Dear Aniruddha Bahal, It's Not Funny

Dear Aniruddha Bahal,

Not a week passes in my life without I mentioning strongly recommending Bunker 13 to people I come across and who seem even remotely interested in reading among those. If I were deeply religious, one would have observed that I go back to Bunker 13 more often that I go to the religious texts. Of course, one needs the kind of madness that made MM the man he was. When I die, I will be glad that I introduced you and your writing to a lot of people around me. While I most eagerly look forward to another Bunker 13 and another MM from you, I really can't understand the need for you to invent Tony M at this moment. Yes, we Indians are starved for quality humour and what we are being served now does no justice to our discerning intellect, but I will remain skeptical of this attempt of yours till I watch the said show and find out if it really deserves you. Tehelka was excellent work and I admire you not only for what you brought to the rot to light, but also how you withstood all the persecution that followed. I really admire Shankar Sharma and Devina Mehra for the same. Please convey my best wishes to them and to Tarun as well. One need not look beyond you guys for inspiration on how to fight back in the face of all odds and come back and come back doubly strong. You started Cobrapost much before those of us in the web 2.0 infected world starting throwing about terms like RSS feeds and news aggregators. For all we know, Cobrapost might just take off and make a strong comeback if you spend more time on it that trying to humour us by being Tony Bhasand. And what is this? Is this what Aniruddha Bahal has become?

Is your absurd sense of humour your forte?

Humour is not the fort. If the truth in the joking then the peoples laughing and spreading all over out from the Naini fort on the river.

I really hope you and your publisher are working on another Bunker 13 and you won't disappoint your followers and readers. Maybe your following is a billionth of that of Sharukh Khan and you are not Arundhati Roy, reading whose work kids think they become intellectuals overnight and go around telling the entire world about it. We are you fans by choice, not by the lack of it. Hope you know that.



Maybe I'm over-reacting just on the ten questions you answered for the Outlook interview. But I hope you understand that you are at your best when you are either stinging or you are writing. And please don't meet Vipul Shah or Akshay Kumar, otherwise we'll soon be watching a movie titled Stingg is Kinng, with the unnecessary extra alphabets and there is also the threat of them wanting you to write the script.

Hope to see you back to writing soon.

Regards,
Nikhil


PS. I must mention here that I immensely enjoyed reading A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Just a note that you now have some competition in fiction writing about military, politicians, war, spying and espionage in the sub-continent.

Image Credit: Outlook

The 3 Mistakes Of My Life

Reading the book, though, was not one of them. Liked the fact that it is set in Ahmedabad and to a fair extent captures the essence of life in the city. The book is not so much about bringing about the ethos and isolation of an entire generation to the fore as the blurb says. But we know these marketing types, don't we? Read the book if you have nothing better to do for a couple of hours.

Earlier posts about Ahmedabad on this blog.

The Truth About India

Now, after traveling some eight thousand miles around the country, I know approximately as little as I did on my first arrival. However I've seen a lot of people and places, and at least somewhat more detailed and precise idea of my ignorance than I did in the beginnning.

Paul Bowles in Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue, an excerpt from which is carried in India In Mind, edited by Pankaj Mishra.




Not surprising at all, an opinion like this coming foreign traveler. But it holds equally true for an Indian traveler like me. The more one discovers India, more is the feeling of having known nothing at all about this magnificent place.

PS. The book is put together well. It is a collection of pieces from books by foreign authors and travelers about India. Also, LibraryThing doesn't seem to be working. Anyone fans of the website and missing it as much as I am now?

Thank You

Thank Yous. Not in any specific order but all the specific reasons.

Thank You guys .

Thank You and You guys.

Thank You Sir and your Friends.

Thank You Panditji and You, Sir.

Thank You for this.

Thank You for this.

Thank You for this. Interesting that the main character is from Bijapur. But it's not close to Bangalore, is it?

Thank You for this.

Thank You.

Thank You guys.

Thank You Sahab.

Thank You and You guys.

Thank You for this. Thank You again.

Thank You for this.

And Thank You people - You, You, You, You, You and You. You know who you are!

Point Your Mouse To

No pun intended, unless you thought of that thing as a mouse. Let's not get into the pun trap, or punt rap for now!

Point your mouse to CircusMouse. Lot of action happening there. And someone likes posts on CircusMouse doesn't mean he's gay for me. Gay for me? Now, as a young thing would say - How gay is that, Sahu? Perhaps he liked this guy's one's only post on that blog. Hence gay maybe.

