A Commie in Coma

Harkishan Singh Surjeet is back home from the hospital recovering from the coma he had been in and I'm sort of thankful. Its not that I'm a fan of his or the ideology he espouses, but it is because I consider him as a relic and want him to live to see the end of communism in India even if he enters the Guinness Book of records as the world’s longest living man.

He isn't a relic just because he is a nonagerian. He is one because he is a living example of the oxymoron that his communist principles stand for. He was the only example my late dad used whenever he wanted to take a dig at the communists. "Look at him." my dad used to say, "He belongs to a party whose primary tenet is that God doesn't exist and he wears the turban, and has the beard. Thats what the communists are, Hypocrites." The logic my dad used was irrefutable. I've wondered often if Harkishan Singh Surjeet ever recognised that he is everything that is wrong with the communists everywhere. I find communism to be a wonderful ideal (though impractical), but my right-leaning dad had his grouses against it especially its principle of - From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. “An IAS officer having two children will earn less than a peon having four children because his need is less” my father rationalized as he explained the basic communist principle to me one fine day, ingraining in me much of the abhorrence he had for the communists.

As I grew up, my interest in communism grew as immensely as my loathing of the Indian communists. Just as the Ideal Gas in chemistry or the Ideal Transformer in physics do not exist , Communism is an ideal that cannot exist and the so-called communism as practised by the present day communists is a really big sham. Jyoti Basu was the greatest marxist-leaning leader of the Indian Communist party but inspite of him preaching state-owned property and common wealth, his own son is one of the biggest businessmen of his state while the state Jyoti Basu ruled for decades is still one of the poorest in India. After the collapse of communism in Soviet Union and my dad had a perrenial "I told you so" look and with any luck, Jyoti Basu & Harkishen Singh Surjeet might live to see the same collapse happening in India

My I.P.L Blues

The Indian Premier League may debatably be the best thing to happen to cricket in general and Indian cricket in particular, but there are lots of things about it that irks me.

The first aggravation was the composition of the team that represents my home town, the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Currently languishing at the bottom of the points table, they've caused more embarrassment to the franchise owner than to me because I had almost given up on the Royal Challengers as soon as I saw the makeup of the team. Compared to the youth & talent of the other teams, the Royal Challengers seemed a bunch of geriatrics. Unfortunately, the team I was banking on, the Deccan Chargers of Hyderabad also proved to be damp squibs inspite of a formidable batting line-up. A week into the tournament, I shifted my loyalty to the Rajasthan Royals because being a Bangalorean it would be nothing less than sedition for me to support the other city teams.

The performance of the entire "Extra Innings" team on Set Max is more pathetic than that of the Royal Challengers. With such an exotic name as Lekha Washington, I was expecting a brainless bimbo and I wasn't disappointed. Shonali Nagrani is worse. She has the woodiness about her that one would expect from a model.. The only purpose of Shiv Pandit seems to be to embarrass himself and his guests and so far, he has been quite efficient at that, whether it is talking to Mpumelelo Mbangwa in Hindi, or using Indianisms in his English. Also, I'm not sure if Shiv Pandit is technically sound in his knowledge of the game as I've never seen him talk anything even remotely technical. I hope someone at Set Max sees some sense & kicks him out. Ajay Jadeja isn't in the same league as a Boycott or a Harsha Bhogle & therefore isn't capable of carrying the show on his own. Sivaramakrishnan & Greg Chappell are about the only hosts doing a reasonable job.

Finally watching the telecast of the matches is nothing less than a pain in the posterior. There is a limit to how many times you can see the pug lick the stamps. After a dozen or so times, it ceases to be cute and starts to be tiresome and the frizzly-haired woman going Sanju, Sanju makes me want to whack her right across the face. There is supposed to be a music played whenever the batsmen make their way to the crease. I’ve never heard it. Set Max squeezes in enough advertisements that I get to see who the batsman is only after he has played a ball. The telecast of the entire post-match presentation of the match between Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders was skipped to fit in a mindless conversation between Jadeja and some guests. The ads keep coming in the middle of the over too, drowning out the commentators. Surely, the channel can raise the cost of ads and reduce their time so that the viewer is not left disgruntled. It is time that the BCCI makes the telecasters accountable for the quality of their telecasts but since it is the BCCI, they wouldn’t care about some cricket-loving person sitting in his sofa, watching the TV.

