Home And The Universe

So I am supposed to pick up the book lying closest to me, go to page 123 and write down sentences no. 5 to 9, right Atul? And then I am required to write a few words/lines describing what they mean to me.

In my newly-arranged shelf, the book closest, at the moment, to me is The Words -- The Autobiography of Jean-Paul Sartre. The passage goes like this:

At a later time, the transpositions and rotations of triangles reminded me of the gliding figures on the screen. I loved the cinema even in plane geometry. To me, black and white were the supercolors that contained all the others and revealed them only to the initiate; I was thrilled at seeing the invisible. Above all, I liked the incurable muteness of my heroes. But no, they weren't mute, since they knew how to make themselves understood.

Now, what this means to me. Only a madman will seek to derive meaning out of Sartre: some works are like pieces of art encased in the museum. The idea is to look at them and marvel. If you wish to discuss the art, do so at your own risk. But having just shifted to a new house, I can relate quite well to sentence no. 3: To me, black and white were the supercolors that contained all the others and revealed them only to the initiate.

For six whole years, as I described in the previous post, I lived in an apartment that had a hall, a bedroom and a kitchen. A small bathroom was attached to the bedroom, and a small balcony to the kitchen. That's about it. But to me that meant the universe. It had the warmth of the universe. Reclining in the hall and smoking a cigarette, I always felt a part of the moving world, and whenever I wanted, I could escape to my privacy without being isolated.

At an arm's length was Planet Music: almost everything created by R.D. Burman and Kishore Kumar and Salil Choudhury. And if, while still reclining, I stretched my legs apart, one would touch Landmark and another Crossword -- about 200 books in each shelf. At my elbow would be the mobile phone -- my connection to the real world; and in the front, the laptop -- my connection to, who else, you! And if the eyes got tired, I would look at the green coconut leaves poking into the large window. Occasionally a squirrel would lose its way in and quickly retreat.

Today is my fifth day in the new house. No, I don't miss the old house: whatever is gone, is gone. Maybe also because I carried along the portable part of my universe immediately: the internet was the first thing to become functional, even before the movers and packers had delivered the last of the cartons. But still, during the first few days, I felt as if I was staying in a hotel, even though I shifted within the building. Being on the top floor, the noise of the neighbours is cut off. The same street looks strange from the balcony. The windows overlook most trees and houses, rather than having the leaves poke through them. And yesterday, I considered using the mobile phone to call my wife who was in the kitchen: my voice was refusing to carry through the huge hall.

Today, however, the place looks somewhat familiar because I arranged the books. (Arranging the books merits a separate post because there was so much I discovered). And in a few days, I might begin to consider this as my new home. For the lay observer, I have progressed a step further in life, moving from the bachelor's pad to a house that is three times its size.

But the size of your home does not determine the size of your universe. In fact, the two could be inversely proportional. But then, this is obvious only to the initiate.

Goodbye, Dear Home

If you scroll down a bit, immediately after this post, you will find two videos showing me doing the backbend. In yoga, they call the pose urdhva dhanurasana or chakrasana. Last evening, I recorded myself approaching these poses and uploaded them on youtube.com, and was so fascinated by the results that I not only shared them with some friends but also -- as you can see now -- posted them on my blog. One of the friends, who is a yoga instructor in foreign land, scolded me: "Why do you have to show off?"

There is no denying I am showing off, if at all there is anything to show off, that is. But the real purpose of taking these videos was to capture -- and perhaps immortalise -- the gentle glow of my bachelor's pad which nourished me for six years. In another two days, I shall shift to a new home, after spending exactly 365 x 6 days in my current dwelling. I moved in here on February 1, 2001, after having spent 15 days in a 'mansion' on Natesan Street, which is the nucleus of a lively, crowded planet called T. Nagar. And coming February 1, I shall move out. Is the timing a coincidence or part of some cosmic conspiracy?

When I moved in, I had a suitcase full of clothes, my two-in-one, a huge collection of cassettes. The same afternoon, I went to Pondy Bazaar and boughts two plastic mats, six cushions with red velvet covers, one six-inch high single mattress and a pillow. And one dismantleable plastic table to set up my music system. The books came a few weeks later from Delhi in a huge steel trunk.

"Very lucky house," the landlord and his wife, who lived on the next street, told me every time I went to pay the rent. I never doubted it. In Delhi, I was just a reporter chasing politicians and trying to fork two words out of their mouths so that I could turn them into a 500-word story. I did not even have a proper house of my own there, in the sense it was just a dwelling in a concrete jungle of apartments in Mayur Vihar. It could have been a lodge or a retiring room. Most of my time was spent in the field or in the office, where I stayed on till about 2 in the night exploring the pleasures of internet.

In Chennai, in this house, life began to chase me. I was born again. The skills that I had acquired in cut-throat Delhi, when tempered with the lazy pace of Chennai, worked wonders. I read, I wrote, I travelled, I... well, I did everything I had always wanted to do -- and in great style.