Random Remembrances.

• India- Australia Cricket Match at Chinnaswamy Stadium. [photos] No, we didn't heckle Symonds. But had awesome fun with Dada, Karthik and Powar fielding at the boundary right in front of us. Cricket will never die in India. And Cricket is a simple game of heart, mind, bat, ball and a couple of guards for safety. The excessively annoying TV coverage is doing no good to the gentleman's game it is it once was. Hope though, is still alive.

• The mid-night trek to Skandagiri [photos] following the match. That I was tired and exhausted would be an understatement, and that I was a bicycle because I was too tired would be a wonderstatement. Puns aside or puns-a-side, I still have no clue about the source of energy that kept me alive during the trek. Thank heavens(we were definitely closer to it) for the life-saving omlettes and tea at the summit. The trek would be incomplete without the mention of birth of Joshi, a person who existed amidst us all along, but we had no idea about him. Thanks to a certain America-bound dude, we discovered his existence and he's been living with us since then. The day Joshi's true identity is revealed would be the day when this polite, gentlemanly, mature Nikhil Kulkarni's make-believe identity will be known. Till then, live and thrive, Joshi.
  

• A Walk In The Clouds, Caffeine, Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Laaga Chunari Mein Aag, Morning Raaga (Oh fuck! How could I forget Apparao and Annapoorna? Wake Up!), Tout Va Bien (Everything Is Alright - that's the movie's name in English!), Un homme et une femme (A Man And A Woman)
  
• A special mention. We were brave enough to watch this one - The Brave One. Clovie, get out of the car! Those who suffered this at my hands, or my mouth rather, after this movie, should feel honoured. Gods (Warner Brothers, that is) have heard us and we have this great news - Warner Bros says “No More Female Lead Characters”?!
  only to be followed by Warner Bros Denies Comments.
  Huh, no reward for our bravery.

• The trips home, the series of forgotten birthdays, the chull that was finally put to rest a minute back (Aw fuck! Commander will go crazy over this!) , the falling ill and getting back to life again, Octoberfest, the Bangalore Book Festival, the visit to that insti, the scary predictions(I should stop doing that now!)......
  

• Pustakaaha
• Londonstani - rudeboy rules, rudeboys rule! Samira Ahmed, Product Marketing and innit! Absolute must-read.
• Games Indians Play - interesting, especially the application of the behavioural economics tools to understand why we are the way we are. In addition to things mentioned here, I want to become a Behavioural Economist. Very fancy it sounds. Absolutely. And that's not the only reason I want to become one.
  
• A book on the best upcoming writing in Indian English edited by Kushwant Singh.
  
• Plans are to read Butter Chicken In Ludhiana during the upcoming trip to Kanpur. If the previous trip out of Bangalore was anything to go by, this one should be great fun! The same refrain again - but that was Mumbai! This one is no less either- Bangalore->Delhi->Lucknow->Kanpur->Lucknow->Delhi->Bangalore. Should be fun enough.
  

PS. Began this post with just the thought of directing readers to CircusMouse, but it ended up being an almost-complete update post. I'm glad it came. Good for the well-being of this world. Om Shanti Om. Huh, the movie's noise these days. Shanti Shanti. Huh, that's Mandira Bedi. Ab Bas. Huh, that's Diana Hayden.

Filmosophy

Apart from those well spent 2-3 hours, one of the best things about watching movies is that one discovers interesting connections between the characters in the movie philosophers.

• In A Fish Called Wanda, Otto's favourite philosopher is Nietzsche.
  

• In Little Miss Sunshine, Frank is America's Number 1 Proust scholar. [Marcel Proust] And Dwyane is shown reading Nietzsche in the movie .

• In The Namesake, Gogol is named after Nikolai Gogol. Gogol's The Overcoat is an important character in the movie.
  

Then, do good films like these and philosophy go eye in brain? Just like romantic movies and Mills and Boon books go hand in hand? Or probably something else in something else? Wouldn't want to get into the innards of this now!

The Curious Incident Of The Quote In The Night Time

The problem begins when you do not know what to do with it. The problem only gets worse when you don't know what to do without it.

Looks like immense profoundity flows when one is reading Mark Haddon. It's A Spot Of Bother right now.



PS. The quote indeed came in the night time. At 5 a.m. Quite the right night time.

PPS. Only he can come up with quotes like these - I am atheist in a very religious mould.

Naansense and a month in Mumbai.

