading. What an audience the first author to star a bald hero will have! All over the country thousands of men will brighten up their scalps and immerse themselves into the pages. It is absurd to keep on writing for the well haired public. The growing tenseness of life, the hair raising stock market crashes and those cricketing disasters which prompts us to put a palm on our heads is whittling down the percentage of the population which has perfect hair to single digits.
I seem to see that romance. In fact, I think I shall write it. ‘“Pooja, see that hair conditioner which I imported from Japan, specially for you? I myself cannot use it, not having much hair, but don’t bother about me. Go ahead and use it” said Raj.’ Or, ‘Raj passed his palm through his shining scalp and faced the hired goons without a tremor.’ Hot stuff, right? Do you think there will be even a single man who has the price of my novel in his pocket and a bright shiny head who will not kick and scream like an angry child if you tell him you have run out of stock of my book? And the serial, dramatic and film rights. All editors have receding hairlines, so do all film producers and theatrical managers. I will be an unstoppable force, breaking all records. Just ensure that the cheque is for the right amount and the posters are prominent. Posters shall blare out to the world “Bald and Bold” by Basil James.
Have you bothered to consider the dramatic potential of a little less hair? How about tragedy? Our hero is a dashing spy out to save his woman from the clutches of an evil despot. ‘From the high watch towers, a guard spots a bright, shining spot amid the darkness. Lo! It is the hairless head of our hero that he has seen. “Fire!” shouted the commander. A stifled wail and there was blood.’
The time has truly come when novelists should accommodate the bald hero if they are not to be left behind. One does not wish to create a ruckus, but we bald heads are in a large majority when we get together and can make our presence felt. Roused by this piece, an army of men, characterised by hair only on the back of their heads if at all, could very easily give authors bad hair days until they accept our demands. If we have any more of those red curly hair, wavy blond, straight black hair or any hair at all, we shall know what to do about it.
I, for one, am also willing to accept cash.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
50!
Yaay! This is the fiftieth post on this blog. On this great occasion let me take a moment to honour and congratulate myself for all the hard work, vision and creativity that has filled the web pages of this blog. On a slightly more serious note, I wish I had the above mentioned by the bucketfuls so that I could splash them across the web pages of this blog.
To be slightly more serious, when I started this blog in the cold final month of 2008, I never imagined that this blog would clock up a half century of posts. Nor that it would manage to attract 21 followers. When I started writing this blog in December 2008, it was a mere experiment, a quest to find out what all the brouhaha about blogging was and a desire to be in touch with Web 2.0.
Much has changed since this blog sprouted up on the edges of the information superhighway. One could may be say that the whole direction of my life has changed. One might even argue that events in my life has affected the seriousness with which I take this personal space of mine on the world wide web. From being just another tab in my Google profile, this blog has come to become an arena where I can write and ruminate, a space where I can experiment and express.
At 3:40 on a Sunday morning I make this entry, surely a testament to the love for blogging and this blog that has slowly but surely seeped into me.
To be slightly more serious, when I started this blog in the cold final month of 2008, I never imagined that this blog would clock up a half century of posts. Nor that it would manage to attract 21 followers. When I started writing this blog in December 2008, it was a mere experiment, a quest to find out what all the brouhaha about blogging was and a desire to be in touch with Web 2.0.
Much has changed since this blog sprouted up on the edges of the information superhighway. One could may be say that the whole direction of my life has changed. One might even argue that events in my life has affected the seriousness with which I take this personal space of mine on the world wide web. From being just another tab in my Google profile, this blog has come to become an arena where I can write and ruminate, a space where I can experiment and express.
At 3:40 on a Sunday morning I make this entry, surely a testament to the love for blogging and this blog that has slowly but surely seeped into me.
Monday, February 21, 2011
NL Leaks
Saarang 2011, at least from the outside was a pretty cool thing to have. Thanks to a slightly more intimate knowledge of how things work than the average Saarang visitor, a certain amount of disillusionment has crept in like Pakistani soldiers through the LOC. The disillusionment was not helped, contrary to expectations, by the fact that I was in charge of the Saarang newsletter.
Saarang newsletter is usually a mildly amusing six or seven page publication that makes fun of anything and everything in Saarang and generally tells everyone not to take themselves too seriously. It was with great hope that I applied for the co-ordship and I was delighted when it came my way. Talk about flattering to deceive.
Saarang newsletter, may I assure you, is probably the most taxing thing you could find to do in any given Saarang. You spend the time the sun is out covering various events and on the hunt for interesting quotes, incidents and tid-bits of news. In the dark of the night, you slog it out at CFI or the Dean's office putting the happenings of the day into print, making it look good and reading it aloud to see whether things are as laugh out loud funny as you thought they were.
All so good so far, except things were rotten and outright bad at points. Things looked dark and foreboding on Day 1 of Saarang, when I picked up the NL at 10 in the morning. I could not be a part of that issue due to various reasons, but five minutes into reading and I was thanking my luck for exempting me from that not-worth-to-be-toilet-paper issue.
Whatever one may accuse the NL of, one could never doubt its organisational skills or its commitment to procedure. In its laboured efforts to be a mildly amusing Saarang morning publication, the NL sets for itself a well researched algorithm that is sure to bring in laughs and bouquets.
While a small part of the NL team, often comprising exclusively of yours truly covered events while the sun was high up in the sky, trying to showcase the happenings in a humorous light, rest of the mob placed themselves at strategic locations, fully in papparazzi mode, hiding behind penguins, under tables, disguised as coconut trees in the Saarang Village, out on the streets on all fours sniffing around for bits and pieces of spicy news about the more recognisable figures of Saarang.