As a musician friend of mine keeps telling people in my presence: "Only if his mattress could speak!" Well, my mattress can't speak because it doesn't have a mouth, but it does have a hole: one night I slept off with a burning cigarette between my fingers, and was rudely woken up to find a blue circle of light on my bed. I quickly poured water, but a hole was punched on the mattress and a scar left above my left elbow.

Next morning I turned the mattress upside down and life went on. If it did have a mouth and could dictate the events it has witnessed, I could write five Henry Miller-type novels -- accounting for each year of my stay here. By the sixth year I had bought a Kurl-On mattress and subsequently -- after marriage -- a proper bed. The old mattress came to the hall on which I reclined and blogged -- which I am doing even now, typing with just one finger.

The best part about living in a one-bedroom flat is that you are never really lonely even if alone, and if you have company, even if unwilling, the cosiness of the place eventually drives you to desired results. Resistance becomes very difficult when you are confined within the glow of soft lights, andd with alcohol in your bloodstream and R.D. Burman or George Baker playing in the background. And the resistance was not always on part of the woman.

But there have been many, many occasions when I have felt lonely -- mentally and physically -- in spite of the cosiness. In fact, when alone, I've always slept with a bedside lamp on -- unless I've been too tired or drunk to be scared of darkness. But when I had company, the same darkness emitted an erotic glow which would either lull or exhaust me to sleep.

This is the house where I discovered Somerset Maugham and where, after reading his books, I stared at his hypnotic eyes on the back cover for hours in drunken stupor, hoping to bring him alive by my gaze and make him bless me to write as beautifully as him. This is the house where I wrote and rewrote, a million times, the first chapter of my proposed novel. It is a different matter that I never progressed beyond the first chapter. And this is also the house where my dream of writing a book came to the doorstep of reality -- too sad that the dream would actually be executed in the new house.

And this is also the house that found me a wife. Left to my own devices, I could have never found one: either there were too many to choose from, or no one to choose from. Either way, I suffered. But the kind souls that haunt my flat paved my path: and even before I realised, I was married.

"The foundation stone of this building was laid by the Shankaracharya of Kamakoti," a neighbour recently told me. She was referring to Chandrashekhar Saraswati, a truly holy and gentle soul compared to his successor, Jayendra Saraswati. "People who stay here automatically have his blessing. Anybody who has stayed in this building has been very lucky."

I knew what she meant, and the very thought of leaving the building just because I had to find a bigger house just because I was now married, was heart-wrenching. But call it the blessing of the late Shankaracharya or a conspiracy of cosmic forces, I found a bigger flat within the same building. That's where I will be moving in two days from now. The flat I lived in all this while is numbered 'K', and the flat I am going to live in now is numbered 'L'. Is that a cosmic indication that I've progressed a step further in life? I don't know yet.

More backbend

When I'm pushed up the wall

The Tonga Comes To A Halt

He was truly the last of the original pillars that had propped up the Hindi music industry. Naushad died recently. Anil Biswas, who introduced Mukesh and Talat Mehmood to playback singing, died quite recently. And today, O.P. Nayyar passed away too.

People, especially politicians, when they condole such deaths, often say: "His (or her) passing away has left a vacuum in the film industry." Nothing can be more wrong. People like Naushad and Nayyar left a vacuum long ago when they retired, and their places were quickly taken by others, so much so that they faded away and no one even remembered them. Both tried to make comebacks, but the attempts didn't work out and they returned to oblivion. So no vacuum. The real vacuum would happen when their existing music disappears from or is not available in the music shops, which is often the case.

Still, in their deaths, they do leave a vacuum, in the sense that their deaths are like the death of a grandfather, who might not contribute much to a family, but he is still there in a corner -- as the link to the generation that has passed away, as the testimonial to history. Your father might be rich because he is earning the cash, but your grandfather is richer because he has the anecdotes. Money can secure the future, but it can't buy the time that has passed by.

Only a few weeks ago, Nayyar saab dispensed with dollops of the past era to fellow journalist Bhumika, who was perhaps the last reporter to have interviewed the great composer. From the interview, it is clear that Nayyar kept his spine erect with the trademark I-give-a-damn attitude. While the world flocked to Lata Mangeshkar, he stuck to Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle. Long after retirement, a stage when lesser mortals live at the kindness of the industry or their kin, Nayyar lived in style in a Mumbai hotel, practising homoeopathy and even returned to make music for Andaaz Apna Apna. Almost till the end he savoured his two whiskies and boiled eggs.

It was clearly a lifestyle that matched his music -- clip-clop, clip-clop... the gentle pace of a tonga, or horse cart. His was music in motion. Almost all his biggest hits were filmed on situations where the actors were moving on a 'gentle' vehicle, such as a tonga or a boat, or even the good, old Willy's jeep (Pukarta chala hoon main from Mere Sanam).