[ I'm in Mumbai now. All my tech posts like the previous one on search engines will now be on WATblog.Here are my recent posts on WATblog.]

This is the tenth time I'm sitting down to write this. It should have been up about ten days back, but then ten things wouldn't have been added. Then, it would've been tentatively titled 'Tendulkar's tender tentacles'. Now that would've given you a lot of tension. Ah, enough of it.

10. I'm definitely talking about both here - nonsense and the bread - naan. Just that having stayed in Pondicherry for close to five months, it is difficult to shake off the South Indian accent. So that's naansense for you.

Naan, in this case the bread, also makes a lot of sense. With the kaamwali bai bidding us good bye, we're mostly having to eat a lot of naan. Apparently, this not(naat?) so good bai decided to do a lot of buying during Diwali with her bhais. Then while helping herself with baingan ka bharta,she decided to bid us good-bye or was she inspired while attending an RSS baithak and then boycotted us! Ah, that was too much of wordplay!

Now to the more serious mentions,

1. We still haven't found a regular bai. That is indeed unsettling.

2. Mumbai is wonderful. One word which probably describes Mumbai the best is - intense. There are way too many things happenings, there are way too many people on the roads, way too many people in the local trains, way too many scents and odours, way too many sounds and way too many things to be mentioned here. Inspite of all this, there's such sense behind the madness. I'm reminded of this post, where I had mentioned about reading books, watching movies about Mumbai. It feels good to have read those books which once one wishes to read. Gregory David Roberts's Shantaram was the first. It's probably the best investment I've made in my life till now. And it is only apt that I gifted it to Scott while he was here in India and of course, fell in love with Mumbai. Check out the t-shirts he's made. And yes, he's donating some of the proceeds of the sales to PlanetRead. Way to go, Mr. Social Entrepreneur in the making. No wait, he's already one! And yes, here's the documentary we made for PlanetRead. A long way ahead from the days of silly college videos like Over and Out and de Young Basanti. And yes, then I read Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. Ok, the book might not have the depth of Shantaram, but is certainly wide, in terms of the time and geography he's managed to cover in the book. The book certainly justifies the time it took, seven years, and the advance Vikram Chandra got for the book.

And then Suketubhai Mehta in his Maximum City delves much deeper into the chaotic universe that is Mumbai and brings to life more of its intrigues and intricacies. Can't wait for Shantram to be brought alive on screen.

52. What? Shouldn't three follow two? Blame it on my sudden surge of interest interest in random numbers.

So here's another random list of things I've been upto in Mumbai.

23. Kaak, Chinsi, Kenny and another one 'He who shall not be named' (for the simple reason that I do not know his name) were here in Mumbai. We went around South Mumbai, I bought The Perfect Store: Inside eBay and have finished reading it as well. More on the book soon. All I remember is that we walked into Gokul Bar and the rest of it is still very hazy. How we spoke of life being a spiral and not a circle, our journey back to Andheri, how they must be the luckiest people on this earth to have caught a bus back to Surat, is all very hazy. I'm glad such hazy things happen.

24. Movies watched.

Seems like it'll take another three hundred twenty seven years for Hindi movies to be regularly screened in Pondicherry. So starved I was for Hindi movies, read Hindi movies in theatres, that I had to get my dose of Hindi movies when I came to Mumbai. Here's the list - Jaan-e-Mann, Don, Apna Sapna Money Money, Deadline - Sirf 24 ghante and Dhoom 2.

My two cents worth. No wait, I paid more for these. Anyway, here goes.

I'm no big consumer of Dabur products, but I have to say Yeh baat kuch hazam nahin hui to Gulzaar Sahab. There's no comparing Naam Ada likhna in Yahaan to huaan jo zamane ka dastoor hain, woh maane nahi dad naaraaz tha and sirf do hi mahine hai seh lo agar, mera future hai teri kasam, mera future hai jismein piya in Jaan-E-Mann. It really hurts, Gulzaarsahab. Thank God, there's Guru coming soon and it does have some good alfaaz.

Jaan-E-Mann deserves no mention here, while Don was very stylishly made. For all the flak Farhan has received, I congratulate him for taking this risk and coming out trumps. Isn't Don a hit? Guess that says it all.

Dhoom 2? It's got Hrithik written over it all the way. The liplock aside, Aishwarya looks more like, like Sneha Ullal. Bikinasha, Abhishek and Uday just manage to pass the muster, helping us pass pop-corn with ease.