The concerned parties scurry around like a swarm of rats on a railway track, cajolling unwilling co-ords and cores, latching on to straws a drowning man would disdain. Armed with these scraps of news, the team assembles at CFI or the Dean's office, as per availability of keys. Someone takes out a who's who of Saarang and hands it over to the WebOps genius, who runs a search to match the names that have been sullied on the streets of Saarang. The cooks then proceed to cook up some broth, adding a liberal dose of toilet humour, anecdotes from someone's personal lives, locker room talk and some bad word play. That was step two.
The NL then moves on to step three when someone opens a directory of M.A students. Eyes gleaming and mouth watering, a search is run to see which person hailing from the HSS department makes an appearance where. With the brutality and clinical efficiency of an army of Hitlers, the NL proceeds to assassinate a few characters, resurrect them for a couple of seconds and assassinate them again. If someone happened to be female and studying M.A, the treatment meted out would make having your anus bleached seem like a heavenly experience. Tried tested, chewed and spat out jokes on the mathematical ability of a few M.A students are splattered across a couple of paragraphs. Having thus achieved nirvana, the team pats itself on the back, leans back and proceeds to put its feet up.
Cartoons have always been a prominent feature of the Saarang NL. Usually, someone in the NL department blessed with the ability to decipher which end of a brush goes where takes up an interesting event from the previous day and proceeds to draw a cartoon. But such measures were branded old world and cruelly chucked out of the window. Instead, one of the NL co-ords thought it best to burden upon the team his favourite brand of cartoons on the Internet.
For four days, it worked like this. The co-ord in question would select one random cartoon and go gaga over it, rolling on the floor and laughing his bottoms off. He then invites the rest of the team to take a look. The fact that none of them have understood what it is about is written with indelible ink on their faces but they proceed to laugh out loud and praise the franchisee anyway. He then proceeds, every night, to select that random cartoon that has nothing to do whatsoever with Saarang, and put it on the newsletter. Once, yours truly vainly attempted to point out that those cartoons were straight out of a bull's rectum and was met with dire consequences as the whole team descended upon me in defense of the Web's 1057th best cartoon website. Furthermore, that co-ord proceeded to name the newsletter in honor of the blasted cartoons.
The NL worked in mysterious ways but always failed to come up with the goods. Sensible and respected opinions showered flak on the each day's issue and were completely justified in doing so. The NL of Saarang 2011 turned out to be, almost exclusively, a six page fictional account of the private lives of the big guns of Insti life. Good writing was taken out through the back door and shot in the face to make way for something that would have been more at home in a paparazzi reporter's diary. Saarang should hope for better luck next time.
Saarang newsletter is usually a mildly amusing six or seven page publication that makes fun of anything and everything in Saarang and generally tells everyone not to take themselves too seriously. It was with great hope that I applied for the co-ordship and I was delighted when it came my way. Talk about flattering to deceive.
Saarang newsletter, may I assure you, is probably the most taxing thing you could find to do in any given Saarang. You spend the time the sun is out covering various events and on the hunt for interesting quotes, incidents and tid-bits of news. In the dark of the night, you slog it out at CFI or the Dean's office putting the happenings of the day into print, making it look good and reading it aloud to see whether things are as laugh out loud funny as you thought they were.
All so good so far, except things were rotten and outright bad at points. Things looked dark and foreboding on Day 1 of Saarang, when I picked up the NL at 10 in the morning. I could not be a part of that issue due to various reasons, but five minutes into reading and I was thanking my luck for exempting me from that not-worth-to-be-toilet-paper issue.
Whatever one may accuse the NL of, one could never doubt its organisational skills or its commitment to procedure. In its laboured efforts to be a mildly amusing Saarang morning publication, the NL sets for itself a well researched algorithm that is sure to bring in laughs and bouquets.
While a small part of the NL team, often comprising exclusively of yours truly covered events while the sun was high up in the sky, trying to showcase the happenings in a humorous light, rest of the mob placed themselves at strategic locations, fully in papparazzi mode, hiding behind penguins, under tables, disguised as coconut trees in the Saarang Village, out on the streets on all fours sniffing around for bits and pieces of spicy news about the more recognisable figures of Saarang.
The concerned parties scurry around like a swarm of rats on a railway track, cajolling unwilling co-ords and cores, latching on to straws a drowning man would disdain. Armed with these scraps of news, the team assembles at CFI or the Dean's office, as per availability of keys. Someone takes out a who's who of Saarang and hands it over to the WebOps genius, who runs a search to match the names that have been sullied on the streets of Saarang. The cooks then proceed to cook up some broth, adding a liberal dose of toilet humour, anecdotes from someone's personal lives, locker room talk and some bad word play. That was step two.
The NL then moves on to step three when someone opens a directory of M.A students. Eyes gleaming and mouth watering, a search is run to see which person hailing from the HSS department makes an appearance where. With the brutality and clinical efficiency of an army of Hitlers, the NL proceeds to assassinate a few characters, resurrect them for a couple of seconds and assassinate them again. If someone happened to be female and studying M.A, the treatment meted out would make having your anus bleached seem like a heavenly experience. Tried tested, chewed and spat out jokes on the mathematical ability of a few M.A students are splattered across a couple of paragraphs. Having thus achieved nirvana, the team pats itself on the back, leans back and proceeds to put its feet up.
Cartoons have always been a prominent feature of the Saarang NL. Usually, someone in the NL department blessed with the ability to decipher which end of a brush goes where takes up an interesting event from the previous day and proceeds to draw a cartoon. But such measures were branded old world and cruelly chucked out of the window. Instead, one of the NL co-ords thought it best to burden upon the team his favourite brand of cartoons on the Internet.
For four days, it worked like this. The co-ord in question would select one random cartoon and go gaga over it, rolling on the floor and laughing his bottoms off. He then invites the rest of the team to take a look. The fact that none of them have understood what it is about is written with indelible ink on their faces but they proceed to laugh out loud and praise the franchisee anyway. He then proceeds, every night, to select that random cartoon that has nothing to do whatsoever with Saarang, and put it on the newsletter. Once, yours truly vainly attempted to point out that those cartoons were straight out of a bull's rectum and was met with dire consequences as the whole team descended upon me in defense of the Web's 1057th best cartoon website. Furthermore, that co-ord proceeded to name the newsletter in honor of the blasted cartoons.