Avarice in Ajmer

On the look out for places of interest to visit around Jaipur, Ajmer & Pushkar were pretty obvious choices. Though I knew about Pushkar's history as the World's only temple dedicated to Lord Brahma, the Hindu God of creation, I was apprehensive about what to expect in Ajmer.

Ajmer is famous for the Dargah of an Islamic saint, Moinuddin Chishti better known as Khwaja Garib Nawaz, "The Saint of the Poor" to which a lot of celebrities and foreign dignitaries often make a beeline. I knew the Ajmer Dargah was visited by people of all faiths but, since I had never been inside any Islamic place of worship before, I was anxious. Anyways, the enthusiasm of my friends and their extolling of the powers of the Ajmer Shrine rubbed off on me and I put aside my misgivings and decided to make the trip.

The drive from Jaipur to Ajmer is very good. The wonderful NH 8 allows speeds in excess of 150km/h to be reached easily for most of the way. Ajmer is a typical small town - dirty and crowded. As in all tourist places, the bilking starts even before you find a parking for your car. Even as we drove through the narrow street leading to the Dargah, we were accosted by lads asking us to park the vehicles inside the adjoining buildings for 30 to 50 rupees. Since there is no other parking available anywhere nearby, one has to use only these facilities though a bargain can be struck for 30 rupees. As soon as you get down from the vehicle, you get a fair idea why it also called the Dargah of Garib Nawaz. The beggars crowd around & annoy you with every step asking you for alms in the name of the Khwaja and promising you everything from success in the business to male heirs in return. The elderly and the very young among the beggars fall at your feet, trying to embarrass you into giving them some money, while the women promise you riches and an end to all of your problems if you gave them money. It is a 500 metre walk from the place to park your car to the Dargah gate and by the end of this walk, you are either broke from doling out the alms or really wound up with irritation. I was more of the latter. As per Islamic tradition one has to cover their heads before entering the shrine and handkerchiefs & skull caps are available en-route. The tradition at the Dargah is to make an offering comprising of a chaddar (embroidered cloth), flowers, incense sticks and a bottle of perfume. The shops near the entrance sell all of these items as a package at various exorbitant rates depending on the size of the chaddar. Here too, you are discouraged from bargaining for the same saying that one shouldn't bargain in these matters afterall, it is an offering to the Saint. So, we naturally didn’t bargain. The four of us purchased four such trays of offerings at Rs. 290 each and the shopkeeper sent a young lad to accompany us inside. I found some shops selling similar chaddars for prices as low as Rs. 50. I pointed out the same to my friend who was a regular to the shrine and he said those were recycled ones. They had already been offered once by other devotees.

There is a security check at the entrance which is the norm in most famous religious places in India. The young lad, who was accompanying us, took us straight to one of the Khadims who wore an ornamented cap. The Khadims are the traditional keepers of the Sufi shrine who maintain and are involved in the day-to-day activities of the shrine. The Khadim bade us to sit in front of him and asked us our names and from where we had come. He asked us to place our hands on the offerings we had brought and called upon the Khwaja Garib Nawaz to bless us all, help our businesses prosper and keep us healthy. Then he took out a ledger and said that the usual offering is Rs. 425, but some people give more. So, Rs. 425 per head it was. When we had paid, he warned us against keeping anything in the back-pocket of our trousers and asked us to beware of pick pockets since we were supposed to enter the mausoleum containing the tomb of the saint with the tray of offerings held on our heads.