And for Guru Dutt's movies, no vehicle was required to picturise a song: the actor's eyes were restless and naughty enough to match the speed of a tonga or a jeep, and therefore you have all the songs you have today: be they from Mr and Mrs 55 or Aar Paar. O.P. Nayyar, for that matter, was also responsible for making Johnny Walker a star comedian by giving him all the fabulous songs. Sadly, Johnny Walker passed away too a few years ago. Jagdeep is still there though -- not only as a witness of the Guru Dutt-O.P. Nayyar era but also as a participant of the Amitabh Bachchan-Ramesh Sippy era. Please celebrate him while he is still there, rather than write fake tributes in the past tense.

Anyway, I feel very sad today. The composer of all the songs my mother loves is dead today, and my mother is not even aware. That's because she probably doesn't know those songs were composed by him: most people just listen to songs and toast the singer. Not many care about the composer or the lyricist. That is why Majrooh Sultanpuri died unsung a few years ago, even though Bollywood's most famous songs were penned by him, be it for O.P. Nayyar or R.D. Burman.

But O.P. Nayyar was not a music director whose tunes could be mistaken for anyone else's. His was music in motion, and it shall remain that way, no matter who lent voices to those tunes -- Rafi or Kishore, Geeta or Asha. And as long as he was alive, one could easily get a passport to that clip-clop era. But now, no chance! The clock is ticking -- that's the message from his death.

But at times the clock stops, like the moment I was face to face with her, sometime ago, on an elaborate dinner table laid out under the star-lit sky. Everytime our eyes met, the song Aankhon hi aankhon mein ishara ho gaya (from CID) rang in my ears. And in spite of being love-lorn, I remembered to remember that the song was composed by O.P. Nayyar. May his soul rest in peace.

Greatest No. 2

Manohari Singh, the long-standing assistant of Pancham, plays the title music of Sholay. Enjoy!

The Greatest

Of course you recognise the man in white suit. The bald man is late Arun Paudwal (husband of Anuradha Paudwal), who was Bappi's assistant and conductor.

This Life

Today was one of those days, when my mind was deeply troubled apropos of nothing. So troubled that every woman I know seemed to be a bitch, and every man son of a bitch. I felt like screaming my lungs out, or practising some pace-bowling on the nets till the last bit of energy deserted me or, simply, punching a hole on my laptop screen. Sanity and circumstances did not permit either, so I logged on to Blogger, hoping to soothe my nerves with some writing. But nothing struck, making me even more angry.

Helplessly, I rested my head in the lap of my library. I pulled out One Man's Chorus, the collection of mind-blowing essays by Anthony Burgess. Mind-blowing, because they makes me marvel at his grip of the language and history. A writer is incomplete without a sense of history, and history will decay unless it is rescued by style.

So resting my head on the bolster, I turned the pages of the book, reading paragraphs at random. Suddenly a yellow slip came out flying from it and landed on my chest. It was a debit card receipt, for Rs 1,600, dated the day I had bought the book: 6 October 2005. The time: 8.20 pm. The mind, which was highly agitated till then, tamely went back to that evening:

S and I were on the prowl in Landmark at Spencer Plaza, competing with each other to lay our hands on the best catch thrown up by the annual sale. Whoever lay his hands on a book first became its owner -- it did not matter whose eye it caught first. After an hour, we had about five books each in our hands, and we were looking for more.

While digging for the right books, S would ask every now and then, "Did you get the SMS?" I would reply, "Not yet." The SMS mattered, because if it did not come, we would have to leave all the books behind: we barely had Rs 200 between us. The SMS was to come from UTI Bank, to tell us that the salary has hit our accounts. Soon enough, the phone vibrated in my pocket, and we laughed our way to the billing counter. Faith had paid off.

We then laughed our way to the ATM and then, carrying those heavy packets, entered a dingy, dirty TASMAC bar -- our regular haunt. (For non-residents of Chennai: TASMAC shops are the state government-run booze shops, which usually have an attached room or open space that serve as the bar).

Those were the days when I lived for 'today' -- which meant living like a king for first half of the month and in self-induced poverty for the rest. Poverty, self-induced or forced, is stark. But forced poverty usually teaches you a lesson and in many cases, victims of such poverty have gone on to become rich.

But self-induced poverty, which is basically a result of careless spending, does not teach you anything. That's because you are technically not poor, even though you don't have even Rs 50 in you wallet. It's poverty nonetheless, and I've faced it for years -- and happily so. Now I am married and all, and those days -- of luxury in poverty -- are behind me. But I miss them at times, and maybe that's why my mind gets agitated at times.

Had Rajnikant Been A Woman

Kolkata Chromosome

It’s past midnight, when the average Bengali has been asleep for hours — the quilt firmly secured around his neck to protect against the January chill — and dreaming of social change.