The NL worked in mysterious ways but always failed to come up with the goods. Sensible and respected opinions showered flak on the each day's issue and were completely justified in doing so. The NL of Saarang 2011 turned out to be, almost exclusively, a six page fictional account of the private lives of the big guns of Insti life. Good writing was taken out through the back door and shot in the face to make way for something that would have been more at home in a paparazzi reporter's diary. Saarang should hope for better luck next time.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
The Account of Rajesh Vijaybhaskar, M.Sc
This is a fiction piece I wrote in November as a part of a creative writing course.
My name is Rajesh Vijaybhaskar. I am by profession an assistant professor at the Illustrious Institute of Technology (an occupation listed under the Dangerous Professions Act of 1988). The head of my department is Dr. Premila Vincent, popularly known among the students as the Old Hag, not necessarily, I think a point of opprobrium. She is a scholar of seemingly high achievements, as her doctorates suggest, and much given to the expression, "The Department comes first, Vijaybhaskar". I attach no particular meaning to this remark.
At 10 on the morning of Wednesday, November 3, I entered room 356 for the purpose of instructing the fourth batch in Basic Statistics, one of the subjects for which I have been engaged by Dr. Premila Vincent. There were present Agarwal, Babykutty, Chatterjee, Gunashekhara, Kumar, Latif, Mishra, Ravi Teja, Sharma, Schweinsteiger, Tamilselvan and Zohrab. Singh, who has, I am told, a fractured leg, was absent. It should be explained that even though I have listed out the names of my students in the alphabetical order of their surnames, that is not the order in which the students were seated on this occasion. It should be noticed that almost all of the female students were seated in the front rows and Tamilselvan, the student whom I am now accused of assaulting, was in the middle row. The last row was shared by Gunashekhara, our Sri Lankan exchange student and Ravi Teja, a cretin. I do not have the slightest inkling that these facts will be of any bearing upon this case, but I have lavishly furnished them for the sake of completeness.
I walked into the class to find the following quote scrawled across the board by the professor who had previously occupied the room. It went: "Mimicry reveals something in so far as it is distinct from what might be called an itself that is behind". The quote had created a considerable excitement and restlessness in the students, though of varied kinds.
"Today", I remarked, taking up my Davis and Pecar, "we shall focus our energies on problem solving which involve the population confidence interval", and I told them at once that if there were to be anymore of that groaning they would do nothing but solve problems involving the Poisson curve for the next one month. It is my experience as an assistant professor of some years' standing, that if groaning is not checked immediately, it may swell to enormous proportions. I make it my business to stamp on it with hob-nailed boots.
Mishra, a fair boy with glasses, remarked that it would not be possible to do problems on the Poisson curve for the next one month, and on being asked why not, he replied that there were only three more weeks for the semester to close upon us. This was true, and realising that the numbers were against me, I made no reply. I proceeded to write a problem on the blackboard, a sample problem which I felt would prepare my students for their end semester examinations.
"A researcher determines that a margin of error (or sampling error, e) of no more than plus or minus 0.05 units is desired, along with a 98 percent confidence interval. Calculate the sample size, n".
Agarwal promptly replied "Eighty seven". I enquired of him how, unless he was the next Ramanujan in the making, he imagined he could produce the answer without troubling to so much as set a pen to paper. He said, "I saw the answer in the back pages of the book". This reply caused a great deal of laughter, which I suppressed with an iron hand.
I should have spoken sharply to Agarwal, but at at this moment I noticed that in the bench right ahead of him, Gunashekhara appeared to be feasting on a small piece of cheesecake, causing considerable excitement. I ordered him to stand up.
"Gunashekhara, you are not perhaps quite used to our Indian ways, and hence I shall refrain from punishing you for this deviation of etiquette; but please understand that I will not have eating of foodstuff in my class. You did not come here to eat, but to learn. If you pay attention and work hard I may not despair of teaching you something, but if you do not wish to learn you might as well as go back to your country".
Mishra, without being given permission to speak, cried excitedly, "He cannot, sir. Didn't you know? His father was chased out of Sri Lanka in some big revolution or something. A big man with a moustache and a cap chased him for three kilometres and he had to escape in a small boat. He is lucky to have made it here to Chennai. It is true, sir. You ask him. Gunashekhara got hit by a falling branch on the small of his back, didn't you Guna? And his sister- at least I think it was his sister-"
That will do, Mishra", I said. "Who threw that?"
I am, I hope, not a spoilsport, but I will not tolerate the throwing of paper rockets or other missiles in my class. This sort of thing has to be struck down with great vengeance and furious anger or work becomes impossible. I accordingly warned the boy responsible that another offence would mean an imposition. He had the impertinence to ask what sort of an imposition. I told him in clear terms that it would be an imposition that would make him wish he had not taken my course, and if he wished to know the exact details he had only to throw another rocket to find out. He thereupon threw another rocket.
I confess that at this I lost patience and threatened to keep the entire class in for at least three more hours if I had any more trouble. I proceeded to solve the problem.
It was not until I had spent fifteen minutes working out the problem on the board that I realised that I had worked on the assumption that the confidence interval was 89 percent, rather than 98. This led me to an impasse. Some one from the back whistled. I at once whipped around and demanded to know who had made the infernal noise. Latif suggested that it might have been Tamilselvan whistling in his sleep. I was about to reprimand Latif for his impertinence when I noticed that Tamilselvan was indeed asleep and had in fact, according to Chatterjee, been asleep since the beginning of the period. Mishra said, "He has not missed much anyway".
