Midnight Rain

Like a glass of 

warm milk

just before turning in

Like the smell of

a deep red rose on

a cold winter morning

Like a quietish melody

which if you

could see sound

would surely be white

I hear the windy

tender rain

Close to half past 

midnight.

Jann Gann Mann

Several years ago, the Indian government passed a law that gave freedom to 'ordinary Indian citizens' to hoist the national flag on any day, on any building, provided they abide by some basic rules of conduct.

Yes people, yes. Before that law came about, you and I could not have unfurled our own national flag on our houses because the people who made our laws did not deign it fit to allow ordinary people like us for it. Thank you, man who brought the bill in. Thank you so much, for letting us in on one at least one of our 'national' symbols.

And now, another one is in focus. One filmmaker has adapted the national anthem to convey the heart of his film. And the censor board has given a no, saying that it is an unacceptable tampering.

I am not a guy given to politically coloured diatribe (as a muslim in India you only need to constantly prove your patriotism and blindly vote for the Congress, do not try more, Jai Hind), but this one really got on to my nerves. 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And parody (or lets say adaptation) is the sincerest form of tribute. And being an amateur filmmaker myself, I know that very well. When Rahman made his own rendition of Vande Mataram in '97, he wasn't trying to upstage the guy who wrote it. Vande Mataram is our national song; the status of which is only a notch below, if not the same as the anthem. 

But the response couldn't have been more different I think that was largely because no old people's club like the censor board was involved in there. 

Its not just draconian, its foolish as well. And worst of all, its insulting.

I find it insulting that even after decades, we still haven't shrugged off the (frankly colonial) mindset that symbols of our nation are in fact symbols of our government. When the tricolour replaced the Union Jack in every government office people must have thought; thats finally a flag we can call our own. But it was hardly so.

If that law a few years ago hadn't passed, your eigth std civics lesson would remid you that our national flag was as much our own as the jack. And 'insulting' it (which includes wearing it as a shawl, never mind the emotion behind it) would be a serious civil offence.

The national anthem is our own. We are responsible enough to not allow it to get permanently distorted. But let us sing it in our own way, maybe with a few extra words; if that gives it more effect. 

But of course, it is sacred right? How can the censors allow this?

Rgv, do one thing. Release the movie, as it is, over the internet; free. You might not make the kind of money you hoped for, but it will certainly teach those old farts who call themselves the guardians of our culture how out of touch and irrelevant they are.

Its 2009 stupid.

Ideas, not books

I have never been a huge fan of books. To me they always were large, tedious lumps of paper. Only occassionally becoming interesting; and then like the eponymous history lesson they would go back to being dry and boring again.

I am sure there are lots of people like me, who just can't seem to kep their mind focussed enough on a page of print. It is as Norman Lewis puts it, a very common and sorry state.

But before all of you who are, good, voracious readers; start getting too smug about this, let me bring something in; a realization that indicates that the great book divide might be about to end. And the reason for it to end will be the very invention that is enabling you to read this right now.

In the book "How to read better and faster", Norman Lewis talks about the habits of people who already are good, quick readers. In one particularly interesting para he says and I quote: "(...)in school, the brightest students are not the always the best...the work is too boring for them, they dawdle and daydream, and consequently stop paying attention."

Aha... now.  I am not necessarily claiming to be 'bright', but I would admit that I am a bit of a dilletante. I flit from idea to idea very quickly and nothing manages to hold my interest for a long time. I have met quite a few people like that and all of them seem to have the same problem; they can never seem to complete books. 

A few months ago I contracted a disease which some may call 'wikipediasis'. Just for fun, I would open an article in wikipedia (I know you gotta fulfill a level of nerdiness to do that); say on Rolls Royce. 

I read it a bit, and I encounter a link to the word 'left-hand drive'. I click on that, which takes me to an other article that tells me what countries drive on the left and what drive on the right. 

One line in that article says, 'most countries that drive on the left do so due to British colonial influence.' I click on the cross reference for 'colonial', which leads me to colonialism, where a link leads me to the british rule in India, which leads me to an article on Kashmir, which leads to 'Lord Mountbatten', which leads me to the history of the Irish Republican Army.

Thing is though, that the internet; and essentially knowledge sites like the once popular howstuffworks to Wikipedia and to its newest rival, knol; are turning the whole idea of reading on its head.

Economics and conventional wisdom govern that a book has to have a central theme; a unifying thread running through. All ideas, however radical will always point to one single point. People who don't like reading books have always (and rarely ever knowingly) had a problem with this. The one story, the one opinion does not hold their attention for very long. 

But with the internet, what you are reading can change itself and keep pace with how quickly you are thinking, and very often drive it. Its is like having all human knowledge, in one very long, but magically thin book.

Of course there are people who will scoff at the idea. But I am vaguely sure that this is the beginning of a very fundamental change in the way we educate ourselves.  

I think we will again see see universal geniuses sprouting up in the next few generations. 

And can I say soemthing brave here?

I think the book's days are numbered.