But in Shisha Bar, one of the poshest nightclubs of Kolkata, the evening is just warming up. It is a weekday and people are trooping in late, and it is 12.30 by the time we hit the dance floor.

My energy comes mainly from deprivation —- in Chennai you don’t know, at any given point of time, whether a nightclub is functioning or has become the victim of the city/moral police. I am, however, clueless about the source of energy of my fellow rice-eaters. Perhaps it is the quest for good life: Bongs love, rather relish, the good life, and for their Gen Next, nightlife seems to be part of the package.

No one in the gang whines as we hop from one hangout to the other — from Park Hotel’s Someplace Else and then Roxy to the newly-opened Venom and now to the Shisha Bar. And while at Shisha, we make plans where to go next.

After dancing for a while, I need to go to the rest room. As I make my way through the dancing couples and crowded tables, a question springs to my mind: which city am I in? For a few moments, my mind goes blank — much to my horror. I suddenly find myself in a nameless place — it could have been anywhere in Chennai or Bangalore or Delhi or Bombay.

There is no one else in the rest room except a young man, who is gripping a mobile phone between his neck and an ear as he relieves himself. “No, no,” he says in English, “not 10 am your time, but 10 am IST.” Then, after a pause, he tells the person on the other end with trademark Bengali sarcasm: “Luck? Aamar luck to kuttar luck (Luck? My luck is as good as a dog’s)!” Ah, I am in Kolkata. But for such region-specific sarcasm and expletives, it would be very difficult to tell one city from another in a globalised world.

**********

Kolkata has been celebrated in the West for its poverty and squalour. But standing at Park Street in the evening, with the cold New Year breeze brushing your cheeks, you could be in London: well-dressed, good-looking people walking by or having coffee in one of the restaurants with huge windows, tastefully-decorated shops, handsome buildings, the tolerant traffic.

The darkness and the pleasant weather had put a blanket over the poverty and had transformed Park Circus into Piccadilly Circus.

For a pilgrimage to the era when India was remote-controlled by London, it is mandatory to pay a visit to Flury’s, where you can spend hours discussing anything from politics to sex over tea and pastries. But the place was renovated a couple of years ago, and these days you could spend hours waiting to get a place there.

We waited for a while in the swank new Flury's, but soon moved across the street to The Tea Table, or T3, where the ghost of the old Flury’s resides. Even the furniture was shifted from there. I had Darjeeling tea, omelette and toast, and a rum pastry. After which I lit a cigarette — for the sheer pleasure of being able to do so without attracting frowns from neighbouring seats. I haven’t had such a wonderful evening in a long time.

**********

At a music shop in City Centre, a sprawling mall in the Salt Lake area, I was looking for some albums of Salil Chowdhury. When I named a few albums and asked the attendant if they had any of them, a voice from behind replied: “Aagey cassette aashto. Akhon aar aashena (Earlier they came in cassettes. Now they’ve stopped coming).” I turned around: it was a Sardarji, the owner of the shop.

Postscript: I was all set to return to Chennai with nice stories about Kolkata when, on the final day of my visit, the Opposition parties led by Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress, suddenly called for a 24-hour bandh. I ended up driving around empty streets and roaming around an empty New Market. Some things will never change in Kolkata. (The picture shows Chowringhee on the bandh day).

Toe Talk

This afternoon, while at work, I was chatting with a friend who I had not seen online for some time. After the where-have-you-been, how-have-you-been and all that, she enquired about my yoga practice.

"Are you still doing it?" she asked.

"Not very regular these days," I replied, with a sad smiley.

"Do you know about the camel-toe?" she asked.

"You mean the camel pose?" I asked, all set to type away how good I am with ushtra asana, or the camel pose.

"No, no, camel-toe," she insisted.

I was still wondering whether that's a yoga pose unknown to me, or a medical condition, when she sent me this link.

bytheganges.blogspot.com

10-Point New Year

A very happy new year, dear reader.

May 2007 bring you all the things you've been lusting for. But things are not going to fall on your lap if you are the way you are (or else they would have been yours by now), so the idea is to make reasonable resolutions and stick to them.

I too have made some for 2007, and my resolution no. 1: I shall stick to my resolutions. The rest are as under, in order of priority:

2. Quit smoking. Quit drinking. Saves me about Rs 6000 a month -- a lot of money!

3. With the money saved, go on weekend trips to the hills.

4. Read for an hour before I sleep. And meditate for an hour after I wake up.

5. Have lots of sex. When practiced as a sport, and not as an obligation or duty or routine, sex is an excellent cardio and tummy-trimmer. Why sweat it out in the gym when you can sweat in the comfort of your bed and feel good?