I then threw my Davis and Pecar. It has been suggested that it was intended to hit Tamilselvan, but nothing could be further away from the truth. It is an entirely false assumption. I never wake sleeping students by throwing books at them, as hundreds of students who have passed through the doors of the Department in the college will be able to ascertain. I intended to hit Mishra, and it was a tragedy I shall always regret that I did not hit him right on the nose. Blinded by my anger, I believe, my aim was compromised and Tamilselvan was struck. I have had, as I have told Dr. Premila Vincent, a great deal to put up with Mishra, and no one who knows the boy would blame me for the attempt to inflict some physical violence on him. It is indeed an accepted maxim in the staff room that physical violence is the only way to deal with Mishra to obtain any desirable result; to this Dr. Premila Vincent some time ago added a clause that the boy be deprived of his spectacles before being assaulted.
I do not blame myself for the unfortunate stunning of Tamilselvan. It was an accident. I did all I could for the boy when it was discovered (I think by Schweinsteiger) that he had been rendered unconscious. I immediately summoned Dr. Premila Vincent, who then summoned the ambulance. We agreed that concealment was impossible and that I must give a full account of the events to the police if they came asking. Meanwhile the work of the Department was to go on. Tamilselvan himself would have wished it. Dr Premila Vincent added that in any case the Department should come first.
I have made this statement after being duly, cautioned, of my own free will and in the presence of witnesses. I wish only to add that the boy is now none the worse for the blow, and has indeed shown increased zeal in his studies since the incident.
My name is Rajesh Vijaybhaskar. I am by profession an assistant professor at the Illustrious Institute of Technology (an occupation listed under the Dangerous Professions Act of 1988). The head of my department is Dr. Premila Vincent, popularly known among the students as the Old Hag, not necessarily, I think a point of opprobrium. She is a scholar of seemingly high achievements, as her doctorates suggest, and much given to the expression, "The Department comes first, Vijaybhaskar". I attach no particular meaning to this remark.
At 10 on the morning of Wednesday, November 3, I entered room 356 for the purpose of instructing the fourth batch in Basic Statistics, one of the subjects for which I have been engaged by Dr. Premila Vincent. There were present Agarwal, Babykutty, Chatterjee, Gunashekhara, Kumar, Latif, Mishra, Ravi Teja, Sharma, Schweinsteiger, Tamilselvan and Zohrab. Singh, who has, I am told, a fractured leg, was absent. It should be explained that even though I have listed out the names of my students in the alphabetical order of their surnames, that is not the order in which the students were seated on this occasion. It should be noticed that almost all of the female students were seated in the front rows and Tamilselvan, the student whom I am now accused of assaulting, was in the middle row. The last row was shared by Gunashekhara, our Sri Lankan exchange student and Ravi Teja, a cretin. I do not have the slightest inkling that these facts will be of any bearing upon this case, but I have lavishly furnished them for the sake of completeness.
I walked into the class to find the following quote scrawled across the board by the professor who had previously occupied the room. It went: "Mimicry reveals something in so far as it is distinct from what might be called an itself that is behind". The quote had created a considerable excitement and restlessness in the students, though of varied kinds.
"Today", I remarked, taking up my Davis and Pecar, "we shall focus our energies on problem solving which involve the population confidence interval", and I told them at once that if there were to be anymore of that groaning they would do nothing but solve problems involving the Poisson curve for the next one month. It is my experience as an assistant professor of some years' standing, that if groaning is not checked immediately, it may swell to enormous proportions. I make it my business to stamp on it with hob-nailed boots.
Mishra, a fair boy with glasses, remarked that it would not be possible to do problems on the Poisson curve for the next one month, and on being asked why not, he replied that there were only three more weeks for the semester to close upon us. This was true, and realising that the numbers were against me, I made no reply. I proceeded to write a problem on the blackboard, a sample problem which I felt would prepare my students for their end semester examinations.
"A researcher determines that a margin of error (or sampling error, e) of no more than plus or minus 0.05 units is desired, along with a 98 percent confidence interval. Calculate the sample size, n".
Agarwal promptly replied "Eighty seven". I enquired of him how, unless he was the next Ramanujan in the making, he imagined he could produce the answer without troubling to so much as set a pen to paper. He said, "I saw the answer in the back pages of the book". This reply caused a great deal of laughter, which I suppressed with an iron hand.
I should have spoken sharply to Agarwal, but at at this moment I noticed that in the bench right ahead of him, Gunashekhara appeared to be feasting on a small piece of cheesecake, causing considerable excitement. I ordered him to stand up.
"Gunashekhara, you are not perhaps quite used to our Indian ways, and hence I shall refrain from punishing you for this deviation of etiquette; but please understand that I will not have eating of foodstuff in my class. You did not come here to eat, but to learn. If you pay attention and work hard I may not despair of teaching you something, but if you do not wish to learn you might as well as go back to your country".
Mishra, without being given permission to speak, cried excitedly, "He cannot, sir. Didn't you know? His father was chased out of Sri Lanka in some big revolution or something. A big man with a moustache and a cap chased him for three kilometres and he had to escape in a small boat. He is lucky to have made it here to Chennai. It is true, sir. You ask him. Gunashekhara got hit by a falling branch on the small of his back, didn't you Guna? And his sister- at least I think it was his sister-"
That will do, Mishra", I said. "Who threw that?"
I am, I hope, not a spoilsport, but I will not tolerate the throwing of paper rockets or other missiles in my class. This sort of thing has to be struck down with great vengeance and furious anger or work becomes impossible. I accordingly warned the boy responsible that another offence would mean an imposition. He had the impertinence to ask what sort of an imposition. I told him in clear terms that it would be an imposition that would make him wish he had not taken my course, and if he wished to know the exact details he had only to throw another rocket to find out. He thereupon threw another rocket.