37. Books read

- Maximum City

- The Bachelor of Arts

- The Perfect Store: Inside eBay

- In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India. Makes for an interesting read. Having read India Unbound earlier, this book helped me put the various aspects of India- social, political and economic, in the right perspective. Long way to go before I really understand the dynamics of this mystery that is India.

- The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better by Seth Godin. I regularly follow Seth's blog, and just like on his blog where he simplifies marketing,in the books he provides real life examples to simplify web design.

All books recommended for reading, depending on your tastes and sensibilites.

58. Books to be read

- The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal. Wonder how tasty will that be? Yes, this is in refence to this. Scroll down and you'll come to know why. Anyway, I've developed this strange liking for writers from Tehelka. Bunker 13 by Aniruddha Bahal. The rpm from that book is still very fresh in my mind. Read this to know more!

- Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog. Thought it's time I read some sensible stuff!

57. Some more movies I watched while I was not blogging
- Kannathil Muthamittal
- Pithamagan
- Fight Club(again)
- Full Metal Jacket.

Whenever I walk in the teeming Mumbai crowd, I imagine everyone marching on the road saying - "This is my rifle, this is my gun". If you've watched the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about.


63. Really glad that I'm back to quizzing. Because I'm not a B-school student, for purposes of convenience, I'm a student of NMIMS and Das remains my partner for any online B-school quiz. What's more, it was a heartening return to quizzing as Das and I teamed up to win the second prize in the entertainment quiz by IIFT. Another matter though that Dipubhai and I could not make it to the finals of quiz conducted by Avinash Mudaliar. But then, answers like the Marlboro man, iPod shuffle and more importantly FabIndia will help us take pleasant memories from that quiz. But just one point of bother - do fun and entertainment in a quiz have to include references to balls and let the tongue and cheek go haywire of tongue-in-cheek.

108. Watched Shazia Mirza perform.She was funny, hilarous, outrageous, serious, over the top, stinging all at once. But her honesty and straighforwardness are what make her more appealing and entertaining. If all her gigs are her real life stories, then this woman surely has the nerve!

457. Watched Kashinama at The Prithvi Theatre Festival. Was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Ok, this I have to write. I was standing beside Kay Kay Menon and then I asked him who the performer was. Swanand Kirkire,came the answer. No sooner did I exclaim - Oh Hazaaron, did Swanand began Baanwra Mann, followed by Raat Hamaari toh bowing to audience's request. His Main solah saal ka would be ideal for the short film on social networking I'm planning to make. Plans are to run into him again at Prithvi and ask him for the same. I know it's a tough ask, but I'll try.

3124. Shortfilm reminds me of the documentary/shortfilm Komal and I are planning to make on the recent 'corporatization' of Bollywood covering the latest attempts at
innovative marketing and promotion. We've got the basic framework worked out. All we need to do now is just go out there and do it! Promises to be exciting. What say? Ms. Big shot journalist! [ Ah, how much I'll have to hear for this]

5372. Conversations with Prayas have been educative and enlightening in a sense. We've discussed(a lot) over coffee, some Italian dish I can't remember and dinner. Hopefully, something concrete will emerge out of those discussions. Personally, Prayas has been a great person to spend time with. I shall start contributing for Mumbai Diaries soon and get invloved in the short film competition Prayas mentions on his blog.

6453. Ok, Pandora can read my mind. Talking of music, Mumbai's Rainbow FM is really good. I like it not because it is the only station which plays English music, but because unlike the RJs at Mirchi, Red, One, BIG or City, RJs at Rainbow are restrained and not shouting over the top of their voices.

3241.DesiLassi is up and running. We're still contemplating on how do we position it. Positioning might seem a fancy term, but doing business on the internet is definitely not easy if there's no focus. The DesiLassi blog is up. Promises to be a fun ride. Finished a pilot TV show episode for BookBox. Feels good to have done most of the things by my own - shooting, post, pre and free production and editing!

367532. And finally,

If you find love on the internet, will you say it was love at first site?!
If you work on the internet for a long time, will you be keybored?

What are you writing about?