6. Still, will sign up with a gym. Use the combination of weight-training, yoga and sex to achieve a Brad Pitt-type body. (I know that's a sign of advancing age: at 36, the biggest compliment is someone telling you, "My God, 36? And I thought you were 28 or 29." So far I thought such lines work only on women. By the way, there are some women I know who look 25 even at 40, and I've told them so and, in case they are reading this, I want them to know that I meant it).

7. Try to be a good husband. Often I forget that I am one.

8. Resist watching other men's wives: too many guys are putting up pictures and MMS clips of their bedroom and bathroom on the internet, and that takes too much of my time.

9. Hand-write my stories with a fountain pen, like I used to do before, instead of sitting at the laptop. Will keep me from seeing evil.

10. Publish a book. On travel.

On The Road, 36 Miles

The world is round, but life moves in one straight, interminable highway, in the form of a perpetually ongoing marathon. Everybody is running, the rich rubbing shoulders with the poor, the artist with the beggar (often they are one and the same), the priest with the atheist, the man with the woman (how can I forget that?) and so on. There is no discrimination in the marathon: all get their share of the road in the run of -- or, for? -- life.

They are all running at different speeds and are constantly egged on by bystanders as they approach one milestone after the other: ...1999, 2000, 2001, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and now 2007. While they are running, the bystanders throw in goodies: water, eatables, energy bars and what not. Some are lucky to have things thrown directly at their hands, some grab them, the rest keep running, making do with whatever little comes their way -- if at all.

The bystanders are faceless, formless people but they have names: God, Luck, Destiny, Chance, Kismat. If they are kind to you, you are likely to run the race comfortably. But even they can't guarantee if you will reach the finishing point, for the simple reason that there is no specified finishing point for an individual runner. You could drop down at any point, in which case four co-runners will carry you off the road on their shoulders. Then they will return to the road to resume their run.

This is also the only road where sex happens in the open, amid people who are running and in between people who are running (what fun!). A baby is born, which begins its race in the arms of its mothers and then goes on to run on its own tiny feet. Years pass, and the tiny feet grow while in motion (like the feet of the hero in some of the 1970's Hindi movies), and they too join the race in a full-fledged manner.

Since there is no fixed finishing line, who is the winner?

The one who runs 90 miles slowly and steadily without the help of energy bars? The one who runs through the crowd with dazzling speed, forcing others to slow down and look, but who collapses only after 50 miles? Or the one who somehow gets thrust with lot of energy bars that keep him ahread of the rest of the crowd throughout the 70 miles that he runs? Or the one who manages to snatch some energy bars and chocolates and goes on handing them down to the deprived, without bothering how long he is going to sustain the race?

No easy answer to that. It is like asking if for the small New Year party that you are throwing, whether you would prefer the food to be cooked by your mom or by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor. But the race must go on. And for the race to go on, each runner must consider himself or herself to be the potential winner, if not the winner.

These thoughts came to my mind because I've been running for exactly 36 years now, and yet another milestone is approaching. Have I fared well enough so far to consider myself a potential winner, or am I a loser? Worse, am I just an average guy?

Preserve

I liked this.

At Woodlands Drive-In on Christmas Eve

Madras Music And Me

Madras is music. And the music can strike you anytime, anywhere. Such as one in the night, on your bed: you are sleeping and suddenly someone is beating the drums on the street. Or, you are going for your morning walk, and accompanying you are the strains of nadaswaram emanating from a neighbourhood temple.

In fact, this is one thing about Chennai that continues to fascinate me, even though I am going to complete six years here (another being the huge, bright hoardings). It makes me feel I’ve just woken up in a new city, opening my eyes to a new culture. And then, of course, there’s the music that’s made in the studios of Kollywood.

When I first landed here, in January 2001, the songs of Minnale were a rage. I was, however, not new to Tamil film music. Thanks to the popularity of A R Rahman and cable television, I had heard and seen many a popular Tamil song – my favourite being Kalluri saalai from Kaadhal Desam. Sitting in Delhi, I was swept off my feet by the pulsating energy in the song and the choreography.

But Minnale songs were a class apart. They played just about everywhere, and still haven’t lost their appeal. Perhaps I am partial to Minnale songs because they were the first to catch my ear when I set foot in Chennai. I immediately went a bought a CD, sorry, cassette. Then came 12B. And sometime later, the super hit O podu, from Vikram-starrer Gemini.

At the same time, I also began a backward journey: picking up old hits of Illayaraja. My fondness for this genius was tinged with the fact that I live on the same street as him, and every time I pass his house, one of his racy tunes automatically starts playing on my mind.

