Thursday, June 30, 2005 

As shallow as a petri dish

I have often thought of myself to possess fairly good, cultivated tastes in most aspects. But over the past few years I have found this premise to be unraveling quite fast. This is especially true with regard to critically acclaimed books and movies that I have read and watched of late. In general I found that my taste or opinion seemed to disagree with that of the connoisseur.

It all started maybe a couple of years back when I chanced to glance at a list of top 100 books as rated by a highly distinguished panel (as in most such lists, Ulysses seems to be unshakable from the top). Looking at the list I realized how much of good literature I had actually missed reading. That I am an incredibly slow reader has not really helped my cause either. I have this tendency to re-read pages and lines I have already read and only a few minutes down the line realize that the seeming familiarity with the text was not due to any foreboding powers that I possessed, but due to my apparent stupidity in not mentally marking the point from where I left off. I re-read the list in the hope of finding a few books that I could claim to have read, but there were not too many. I felt a bit deprived and wondered if I will do justice to my existence if I did not manage to get at least a few of these books under my belt by them time I started using a walking stick.

And thus began the quest to read (or more realistically to hoard up) some of these masterpieces. When the next Strand book exhibition came around, I ran out and purchased Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Lord of the flies, The great Gatsby, Catch 22 and a couple of others. All the Ulysses editions bordered (luckily) on the marginally expensive side, and I decided to give them a miss for the time being.

A year passes by…

I have now read The Alchemist, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The great Gatsby, The old man and the sea. My verdict?? I am a little clueless about why so much has been made of these books. Sacrilegious as it may sound, I am GENUIENLY puzzled about why critics claim that these are amongst the masterpieces of our time. The Alchemist was pleasant reading in the beginning, but once the protagonist begins his search for the alchemist, the book for me became unpick able! The repeated references to two stones (Ur and something else) became quite annoying. As for Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and The old man and the sea, I can’t fathom any deeper implicit meaning that these books are supposed to convey. I did however find myself sympathizing deeply with the Old man. I heaved a big sigh of relief when I finally managed to wade through the Great Gatsby. It is a far from memorable book.

I also recall reading somewhere that Moby Dick is supposed to convey a more significant message to readers above the superficial story of captain Ahab out to avenge the loss of his leg being made part of a midday meal by a tempestuous sperm whale. Curiouser and Curiouser! I am still searching for that message. I am lamenting on why I was in such a hurry to buy The Lord of the flies. The language used in the book seemed to me quite dense, uninteresting. Here too the back cover glorified the purported message the author was trying to get across about decadence of our society and how we are going at war with each other. I could not progress beyond the first fifteen pages.

My experience with acclaimed movies is alike. A fish called Wanda comes to mind immediately. Why does it find a place in an all time great movies list is quite an enigma. It happens the other way around too. I quite liked this movie called Sweet November. Maybe it was because of the absolutely lilting soundtrack song by Enya, or maybe because I am a fan of Ms Theron, and that I don’t quite mind the sight of Keanu Reavees. But I was quite shocked to see that each and every online review I read shredded the movie to bits (I have a shifty feeling that all reviewers, behind the scene, work conjointly to avoid giving discordant statements, and loosing face). They claimed that the chemistry between the lead artists was virtually non-existent and that the movie ending was unreal. They did not even grant the movie the status of a pastime tearjerker. I am sure that had I been a girl, I would have been through 2 packs of weepie-wee tissue papers by the time that the movie credits began to scroll up.

I have now realized that my brief endeavor at sampling the connoisseur’s recommendations is not completely worth the effort. Therefore I am not going to reach out for Ulysses in a hurry. And yes I loved the movie Serendipity no matter what they say!

If the readers of this post mirror my experiences or anything thereabout related, I would request them to share it in their comments. It would be heartening to learn that I am not the lone petri dish in this world!

Wednesday, June 22, 2005 

The wicked witch of the north!



