saturday musings

Read Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes (recommended by Shifa:))... was quite overwhelmed that the story of a prostitute could be so moving. Finished it in 2 days. Loved the philosophy behind "11 Minutes". Conceptually, a very emotionally rich understanding of buyers and sellers in the sex trade.

Watched Girl With A Pearl Earring. Visually -- very gripping. Loved Scarlett Johannson's expressions, she has a better pout than Angelina Jolie I realised, Colin Firth was so-so.

Note to myself: I will not lend my books to anyone again.

forensics fetish

If I wasn't a journalist/writer, then what would I be? A forensics specialist. I first learnt about this exciting science when I got hooked on to CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) on Star World. Basically perpetrators are tracked down through DNA found in saliva, blood, hair fibres or skin.

In the US, they have a fascinating array of equipment for detection of parts of the human body a.ka. blood, hair, fibres etc, and it will be a while before we in India ever reach that level of investigation of violent crimes.

Down here, unsolved cases are handled through severe beatings behind locked doors. It has worked for so long that no one even cares anymore. Human Rights was never an issue here in any case. But its a different matter elsewhere. There if the cops catch the wrong person there's hell to pay.

Interesting tidbit: All unidentified victims in the US are called John Doe (male) or Jane Doe (female).

Shows that I never miss: New Detectives on Discovery, CSI, sometimes Law and Order. They prove that all crimes can be solved even if one can't place the identity of the victim.

will the real loud speaker please stand up, please stand up!

Where before my understanding of good sound was "more treble less bass", I have now been inducted into the Sound Hall Of Fame.

Thanks to someone very close to me who is trying to set up a home theatre system that threatens to turn the neighbours into batty Homer Simpsons, I am now a pro at audio.

I have e-learned that humanly audible sound is anywhere between 20Hz and 20,000Hz. To the uninitiated Hertz is vibrations per second not Rent a car!!

Now I also know that speakers have "drivers" which carry different types of sounds -- woofer focuses on bass (bass is low Hz), mid-range (200Hz to 1KHz) and the tiny tweeter (above 1KHz) for all that treble!! Not to mention the sound imaging! Something like knowing where the sound is actually coming from.

All in a day's work and "Thanks for listening" I say.

(Note: this blog has been edited by an audiophile.)

one hundred years of solitude

What do Bill CLinton, Shakira, Ricky Martin, Emma Thompson, Caroline Herrera, Darryl Hannah have in common. They all vote Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred years of Solitude as the greatest book they have ever read. Marquez supposedly wrote this book in 18 months flat working day and night while his wife pawned everything they owned. Though a little difficult to read, it is worth every moment you spend with it. Then once you become a Gabriel fan, you can spend the weeekend with Love in the time of cholera, which was the first Gabriel book I ever read. And though I am terrible with names, I still remember the names of the 2 main characters in this saga. That's the power of a good story.

newly single is the new buzzword

I learnt a new phrase today- newly single. Since the newly marrieds are slowly on the decline it makes sense no? Newly single is defined as someone who has (naturally) just got out of a long steady relationship. In my life I know quite a few people who are closeted "newly singles". For all practical purposes they are in a relationship, but have come to realize that therein lies the catch! So they are slowly easing themselves out when they think no one is looking.

review of Athena by a phirang

This is a review on Athena (Bombay club) which I think is hilarious!!

what drunk means to people watching

I found out something interesting today. Supposedly the first thing that excessive alcohol does to you is reduce your power of "self-observation". This means that the moment you get slightly high, your image gets highly distorted and you say things like: Don't look at me as if I am drunk/I am not drunk/I am not fat/I feel grreat...
You start to feel more sociable, you begin to talk too much, you get confrontational, all this because you have crossed the line where you are able to judge yourself.
Research says you know that you are an alcoholic when you find yourself applying rules to your drinking bouts... Like --I will only drink on weekends/after 7pm/never alone, only with friends...This means you sense a danger and are trying to pretend it doesn't exist.
I have often encountered sitautions where I have met people who love their drinks so much that they dont' want to stop. And if you are the kind that loves your ONE glass of wine and then a good meal, you are left twiddling your thumbs and throwing back more than you care to have if only to avoid the "c'mon, just one more. Give me company..." routine:(
(Rules can be bent for special friends)

when comedies don't make you laugh

I happened to catch two really bad movies which I had been eagerly waiting to watch for a while. Love Actually and Along Came Polly. Both had great storylines/star casts/publicity and both were frightfully borrring!!