Even as I dipped my feet on this side of the river called Music, I did not fail to notice those taking holy dips on the other side – the Carnatic crowd. I have always run away from classical music – be it Hindustani or Carnatic. In the North, there is no need to run away because Hindustani music is the preserve of a select few, but in the South, Carnatic music is weaved into daily life. And the media coverage of Carnatic musicians or their concerts hardly helps. They are always presented as a staid, boring lot: a picture of two look-alike sisters holding violins and lifelessly looking at the camera, a jargon-laden report of a mridangam player’s concert, the same old Bharatanatyam pose – you can’t even tell whether the performance took place today or ten years before.

Perhaps the media treats the Carnatic musicians as too hallowed – so hallowed that it chases away fence-sitters and possible converts like me. Something even the musicians might not like: they too, I am sure, would like to see more converts in their audience than ‘enthrall’ the same crowd year after year. And they key to this is openness and flexibility – on their part as well as the media’s.

My first brush with Carnatic music was at Music World in Spencer Plaza. They were playing a catchy, new-age composition on saxophone which gripped me so strongly that I went to the counter and enquired about the player. Kadri Gopalnath, they said. I bought the cassette right away.

If Kadri Gopalnath plays the same kind of stuff during Margazhi, I would be the first one queuing for a seat. But I am still scared of going anywhere near the sabhas. According to me, they are out of bounds for lesser mortals like me – people who tap their foot to film music.

As a journalist, however, I am aware what goes on during Margazhi – it is the climax for dozens of dreams, the culmination point of months of hard work, the playground for rivalries, the hotbed of petty politics and what not. But the most amazing part is the spirit that makes Margazhi happen year after year – a solid, self-renewing monument to a culture that defines Madras.

And what a time for the music season to take place! One moment, you are in a sabha, alternately slapping your palm and the back of it on the thigh; and the next moment you are in a shopping mall or a hotel, where you are welcomed with, “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…” And back home, you’ve the latest film music – Kollywood or Bollywood – on TV. How much more music can you ask for?

Waiting For Guru

Ever since I have been in Chennai, I have watched the shooting of quite a few Tamil movies -- mainly song and fight sequences. Even a war scene, in Mani Ratnam's Kannathil Muthamithal (forgive me if I've spelt it wrong). These shootings took place in the old Express office on Mount Road.

Among the stars I've seen in action are Vikram, Vijay, Sarath Kumar, Ajit Kumar, Jyothika, Rambha... and some more whose names I do not know or recall. And very recently, I missed the opportunity of watching Rajnikant in action for Sivaji -- ah, never mind.

I have always wanted to know how a shot looks on the screen, with the dubbing and the background music and the special effects. But the idea of sitting through an entire Tamil movie, just to watch a couple of scenes whose shooting I had witnessed, is not really enticing. There are only two Tamil movies I've seen in theatre till date, Kandukondein Kandukondein and Pudupettai. The former I saw on my own in a Delhi theatre and fell in love with, so much so I packed my bags and came down to Chennai. The latter I was dragged to.

Anyway, I am now eagerly waiting for the release of a movie, parts of which I've seen being shot: Guru. Guru is based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani and his famous spat with media baron Ramnath Goenka.

Mithun Chakraborthy plays Ramnath Goenka, and for the role he wears cropped grey hair and a khadi kurta and dhoti. He runs two papers, Independent and Swatantra Bharat. During the shooting, Mani Ratnam got the Express signboard covered with that of 'Independent', and it was copy of 'Swatantra Bharat' that Mithun Chakraborthy was holding during his showdown with his reporter cum son-in-law Madhavan. I have already written a detailed post about the shoot.

Mithunda, in spite of his long years in Bombay, still retains some of the Bengali accent. Each time he screamed at Madhavan, "Tum ek reporter ho, reporter (you are just a reporter)!", he would say something that sounded like "reportar". But the accent should go fine with the role because the media baron in Guru is a Bengali. What a great actor!: perfect in each retake. The retakes were happening because Madhavan was goofing up.

Mithunda is another reason why I am waiting for Guru. He still rocks. I will give you an example why. During the shoot of Guru, I posed with Mithun for a friend's camera. While going on my annual, Diwali trip to Kanpur, I copied a whole lot of pictures, including this, into a CD so that I could take prints there. At the photo studio, a young man, barely 18 or 19, scanned through the pictures, checking for the resolution. The moment he saw my picture with the actor, he jumped up in shock: "Arrey! Yeh to Mithun Chakravarty hai!"

Till then, I had only read literary exagerrations such as, "He fell from the chair when he heard the news" or "She jumped off the chair in surprise."

Mysore, Bangalore and Shivaloka

I don't believe much in Gods, but then, when it comes to Shiva, I could be a fanatic.

My faith in him is deeply personal and has nothing to do with religion or rituals. As a child, he was my God for no particular reason -- just that I found his face very kind and understanding. As an adult I worship him for particular reasons -- he is a cool God who smokes, who drinks, who shakes a leg whenever mood strikes, and whose persuasive powers when it comes to certain matters are so strong that even Vishnu succumbed to them and assumed the form of Mohini. Above all, he is the founder of yoga.

