A rose by any other name

The latest crib is about my name... wish it was smaller - my brother-in-law once said there cannot be a woman who wouldn't be happier thinner and richer. Well here's one that conforms to his idea, but wishes not only were she thinner but also that her name were smaller. Reason - why it's simple - only if it is shorter would my readers - already tired and world weary - would get up, open their email and type the letters and respond to my articles by sending in readers' comments...

Well, I am joking at least partly on the above. Names are always a pain, at least your own are always. they are too bland, too boring , too, long or too short or some such thing... after all not everyone can be a Mimusops Elengi or an Erythrina indica or an Azotobacter or an Anthurium... 

One thing I am glad about is my name being long allows a half-length shortening which sounds adorable. Well not by itself but it sounds adorable because its a half-length shortened form... sort of friendly like..

There was a rush once among parents to name their child something beginning with an A... suddenly you could see little Adityas and Akilas and Anands and Aditis frolicking in the playgrounds merrily... no doubt with the subtext that the race had begun and there was only room for the alphas... My parents thankfully gave me a lethargic S as an initial... It was an S that shaped my whole life and attitude no doubt. Come to think of it the Anands and Aarathis (spelt correct believe me) in my life were just that weeny bit more aggressive -
(no that's a lie -- they were much much more aggressive than that)...

There seems to be no way out of this I am committed to a long set of names...  in practice. However there is a way out in principle - I have all these characters I write about - what a lot of names to name. I can exercise every idea in my head and satisfy every longing too by naming my characters as I please.
Don't be surprise next if you come across a story about a Mimus or a Rina or an Anthuria...

Good Day!

Thirty Rupees Taramani to Adyar

I read in a news report that auto rickshaw fares in Chennai have shot up to such a level that they are more expensive than even flight charges ...I was totally impressed. Do you mean to say I am actually living the life of a princess - taking the equivalent of an expensive flight to office everyday?

The autorickshaw drivers of Chennai are a unique breed.  In every other city I am told they fall in line with the government's order of following a meter rate. I am intrigued by the fact that the Chennai guys alone manage to thwart the government's ideas to impose a check on them. Is it because they have a strong union or is it because they enjoy the patronage of the middle class? I am rather inclined to believe that it is the latter that protects them and makes them so resilient and resistant to change.

I have lived in this city ever since I can remember - I should say that's long enough for me to forget exactly how long - and one way of marking time for me has been the changing auto rickshaw fares. I remember travelling from Radhakrishnan road in Mylapore up to nanganallur and back for just fortyfive rupees. That is a memory from my childhood to be cherished now.

Much later when I was doing my PhD in Matscience, I used to go to my aunt's house in adyar very often - paying the grand sum of thirty rupees, of course haggling over one or two rupees to reach there  - highly hassled and entertained - One day, I was cross with my aunt for some reason and I had with me a fifty rupee note that she had gifted me - so cross that on that day when the autorickshaw dropped me at Taramani, instead of the usual thirty or so rupees I chucked the whole fifty at him and said - Go man  - (though not quite in the same way that Gautami does, rather more famously, in Devar Magan - The bloke was stunned. For a whole minute he looked. First at the fifty, then at me and then in front and started his auto with a vengeance and drove off at top speed before I could change my mind... God knows he must have thought there was something the matter with me...

There are many such auto stories - If I had the talent of R. K. Narayanan I would be able to write an amusing and perhaps even moving account about autorickshaw drivers... but this is all I can do and so let's wait until inspiration really strikes until I can pen down a better story....

Humour makes the world go around. a fast disappearing quantity how I envy those from whom jokes slide out as easily as pebbles sliding down a well oiled slope. The shine of humour is not unlike the gentle clinking sound of pebbles either so I'm glad that analogy came to my mind.

But when writing a story will the humourous portions have come out all that spontaneously or is it in rewriting that the humour really comes gets pinned on
to the core? I suspect it is the latter. I am going to try my hand at it. Wish me luck folks.

The bashful book reviewer's dilemma

I have very mixed feelings when someone asks me about the work of reviewing books. The more I meditate on the experience the more they get mixed. On the one hand it is a great pleasure to read a new book and to comment on it. It is an invitation to be analytical and judge the book, you'll be thinking. And so it is, in principle!

In reality it is a work that has an aftermath. Just like any kind of original writing, if your review is anything but boringly bland and supportive of the writing You will make enemies. And how!
Now what would you do if the book you were given had typos all over the place? You cant very well go around declaring that the author has asserted an artistic license on can you?

And reviewers are very conscious that what they say will be read by the author and publisher's faculty but even if the whole world is up in arms you cannot gloss over it when there are logical blunders, errors in organizing the text and even in dates - mind you I am not referring to the disputed ones, just factual slip ups.