Inspite of the jostling of the people to get inside the mausoleum, I found time to admire the wonderful gold work at the entrance to the mausoleum. The dome of the tomb is also covered with gold and the lad accompanying us told us that the main doors of the Dargah were also made of pure silver. Once inside there are about half-a-dozen Khadims around the tomb. They collect the offerings, put the chaddar on the tomb, splash most of the perfume on the tomb and apply a dash of it on our fingers and give us some of the flowers to throw on the tomb. The people who hadn’t brought any offerings were literally pushed and hurried away. We were then blessed again by another Khadim who wrapped a Chaddar around the four of us and called upon the Khwaja Garib Nawaz to bless us. If you thought that was it, no, it wasn’t. The Khadim then demanded money and took a hundred rupees from each of us. As we went around the tomb, the remaining Khadims tried to wrap their Chaddars around us and we literally had to fend them off saying that we had got the blessings but, they asked us for the money anyway. Once out of the mausoleum, it was time to check our belongings and confirm that they were safe. It was quite an experience, the crowd and the Khadims. The lad, our guide, was waiting for us and he took us to a tank and asked us to wash our hands and feet. We did so and then he took us to a huge cauldron and said that it was used to cook rice for the pilgrims and asked us to make a contribution. By this time, I had decided that this Ajmer trip was proving fiscally arduous for me and I didn’t though my friends threw in a hundred rupees each.

We went back to the shop where we had purchased our offerings. The remaining flowers and Prasad in the tray were transferred to a carry-bag and we were asked to visit the Adhai-Din-ki-Kothri (meaning the house that was built in two and a half days) nearby. It proved to be nothing more than a few pillars and a place for the daily namaz.

The walk back to the parking was again a struggle to avoid the beggars. On our drive from Ajmer to Pushkar, I couldn’t help but reflect on how commercialized religion was today. This was supposed to be a saint who was a champion of the poor but, you could get the preferential treatment at his mausoleum only if you had the money. There are hundreds of chaddars that are offered daily at the tomb and a great many of them find their way back to the shops to be sold again. Isn’t there a question of ethics here? I’m no expert on Islam but, I believe Sufism, of which the Khadims are proponents, involves “renunciation of the material world” as one of its main principles. I also found it strange that a religion that strongly advocates mono-theism and an absolute God would accept a human being, even though regarded as a saint, as the creator of miracles and pray to him for their material needs such as money or children. Is it a fault in the religion itself or just another of the numerous influences of the original religions of south-Asia?

There's something about TOI

I never thought it would come to this but I have to admit that I found myself missing the Times of India. My hotel in Kochi gave me a choice of either the Hindu or the Indian Express both of which I found dreary.

The Hindu is still the same drab old paper that I remember from years ago and I found that it has even more advertisements than news articles. There are hardly any supplements on weekdays and though my relatives in Chennai swear by it, I found it boring. The Indian Express, on the other hand, has improved from the time we used to get it in our home before we switched over to the Times of India but somehow, it lacks the spunk. As someone who reads the newspaper for more than half-hour daily, Indian Express didn't have more than a few minutes worth of news.

On the flight back to Bangalore, I finally got hold of a Times of India. On seeing the lead story in the Bangalore Times about a film star's wedding and the half-naked women on the last page, I wondered whether this was what I was missing in Kochi, but, when I started doing the Daily Crossword, I got my answer.

The Alchemist

I've just finished the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It was an enjoyable tale, the English translation being very simple & easy to read and it certainly deserves the praise it has got. I had heard a lot about the Alchemist, both the raves and the rants; however, after reading it, I would never rate it as the classic it is made out to be. The Alchemist is a nice little story with a bit of magic and a surprise ending but to call it inspirational and try to look for answers to our life's mundane problems in such a book is a sad reflection of the stressful times that we live in. Alchemist is at best a modern-day fairy-tale and as with most fairy tales, one can deduce a moral of following ones dreams and believing in ones destiny. The book is full of clichés many of which are repeated over and over (I just realized that that’s the reason they are called clichés) and the protagonist Santiago’s search for “Hidden Treasure” is as good a cliché as any and to make it worse, the treasure at the end turns out to be of the material variety which makes it a sort of anti-climax, though it may be argued that the lessons of life that Santiago learns in the course of his search are the genuine treasures.

