Category: Life Ordinary

  • Progress report

    One of the most memorable parts of the Andaman trip was the conversation I had with D, on the day we went aimlessly walking on the promenade. The conversation also seemed to understand the mood and was in its own way, aimless. As i wrote in one of the posts, I am fascinated by night lights, especially by the sea shore. It reminds me of Cochin, and sends waves of nostalgia at me.

    The entire trip had also made me wonder about human ‘progress’ and the motivation behind it. In a few minutes, the conversation that began there navigated itself to individual motivations. The comparisons with the Leh trip that I’d made  a couple of hours before at Corbyn were still fresh in my mind. I had set expectations for this trip even before i started out – expectations not based on any previous trip to Andaman, but on previous vacations. I thought loudly on what these expectations were – the beauty of the place? the feelings the place and people evoked in us? a getaway from the daily grind? A new setting and a scope for ‘discovery’? Comfortable stay, good food? Probably any or all of these. Anyway the expectations were set.

    And then D brought up one unacknowledged aspect – our projection of how wonderful the trip was, best characterised by the photos we share on FB and other private albums. (earlier, family gatherings and conversations) Isn’t that an expectation in itself – a proof of good times? Sometimes for ourselves, sometimes for others. I thought that was a good place to start understanding our motivation.

    From childhood, when we had richer cousins/friends flaunting their better toys, or showing us snaps of places they’d been to, or talking about the wonderful food they’ve eaten, a kind of motivation existed – to match better that at some point in the future. A driving force that dictated the choices made in life, which justified the ‘sacrifices’ made. Study hard to get better grades, to get a better job, to make more money and to finally get all the things that the cousins/friends had, even if it was a couple of decades late,  all the stuff that can be a justification for what is (in a sense) euphemistically called the rat race. And then to look back at the proof of achievement and let out an audible sigh of accomplishment.

    The problem arises perhaps not from being a rat even at the end of the race, but probably the realisation that a personal motivation got subverted into a generic rat race, which then became a motivation in itself. The rest of the life story would depend on the stance towards the original motivation. In many cases, the race stops, the baggage is dropped and a path of ‘self discovery’ is started.

    In my personal map, this is the place where I see a ‘You are here’ sign. I would’ve been happy with this, if I hadn’t realised that it has the same ending as the rat race. The path is different, and because there are no obvious indicators like the rat race, I have to evolve my own set of indicators. But the desired end is the same, simplistically put, personal growth, with previously decided benchmarks. The consolation offered is that it was reached on one’s own terms. I wonder, is it really one’s own terms if the destination is no different?

    Ayn Rand said “Man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress”. Human progress, not just from a humankind perspective – the places and things he builds, but a deeply personal one too, as the ‘ego’ would indicate. I was conscious of this when I shared the Andaman photos, conscious that somewhere, someone was setting a benchmark and the beginning of a race, just like I had, and continue to do, even outside the rat race. And I wonder whether I’ve really replaced one rat race with another in my case. And I still continue to wonder about ‘progress’.

    until next time, progress cards with my own signature :]

  • Fantasia

    And while I did not have any imaginary friends, at least not any I can remember, the other day, when I was discussing Calvin and my penchant for quoting from the series, with a friend, who is an even better fan, since she can quote exact lines, while I sometimes tend to paraphrase, I suddenly seemed to be overwhelmed by a few memories from my childhood. Its like they were always there – the memories, and were just waiting for a context – in this case, Calvin’s super identities, to take me back to a fantasy world, utterly devoid of logic, but probably more fun than anything that followed.

    Now we’re back to the beginning
    It’s just a feeling and no one knows yet

    You might remember the Rambo fixation that I’d written about sometime back, the ‘superheroes’ who’re about to be revealed existed around the same time. The Rambo gear wasted away in batches, and so spawned a couple of mutant characters, which were war heroes too, but equipped with a different set of weapons. There was this Leo Mattel gun, that produced a roaring noise, until certain experiments with new, freely available ammunition (sand) silenced it forever. The second generation weaponry consisted of water guns which turned out to be very trigger happy by themselves.It didn’t help that they were usually loaded and since they used the loops of trousers as holsters, they tended to throw aspersions on the hero’s character – that he was still wetting his pants at that age!!