I have written many book reviews and it is a beastly task one has on one's hands. Sometimes the book reviews are not published - it is at the discretion of the editor. Even during my short stint as book reviewer, I have collected one story to narrate. Someone who was friends with me for a long time refused to speak with me for long and during one chance conversation when we met, the person says, ' but you give such good reviews for big publishers, it's only with the smaller ones that you take off.'

Does this person know of how many reviews I wrote were rejected? Sometimes those of books printed by big publishers got rejected too. Do you know what a pain it is to read a boring book diligently and to write a review and then to see it being rejected. No!

The book reviewer's job is many times unenviable and a thankless one and I would gladly relinquish it for some other more interesting position of writer. In fact I am definitely being given a rest with respect to book reviewing and though I try, I can't just say it was fun while it lasted.

Retro Round and Ring-a-ring...

No TV programme can emote like Star Vijay's Super Singer! This week they are on a "retro round" which means old jing bang tra la la songs from the seventies and eighties. We saw the judges, singers Shrinivas, Sujatha and Unni Krishnan in their nostalgic eighties costumes mimicking Kamal haasan and Rajnikanth. And all the participants in jazzy punk hairdo's and bell bottom styles a la elvis presley... heart warming to see them in the old favourites.
Then the inevitable Rajini songs came in for they were top of the pops in the eighties were they not... but as if to make up for their prior lapse when Singer Shrinivas went overboard with feeling for Rajini who is still sick and recuperating from his illness, was a little over the top... konjam over ma!

Journalist's murder - an act of brutality

Everyday you hear stories of murder and violence and they do affect you badly. The latest in this line, Journalist Dey's murder leaves one speechless.

Dey has become a hero but he is not alive to relish it. The number of such heroes who died on duty is on the increase. what a meaningless pursuit of democracy if all that happens to one is being shot at the end of it. Some of these deaths are explained away as arising from the needs of the deprived and hunted people. So why can't this be erased and why can't the deaths arising from the greed for money and power be done away with. Would life be any less interesting if power games in their present magnitude were done away with. And who is it interesting for anyway? The few billionaires-many-times over who indulge in it? Won't jobs be created through creative enterprise and common welfare practices like cultivating green patches or some such endeavour? Won't research thrive if it is on less esoteric subjects?

On every count a massive rethink is needed and at every level. Who is (or who are) the person(s) going to deliver this message when every group that has a voice is only demanding more power for their own needs?

Today as we were driving on Radhakrishnan road, just at the signal where the road touches the beach, the traffic lights flashed red and the vehicles ground to a halt. We suddenly heard a thud and turned around to see what was wrong. A bike following some distance behind did not have time to halt and butted into the car in front and toppled over. The poor man was hurt in the thigh and we got down, the crowds surrounded him and it seemed like he had no major injuries though he was obviously in discomfort.
The car driver was more upset that his car had been knocked against. A passing autorickshaw driver remarked, 'all four in the car are drunk!' Evidently the anger of the car driver was not so much because his car had been hit, rather because he wished to preempt the mobike driver , just in case of trouble. His buddies shushed him up and took him aside. The biker slowly hobbled away to a quiet spot to nurse his aches and pains and we made off, as the signal changed colour.

This is not an uncommon scene these days. I often have my heart in my throat when riding on a bike these days. People driving much above speed limits and bikers zigzaging past a static traffic are the very devil. Even if you avoid getting intimidated it seems like most of the time you survive on the trust you place in the other person's capacity to zig peacefully. Some good means of enforcing road manners must be evolved.

The crow sat and the palm fruit fell!

Do miracles happen in real life? If so a miracle is sorely called for to set right all the problems in this world. Sometimes miracles happen for no reason at all. Every step you take is a miracle.
You go out thinking that when you find time you have to call a friend and Lo the friend ends up calling you within the minute. Smiling you think now all you need is someone calling to give you a job and well! if not a job, someone does call you that day to give you some work to do which will carry you over that month. Then you step into the streets thinking that your two long calls have delayed yu and that you are going to land up in the nick of traffic and presto! just when you are in the middle of mount road, a chute opens up and you and your vehicle alone can go skimming past to touch base on time. The event you plan to attend is of course five minutes late - no people have not been waiting for you - it's the same old miraculous thingy in the air.
Your favourite people attend the event and you meet old friends you have been planning to call.
The list is endless. You can go on counting your miracles and they happen. So why then sometimes does the universe not respond however you cry and plead? If only I could answer this question here!