Does the Alchemist need to be mulled over? Not if you are of a sound mind. Then why is the book hailed as an inspirational oeuvre? Why is so much being made of following ones dreams and knowing ones destiny? I would put it down to the modern day mentality of looking for spiritual keys to combat the dreariness of life so much so that they are willing to overlook logic in a book which claims that it is possible to formulate any metal into gold by rubbing it against a stone. I wonder if those people who claim a life-changing inspiration from this book go around trying to deduce the meanings of the various omens or change tracks to follow the career of their dreams. What kind of lesson does one learn from a book that has the main character leave the love of his life and go in search of a treasure that he himself is not sure exists? There were a lot of religious undercurrents in the story as well, Santiago being a shepherd and the omens that are interpreted as well as an undertone of anti-Islamic sentiments, with the Arabs shown as forever being at war.

I have a name for the quest to find a spiritual meaning in everything. I call it the “Bible Mindset”. It is akin to find a meaning in every verse of the Bible and every parable of Jesus. The Alchemist is no different than a parable or a fable and just as every one of Jesus’ parables is supposed to have a meaning sometimes hidden and it is a pity that the spiritually deprived western culture has to try and find meanings in ordinary tales such as the Alchemist.

Is Kerala hyped up?

Is God's Own Country hyped up as a tourist destination?

My experiences in Kochi have certainly led me to believe that it might be. Kerala has definitely been blessed with a lot of natural beauty and Kerala was listed among the top ten tourist destinations in the world, but, it definitely is some skillful marketing that has made it more famous than it has deserved to be. Coming to Kerala, after visiting Rajasthan, where the tourist is treated like royalty, the lack of professionalism in the hospitality industry is glaringly evident. Kochi, inspite of being the economic capital of the state, amazingly, has only a few places of interest for tourists and even these were hyped up.

Other than the natural beauty of the state, there isn’t much man-made beauty around. The Jewish Synagogue, St. Francis church, the Dutch palace & the Chinese fishing nets all turned out to be disappointments. The Jewish Synagogue was a small building in the old Kochi area and except for its historical significance, there wasn't anything there for either a Jew or a non-Jew to see. St. Francis church, India's oldest church, is famous for what was there for about 14 years many centuries ago - Vasco da Gama's buried body. The Chinese fishing nets near the remnants of Fort Kochi stink literally and inspite of being plugged as a wonder, there weren’t much of a wonder. The Dutch palace at Mattancherry, though the paintings are rather poorly preserved, is really worth seeing. Photography is not allowed inside and they don't sell pictures or any literature about the place. The Kerala Tourism counter in the entrance of the palace, instead had books about Agra, Delhi & Fatehpur Sikri. When I asked for a book about the monuments of Kerala that was listed, I was told that it was out of print. Even the guides at the palace gave a skewed up version of the Ramayana while explaining various paintings to the tourists.

The renowned Kerala Ayurvedic massage, wasn't so great even though I had it at a place approved by the Kerala Tourism Board. The masseur couldn't speak English and was keen to get me to write my comments in the guest register.

Cherai beach near Kochi was touted as the cleanest beach in India. One walk down its short stretch was enough to prove otherwise. Cherai is clean but not as clean as some of the beaches in Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The most pejorative was usually the discussions I overheard at the breakfast tables of my fellow hotel guests and the tourists I met at various places. Most of them were disgruntled of the hard sell that they had been subjected to. They talked about the generally bad experiences they had, the auto drivers and taxi drivers who robbed them blind and the not-so-great massages. Kerala may attract many more tourists with ad-blitz and suave promotions but it needs to do a lot more if the tourists are to keep coming back.

The Wedding Bells Toll

As 2008 rolls in, I look forward to a lot of changes in my life too but the change I'm expectantly dreading is the one that'll change my status from single to married.

After all the nagging I received from home & well-meaning relatives at not being competant enough to find a life-partner myself, I had to give in and let them try to arrange a match for me. However, little did I know what an ordeal it would turn out to be. I had to agree to quite a few silly rituals like having my horoscope prepared and distributed around to various relatives and creating a profile on one of the popular wedding portals on the net.