Destiny it seems had already scripted my afternoon! Just as I finished snapping the giant peanut tree, and was waiting for a new cab, a dust storm began to gather. The whirling wind began to scatter the loose leaves, dust and paper lying around. The skies began to take on a menacing greyish hue. It was then that i spotted by chance the infamous wicked witch of the north gliding onto one of the top branches of the giant peanut tree. She almost instaneously disappeared into a flash of light that scared the daylights out of a tiny squirrel nestling thereabout. Luckily my Lumix was quicker than the eye!

 

The GIANT peanut tree



Saw this peculiar fruit-bearing tree in Malleswaram (18th cross near the Margosa road junction). An elderly cobbler (strangely sitting away from the shade of the tree on the uneven crumbling pavement) told me in a hoarse voice that the tree was haunted by a specter who (in hushed tones) was referred to as the wicked with of the north! Wonder if he was reading The Wizard of Oz of late?

 

Baby you can't drive my car



Got into this taxi on Malleswaram 18th cross we had called, and found pretty soon that it was punctured! The driver seems quite hopelessly helpless

Monday, June 13, 2005 

And registered your flat shall be

Am in quite a sprightly mood today...managed to get my flat registered finally :). In fact ever since I moved into my new flat in April, I have not really had a chance to put up my feet over the weekend, relax and simply sip some tea. There are countless niggling issues associated with purchasing a new house (few of those still remain..so can't really see the contents of my tata tea pearl pet bottle dip dramatically over the coming month).

Am keen on updating my blog more frequently now... got a boost when I saw a comment from someone who I has not virtually dragged to the altar :). Thanks daneshia. There are a few topics that I would like to write about. Also want to dedicate a small post to a close friend of mine who recently left to pursue his MBA. We have been good friends for 7 years, and I will surely miss him. Jack hope you caught the train!

Am ending this post with another short story I wrote last year. Its called The Pest from Best. (Best is a sleepy but pretty village in The Netherlands where our company is headquartered. I actually wrote the story after coming up with the rather cute title. I wanted to format the heading so that 'best' fell below 'Pest' and there was a single vertical line connecting the top circle of the 'p' with the bottom circle of the 'b'. The magazine editor obviously thought otherwise :( ). At Best, the walk from the office to the local station is a 40-minute stroll on a nicely winding road, along farms with longhaired ponies grazing away in gay abandon. The road looks incredibly picturesque when the trees lining it put on their autumn overcoats. I remember the time when I smuggled a camera into office just so as to take a picture of those ponies on my walk home. Sadly the battery had to breath its last just then. Anyways, here’s the story:

The Pest from Best

The story kick starts one February evening as I was packing for my maiden business trip to Best, Eindhoven. My flight was in the early hours of next morning and packing for the trip was still in disarray. As I proceeded to gather my scattered possessions, stuffing them randomly into one of two open bags, my heart gave a lurch and my throat suddenly went dry. The reason – my eyes fell upon a ugly, large brown cockroach that had taken pride of seating place on my best T-shirt.

Joe (the cockroach being christened henceforth in an attempt to breathe more life into his character; ‘his’ was an assumption- I was terrified enough without bothering to ascertain whether it was a male member of the species) was supported on only 5 hairy male legs and was also missing one of his antennae, probably having lost them both in a dispute with some accomplice of his over a small matter of dining rights to a rotting cardboard piece.

He sat pretty motionless, glaring at me though piercing eyes, his lone feeler tracing out imaginary circles in the air. I dashed off to get the pest extermination spray from the kitchen. Although I returned in a jiffy with the spray can in hand, Joe had disappeared. My reasoning that five legs wouldn’t take him very far was off target - even after ten minutes of solid searching, I was not able to unearth him. I sat down sweaty, tired wondering what to do next. If the reader at this point is wondering what was there to wonder about, he or she must have surely never felt the joy of a creepy roach slithering over a bare leg under one’s jeans. I unfortunately have experienced this esoteric pleasure in a crowded bus where I could not even scream out. I was therefore not particularly eager to make contact with cockroaches again in the near future. So I sat down to think how I could trace Joe and get rid of him.