[ OK, I have returned to regular blogging. Here is the comeback post ]

Now, there are few important decisions I have to make. Of course, some decisions I've made previously have proved costly. One of them for example was my decision to buy Maximum City . About sixty pages into the book and I realised that it was indeed a costly decision, about sixty rupees maybe. But even with books like this come with good memories. I bought that book when Bharath and I met Kiran Karnik in Hubli at the IT Investors' Meet.Like every book has a story to tell, which even Maximum City has, there's a wonderful story behind our meeting with Mr.Karnik. Bharath has agreed to write a post on that soon.
But somehow I feel I should have paid some attention to Kaak when he asked me not to buy it. Somehow Suketubhai is too harsh on Mumbai. Having called Mumbai my jaan in an earlier post on my blog here, I really couldnot digest Suketubhai's verbal abuse of Mumbai. I may someday complete reading the entire book and tone down my disregard for Maximum City. But until then, it can rest on the table. Or is it on the shelf already? Great. I am now really desperate to get my hands on Sacred Games. If you committed that costly(time-wise) decision of reading that post, you'd know that I did mention about Sacred Games there.



But then sometimes costly decisions turn out to be really worthwhile. Buying Bunker 13 turned out to be one such decision. So I while I headed out for lunch trying to look for Sacred Games on the way, Bunker 13 waiting right there to be picked by me. The first fifty pages, in no uncertain terms, make me believe that it's definitely worth the wait and the weight. Rupees Two Hundred Sixtynine only, is the weight. It was almost like MM telling me - "Fuck the weight, pick up the bait!". Who is MM? Read the book.

So talking of decisions to be made, I have decided that I should blog about something new. Apart from playing predictable word-games with puns on my blog, there are many other useful things that I can write about. It'd be great if I could run a colla-blog with a fellow blogger. I know my earlier attempts like this didn't really take off, but I'm still ready to give it another shot. Here are a few subjects that I'd like to start another blog on.

1. Technology start-ups in India [ Entrepreneurship in India ]
2. The retail industry in India.
3. Business opportunities in Tier -II cities and towns in India.

I know these would require a lot of investment of time and resources, but I'll
still give it a try.

I think I'll got to bed now.To sleep, definitely not Arjun Sharma ishtyle like this. Enantheera Sharma avare?

P.S. I am planning to attend the Bloggers' Unconference at Chennai. Details
here. Anybody coming?

P.P.S.

Lovely. Just like those days!



Wonderful. Pandit, Ankush and I will go to school again!

Literally speaking!

Everything appears funny when words start taking their literal meanings. It has definitely been a long time since I last blogged. Twenty three days of course is a long time. During a period of twenty three days, I could have grown my hair longer by 7.8642 cm, Pandit could have changed his phone number five times, Sajani Mrinalini Dutta could have lost and found her gawarat in the hinterlands of Gujarat hundred sixty eight times, Bharath could have joined IISc and have interestingly started to get deeper insights into the working of the stock markets and Seth Mota could have started working his way up the political ladder at IIM-K, when not preparing a marketing plan for the ready-to-eat segment.

All of the above have happened except for my hair getting longer. I know 7.8642 is way too exaggerated, but sadly I had to cut my hair short by 4.8173 cm, out of regard for my parents and all the prying aunties in the neighbourhood. But it's just not about the hair. When I think of it now, losing my hair is a very small price to pay for all that I gained in the last twenty three days. Oh, with all the Hair raising tales doing the rounds, I better be careful with the (ab)use of Hair.

Now getting back to the subject of words taking their literal meanings in my life, I'm again not lying when I say I've come a long way since I blogged seriously the last time, or so I'd like to think. I guess I now know why words have started taking their literal meanings.It is because I work to promote literacy.

So while I am yet to digest all that I've had over the last three months, food and otherwise, I'll try to recapitulate and live those wonderful moments through this blog. Everything that happened seems to me to be straight out of a movie. Not surprisingly though, most of those experiences have to deal with movies and people connected with movies.[ Well, it's a little more than that, we had been to a film shoot and interviewed a couple of them. Also came across and met a couple more. More on that in the coming posts. But it was definitely fun asking Pampam Khair to produce more movies like Maine Gandhi ko nahin maara, and sympathizing with him with a grim smile on my face, when he told me that he had to do films like Half key cutterso that he could survive first and then think of producing good movies. [ There you go. Figure out the name of the movie. Rhymes with Half key cutter]. It was also fun complementing Lillette Dubey for her grace and the way "she carries herself so sensibly in her movies", to be returned with as shocked stare, probably wondering which alien from Pluto was addressing her by her first name. But then, more horrible things have happened on this earth than Lillette ji being addressed by her first name. Like, one Mr.Patel at the counter at the State Bank of India, SVRCET Surat branch, having this horrible idea that I molested his daughter. That, I realised in one of my wonderful dreams aboard SpiceJet, which was cut short by the eye-candy air-hostess offering me a toffee, was the reason for him to delay the closure of my account and let me have the money. Of course, I did have my money and I had not molested his daughter. I just hope Jaswanth Singh sees no mole in this whole molestation affair!