There were some mundane initial responses to the profile, of course, but, I had over-estimated my worth in the marriage market. After about a week, and numerous rejections later, realisation dawned that the entire process wasn't a walk in the park. It took me a couple of weeks to realise that honesty may not be the best policy in this case. So, I edited my profile to make it more appealing to the average brahmin father of a girl still hanging on to his middle-class values or trying to find a match for his daughter better than the one his wife found over two decades before. After some vital changes to the profile, the number of acceptances to my "expressions of interest" did significantly increase but I wasn't making any further progress, the principle reason being that I wasn't a premium member of the matrimonial website. Not being a paid member meant that I could only send across "expressions of interests" hoping that the other party was a premium member who had paid so that they could contact me. After about six replies to my "expressions of interests", the wedding portal informed me that I could no longer send any more unless I paid to become a premium member.

Four thousand rupees later I got the privileges of personalised "expressions of interest" and a twenty-four word advertisement in a leading south-Indian newspaper. The only difference it made was the number of rejections I got increased though a couple of profiles looked promising.

The first one was from a Bangalore-based girl, whom I'll call AA. I had received a e-mail from her mother asking me to view her profile. Her profile showed her to be a typical South-Indian brahmin girl & with all the values associated with being one. She was into finance & earned over Rs. Six lakhs per annum. I mailed her asking her the password for her photos. She gave it to me also giving me a few more of her personal details like her having one twin sister who was married, the name of the company where she worked etc. I remembered that I had seen the company on one of my friend's list of communities on Orkut. So, I logged on to Orkut, wondering if AA was on Orkut. I found her easy enough and her profile had something interesting too. Her photos on Orkut showed her to be quite different from the photos she had sent me the password to in that she wore glasses, was a bit overweight and her orkut profile had her height a bit shorter too not to mention her drinking habits as a social drinker as opposed to the teetotaller she had mentioned she was in her matrimonial profile. I don't consider myself shallow but somehow the whole thing starting out like this on a basis of deception put me off and I politely declined her proposal.

The second proposal was the girl's mother calling up my mom at home & giving my mom the girl's matrimonial profile no. The girl, VS, was a software engineer working for Infosys in Chennai. She was the first of three sisters. I found her too on the Infosys community in Orkut. Though she didn't have any photos of hers uploaded, the testimonies of her orkut friends & her sister (calling her lazy, a spendthrift etc.) and her choices of communities provided me a great deal of insight into her personality. I didn't bother to mail her any further.

These two incidents made me remove all my personal data from my Orkut profile. I even spruced down the no. of communities I was member of, since, learning from others' mistakes is the best way to learn. Social Networking sites are great to keep in touch with old friends but I also discovered, albeit by chance, that posting of personal data on these sites, might just not be a prudent idea especially if you are not being totally honest in your profile on matrimonial sites.

A trip around Jaipur

The Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC) arranges daily guided tours of Jaipur city and nearby places for a sum of Rs. 170. After being assured that it was the best way to see the sights of Jaipur city by both the Park Plaza staff & some locallites, we decided to take the tour.

The nearest RTDC office being at Gangaur hotel off Mirza Ismail Rd., we reported there by 08:15 a.m for a tour that was supposed to start from 09:00 a.m.A 33-seater bus, probably considered a luxury bus in Rajasthan, compared to all the other heaps of junk that ply around the Jaipur city, was our mode of transport. Our RTDC guide was Mr. O.P.Verma, who made up for his rather poor English with his wit in Hindi along with some curt replies to the tourists' queries. Mr. Verma started almost every sentence with a history of Jaipur's rulers but his parroting of certain trivia soon became monotonous.

The Birla Mandir, a beautiful marble temple, not far from where we were staying was the start of the tour. Twenty minutes was all we got for our tour of the temple. Adjacent to the temple is a hill-top fort, the Moti Doongri, the residence of Maharani Gayatri Devi.

The Albert Hall, a museum close to Birla Mandir, is closed for renovation at present.