My tryst with cockroaches goes back further than the bus incident. Bangalore- a haven for engineers, also welcomes cockroaches with equally open arms. Maybe being the IT (read InsecTopia) hub of the world explains why. Confrontations between both parties are therefore inevitable. But my worst experience goes back to one night when a raging thirst drew me to the kitchen, where I spotted the floor maculated with a dozen or more large cockroaches who seemed to be having a ball. You could literally visualize the couples waltzing thorax to thorax to the lilting music of The Blue Danube. Those were the good old days when all I had for my defense was an aging broom. It took me ten minutes and loads of pluck to hunt down and squash each one of them. I gave a whole lot of them a decent burial by plonking them into the drain outside my house.

The incident of the night had a permanent effect on my psyche and was the reason why I was keen to stay clear of this story’s protagonist and his complete lineage. The unpacked items lying scattered on the bed drew me out of the dreamlike state I had wandered into, and I resumed my interrupted packing session.

~

I was probably destined to “Meet Joe Black” again. On reaching the Eindhoven apartment, as I began pulling my things from the over stuffed bag, out flew Joe menacingly and deposited himself on the bed. There was no mistaking him- a chassis on five legs with one antenna is a pretty uncommon sight. I was in a bit of despair as here on alien territory, I was robbed of my trusted broomstick and insect spray. I earnestly began hunting around for a weapon to end the matter once and for all. After managing to find a seedy looking tabloid stuffed behind the sofa, I rolled it up and returned to the bedroom with a threatening look in my eyes. But Joe it seems had taken a liking to the game of hide and seek. Again so perfect was his hiding spot that I could find no trace of him.

As I sat down having the lost the battle yet again, I suddenly realized the appalling enormity of my loss. What if the maid who cleaned the house found Joe? That was the last souvenir from India she would have desired. I began to panic as I thought of the huge fine for littering apartments that would greet me when I returned to Bangalore. I began to picture even more depressing scenarios. What if Joe settled down with a pleasant looking female Dutch cockroach and raised a horde of kids who overran the city of Eindhoven as did the spiders in Arachnophobia! But there was little I could do as yet another mini search proved futile. Out of desperation, I slammed the front door and marched out onto the streets to get him off my mind.

There is a certain incisiveness and bite in the fresh Eindhoven breeze that solaces you and gets you out your depression. This was just what happened. As I drank in the new sights and sounds of Eindhoven, I began to think of the exciting and challenging week ahead of me, the places I would visit, the people I would get to meet. My bad mood slowly melted away and I began to enjoy the stroll around the neighborhood. When I returned to my apartment after the short walk, you could have asked me who Joe was and I would have given you a pretty blank stare.

~

The following week went off in pretty much six-sigma fashion. My business trip had proved to be really fruitful, and the weekend extremely enjoyable. I was pretty cherry even after the long travel back to Bangalore. At home as I unzipped my luggage, still reminiscing the time I had had, out scrambled Joe in typical deja-vu fashion! He looked weary and a bit jet lagged and had put on some weight under the influence of warm Dutch hospitality. Strangely enough though, I did not try to reach out for the spray can this time. I don’t know whether it was because I was feeling so upbeat at that time or because I almost felt relieved to see him. I suddenly began to see him in a new light. I began to feel a new respect for his creed’s tenacity and staying power. Getting hold of an old greeting card, I gently transferred the veteran on to it and lead him to the windowsill from where he staggered out into the warm night. Had he turned back, he would have seen me giving him a one-handed salute.

Thursday, June 02, 2005 

I'm on a roll...

After writing the previous post I was so keyed up to put up some real stuff that I thought of publishing a story that I recently wrote for my company magazine..it is the easy way out, but that’s okay. The story is called The Sweet Lie (slightly corny title, but not too bad I think)...managed to interweave a few of likes of mine into the story too :)

The Sweet Lie

Jonathan boarded the 909 with a deep sigh and occupied his customary seat in coach 7. The usual stream of commuters passed by in the coach aisle – the pair of giggling schoolgirls, a couple of stern looking policemen clutching their morning newspapers and coffee, and the cursing mother and her tugging little daughter who always scowled at Jonathan. Jonathan returned the scowl and turning away to the limited sights that the window offered, began to reflect on where his life had gone wrong.