During my travels, if someone mentions a Shiva temple, especially an obscure or a very popular one, I make it a point to stop by. The idea is always to meditate and seek inner peace but that never happens thanks to the pimps who don't want you to linger there unless you keep giving them money. What's the point going to God's abode if you have to stand in a long queue, cough up money at every point, and finally when you manage a glimpse of God, you are shoved aside so that the next person can get a view. What for? Perhaps to pray, in those fraction of seconds: "God, please get my daughter married this year! Please, please please!"

But during my recent visit to Mysore, I finally found what I had been looking for. There is God indeed.

About a kilometre or two from the Chamunda Devi temple sits the gigantic Nandi bull. If you stand by the bull, you get an excellent view of Mysore city. At that spot, under a rock, is a cave temple dedicated to Shiva. You might not even notice the temple unless you are told about it. The entrance is so low you have to bend to get in. I bent and put one leg in, only to realise to there was no space inside. The temple cannot hold more than eight people. Maybe 10. I took that leg out and waited.

Two visitors came out and I went in. I sat before a modestly decorated Shivalingam, and in the background a techno version of chants was playing. The volume was high enough for me to get turned on, but low enough not to disturb the half a dozen Westerners meditating there. What a sight watching them meditate. One of them, however, had her eyes open, and they were filled with tears -- as if she had met her son after 20 years.

And then there was the priest -- a very unsual one. Unlike the white-robed ones who extract money out of you, this one was elderly with a flowing white beard and dressed in saffron. He could have been a yogi from the Himalayas. He sat there upright and silent, holding a plate of mishri (tiny sugar cubes) and extending it to those who had finished with their prayers.

I sat down to meditate, but the music -- currently the Hanumatstotrani was playing -- was overpowering and so was the sight of the eldest of the Westerners meditating. He was so engrossed that you could have run away with his shirt. I realised I was not fit for the place. Before leaving I asked the priest softly: "What's the CD you are playing?" He replied, very gently: "It's called Veer Hanuman."

I promised myself to return again and also to buy the CD, and got into the car, which was to take me to the Bangalore. My companion said there was another Shiva temple -- 10 minutes before the Bangalore airport. The drive from Mysore to Bangalore was completed in just over two hours, and believe me, Chennai's East Coast Road pales before this highway. But once we hit Bangalore, it took us another two hours to reach the Shiva temple near the airport. You have to invent a new name for traffic in Bangalore, because traffic is something that moves, and in Bangalore it doesn't.

Anyway, we reached the temple with just about enough time for me to catch the flight. It's next to Kids Kemp, on the Airport Road. I am, in fact, ashamed to call it a temple. It's a money-making machine. In any case, it's machines that move everything here -- be it pumping water (read Ganga) out of the hairlock of the giant Shiva that overlooks its premises, or making a fake cobra hiss furiously or bringing to life a dead cow whose is supposed to be the benefactor of Shiva's miracle. At one place even Shiva's hand moves back and forth in blessing, or aashirwaad.

Such 'moving' miracles you find in a narrow man-made cave, to enter which you have to pay Rs 10, and your ticket is checked by a pansy young man who happens to have a revolver tucked in his trouser (al-Qaeda threat?). Once you come out of the cave, you can buy a 'special' gold coin, make a wish and throw it into a pool so that your wish could come true. My greatest wish, at the moment, was to get out of the 'temple'. Which I did, well in time to catch my flight.

Back in Chennai, I hunted for Veer Hanuman. At times music comes to you on a platter, at times you have to seek it like you were seeking God. I hunted for the CD whole of last night and this morning. And as I am writing this, while downing my evening quota of drinks, I have listened to the Hanumatstotrani over a hundred times. Faith does pay off, so long you are not rigid, such as enjoying a Hanuman song in a Shiva temple. I am going to Mysore again.

Chamunda Devi

I don't believe much in Gods, but then.

About two months back I was in Mysore, to get the feel of the place so I could write a piece on R.K. Narayan's 100th birth anniversary. I went to most places in the city, including Chamundi Hill, which finds mention in Narayan's stories. The drive up the hill was scenic and peaceful, but as I was about to reach the top, my mother called. The moment I took the call my car took a bend and the signal got cut. I called back. No signal. Mom called again, and the line got cut. Panic set in. The moment I reached the top, I forgot everything else and looked for a corner where the signal was strongest. I got through to home.

Mother had called to whine: it was one of those Didn't-I-tell-you sort of things. I lost my cool. In the middle of a full-fledged argument, I sought to light a cigarette to calm myself, but in the process dropped my camera. The flap opened, exposing the film. Should I have cried? Instead, I pulled out the film in anger. It turned out to be Draupadi's saree: never-ending! My Mysore pictures had gone. I discreetly dumped the film behind one of the stalls and bought a new roll. But the sun had gone down. There was no option but to return. "How about a glimpse of Chamunda Devi?" a voice inside me asked. "Fuck it!" I replied and walked towards the car.