Writing about Birds

The rain and strong winds are throwing the traffic into tangles. I wait at home for people to return home. waiting is never easy, at least for me it isn't, I believe it is difficult for anyone... so I inevitably go and log on either to facebook or gmail or worst comes to worst to the counter to see whether anyone has visited my blog.

What is this strange urge to write and to want someone to come and read your writing and comment on and appreciate it? It would serve no great purpose nor is anyone under any illusion that a facebook status message or a blog article is going to change the world. To change the world was never on the agenda anyway.

We keep working and not always the way the world wants. But the closer we are to what the world requires the greater is the chance of success. For instance if you write about dogs or birds no one is gonna read your article except for some special friends who may happen to like whatever you write. But if you write about birds on environment day or about how science endangers birds lives, then you may get one or two listeners more. If you write about how some member of the royal family had a penchant for birdsong and hence kept a cageful of birds then there is the added glamour to the whole thing. Better still if you write about a clan of people who eat birds after a secret ritual you have the audience eating out of your hand.

Lecture on Wetlands in Chennai

Yesterday I attended a talk on the wetlands around chennai. It was an illuminating talk and I learnt about many places I did not know used to be major ecosystems in chennai - like the Padi Villivakkam lake, there is no lake there now apparently only a small ditch with plastic and rubbish being thrown in.

It was interesting to note that the way this landgrabbing usually takes place is by filling up the place with rubbish. Though it was surprising that the speaker was referring only to the small vendors who do this,or the narikuravas, whom he came down on quite too sharply -- was it that he did not want to be explicit?

It would be an ideal world if various people would sit around a table have a chaay and discuss which would be best for all concerned. Of course realtors and business folk should also agree to let go of this for the good of humanity at large! Sigh! How sweet a dream that is!!!

The speaker filled his talk with slides of various birds and beasts and insects that he had photographed out of his own love of the art and it made the slideshow very engaging and lively.

He was speaking in two languages and that made it a bit distracting, he could have only spoken in Tamil, but there may have been a good reason for using english that I do not know of...

Burnt fingers

It's not everyday you talk to a publisher and tell them there's a mistake in the book. No! and it's not often you do it in flair, the very first meeting you have with them, and also do them the favour of sending in a written review!!!

This is putting your foot in your mouth in style!! Well, that's what I did today! There's no pardon for me! Friends out there in the ether - reach out and let me know that I'm not half as bad as I feel!!!!

Small is beautiful

One is struck time and again about the pointlessness of doing things... for example laying a road or buying a car. Just take a look at the road outside your window. Do you see a pit in it? I am sure you will unless you live in a dingy room overlooking mount road or live on a tree on the highway.
Where did that pit come from, It was nothing but that noise last night - Boys digging it to plant a pole there for some game they wished to play, or someone who decided they wished to dig a pathway for the excess water in their house, or someone making a stealthy connection to the drainage pit, or the workers from the corporation or EB coming to check on your lines.
So when all these factors go to destroying your road, the point is why make a road at all in the first place.
So with the petrol prices going up - my question is why do you need to buy a car? At least if you must, stick to a small one that consumes less and lets you enjoy life more, and us too.

Shining Seventies - Musical Evening with SPB and Lakshman Shruti

The evening held a musical treat what with SPB, Shylaja, SPBCharan and Gopika singing melodies from the seventies -- when flowery phrases and trumpets and bongos ruled the roost!! Musical support was by the Lakshman Shruthi Orchestra.

A beautiful list of Melodies carefully chosen and pre-rehearsed... (SPB, who designed the show, worked at making the list for two whole days, eleven hours each day).. was designed to transport the audience and it did achieve that.

To list some of the songs presented... நான் பேச வந்தேன், அவள் ஒரு நவரச , பூந்தேனில் கலந்து, ஆயிரம் மலர்களே, ராமன் ஆண்டாலும், ஒரே நாள் உன்னை நான், கேட்டதெல்லாம் நான் தருவேன், உன்னை நான் பார்த்தது...all absolutely calculated to bring on the nostalgia.

Shylaja was in form, singing the songs of P Suseela with a flair. Her voice is exceedingly beautiful and holds a hint of sadness that brings involuntary tears to your eyes when you listen. Listening to her I canot help wondering at what a great gift it is to be able to sing.

Kamaraj Arangam resounded to the sound of trumpets and bongos as SPB Charan continued some of the songs sung by his father. His style and tunes where impeccable. He seemed to find some of the songs funny, well, he wasn't even born when the songs were written so what appeared flowery to that generation might well appear fulsome to this young producer.

Many quips and jocular shoulder grazing happened very typically of the SPB genre of humour. Altogether one was glad to have attended the event and left holding a promise from the organisers of a forthcoming Part -2 of the Shining Seventies

Vijay Music Awards

What with the news bringing in stories of Superstars in distress, arrested Paedophiles and foiled attempts to establish uniform standards of education,Vijay TV goes on unabashed with their entertainment drive with a meaning - this times by instituting awards for the best musicians in the film industry.