Of course, Lillette did take it in her stride and thanked me. They were definitely other well-known actors and actresses, surrrounded by equally great actors and actresses with superficial smiles and greetings. Make up, not to mention was equally superificial. Apart from My.Khair and Madame Dubey, they were plenty of other stars. There was one Mr.Axay Cunha and one Mr.Sue-kneel Chatty. Also present were
Ms.Humeesha Putt-tail and the really high-nosed Ms.Bianca Cobra. More on my brushes with glamour and my powdery thoughts on those later. I think it all began with the fashion show I hosted for G-3 in Surat. While I contiune to enjoy those, I long ago realised that the glamour and beauty is plain skin-deep. As long as there are people who clamour, there will be glamour. Take this incident involving Bipasha Basu for that matter. While that was in New York, I just came across her shooting an ad for a well-known retail chain together with Zayed Khan. She must thank her stars(now, which stars would the stars themselves thank?!) for her shooting being scheduled in Pondicherry. Except for a bunch of young students who were curiously watching and waiting for their autographs, no one was really bothered. The only khan that people here probably know is khaan-a, which the hoteliers have to learn to humour the tourists. And Bipasha would probably be Prakasha's sister or daughter. So, I have all the reasons for being excited at the prospect of watching KANK later this evening. Just hope it is not dubbed in Tamizh. Now would KANK be called TANK if it were dubbed to Tamizh?

P.S. I see signs of my old senseless writing skills returing. These are good signs. Especially the ones with ball pens.

P^2.S. There are a zillion stories/experiences/anecdotes/inside jokes to be told. Do not know why this post took off on such a tangential and ended up just talking about Bollywood and my experiences relating to that.

P^3.S. I definitely need to spruce up my blog. Introduce a bunch of bloggers, change the template, before it is too late start posting more regularly with posts that indeed make sense.

P.^4.S Heartening is that I now seemed to have regained my pathetic sense of humour.
Samples:
1. What will you get if you put spices in Paayasam?
Spaayasam
or this
2. Every girl waits eagerly for a young man, always having these four words on
her lips - Ming, ming, ming and ming. Who is she waiting for?
Prince Char-ming!
P^5.S. It's ok. I'm fine. You can hit me when we meet the next time.
P^6.S. Read in the last month -
India Unbound

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time

It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life


Now reading
Eats, Shoots and Leaves"

P^7.S. Watched Corporate, Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota and Anthony Kaun Hai. The only three Hindi movies I've watched in the last three months. I should hang myself twice over for this blunder. Anyway, two of these had Minissha Lamba starring in them. So that starry-eyed feeling of watching lambda, err Lamba come alive on the big screen more than compensated for not having watched atleast 15.8 Hindi movies. Hitesh, I still absolutely adore her irrespective of what you said Yahaan!

P^8.S. Just a mental note of the places, people, events, experiences, inside jokes et al. Very random. Might not make sense, like everything on this blog.

1. Watching WC semi-finals and the finals with the actual citizens of respective countries at Coffee.com in Pondicherry.
2. Going around Dadar,Haji Ali , Worli and Mumbai Central with Harsha.
3. Dinner at Priya's place.
4. Lunch at Kaak's place.
5. "Sir, we have free seating. You can sit wherever you want!"
6. "Anyone order, Sir?"
7. The night with Das at NMIMS.
8. Dinner at Trishna.
9. Scott's departure from Mumbai. Turns out that it is him who is indeed forgetful. How else do you then explain him forgetting his bag containing the passport and the plane tickets? And the sin of forgetting GoodDay biscuits is unpardonable!
10. Scott,
Fellow, missing you big time. No my watch hasn't gottten any bigger. Daily Bread, Kaarthik, #3, St. Louis Street, Pondicherry aren't the same without you. Life is funny. We are even funnier. There's Skype anyway.
11. Stay at IIM-A. The brief meeting with Fidoe and the dinner(s) with Vandana.
12. Rajasthan was one experience which will take sometime to register its fullest impact on me. It will definitely come out on this blog. Life, in its different forms, in its brightest, darkest colours, was thrown wide open, right in my face.
13. The city visits - Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad.
14. "She's grinding millet"
15. Meeting Sidin and Fungus. Find Fungus's article on Hafta here.
16. Visiting home and celebrating Ganesh Charurthi, albeit briefly.
17. The adventure trip to Dandeli with Pandu, Sandy and Raghuram. Wonderful feeling cycling twelve kilometers through the jungle and then going for an actual Safari.
18. Later

Of no fixed address!

