2S
Techie. Writer. Photographer.
Archive for December, 2007
December 3, 2007 at 9:48 pm · Filed under fiction
The first few days of the month always see the longest queues at the teller. Understandably. Breadwinners, after all that work, line up outside the ATM, each one running the same question through their minds. It doesn’t matter what your CTC is, how many people you support, where you live, what rent you pay, or if your vehicle runs on diesel or space-fuel.
Everyone in that queue have the same question. How much? The answer decides what enters the pocket.
The first withdrawal of the month pinches you. Always. After sweating bullets at the workplace, and earning your reward, it takes a heart and a half to walk up to that miserly box of steel and pull funds out of your account. Of course, you’re usually forced to it. Rents. Bills. Medicines. The cable guy. The milkman. The maid. A cousin in need. An uncle departing on a pilgrimage. Something, somehow, someone and somewhere almost always shows up with the need to eat out of your hard-earned money.
Thank goodness for mobiles. Long queues could get boring, and we’re lucky to have the cellphone double up as a means of infotainment. As the queue slugs forward, everyone in there are up to something, fingering their phones. The ones at the far end of the queue are usually playing a game, or checking out a movie review on GPRS. As you move closer to the entrance, people are texting their loved ones, or in some cases, the home ministry to figure out exactly how much dough is needed that evening. The folks on the threshold of their shot at the machine constantly switch focus from the clock on the cellphone to the guard, and then, to the door. The door itself is opaque, except for a little bit of a transparent portion, through which the frontliners burn their gaze.
The atmosphere gets volatile soon enough. Machines sometimes dispense only hundred-rupee notes, and the limit is forty at a time. This could lead to an extended waiting period which, in a fast city like Bangalore and a restless race like the Bangaloreans, doesn’t go down too well with the tech-savvy masses.
On luckier days, the machine dispenses hundred-rupee notes as well as thousand-rupee notes. But there are a few people in this world who will never be satisfied in life. The guard had to face the wrath of one such stubborn brat.
‘Why doesn’t this machine dispense five hundred rupee notes?!’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know? Aren’t you the guard here?’
He thought about it, and came up with a logical explanation.
‘Sir, in this area, only the rich reside. They have no use for five hundred rupee notes sir.’
The guard, at this moment, is busy aligning the queue. It’s like that rough draft in Microsoft Word with arbitrary spaces that doesn’t really need an alignment, but is a constant source of irritation, an itch, when left the way it is. I finally get my turn. I walk in, and in an uncomplicated manner use the fast withdrawal option. As my hard work vanishes electronically, making its appearance through the flat, thin, metallic cavity in the machine, I pull the notes out and shoot a look at the last line of the receipt that just printed itself out. I curse and crumple the slip before chucking it into the bin and heading out of the cube.
The queue is now longer. Same question, though. I manage a smile.
On the way back home, I have the option of picking between two routes. One is well-lit, a ‘link’ road, home to slums, strays and a pungent mixture of cow dung and human urine in a field. The other is darker, and hosts more drunkards than you would find outside Purple Haze on Saturday night. With a bad cold, I had made the choice: the link road any day.
The slums are, contrary to popular belief, very organized. It’s absolute chaos within, but there’s a method to the madness. The one I walk through, for instance, has a person they refer to as ‘anna’, which translates to ‘big brother’ in Kannada. Anna manages everything operational in the slum, including rations, logistics and scheduling the consumption of utilities.
While I step aside and hop on to the sidewalk, a tempo comes spluttering in. Anna walks out and whistles. Thrice.
Whistle, whistle. Pause. Whistle. Three sounds, when timed accurately, suggest that the week’s supplies have arrived. Anna was here, and he brought with him the grocery.
A call for the hungry. For the starved. Like water seeping through the cracks of earth, they rushed in from every corner of the slum. Children, carrying steel tumblers. Women, with jute bags. Some men too, although more relaxed. It isn’t a queue, but a huddle around a tempo that catered more to survival than mere hunger.
Ironically, everyone in that huddle too have the same question. Only this time, the answer decides what enters the stomach.
December 2, 2007 at 9:36 am · Filed under cricket, fiction
Harsha Bhogle: So, down we go to Ian Chappell who’s at the presentation
Chappell: Thank you Harsha and we’ve seen an engrossing game here today. I have with me on the dias the Maharaja and Brig. Gen. Peters. First, the losing captain, Captain Russell.
(applause)
Chappell: Nearly got through, eh mate?
Russell: Yes we did, we batted well and put up a good score, and I thought the boys fielded well but the villagers sneaked through somehow. Credit must go to that bastard Bhuvan though for seeing his team through.
Chappell: Where did you think you lost the match?
Russell: We didn’t read Kachra well, to be honest, and he was getting good turn off the track. There was hardly any variable bounce so we ought to have played more horizontal bat shots.
Chappell: So, where do you go from this?
Russell: To my sister’s bedroom and fuck the bitch. (laughs). No, really, we need to work on our game, we have a tough tour coming up against the Madras Sappers in a few months.