Two days ago I found myself in Mysore. Was it Chamunda Devi? Anyway, I didn't take chances this time and went to the temple, bought a special ticket for Rs 20 and had a glimpse of the goddess that had blessed Narayan. And the day I went happened to be Friday, which is supposed to be the day to be there -- at least the vendors selling flowers and kumkum told me so. And this time I took my digital camera and proudly posed around the place.

Is Your Condom Too Big? Take Heart

If you are internet-savvy and religiously read 'fowards' sitting on your mailbox, you've probably heard the news. That:

A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.

The study found that more than half of the men measured had penises that were shorter than international standards for condoms.

This is a BBC report, not a mischievous fabrication by Ganga Mail, so you better read it with a straight face. But you could find your face being lit up with envy if you read yet another, similar, BBC report filed in August this year:

A range of extra-large condoms has been launched in South Africa, to cater for "well-endowed" men.

"A large number of South African men are bigger and complain about condoms being uncomfortable and too small," said Durex manager Stuart Roberts.

As if being beaten by South Africa in cricket was not bad enough.

Back to the survey on India. The part I found most interesting:

Over 1,200 volunteers from the length and breadth of the country had their penises measured precisely, down to the last millimetre. The scientists even checked their sample was representative of India as a whole in terms of class, religion and urban and rural dwellers.

Which means someone began with the presumption -- in order to rule out any discrepancy -- that a rich man could be longer than a poor and vice versa; or a Sikh could be longer than a Parsi and vice versa; or a business baron in Bombay could be better endowed than a rickshaw puller in Jhumri Talaiyya and vice-versa. How I wish comparable statistics were available, but they had to represent India as a whole, and now the verdict is out: We're small.

Before men start feeling miserable and their women start plotting a vacation to South Africa, let's pause and think. Sex, after all, lies in the thinking and not in the actual act. A dildo should suffice for the actual act; why then need a man? That's because a dildo is either battery- or self-operated -- it does not have a brain. And it is the brain that tickles the sex buds. The brain knows when to start, when to go fast, when to slow down, when to stop, when to cuddle, when to talk -- the dildo doesn't even have a voice.

But the dildo has one advantage: it can be as long as you want it to be. At a sex shop in London's Soho area, I once saw a bunch of young girls choosing from among colourful dildos -- they could have been in a bookshop browsing through Jeffrey Archers and Sidney Sheldons. Finally they found the right one -- gleefully so -- and got it gift-wrapped: perhaps a birthday gift for a friend. I don't know whether their choice was based on length or girth -- or maybe both -- but I still remember the colour of the fake you-know-what: pink!

But any thinking woman, in my opinion, would prefer a fullsome evening over fullness. If their preference is otherwise, they can happily go to Soho or South Africa. Now did I hear someone say, "Dude, what if I want fullsome as well as fullness?" My answer: Define fullness. I mean it is unfair to measure Indian men's penises and condemn them to be smaller than the 'international' crowd without a corresponding survey on their female counterpart.

By the way, why this debate? Indian men and Indian women are having lots of sex and producing children, and when an Indian woman gets tired of her man, she runs off to another Indian man and not a South African. So relax.

The whole condom story, according to me, is an 'international conspiracy' to sell more condoms. I have, after all, never ever come across a man who has complained that his condom was too loose the night before. Have you?

Wish That Was Me

The most awesome demo of ashtanga yoga I've ever seen. Wish I was like that --but am on my way.

Why Do Wives...

Most often people land up on other people's blogs while googling up a bunch of words. Once in a while I list the words/expressions that lead people to mine. Some of the quests on google that directed people to Ganga Mail this morning:

"Why do wives fuck around"

"Why men turn down their wives sexually"

"How Bengali women shop for bra"

"Tamilnadu women wearing underwears"

Gulp.

My Favourite Beer Ad

The Flight to Bangalore

Today is the first day of the last month of the year. In other words, the beginning of the end of another year. Christmas decorations are already in place in the malls, and some of the shops have started playing carols. Wonder if that's a bit too early.

But then, Carols always fascinate me, especially when they are racy and in the form of medleys. One of my favourites is a Latino salsa medley, and my most favourite carols are Frosty The Snowman and Feliz Navidad. The tunes warm my heart, but they also spray it with sadness, for the same reason: how time flies! It is like taking the flight from Chennai to Bangalore: you've just removed your seat-belt and are sitting back when the pilot announces landing and asks you to tie the belt again.

Each time you travel from Chennai to Bangalore, you earn miles. But every time Christmas approaches, a year gets subtracted from your life. I would rather fly and forget, than spend hours in bookshops that play the carols and get reminded of the inevitable. So next weekend am off to Bangalore.