    I know some of you would remember the animated Spiderman series that was sponsored by Rasna. At one point, Rasna gave away free spiderman masks and my tale is eerily similar to Calvin gulping down chocolate frosted sugar bombs to get the beanie. Only in my case, it was kept safely until I finished that Rasna box. Since my love for superheroes wasn’t shared by the rest of the family, i couldn’t coax them into buying me the entire costume, which I remember seeing on a mannequin in Parthas, cochin. 🙂 So I made by own er, costume. There had to be a spider logo on the chest, but since I couldn’t get myself or anyone else to kill a spider, I used a small rubber octopus from an earlier era, tied to the chest with a string. Since I found my costume woefully inadequate, I made myself wrist and ankle guards with bajaj bulb covers, and completed the ensemble with my mom’s stitching thread, bunches of which disappeared regularly and reappeared on window sills, like those ‘mannat’ threads in temple trees. A super hero never cries, even if he gets thrashed. Since the real world identity was that of a photographer, this one was the only superhero to be snapped. No, its not going to be shared :p

    But just because they can’t feel it too
    Doesn’t mean that you have to forget

    He Man was the next to be created, I wonder if any of you remember the tiny comics that used to come in batches of four. Anyway, this costume was made with the liberal use of notebook paper and tape, with Dad’s permanent markers used to make the bold cross at the centre of the chest guard and a carved coconut branch for the sword. The neighbourhood cat was usually scared out its peaceful afternoon snooze by a branch wielding kid, poking at it with the branch/sword and willing it to become Battle Cat. It was soon discovered that attacks against He Man were considerably lesser if old newspapers were used instead of new notebook pages. The Masters in He Man’s universe tended to be evil and soon, even the newspaper supply stopped.

    ‘Film Man’ had to be the only original one in the series. One fine day, the drawer containing old film reels was discovered. It was also discovered that they tended to loop back when thrown onto say a window rod. They also made excellent wrist gear and even a goggle, though it did mean the superhero had to have a permanently upraised chin in order to be able to view his surroundings. Unlike films in general, this one didn’t have a happy ending, since many of those reels were important!!

    I’m sure may of you would have stories like these. Those were times of innocence, when super heroes seemed real, and life was an adventure waiting to happen. In spite of the thrashings that the super hero got, he was also comfortable in the knowledge that his parents were real super heroes who could solve every one of his problems, however large they seemed to him. And then he grew up…. reality happened, and suddenly, all he seemed to have were memories…

    Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
    ‘Til they’re before your eyes
    You’ll come back
    When they call you
    No need to say goodbye

    until next time, origins and sequels 🙂

    The song is one of my favourites. The Call,  by Regina Spektor from the soundtrack of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”

  • Tin Fish

    Sudeep Chakravarti

    Set in the 1970s in a boarding school in Rajasthan, ‘Tin Fish’ is the story of four friends and their ‘wonder years’. ‘Tin Fish’, named after the canned fish that was a regular in the narrator’s tuck box, and which brought with the comfort and familiarity of home and family.
    Narrated by Brandy, short for Barun Ray, this is the story of his days at Mayo, spent with his best friends – Fish, Porridge and PT Shoe, each of whom bring to Mayo, their own baggage, even before they can understand the word.
    The book seems (at least) partially autobiographical as the author is able to easily get into the mind of a child and then his transition into teenage – the whirlwind of emotions, the discoveries, the first crush, the pain of loss and most importantly the understanding that nothing lasts forever.
    Each character is well etched, with its own own idiosyncrasies, and relationship with other characters. From the obsession with ‘gora chicks’ and Zeenie Baby to Mick Jagger and the plans to form the ‘Get Lost on the Ganga and All That’ band, the book is about coming to terms – not just with a world outside the confines of the fishbowl that is the ‘Mayo world’ – the outside world with Emergency, a urine drinking prime minister etc but also their own world – one which shows them that joy, sadness, love, hatred, despair, anger, pity etc all go hand in hand. Witty, wistful and poignant, its a book about the loss of innocence.
    And then there’s the slang, that would go something like “its a cool breeze book, read it ya”. 🙂

  • Shashi Tharoor, a real account… of the Bangalore Tweetup

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    And that would explain why, when I saw the invite for a tweet up, it was an easy exception to make to my otherwise steadfast stance against tweet ups and reserve a place to meet the Minister of Status. 😀

    That’s in spite of generally having some harmless fun at his expense on a regular basis – from his non-accommodating stance on the 5 star stay to the now famous gaai-rights issue (actually wrote a couple of solidarity tweets on the latter to make up for the others)

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    He even featured in the Andaman travelogue. The good part – popularity in Andaman, and erm, the bad part. So that roughly explains my attitude towards the politician and twitterer.