I confess that at this I lost patience and threatened to keep the entire class in for at least three more hours if I had any more trouble. I proceeded to solve the problem.
It was not until I had spent fifteen minutes working out the problem on the board that I realised that I had worked on the assumption that the confidence interval was 89 percent, rather than 98. This led me to an impasse. Some one from the back whistled. I at once whipped around and demanded to know who had made the infernal noise. Latif suggested that it might have been Tamilselvan whistling in his sleep. I was about to reprimand Latif for his impertinence when I noticed that Tamilselvan was indeed asleep and had in fact, according to Chatterjee, been asleep since the beginning of the period. Mishra said, "He has not missed much anyway".
I then threw my Davis and Pecar. It has been suggested that it was intended to hit Tamilselvan, but nothing could be further away from the truth. It is an entirely false assumption. I never wake sleeping students by throwing books at them, as hundreds of students who have passed through the doors of the Department in the college will be able to ascertain. I intended to hit Mishra, and it was a tragedy I shall always regret that I did not hit him right on the nose. Blinded by my anger, I believe, my aim was compromised and Tamilselvan was struck. I have had, as I have told Dr. Premila Vincent, a great deal to put up with Mishra, and no one who knows the boy would blame me for the attempt to inflict some physical violence on him. It is indeed an accepted maxim in the staff room that physical violence is the only way to deal with Mishra to obtain any desirable result; to this Dr. Premila Vincent some time ago added a clause that the boy be deprived of his spectacles before being assaulted.
I do not blame myself for the unfortunate stunning of Tamilselvan. It was an accident. I did all I could for the boy when it was discovered (I think by Schweinsteiger) that he had been rendered unconscious. I immediately summoned Dr. Premila Vincent, who then summoned the ambulance. We agreed that concealment was impossible and that I must give a full account of the events to the police if they came asking. Meanwhile the work of the Department was to go on. Tamilselvan himself would have wished it. Dr Premila Vincent added that in any case the Department should come first.
I have made this statement after being duly, cautioned, of my own free will and in the presence of witnesses. I wish only to add that the boy is now none the worse for the blow, and has indeed shown increased zeal in his studies since the incident.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sachin and the Burglar
This was a flash fiction piece I wrote in November for a creative writing course.
It was 3:30 a.m.
The burglar paused outside the window, pipe wrench in hand. Light filtered through the drawn curtains, but it was the hesitant mumbling from within that held him hesitant.
Then, he gently, very expertly, opened the window. A harsh, coarse voice said, "Tendulkar's score now stands at 241".
Four people were hunched about the television. Father, mother, son and daughter. The floor was littered with crumbs of various delicacies gulped down during the course of an innings.
"Agarkar cover drives for a two", sighed Richie Benaud.
"Who is bowling?", said the burglar excitedly, stepping in to the room.
"Lee", said the whole family, like one man, without looking up.
"Ayila!", exclaimed the burglar.
Searching the house, he packed up the most portable valuables and was looking for more when a loud harmonius groan came from the vicinity of the television.
"Wat's up"?, he cried, rusing in. "Is he out?"
"Agarkar. Clean bowled by that beast Lee", sobbed the mother, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.
"That's the front door", said the father. "Someone answer it".
No one answered it. "Gillespie bowling", announced Benaud.
"I suppose I'll have to go", sighed the burglar. A large cry of discontentment arouse when he opened the door.
"What's wrong here?", asked the policeman sternly.
"The score crossed 700 and Ganguly has declared the innings over", murmured the burglar in a hoarse voice.
"Oh man. That sucks!", exclaimed the policeman, rushing in.
And at 5:45 a.m, the blear-eyed family dragged itself to bed, the policeman, nervously gazing about for the SI, back to his beat, and the burglar went home, having forgotten his loot.
"Anyhow", he muttered, as he climbed wearily in to his bed. "I don't care. Seven hundred and five is going to take some catching".
It was 3:30 a.m.
The burglar paused outside the window, pipe wrench in hand. Light filtered through the drawn curtains, but it was the hesitant mumbling from within that held him hesitant.
Then, he gently, very expertly, opened the window. A harsh, coarse voice said, "Tendulkar's score now stands at 241".
Four people were hunched about the television. Father, mother, son and daughter. The floor was littered with crumbs of various delicacies gulped down during the course of an innings.
"Agarkar cover drives for a two", sighed Richie Benaud.
"Who is bowling?", said the burglar excitedly, stepping in to the room.
"Lee", said the whole family, like one man, without looking up.
"Ayila!", exclaimed the burglar.
Searching the house, he packed up the most portable valuables and was looking for more when a loud harmonius groan came from the vicinity of the television.
"Wat's up"?, he cried, rusing in. "Is he out?"
"Agarkar. Clean bowled by that beast Lee", sobbed the mother, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.
"That's the front door", said the father. "Someone answer it".
No one answered it. "Gillespie bowling", announced Benaud.
"I suppose I'll have to go", sighed the burglar. A large cry of discontentment arouse when he opened the door.
"What's wrong here?", asked the policeman sternly.
"The score crossed 700 and Ganguly has declared the innings over", murmured the burglar in a hoarse voice.
"Oh man. That sucks!", exclaimed the policeman, rushing in.
And at 5:45 a.m, the blear-eyed family dragged itself to bed, the policeman, nervously gazing about for the SI, back to his beat, and the burglar went home, having forgotten his loot.
"Anyhow", he muttered, as he climbed wearily in to his bed. "I don't care. Seven hundred and five is going to take some catching".
Monday, January 3, 2011
Where is the USP?
“But why?”, asked John.
It was a question he had been meaning to ask for a long time. It had been on the tip of his tongue for so long that it had set up a Victorian mansion and bred its own children right there. Like wine, Scotch whiskey and certain brands of cheese, the question gained potency over its long period under the wraps. For a question consisting of just two monosyllabic words, it rocked the house. It sent papers flying out through the window and made lesser mortals quiver. Heavenly powers moved the doomsday clock to within a minute of apocalypse.