Not that bad after all

The TATA Nano will be on display in showrooms from All Fools Day, 2009. For an outright Nano critic like me, this announcement was the height of accidental irony. yeah right; they say it is safe an environmentally friendly and economical and all that. But it is gonna be made of chart paper and some glue for the kind of price tag it has and I don't see a point in every single car being kinder to the polar bears when you can possibly replace half the motorbikes on our city streets with it.

Besides it is quite an ugly looking thing, far from being an original (as touted by Dilip Chhabria; who in my view cannot design anything more subtle than Govinda's boots); a Mitsubishi i rip off; a populist slack of the UPA government; soon to be scourge of every city commuter. Soon we will all be in our nanos, sitting pretty and getting nowhere at all.
This morning though, there was a full page ad that appeared in TOI. Beautiful blue and green water coloured theme. Nice font I thought, with the tagline; 'Yes you can'. Bit of a rip off the ad as well, I thought. But for only one fleeting second I thought I could really see the other side of the argument. For the next second, I considered the possibility that this car could be pretty clever, and not just in a replace leather with foam kind of way. It could make every vehicle, right from the Honda Dio I have now to my future Aston, better.
For another second, I hoped that maybe when I drive it, the car WILL surprise me. That I will go in with my nose pinched and I just might come out a fan. I am not so sure, but this car can be the Indian car industry's first 'look at what we made' moment.
Agreed the advertisement, like the car, was a bit of a rip off. But it was good enough to let me see something I'd rather not. The world of reality is too often not as good as the world of imagination. Lets just hope this time around, it isn't.

All the best to you, tiny car.

Even Better than Crusoe

"Father
I need a lend of 500 pounds
'Coz we are gonna go over to London
And get ourselves a record deal
And when we get the record deal
We're not gonna stay in London
We're not gonna go to New York City.
We're gonna stay and base our crew in Dublin.
Because these people. This is our tribe."


The crowd explodes into a cheer, loving fans; and as the most ridiculously optimistic lead singer
of the showiest band in the world picks up the song where they left it off a minute ago; Bono
shouts 'I'm out of control'. Watching it some years later on a laptop, I am, Irish. Thats U2.


The words 'this is our tribe' weren't familiar, but felt familiar. Words that smelt of proud
comfort; of being around people you understand and know. The sort of comfort that hems you in a kind of blanket of warmness; lulling you to sleep.


There is a saying that my dad used to tell me often when the prospect of leaving home to make a
life during my teenage years seemed too taxing. It went like no seed can become a tree unless it
leaves the side of the one it was born of. It had the kind of bitter sweet ring to it that parently
sayings usually have. Sweet enough to sound good, hard enough to be ruggedly realistic. And like most parently sayings, I soon realized that every ounce of it was true.


Over the last 6 years that has happened progressively with me. And I think the process will end for the time being when I leave for Australia next January. Australia; the word fills me with delight and fear at the same time. I am happily standing next to the beautiful Flinder Street station, eating my crocodile pie when a herd of goggle wearing kangaroos driving big blue Monaros runs me over; and all of this happening while Men at Work's Down


Under plays on a radio somewhere. Crikey!
I feel a bit like Robinson Crusoe must have had he been a real person. I know in some sort of
bizzare (and scaaringly, maybe contrived) way what I am getting into. It should let me do what I want to and hopefully get into what I want to. But I know there is a very high chance it will do me no good; and that I will spent my entire life trying to love something that I have consigned my whole life to. But like Robinson Crusoe, the luxuries of the middle order of life are not for me.
The sea beckons and I need to go.
I love my tribe. There is no doubt I will miss it. Terribly. But I can at least do better that
Robinson Crusoe and hope it will all work out fine.


I just hope Melbourne is on U2's next tour.

My first poem in years: It rained last night

it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree

this queen of all mornings
under a cream full of sky
you can almost hear the quiet sun smiling
the most radiant beauties, we all know
are always a little shy

like the laughter of a girl
with a husky kind of voice
the morning rids me of myself and
this queer kind of day world
of too little hope and too much choice

it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree

as if by my gaze alone
the morning seems to be going and heaving
(like a strange girl who is on a train (i'm on the platform)
and as her train is leaving)
the burdens of all mornings before
of when your heart sees no light
and your soul shuts the door
on your hopes and dreams and your stead
but i know this morning, this very one
will once again smile on my sleepy head

it is a pretty morning and many more can be
makes my grateful, tearful soul bend down on the knee
what a sky, what a day, what a chockful of joy
reminds this man about that little boy
who once was the dreamer, far from in vain
who maybe was lost, but can be found again

the morning now, quietly, it departs
leaves hope thats a tiny twinkle
like that of a little star
on some lucky and awaken(ed) hearts

it rained last night and what do i see
there is a bit of it still hanging about in every other tree

I am on it

I have spent quite some time now preparing my next post. Preparing as what I am going to write about is something that is very close to my heart. Three years ago it changed the way I think and live. And I guess it is worth the time it is taking.