    The seeming flippancy in that attitude  perhaps belies the enormous amount of admiration and respect I have for the author. The Great Indian Novel is probably my all time favourite work, simply because its satire and humour work on multiple levels. The more layers you can unravel through lateral thought and associations made, the more gems you can find. As my About page would indicate, I love wordplay, jest like that. TGIN, in my book, is THE benchmark, not just for wordplay and humour, but for the sheer imagination and brilliance that connected two seemingly disconnected streams almost seamlessly.

    These days, I see around me, in the real world, politicians who can talk drivel for hours, boring the audience to premature death. I also see, in virtual world, authors and celebrities struggling with the expectations raised by their audience on real-time platforms – the result often being repeats of old jokes, terrible wordplay,  banality, and a general discomfort stemming from the heightened interaction.

    The tweet up. There was a palpable energy in the place, and the place almost exploded when the organisers announced that the much anticipated message had come from upstairs, and they were ready to start… serving coffee and biscuits. We came back after getting our coffee, and waited inside the audi for Mr.Tharoor, disappointed at not being allowed to bring our coffee in, but then in he came, in black and white, and made our woe seem insignificant, with his coughing. Hmm, I couldn’t be sure, but the front row possibly had coffees. (#9). And so I sat, flanked by two other Mallus – Nikhil, and Balu (who’d made it a point to arrive after Shashi Tharoor, just so we understood who was more busy 😉 ) wondering how a favourite, whose work I worshiped, would fare.

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    As you can see, he was favouring the right, and the centre, until a lady seated behind me forced him to answer a question from our side. I wondered aloud if he always ignored the left thus, but though my neighbours heard it, sadly he didn’t. I’d have loved a repartee. I noted that we had similar workplace issues, as Twitter was banned in the MEA too. Meanwhile, our friend Nikhil, (who claims he was) one of the voters who elected Mr.Tharoor to the parliament, had a political googly question for him. But he managed to answer it satisfactorily too.

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    He talked about occasions when he was asked to explain Twitter to his colleagues, and the advice to him to stop tweeting if he valued his political career. But as he said, he doesn’t like being told he can’t do something. He explained his twitter habits – following, answering questions on Twitter, and the balance he has to maintain while sharing with the world a minister’s life. He was asked about his writing plans, to which he answered that the current job keeps him too busy to write, and not just to write, but to create that space in the mind, which can be populated with people and instances that have nothing in common with his daily life. So for now, The Great Indian Novelist is reduced to the limitations of a git (great indian twitterer) 😉 – 140 char.

    And thus, thankfully, he didn’t disappoint, and i sat, listening in rapt admiration, as the man displayed his ease with the language, bringing a smile and making us LOL, with witty answers to even the most banal of questions. Yes, there were quite a few of those too. But thankfully there were the opposite kind too, which got him to talk about the working of his ministry, and future plans. I could throw in erudite, polished, confident and similar adjectives as descriptions for him, but a master craftsman is usually beyond adjectives. (as anyone who saw that jaw-dropping 175 would vouch for)

    Though he had arrived a bit earlier than announced at the venue (the twitvite said 3, when the actual time was 3.30, but the reason for that is easy to guess, so I wouldn’t complain), we still had only an hour, and it passed very quickly.  But it was undoubtedly, fun!! So, finally everyone posed for photos,

    DSC02285(guy in grey-blue striped t-shirt, asked the best questions)

    and somewhere in between I accomplished the other thing I’d come for. 🙂 🙂

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    until next time, end of gushy Tharoor post 😉

    (HUGE) UPDATE

    ST RTs !!

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  • Real time status

    Busy with waves, of the non-Google kind. 😀

    until next time, surf around and get back next week 🙂