The Absolute-SuperSonic Film Corporation had, over the years, established itself as one of the leading houses of the art (or what of left of it) called cinema. Their rise to the top of the industry had been powered by the iron rule of its head honcho, President M. He was rumoured to be as bad-tempered, loud and greedy as a gaggle of geese and could strip a tax-man of his wits faster than a priest could strip a choir boy.
Approximately seven and a half minutes before John released his lethal query, President M had been describing in detail the minor changes he thought would look good in the Corporation’s latest project, a musical. Apart from the usual inclusion of a cabaret and a skating ring, President M had a major bomb to drop that day.
“In our latest project, I feel we should cut out the music entirely”.
And then, John dropped his bomb. A question sure to go in to company folklore, a Prometheus-esque act, something on which the major poets would write epic tragedies. The question took the room by storm. President M quivered and dropped the beef sandwich he was munching. His secretaries took their fingers off their typewriters. Weathermen in distant weather stations checked the skies for signs of an impending thunderbolt. The security goons moved their palms to their hip holsters like one security goon.
“But why ?”, John repeated. “Why would anyone want to cut the music out of a musical ?”.
President M had an orderly mind and he classified the situation as only the fifth most worried he had been when someone asked him “but why ?”, though the top four had been screeching, delirious women. President M was stunned and momentarily tried to find an explanation.
“Because our lyricists are a bunch of doofus who cannot rhyme love with dove.They are a bunch of no goods and I do not think they should be writing anything for a movie. What good is the music ?”, asked the President impassioned. His assistants nodded and made a note of it. His secretaries were quickly back to work.
“But how do you make a musical without music ?”, persisted John.
“Let me ask you, young man. How is our music different from the scores of scores you hear elsewhere? What sets it apart? Where is the USP ?”.
The assistants got down on the floor in search of the USP. The attender pulled out the drawers to check for the elusive item. The cry “Where is the USP” rang throughout the room and some of it even managed to seep out through the windows, doors and the ventilation. Everyone was wonder struck at how emphatically the president put it.
“Where is the USP ?”, he bellowed and beamed, ecstatic at yet another victory at a verbal duel.
John could feel retort after retort avalanching themselves on the tip of his tongue. He knew he should let them out. He wanted to. He loved music and musicals. But it was President M who signed the cheques. The thought of further risking the displeasure and being summarily dismissed appalled him. For there is no spiritual anguish like that of a man who, having grown accustomed to opening the crackling envelope at the end of each month and fingering the warm cheque, reaches out one day and finds it is not there. The thought of Absolute-SuperSonic ceasing to be a fountain of gold and becoming just a rather portly man with a awful sideburns turned his spine to jelly. Maybe he would go down in history as the company’s Boswell’s clergyman. Fragmentary, pale, momentary; almost nothing. Meekly, he inherited his seat.
John swallowed the retorts knocking on his teeth. They were many in number. Hire new lyricists if the current crop is bad. Throw money at it. Improve the settings and theme of the projects. What about the previous musicals the company released? Were not they created by the same team? How will the critics view the current releases we have when they learn that the music has been disbanded? Create an USP for itself. Do something. Do not take the easy way out. Do something to keep the music.
Wiser counsels prevailed and John retreated to studying his fingernails as President M rambled on about the need for sensuous passion in the next project.
It was a question he had been meaning to ask for a long time. It had been on the tip of his tongue for so long that it had set up a Victorian mansion and bred its own children right there. Like wine, Scotch whiskey and certain brands of cheese, the question gained potency over its long period under the wraps. For a question consisting of just two monosyllabic words, it rocked the house. It sent papers flying out through the window and made lesser mortals quiver. Heavenly powers moved the doomsday clock to within a minute of apocalypse.
The Absolute-SuperSonic Film Corporation had, over the years, established itself as one of the leading houses of the art (or what of left of it) called cinema. Their rise to the top of the industry had been powered by the iron rule of its head honcho, President M. He was rumoured to be as bad-tempered, loud and greedy as a gaggle of geese and could strip a tax-man of his wits faster than a priest could strip a choir boy.
Approximately seven and a half minutes before John released his lethal query, President M had been describing in detail the minor changes he thought would look good in the Corporation’s latest project, a musical. Apart from the usual inclusion of a cabaret and a skating ring, President M had a major bomb to drop that day.
“In our latest project, I feel we should cut out the music entirely”.
And then, John dropped his bomb. A question sure to go in to company folklore, a Prometheus-esque act, something on which the major poets would write epic tragedies. The question took the room by storm. President M quivered and dropped the beef sandwich he was munching. His secretaries took their fingers off their typewriters. Weathermen in distant weather stations checked the skies for signs of an impending thunderbolt. The security goons moved their palms to their hip holsters like one security goon.
“But why ?”, John repeated. “Why would anyone want to cut the music out of a musical ?”.
President M had an orderly mind and he classified the situation as only the fifth most worried he had been when someone asked him “but why ?”, though the top four had been screeching, delirious women. President M was stunned and momentarily tried to find an explanation.
“Because our lyricists are a bunch of doofus who cannot rhyme love with dove.They are a bunch of no goods and I do not think they should be writing anything for a movie. What good is the music ?”, asked the President impassioned. His assistants nodded and made a note of it. His secretaries were quickly back to work.
“But how do you make a musical without music ?”, persisted John.
“Let me ask you, young man. How is our music different from the scores of scores you hear elsewhere? What sets it apart? Where is the USP ?”.
The assistants got down on the floor in search of the USP. The attender pulled out the drawers to check for the elusive item. The cry “Where is the USP” rang throughout the room and some of it even managed to seep out through the windows, doors and the ventilation. Everyone was wonder struck at how emphatically the president put it.
