Category: Life Ordinary

  • 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,

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    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 🙂

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    until next time, island this week, i land next week 🙂

  • Arbor

    Sometime back, when I’d written the post on Onam, I’d mentioned a story that deserved to be told. About an old school pal R who has composed a wonderful soundtrack for a recently released Malayalam movie. He’s been composing for over 2 years now, probably more if you count the non-film work he’s done, but when I listened to this soundtrack, I was glad to note that I was proud of him. No, not pride by association – of knowing him, but actually proud for what he’s done for himself. I was glad for him. And so, I was glad for myself.

    R and I share a history, which starts with a shared birthday, so it used to be that our ‘color dress’  days in school used to be the same. He also used to stay in the university campus, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is a constant handle for my nostalgia trips on this blog. R was obviously a very good singer, actually he was a little beyond that grade too. I still remember the time when for some class talent show, R and I were asked to teach group songs to our respective classes. R did a fantastic job, while i just taught the class the song – everyone sang everything. The difference was harmony. I didn’t know it then, I understood it later. Meanwhile, like me, R also played cricket. My tryst with that bloomed late (high school) and lasted only a few years,  as far as official teams went. I wonder if he did something about it. Oh, okay, I just read through what I wrote. No, I refuse to make myself an underdog on my own blog. 😀

    The learning part of school life was obviously the most important, not by choice, but still….and as those primary/secondary class reports would show, I used to be the topper, modesty be damned. Add to that, the school junior hockey team, quiz, debate, Dumb C later, and being the quorum filler for things as varied as Malayalam recitation and News Reading (yes, we had that as a bleddy competition item, would you believe it!! Maybe I should sue that school, those certificates can be quite embarrassing) and you could imagine why my attention was spread thin. But wait, let’s not overcompensate. 🙂

    Anyway, R and I parted ways when i changed schools, though we used to meet later for most of the inter school festivals, where on one hand, I’d be shouting out Dumb C guesses, and minutes later, would be desperately trying to remember the lyrics for the next few lines I had to sing for the music competition. Once I also noticed him in the Western (Group) music part of the competition, and I went WTF (the school kid equivalent actually) on why there wasn’t a Bollywood part, since the only English lyrics i knew then were …..erm, nothing. 😐 After school we completely lost touch, and a nice little music rivalry, in which he used to kick my a** regularly, except for stray upsets, ended.

    A few years back, a nostalgia wave hit our batch, and a classmates e-group was created. Nice people that they are, they sent me an invite and I joined, even though I’d spent only 5 years in that school. That it remains my favourite school is a fact, though. Anyway, that’s where I heard the news that R had composed his first movie soundtrack, back in 2007. And now begins the role that R played without his knowledge – the reason for this post.

    When i heard the news, a part of me was happy, but that was only a small part. The larger part was insanely jealous. This wasn’t like any of the stars/celebrities I regularly read about, I knew this guy, I had shared the stage with him and competed with him. And here he was, on the way to becoming famous, while I sat blogging about paths not taken!! That was when I looked at myself, and really bothered to take an objective look- as objective as i could be then. I realised it wasn’t the first time that this insane jealousy had happened. From wittier one liners to cooler jobs, the feeling had expressed itself many times, with different people. Sometimes fleetingly, sometimes for long stretches. Each time, it lasted till the mind gave itself a reason to stop being jealous, on why there was a flip side in their lives too. Bizarre ones sometimes, in desperation, but reasons nevertheless.

    But from then on, I have been watching myself. It happens now too, in fact, on one front it is worse, because the proliferation of social networks means that there are more people I am now connected to – Twitter updates, Facebook statuses, vacation photos, all have the potential to get me launched into a ‘why is his shirt whiter than mine’ phase. All this, when on most fronts, I have nothing to complain about in my life, silly twist in my neck, notwithstanding. Initially, I tried to control the envy, give rational reasons – what I have gained and what i have missed on, and deliberately shut out things which would make me well, insanely jealous. From experience, the control is a myth, and the worst part is that it creates layers of denial. The massive risk is the day when it explodes in your face.

    So these days, I don’t control, I admit to myself that I’m jealous, and wherever I can, i tell the other person too. Thereafter, the interaction is a delight. I get to know the hard work they’ve put in to reach where they have, I realise I can be genuinely glad for other people, and there is a sheer joy that can be experienced. Sometimes I am rebuffed by people too. I have also realised that the more i acknowledge, the lesser I get envy attacks.  I still get them sometimes, but I think the path is right. On a tangential front, I am also trying to leave expectations from myself open.