As is everything to do with films - this was a sure fire hit product, even more special because of the generous dose of "evergreens" gracing the occasion - Kamal Haasan, KJ Yesudas, Khusboo, all dressed in white to give us that dream time in all it's glory.

Words of wisdom were spoken by the stalwarts. "Hard Work, application,humility, the oceanness of music".... We were glued to the box as the pearls were shed in all modesty by the greats!

To revisit the newsmakers, even as everyone is praying for the well being of Rajinikanth, the controversy of equal education for all is making the headlines. When will our folk understand that more is not necessarily better, especially as long as the syllabus goes. we wait and watch as the experts and other academicians debate this...

Totally Blank

I have never encountered a complete blankout before -- and I can write pages about it!!!

Making way for the pigeons

I have been focusing so much on the painful things in life that the ridiculous totally escaped me . The last two months have had life nudging at us and making us laugh out loud when we saw what is happening to us. We are slowly being edged out of our own home space, not by the big baddies of the world but - would you even believe it? - a bunch of pigeons and squirrels and the occasional crow.

It is ridiculous when you think of it - We are the ones usually toted the villains of the piece, the insensitive humans driving out the birds and flowers out of existence. But in this case, starting from the way the birds built up their encroachment, it's nothing short of a strategic well-planned advent.

They first built a nest on the small hole surrounding the exhaust fan in the kitchen. On the outside of course. And we were all like " oh how sweet"... and then it was the balcony adjoining it and now the front balcony. Step by step sure as it can be, It's a damn takeover bid If you ask me. Now they flock in groups of two and three into our balcony and we keep shooing them away. They then invite crows and other friendly neighbourhood visitors, the adventurous squirrel once started to make tentative visits , now it's there all the time, shrieking its head off!!!

Well the jasmine plants in our narrow balcony don't seem to mind. But I sure do, and you would too, if your only balcony is sprayed all over with generous doles of white pigeon shit - you would not have time to exclaim that a few birds can produce so much in a day before the next load arrives!!!

Sudden Shower

Last night we were all taken aback by a sudden thundershower. It seemed that all the nervous tensions of the week had suddenly become too much for the heavens to bear up and that they suddenly let go. The political scenario appearing confusing,with celebrations on one side and mire on the other it has been difficult to predict where things are heading. It's testing times for TN politics - will it resurface and be as fit as it used to be.

Rajanikanth's illness and rumours that he is doing badly did the rounds. His family are all set to come around and reassure people that he is doing fine and will get well soon. The rumours however continue and we hope that he will indeed get better soon and come back to being the superstar that he is.

Columnists

A certain amount of inspiration is needed in everyone's life at every instant. This is a time when we can do with some ourselves. To that end I was searching for something I can do to give me a boost and I picked on this book of American woman columnists. A very interesting breed of persistent women, many of whom made it into the industry during the world war II when dearth of males made it compulsory for the management to engage women in what was otherwise a very male dominated industry - the press.

It is suprising how much attitude is needed to survive, as much as you need persistent hard work, wit and a voice. A columnist has to contend with many attacks, such as being predictable, being conservative, being a woman and so on and yet has to persist week after week churning out material that is consistent and engaging.

A friendly call

After many days I got a phone call from a friend. We know each other since childhood but went about our own lives and very recently got back in touch with each other. It is such a pleasure to see someone you knew as a school kid looking so mature and shouldering huge responsibilities. The devil cannot help but sit on my shoulder and prod me to feel once again a little twinge on comparing my own in-a-shambles existence. But I cannot also help but reflect on how big time achievers especially women have to crumble inside to get what they want out of life.. what labels and abuse are stuck on them as they trudge along unabated.

This post is in appreciation of the marathons that women run to achieve and realise their dreams.

The media is being kept on its toes now. What with the Fukushima disaster just about setting new standards of what can be called a disaster, totally displacing the media from the scams and the election manifestos, walked in Anna Hazare completely captivating media and websites with his fast for the Lok Pal bill. Very soon it is predicted that they will drift towards the cricket fever. Not even the world cup would have been as much fun we are assured, and the IPL sweeps over us, drowning us in a euphoria of challenges and betting and not even the elections are going to detract the media from this fever.
One struggles weakly to grapple with the speed at which events take over from one another. Is the news then really news or is it just another heavy dose of reality TV? Smaller bits of news like Saibaaba's ill health and the demise of yester year star - Sujatha - really failed to hit the headlines but were rather like small players in a world of big business...