“Where is the USP ?”, he bellowed and beamed, ecstatic at yet another victory at a verbal duel.
John could feel retort after retort avalanching themselves on the tip of his tongue. He knew he should let them out. He wanted to. He loved music and musicals. But it was President M who signed the cheques. The thought of further risking the displeasure and being summarily dismissed appalled him. For there is no spiritual anguish like that of a man who, having grown accustomed to opening the crackling envelope at the end of each month and fingering the warm cheque, reaches out one day and finds it is not there. The thought of Absolute-SuperSonic ceasing to be a fountain of gold and becoming just a rather portly man with a awful sideburns turned his spine to jelly. Maybe he would go down in history as the company’s Boswell’s clergyman. Fragmentary, pale, momentary; almost nothing. Meekly, he inherited his seat.
John swallowed the retorts knocking on his teeth. They were many in number. Hire new lyricists if the current crop is bad. Throw money at it. Improve the settings and theme of the projects. What about the previous musicals the company released? Were not they created by the same team? How will the critics view the current releases we have when they learn that the music has been disbanded? Create an USP for itself. Do something. Do not take the easy way out. Do something to keep the music.
Wiser counsels prevailed and John retreated to studying his fingernails as President M rambled on about the need for sensuous passion in the next project.
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Very Little Punjab I Saw
I was in Punjab the last week and despite my best intentions and my mother's constant badgering, I managed to see only very little of it. In fact, I would not be surprised if someone were to walk up to me, bang his or her fist on the table and assert that I had not been to Punjab at all. My original destination in Punjab was Ludhiana, but after a few days of the utter boredom of being cooped up in my cell, my laziness was trumped by the craving for the new, the fresh and for anything that did not have four whitewashed walls.
The one thing I had been looking forward to a lot in my trip to Punjab was to get a good look at a few girls and see for myself whether the word of mouth was good to believe. It was. Punjab features, in various varieties of appearances and sizes, everyday girls on the streets, in malls, looking out from the balcony or in somebody's mobile phone. They sashay in a swirl of colour, in their elegant salwar kameezes and in jeans in the more urbane parts of the state, moving like queens of city, head held high and with steps as firm as a mountain goat. Their faces can launch any number of ships and trawlers from any number of harbours as they breeze through the crowded markets in search of Flying Spaghetti Monster knows what. They are ephemeral and almost ethereal, with a quaint and ancient charm upon them. A glow seems to permeate through them, a halo of glory surrounding them. In more realistic terms, they are surrounded by well built, well to do Punjabi brothers who, in all probability, have a few Kirpans on their bodies. You would do well to keep away from them.
A characteristic Punjab shares to a great degree with Kerala is the number of booze shops that dot the streets and even places where there are no streets. For every hundred meters you travel, you are guaranteed to find at least three booze shops, though the three of them tend to be more or less adjacent to each other, a logic that evades me to this day. Unlike Kerala, the government does not seem to be taking any initiative to sell liquor and thus pocket great profits I am sure is to be gotten from the good people of the State. In Punjab, private dealers abound. There is no Beverages Corporation that holds monopoly over sale of wines and spirits. Thus, in the land of five rivers you find thriving in the business the likes of Gill Brothers, Bajaj and Co., Chaddha group and may other small timers. Add to that shops which would rather go with the the plain and straight forward 'English Beer and Wine', the 'Country Beer and Liquor' offering the native style and traditional touch and the all encompassing 'A to Z Liquors'.
If there were any statistic for number of booze shop in a given unit of area, I am pretty sure Punjab will trump all. While the shops in Kerala almost blend in to the background, almost indistinguishable from other establishments but for the long and disciplined queue, Punjabi booze shops make it a point to stand out. They are well lit and neon and other luminary mechanisms are employed to proudly display their names, their purpose and the various brands they happen to possess. They stand out from the rest of the crowd of shops and the very appearance seems to invite every passer by to drop in for a drink, or at least take a bottle or two for the folks at home.
Then I went to Chandigarh.
I went on a long distance route plying bus, part of a bigger scheme of things named PunBus. The bus ride puts on display for you the many features of Punjab, including the wheat fields and the booze shops I have mentioned above. Chandigarh is roughly, a two hour ride from Ludhiana and it is a pleasure to be in the planned city.
Much of the tourism potential of Chandigarh lies in the fact that it is India's first planned city. In a nation which is not exactly famous for planning, being orderly or any other virtue in the same category, Chandigarh comes as a refreshing whiff of fresh air. When one enters in to the city, it is like a whole new world. One feels like Alice, or like those kids in Narnia. It is a place truly apart from the rest of the country, a haven of the orderly and the neat. one gets a feeling of being in a well maintained place, where the roads are spick and span and there is not much traffic, pollution or any sort of hurrying. One could eat of the pavements in Chandigarh. It came as no surprise to me when a signboard told me that Chandigarh was found to be the cleanest and greenest city in India.
One can see Le Corbusier's genius through out the city, in its well planned roads, aptly situated structures and a general look of lush greenery and a spirit of relaxation. Of course, there are spaces at certain points where you can almost see Le Corbusier thinking, "Now what will I do with that 30 cents? I already have three parks. Enough with planting trees. Oh dash it, we will just allow people to park their carriages and horses there. Humph!". The place is a marvel.
Chandigarh has many parks and grounds were people (mostly old people and tourists) can relax, while away time and bask in the sunshine when it is not too hot. There are umpteen gardens and other places that exhibit flora. It is as if when Corbusier was at his charts, plotting out a road here, a legislative council there, a couple of associates came up and said, "It would be nice to have a garden of rose, some acres where there is nothing but rose, in all colours, in full glory...", only to be cut off by the next man who thought there was nothing like bougainvilleas and any city without a bougainvillea garden was not worthy to be called a city. Tired of all these rants, Corbusier seemed to have made each man;s wish come true with various gardens here and there, of roses, bougainvilleas and many other flowers.