Chappell: All the best, don’t forget to collect your cheque.
(applause)
Chappell: And the winning captain, Bhuvan!
Bhuvan: (in Hindi) shukriya sarkaar, maaf karna, hame angrejji nahin aati hai …
Chappell: Never mind Bhu, so, a good win eh?
Bhuvan: jee, aur upar waale ke diya se hum match jeetgaye … Gauri bhi khush hai
Chappell: A good batting track?
Bhuvan: jee, aur upar waale ke diya se hum match jeetgaye … Gauri bhi khush hai
Chappell: And I think you got good support from the crowd as well.
Bhuvan: jee, aur upar waale ke diya se hum match jeetgaye … Gauri bhi khush hai
Chappell: Where do you go from here?
Bhuvan: jee, pehle hum apni maa ke paas jaayenge, phir devi maa ko prasaad chadayenge, phir hum vapas apne gaaon chalejaayenge pehle ki thara
Chappell: Well all the best, thank you, and that’s it from here, it’s back to you Harsha.
Harsha Bhogle: Right, so there you go, and we’ll be back after the break as Sunny shares his thoughts on how Bhuvan’s team will adapt to T20. Stay with us, don’t go away.
December 1, 2007 at 12:11 pm · Filed under bollywood
First things first, Madhuri Mads is back. The smile-evoking-smile is still there - mercifully - but the lady returns with a few added wrinkles and pounds.
The other lady that steals the show, clearly, is Vaibhavi Merchant. Her flawless choreography stands out, and with Madhuri swinging it, there’s genuine intensity in the performance itself.
Dia (Madhuri Dixit) is a choreographer in the States, the kinds who respond to an emergency phone-call with a ‘If it’s an emergency, ask them to call 911′. Unless, of course, the emergency is a dying guru. A flashback beckons - Dia is a dance fanatic learning the moves at Ajanta Theater in Shamli under the able guidance of Dada (Darshan Jariwala in a cameo). And while she’s at it, an American photographer - NatGeo to be precise - comes along and clicks images of our dame with his Nikon. And - yes - she falls in love with this random guy, who can’t have a bite of pakodas - with a generous dose of mirchi, I might add - nor can he ensure his photographs remain in focus. But the girl is all convinced, and - get this - leaves her parents, her mandap and the town to go all the way with the camera guy. Don’t even bother worrying about the entry permit to the States.
And after all that, they divorce.
Dia returns and finds her Guru dead, but not before he recorded - on a projector, mind you - his farewell message. ‘Save Ajanta’, he says. No marks for wisdom, one would think. Dame finds a firang, ditches all of Shamli, her parents leave the town in shame. Fine. She returns in designer jeans with an accent and a kid who questions the purity of ‘drinking’ water. And this - urgh - NRI, is expected to save the theater?
Sounds far-fetched? It is.
‘Save’, incidentally, means that she needs to stop them from bringing down the theater. ‘Them’ include the folks in town who want a mall in place of the excuse for a ‘mecca of kala’. MP Uday (Akhsaye Khanna) is a Raja. The kinds who hangs out at his palace in an apron and denim, and makes his own pizza. Armed with the best lines in the flick, the bloke brings wit, lending some entertainment.
He gives her two months in which she must come up with a performance that all of Shamli enjoy, which - incredibly - would mean that the theater can stay, and no mall will be built.
Dia promptly begins auditions for a Laila-Majnoo musical. The sub-plots are now thrown in, as are the rest of the cast (read: Kunal Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Jugal Hansraj, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Sheorey, Divya Dutta). The rest of the flick taps into her ’struggle’ to make the show happen, and redeem Ajanta from the wrath of an evil businessman (Irrfan).
If only the director paid a little more attention to the details, and filled in the gaps with more meat. Instead, the end product is not just predictable, but lacks depth. Very little thought has gone into developing the characters, and if truth be told, the honest performances are the only ingredients that could keep this afloat. And, of course, the drama itself. I haven’t seen a better Laila-Majnoo musical depiction.
The performances are the only worthwhile mention. Madhuri is fab, she’s awesome, and she hasn’t gone rusty on her charm one bit. It’s pretty much her show, all throughout, as the support cast execute their bits with sincerity. Kunal Kapoor’s transition from a stone-hearted thug to a romantic hero takes its time and is rather convincing, as is Konkona’s tomboy-to-babe act. Vinay Pathak is absolutely hilarious in the little screen time alloted to him. Ranvir and Yashpal Sharma are brilliant as a duo. Not a lot of screen time there, but enough to add respectability. If it weren’t for the teeny bits of wit that these guys bring, Aaja Nachley would evoke more yawns than smiles.
In spite of all its flaws and loopholes, this is worth a watch if you’re a Madhuri fan. Expect little, and don’t forget to leave your analytical thinking at home.
And I want my old Madhuri back, the girl who would mumble “dance”, and it sounded like “dance”, and not “Dan’s”. Lose the accent, sweetheart.
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