Ever since he had graduated a year ago, and had taken up his assignment as an investment banker in the sleepy little hamlet of Sullyhill, Jonathan’s life had been reduced to plain drudgery. Up at six in the morning, he had to rush to the station to catch the 909 to Sullyhill. The journey was a dreary two-hour drag past uninteresting towns and stark grasslands that even the cows seemed to avoid. His desk job from nine thirty to five was only punctuated by an hour’s lunch break, at which he munched down his hurriedly prepared sandwiches. In harmony with this general theme, his fellow employees were as interesting (well at least to a non-archeologist) as the rocks at Stonehenge. Back at home by eight, Jonathan dined, and then tuned up his old radio to the airwaves carrying the latest on Bush and Blair’s quest for world peace, before finally entering into an uninterrupted slumber till dawn. Thus ended a typical day in the mechanized existence of Jonathan Harper.

***

“Is someone occupying this seat”?

The lovely voice stirred Jonathan out of the daydream he had unwittingly slipped into. Rubbing his eyes in disbelief, he gazed at the charming and pretty young lady who stood before him. The woman’s cheeks blushed slightly as she became aware of his stare. She coughed lightly and repeated her question. Jonathan stammered an apology and shook his head. The train slowly lurched into motion as the girl took of her coat and took the seat opposite Jonathan.

“Hi. I am Sara.” His hand trembled slightly as he eased out of the weak handshake he had offered while introducing himself. “I am a law student currently on an apprenticeship in Sullyhill,” she continued. Jonathan mumbled out his business as an investment banker. How he wished he could have rather replied “I play left back for a second division club in Leeds and in my spare time strum the bass for a local band called the Ladybirds. Ever heard of us?”

“Well that sounds quite interesting,” said Sara, trying to sound polite. As she was saying this, a deceptive plan was cooking in Jonathan’s mind. He wondered if he could fabricate his life’s story to keep this celestial angel engaged in a decent conversation. Without this extreme measure he was sure she would before long change compartments out of boredom.

“I am divorced with two kids,” was his opening move. Jonathan was sure he sounded drop dead unconvincing and he quickly turned away to the window to hide any emotion that would give him away. “Oh! I’m sorry,” apologised Sara. “Its okay. These things can happen at times,” accepted Jonathan with a shammed tinge of sadness. “She ran away with a painter; and a rather lousy one at that. I hope his works never sell.”

“It must be tough on your kids,” sympethised Sara. “Oh no. Michel and Mary are coping fine without her. We have our own fun times. In fact this weekend I plan to take them to the village fair to celebrate Michel’s fourth birthday. My kids just love the candy floss they serve down there.”

Jonathan began to gain more confidence as he wove his fictitious tale further. A mythical aunt with foreboding powers and a romping jaguar car were all soon rolled into the narrative. Just as he was starting out on a supposed summer adventure while rowing on the Thames, he noticed the spires of Sullyhill coming into view, and realized that his small moment of delight was nearing its end.

As they were parting ways on the diminutive platform at Sullyhill station, he abruptly blurted out “I am single, unmarried and lead the most sorry and uninteresting life imaginable.” If Sara was taken by surprise, she never showed it. She dipped into her handbag and pulled out a wrinkled card. “Call me sometime,” she said and gracefully walked away with a mesmerizing, gentle smile.

***

Jonathan and Sara have now been married for seventeen years. Michel and Mary exist for real. Jonathan’s sandwiches taste much better, and he even manages to smile at the scowling daughter of the formerly scowling girl! To date he has never asked Sara if she had believed his Sweet Lie.

 

And then there was one

Its been an eternity since I started my blog and made the first post. Actually that one does not even count..it was more of scribbling something to be done with after inaugurating the blog.

I un-bashfully admit that it was sidin's blog that inspired me to try a hand at doing the same thing. I started off with full josh and immediately realized that it much harder than it seems. I think one needs to remove a feeling of consciousness while blogging. Should not worry about how good it reads. Its got to be honest and effusive in flow. You can't expect to churn out a Renoir each time.

All this counseling has allowed me to get a 2nd post down... hope I can avoid reviewing it :)

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  • I'm The elderly camel
  • From India

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