Hawa Mahal, the ubiquitous symbol of the Pink City, turned out to be rather disappointing. Even the RTDC guide wasn't too keen on explaining about it, saying only that it had a lot of rooms from where Rajput ladies would watch processions. Since the Hawa Mahal is situated in a busy area of the old city, there's no place for parking and we had to be satisfied with only seeing it from inside the bus.

Just behind the Hawa mahal is the Jantar-mantar. Jantar-Mantar, the final of the five designed, the most famous, first one, being in Delhi, was really amazing. The fact that our ancestors could calculate the time to an accuracy of 2 seconds many centuries ago is just breathtaking. The intricate instruments designed to study astronomy .definitely does make me feel proud of my heritage.

Adjacent to the Jantar-mantar is the City Palace. The present head of the royal family, Brigadier Sawai Bhavani Singh stays there. A part of this palace has been converted into a museum but, photography is not permitted there. The clothes used by the royal family members are displayed here but the best part of the museum is the arms section. The ceiling of the arms room is painted with pure gold and the different weapons, some of them multipurpose really are worth seeing. There is a third room that contains the art collections of the Jaipur kings.

The drive to Nahargarh Fort, a distance of 18 kms, is quite scenic at times. On the way, is the Jal mahal, a 5 floor palace situated in the middle of a lake. Only the topmost is over water, the others being under water. Since it is being converted into a hotel, it is closed for public.

The Nahargarh fort was built by Sawai Jai Singh and named after a prince whose spirit was supposed to haunt the place...

..... To be continued

Dus Kahaniyaan - Review

Once in a few months Hindi Film Industry comes up with a Dus Kahaniyaan, an anamoly in the typical song and dance routine. I was never a big fan of Sanjay Gupta, having barely endured his films such as Kaante, but I really appreciate his efforts in producing such a movie as this. I half-expected to see an anthology film almost as bad as Darna Mana Hai or a Darna Zaroori Hai, assuring myself that atleast two of the ten films wouldn't be disappointing. When I came out however, I had the gratified feeling of having read a Dahl or a Saki's short story collection.

Matrimony was a good opener, Mandira Bedi playing the cheating house-wife who makes a startling discovery. There was a bit of an editing glitch in the story and I'm not sure whether it was in the original print or only in the print at INOX Vaibhav, in Jaipur.

High on the Highway, was a big letdown. It would have probably been better if the director Hansel Mehta had downplayed the drugs a bit. I is quite difficult to have any sympathy for someone high on drugs, walking on the highway and getting assaulted or raped or even murdered. It is almost as if they were asking for it.

Pooranmasi was a like paying a quick visit to the good old days of Doordarshan serials and tele-films. Set in rural North India, it is a reminder of how narrow our mindsets can be.

Strangers in the Night was the best of the lot. The twist in the tale at the end was such that the entire movie hall was speechless when it was revealed.

Zahir, inspite of the message it tried to convey, turned out to be a comedy. The end was totally unpredictable but, you feel like laughing at Manoj Bajpai's character instead of feeling sorry for him.

Lovedale, was a feel good film. The twist in the tale here didn't live upto the mark. There was the element of supernatural here in the story, but, there was nothing scary about it.

Sex on the Beach, was ridiculous. Tarina Patel's cleavage was more watchable than her acting. As for Dino Morea's acting skills, I'm still wondering if they were as hidden as Tarina Patel's real intentions in the movie were. I certainly couldn't find them in the twenty-odd minutes of the plot.

Rice Plate, was an excellent effort. Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah stole the show. I'm very sure that I've read the original story somewhere before, but the Indianised adaptation was good. I wonder why the person with a deep-rooted prejudice against Muslims had to be shown as a South-Indian Brahmin lady. Shabana Azmi, takes a taxi to Bandra station to go to Pune. Since when did the trains to Pune go via Bandra station?

Gubbare, was one of the few stories which had a totally predictable end. In fact, I was let down by the ending. It was also one of the few stories that had a Hindi title.

Rise & Fall, a gangster story, typical of Sanjay Gupta was a better effort from him this time round. If Sanjay Gupta keeps his gangster stories as short, maybe his films will do better at the box-office.