    A strange thought occurred to me while I was writing this. Maybe its just me,  but with this sudden outburst of sharing and connectedness, are we increasingly living out a life that we want to portray to others? A “Hey look, I am happy, everything is perfect in my world” approach. Even the sad statuses are filtered, like the ‘negative things about yourself’ in job interviews. 🙂 How much of the happiness is in the sharing, in the feeling that others might be envious? Are we going that way? If I don’t share and don’t expect any returns, but I can still be happy about something I have experienced/done, would that be joy? And as a next step, if I can  go through the same experience without the baggage of expectations, would that be the objectivity I seek? Each second a new life? Beyond conditioning? Possible?

    R’s story loop needs to be closed, eh? On request, he has sent me a karaoke version of a song I liked in the movie. I have promised to sing the vocals… for myself. And a story that deserved a joyous ending. 🙂

    until next time, R bit ends for now 🙂

    PS: For those reading this on the blog, see that new thingie right below this. USE IT :p

  • A lot can happen over coffee

    Part 2 of last week’s post. Contrary to what the title might suggest, this has nothing to do with Coffee Day. Well, almost.

    I waited outside Fresco’s for the next meeting and this caught my eye. Coffee, destinations and experiences.

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    And just as I finish erm, shooting the above, she zooms in and after parking the car, chides me for not responding to her first wave from inside the car, until I point out to her that from where I stood, I could barely make out that its her inside the car. I also tell her that it might be unwise to wave at people of the opposite gender when one’s unsure… I was meeting her after a few months, and was yet again, struck by the precociousness. She’d called me to discuss a website idea of hers. She is all of 22, and has a knack of making me feel ancient, though unwittingly. We agree that the place demands that we concentrate solely on the chocolate desserts, but then we compensate by (me) arguing that the Oreo’s cream in her pastry was just wasting space that should’ve been taken by more chocolate. I pointed out my unadulterated ‘Chocolate Demise’.

    I ask her about her new idea, and out comes the story that its happening thanks to the money made from another business of hers, that’s apparently quite a success. She informs me that the idea for the first business came about from an earlier meeting we’d had. She explained, and when I heard it, I felt like a favourite character of mine – Forrest Gump!! Meanwhile, her book is already with the agent, she tells me its been 5 months, and maybe its time to check out another agent. I tell her that’s a hell of a lot of things to be doing at 22. She finds it worrisome that she might be trying out too many avenues, too many side lanes, which might take her focus off the main road, and i tell her about the number of posts I have written about the paths not taken. After we’re through with our chat, I tell her that I’m very happy for her, the way she’s handling her life, and not to stop.

    I wondered about the stuff I’d been doing when I was 22. One week later, I watch ‘Wake Up Sid’. (I Saw, Puked, in case you like anagrams)  After the movie I tweet,

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    Dil Chahta Hai was released in 2001. I was 23 then, close enough to 22 when one looks back now. Not then, of course.  Business management and beach bumming. There’s no comparison. 🙂

    A thought on WUS vs Lakshya before we move on.  Both are ‘coming of age’ movies, and that’s where the comparison ends, for me. Lakshya had an individual who got himself something to focus on, Sid just becomes relatively more mature. Movies work differently for different people, in fact I identified more with Lakshya than Sid, but to me, the comparison itself is perhaps unfair, because it means equating coming of age to focus. In my book, they are not the same.

    Though WUS did remind me of DCH, it was another comparison that gave me food for thought. Konkona plays someone who’s older than Ranbir, by about 5 years. She comes to Mumbai, focused about what she wants to do. Ranbir is barely trying to figure out what he wants to do. Two different approaches to life.

    I wondered if the age difference explained it, or was it the individual character, or their different circumstances. In many posts, I have explored each of the three separately. I have wondered whether today’s generation has many more choices than I had, and whether that’s the reason why I am constantly thinking about roads not traveled. I have wondered whether people are just made differently, in terms of aggression, risk taking mentality etc. I have wondered about how one’s circumstances, and the people one is surrounded with, influence one’s destiny. I have even wondered  about the combination – whether society has changed and has helped the young of today by giving them freedom to experiment, to make their own responses to choices, and thus made them smarter along the way, and helped them build confidence.

    And then i remember the coffee choices I’d seen as I stood in front of Fresco’s. Choices have always been there, maybe lesser, but there. I could have the coffee on the roadside or inside the CCD. They’re completely different experiences, and any judgment of one being better or worse than the other is simply a matter of perspective, based on time, person, place and so on. It perhaps isn’t even about the journey, its about how  one sees the journey, and what one wants to make out of it. 🙂

    until next time, ennui anyone? 🙂