One of the biggest attractions of Chandigarh is the Rock Garden, a forty acre expanse built entirely from home and industrial wastes in to a charming and innovative spectacle. The vast maze like structure was built secretly by Nek Chand Saini an was finally discovered by the government in 1975. They had the sense to recognise a good thing when they saw one and took the garden in to their own hands and made it a major tourist spot. It is a breathtaking place, where one wonders about the sheer audacity of the idea, the huge proportions of the place only adding to the bewildering charm.
Punjab is a great place to be in, though it was cold as freezer during the time I was there. I escaped before January set in and Mother Nature really cranked up the iciness. Of course, it is all compensated with the melting heat of the summer. Punjab certainly was a great place to visit, though I am not sure I am ever going up there again.
The one thing I had been looking forward to a lot in my trip to Punjab was to get a good look at a few girls and see for myself whether the word of mouth was good to believe. It was. Punjab features, in various varieties of appearances and sizes, everyday girls on the streets, in malls, looking out from the balcony or in somebody's mobile phone. They sashay in a swirl of colour, in their elegant salwar kameezes and in jeans in the more urbane parts of the state, moving like queens of city, head held high and with steps as firm as a mountain goat. Their faces can launch any number of ships and trawlers from any number of harbours as they breeze through the crowded markets in search of Flying Spaghetti Monster knows what. They are ephemeral and almost ethereal, with a quaint and ancient charm upon them. A glow seems to permeate through them, a halo of glory surrounding them. In more realistic terms, they are surrounded by well built, well to do Punjabi brothers who, in all probability, have a few Kirpans on their bodies. You would do well to keep away from them.
A characteristic Punjab shares to a great degree with Kerala is the number of booze shops that dot the streets and even places where there are no streets. For every hundred meters you travel, you are guaranteed to find at least three booze shops, though the three of them tend to be more or less adjacent to each other, a logic that evades me to this day. Unlike Kerala, the government does not seem to be taking any initiative to sell liquor and thus pocket great profits I am sure is to be gotten from the good people of the State. In Punjab, private dealers abound. There is no Beverages Corporation that holds monopoly over sale of wines and spirits. Thus, in the land of five rivers you find thriving in the business the likes of Gill Brothers, Bajaj and Co., Chaddha group and may other small timers. Add to that shops which would rather go with the the plain and straight forward 'English Beer and Wine', the 'Country Beer and Liquor' offering the native style and traditional touch and the all encompassing 'A to Z Liquors'.
If there were any statistic for number of booze shop in a given unit of area, I am pretty sure Punjab will trump all. While the shops in Kerala almost blend in to the background, almost indistinguishable from other establishments but for the long and disciplined queue, Punjabi booze shops make it a point to stand out. They are well lit and neon and other luminary mechanisms are employed to proudly display their names, their purpose and the various brands they happen to possess. They stand out from the rest of the crowd of shops and the very appearance seems to invite every passer by to drop in for a drink, or at least take a bottle or two for the folks at home.
Then I went to Chandigarh.
I went on a long distance route plying bus, part of a bigger scheme of things named PunBus. The bus ride puts on display for you the many features of Punjab, including the wheat fields and the booze shops I have mentioned above. Chandigarh is roughly, a two hour ride from Ludhiana and it is a pleasure to be in the planned city.
Much of the tourism potential of Chandigarh lies in the fact that it is India's first planned city. In a nation which is not exactly famous for planning, being orderly or any other virtue in the same category, Chandigarh comes as a refreshing whiff of fresh air. When one enters in to the city, it is like a whole new world. One feels like Alice, or like those kids in Narnia. It is a place truly apart from the rest of the country, a haven of the orderly and the neat. one gets a feeling of being in a well maintained place, where the roads are spick and span and there is not much traffic, pollution or any sort of hurrying. One could eat of the pavements in Chandigarh. It came as no surprise to me when a signboard told me that Chandigarh was found to be the cleanest and greenest city in India.
One can see Le Corbusier's genius through out the city, in its well planned roads, aptly situated structures and a general look of lush greenery and a spirit of relaxation. Of course, there are spaces at certain points where you can almost see Le Corbusier thinking, "Now what will I do with that 30 cents? I already have three parks. Enough with planting trees. Oh dash it, we will just allow people to park their carriages and horses there. Humph!". The place is a marvel.
Chandigarh has many parks and grounds were people (mostly old people and tourists) can relax, while away time and bask in the sunshine when it is not too hot. There are umpteen gardens and other places that exhibit flora. It is as if when Corbusier was at his charts, plotting out a road here, a legislative council there, a couple of associates came up and said, "It would be nice to have a garden of rose, some acres where there is nothing but rose, in all colours, in full glory...", only to be cut off by the next man who thought there was nothing like bougainvilleas and any city without a bougainvillea garden was not worthy to be called a city. Tired of all these rants, Corbusier seemed to have made each man;s wish come true with various gardens here and there, of roses, bougainvilleas and many other flowers.
One of the biggest attractions of Chandigarh is the Rock Garden, a forty acre expanse built entirely from home and industrial wastes in to a charming and innovative spectacle. The vast maze like structure was built secretly by Nek Chand Saini an was finally discovered by the government in 1975. They had the sense to recognise a good thing when they saw one and took the garden in to their own hands and made it a major tourist spot. It is a breathtaking place, where one wonders about the sheer audacity of the idea, the huge proportions of the place only adding to the bewildering charm.
Punjab is a great place to be in, though it was cold as freezer during the time I was there. I escaped before January set in and Mother Nature really cranked up the iciness. Of course, it is all compensated with the melting heat of the summer. Punjab certainly was a great place to visit, though I am not sure I am ever going up there again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)