Of no fixed address is just not the name of a book by Kaizad Gustad. It is also indicative of the way my life is shaping up. I have lived an entire lifetime in the last two months. Of no fixed address is an enjoyable read. One doesn't have to be drunk to enjoy reading this book, while one definitely had to be drunk to enjoy his masterpiece Boom though. Will kill myself if I don't post about my recent trip within the next 72 hours.

A few pointers to the posts to come.

The trip route
Pondi->Chennai->Mumbai->Ahmedabad->Rajasthan->Ahmedabad->Mumbai->Chennai and finally Pondi.

Places visited

Haji Ali, IIM-A, NITIE, Akshardham, Rajasthan, Ambaji, Adalaj ni Vav, Film City Goregaon.

More in the posts to follow.

Mumbai Meri Jaan!!!

My travels and explorations in Mumbai have been very limited, almost zilch considering the immense expanse of the mega-city. Yet, Mumbai with all its flurry and fury continues to interest and enchant me further. With each of my visits to Mumbai, my curiosity to delve deeper into the intricacies of the mechanisms on which this city functions gets deeper. What excites or enthuses me about Mumbai is not its tourist places, not its people, not the hustle-bustle of the local trains, not Bollywood, but something which is a sum total of all this and which transcends all this- Experience!. My trysts with Mumbai have been many, albeit very short and limited. Yet there is something of each trip that is etched forever in my mind. Shall certainly write about my experiences sometime later. This post though is about movies and books which feature Mumbai as the main protagonist. Most of these corroborate the eternal truth- ‘Mumbai is a living hell and the people here enjoy living in this hell, come ‘rain’ (read floods!) or shine. Worse still, they make you fall in love with that hell.’goo

Movies or books, which one first?! Tough choice, but alphabetical order rules.

To make the presentation interesting (and appear fundoo in the process), I’m presenting the movies and books under three categories.

1. The ones which I haven’t read/watched.
2. The ones which I have read/watched.
3. The ones which no one has read/watched (because they haven’t been released as of now!)


Before I embark on this journey of prose and picture, I decide not to include Bollywood movies on the underworld. Much has been spoken, written and filmed about that. But I do know what to expect circa 2015.

F Fwd to 15th May,2015
Today, a book by the award-winning page 3 journalist Moniica Beidy on the harmonious relationship between the underworld and Bollywood was released at a grand party at The Taj hosted by the adorable Abu Salem. Among those in attendance were the dashing Dawood and a visibly moved Mandakini. The book is said to be inspired by the eternal love-story of Dawood and Mandakini. Among those who graced the occasion included the chirpy Chhota Rajan who was closeted with Chhota Shakeel. The two seemed to enjoy each others’ company. Sanjubaba and Sanjay Gupta weren’t able to make it to the party as they were busy watching English DVDs looking for ‘inspiration’ for their next White feather production movie. Mahesh Manjrekar and Vikram Bhatt made a grand entry in a rickshaw, sporting a new hairdo, a combination of pink and orange hair colours. Later, it turned out so that it was a clever marketing ploy by L’ Oreal to promote their latest men’s hair colour products.

Back to the present

Books:

Book which I haven’t read:

Maximum City by Suketu Mehta.

It is said to be the book which was waiting to be written but no one dared to write. It is said to be the book which introduced vada pav, bar –girl and b*@&*()d to the world. It was short listed for the Pulitzer prize and was in the news for this reason as much as it was for Mehta’s much publicized spat with Vinod Chopra. By now you’d heard good or bad things about the book by me but then I swapped it for another book, on Mumbai again. And that book is right up there as one of the best I’ve read in my short spanned pursuit of reading as a serious hobby. If you have Maximum City, please lend it to me!

Book which I’ve read :

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

I want to be born as Gregory David Roberts in my next birth. I like the book that much. I might not actually that long to enjoy the ‘highs’ and endure the agonizingly painful lows, but my life would be worth it even if I have a miniscule of ‘experience’ of what Roberts had. Shantaram is about an Australian fugitive who escapes to India on a forged New Zealand passport and his life on his subsequent arrival In Mumbai. He works for the mafia, sets up a health clinic in the slums, spends a horrid time behind the bars because of his rivalry with a mysterious character and later goes on to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. The characters do not move you, you become numb with their simplicity, their purity of heart, their beauty, their mystery. What runs through all the characters and makes them become etched in your mindscape for ever is their ‘spirit’. Prabhakar’s cheerfulness and ability to see the silver lining in the darkest of the clouds, Vikram’s suaveness, Prabhakar’s mother’s pure love and affection, Khaderbhai’s ‘principle’ of ‘doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and the wrong things for the right reasons’, the challwallahs’ unity in spite of all adversities. I forgot to mention Madam Zhou’s mysterious life, Karla’s reluctance to open up to Shantaram, Abdul’s friendship with Shantaram. I can go on and on. The book is a behemoth, close to 700 pages. But it is no prose-athon and the language is simple and free-flowing. It is not like an action thriller where the hero is like a supernatural being crushing all difficulties. I liked the book because it is real. The characters, the emotions, the experiences are all real. Even the landmarks, for e.g. Leopold’s in Colaba, Haji Ali are all real. It has so much about life and philosophy, death and even the Big Bang Theory that it takes some time to digest it. But once digested, it nourishes you well like any nutrient. Shantaram is one book which you won’t think much about while reading it. But you won’t stop thinking about it after you finish reading it.

There’s a movie being made based on the book with Johnny Depp playing Shantaram. I might sound too far-fetched and optimistic, but if the character of Prabhakar is treated well and given the importance is deserves, Rajpal Yadav or Vijay Raaz might just win an Oscar. Read the book, and we’ll discuss on the Indian cast for the movie. Till then I’ll continue debating on that on IMDB.

Book that no one’s read

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

And I had thought author Vikram Chandra was same as NDTV editor/anchor Vikram Chandra. Of course, they are different. The latter does look scholarly and erudite enough to be an author himself. Author Vikram Chandra is a professor of Creative Writing at University of California, Berkeley. Looks like art and literature run in his genes. His mother, Kamna Chandra was the script writer of 1942: A Love Story. His sister is more famous than him. Tanuja Chandra, the director of acclaimed movies like Dushman, Sur and Sangharsh and a dud, Yeh Zindagi ka Safar. Another sister Anupama Chopra is a journalist and recently turned author with a book on the making of Sholay. His brother-in-law is probably the most famous in his family- Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Incidentally, Suketu Mehta and Vikram Chopra together wrote the script for Mission Kashmir.
Sacred Games is in news for the huge advance Chandra has pocketed and has been in the making for almost 7 years. Hope it is worth the effort and the wait. It is a book set in Mumbai; but spreads out into a much larger canvas as the book progresses. Looks like after co-authoring the script Mission
Kashmir, Mehta and Chandra are co-authoring a ‘Mission Mumbai’. That incidentally happens to be the name of a B-grade Hindi movie.

Of a 'cosmetic surgery' and ***THE GROUP BLOG***

Have nothing much to do these days and with no net in the hostel...am itching to run back home.

.My blog has undergone a minor cosmetic surgery.An 'implant' actually,if you happen to look at its left,you'll notice an enlargement.(The computer engineer I am, my 'pointless' mind wandered onto the 'silicon territory'!!!).Have added the cbox(too late to hop onto the bandwagon, is it??Almost every blogger worth his/her salt has one.So why not me??So much salt am I worth!!).Make use of it..Adi did the honours of inaugurating it...

****ABOUT THE GROUP BLOG****

At the risk of repetition,am repeating!! what I had thought of about the group blog.

1.Narrow down(or expand)the areas which the group blog would encompass.

2.Suggest a name for the same.

3.Might sound too far-fetched, but thinking of modeling it on the lines of

MIDDLE STAGE

4.Also check out-AMIT VARMA

5.And people please do respond fast, guess ditering won't help.

And am expecting some happy news soon,will wait till I hear it myself and then share it.(whatever that means,even i dunno!!).Don't want to celebrate too early,that's what I meant.

********What am I currently reading*********
Into 30 odd pages of Raj Kamal Jha's 'If you are afraid of heights'.Almost picked up 'To kill a mocking bird' when I just happened to glance at this one and what more could draw me to this book than the fact that Mr.Jha is an Engg.grad(IIT-K mech) and journalist and an author. I can think of atleast one 'el(l)igible' author who would be inspired!!.What say, madam???

Will try and post the review..till then HERE'S more on the book.

S*it,my post on Gujju wedding gate-crashes is still to be written.(And I say I have nothing much to do here!!)