Ben Stiller(Along came Polly) I have come to realise can be arguably irritating after a while. He was best in There's Something About Mary and he did direct Reality Bites, which was interesting, but things went downhill for him with Meet the Parents, where he just acted like a buffoon and an irritating one at that. And of course, with Jennifer Anniston in ACP, he was Meet the Parents all over again.

In Love Actually it was disastrous to see a stellar star cast fall flat. For one, someone must quickly tell Liam Neeson that he should not do comedy. Hugh Grant who I am a huge fan of was the saving grace here --for me at least. The rest of the crowd the likes of Keira Knightley and Emma Thompson and Colin Firth, just came and went.

For posterity, here is my list of favourite hollywood comics- Hugh (of course), Jack Nicholson, Mathew Perry, Woody Allen, Billy Crystal, Whoppi Goldberg, Diane Keaton, Ellen deGeneres...(of course the list is fairly long) So I shall stop right here.

aam aadmi ko kya mila?

It seems that the "aam aadmi ko kya mila" (Congress) campaign won hands down even though "India Shining" (BJP) was screaming from most rooftops. Reports say that the ones who actually understood what India Shining was all about were the ones in the Mercs, who were out of town on voting day! Though that still didn't completely exonerate the BJP's performance. Govinda in tight trousers pulling the rug from under Ram Naik's feet was pure Bollywood masala. So will we have "better looking" politicians now? White pants and jhatka-matkas, with dhamaka dialogue deliveries!!

pretty girls and rich men

Oprah Winfrey was interviewing Donald Trump about his hit show Apprentice the other day and she made an interesting observation. The topic was on how Trump is invariably surrounded by men and women who spend all day just saying yes to him, considering he is one of the wealthiest men in the world. And she asked - is it true that pretty girls and rich men never get to hear the truth? It was a provocative thought. These two categories of people arguably live in a world full of sycophants. But Trump's riposte was true to form-- how about rich men who are pretty...? Oprah immediately gave the sign for a commercial break.

are women drivers really a pain in the neck?

I have divided the women friends I know who drive into 3 groups -- "honkers", "breezers" and "angels..."
The honkers simply start honking from the time they leave their homes to the time they reach their destinations. In this way, the road is cleared and they can go pass at breakneck speed.
The breezers are those who are totally oblivious to what's going on around them. They could be sitting in a sauna or having a steam bath for all they cared. They just breeze pass their adversaries -read fellow travellers- and stare vacantly at them should they be abused. Their thoughts are on pedicure, pasta and pretty boys...
The angels are the ones for whom driving is second nature and they are responsible, calm, collected as they follow rules and conduct business on their hands-free cellphones.
I evidently aspire to be part of the 3rd, but for now, I am a combination of 1 & 3.

all the nice ones i know are single

Not so long ago, I was part of this elite group...more single than nice I might add, but very loyal to the cause. I was convinced that I would be single for the rest of my life so i went about getting organised read "Leave hometown, get place of my own, surround myself with pretty things, have a bottle of wine handy for depressing Sunday afternoons..." One day i got married. And now two years after that I still wonder -- all the men and women I know or rather most of them I wish to know today are all single. Late 20s/early 30s. Good looking, successful, single! The profile is oddly similar. All of them, are in love with the idea of Love but haven't had the time to find it. They all want loyalty, companionship, compatability... but instead encounter loudmouths and losers. Unfair? You tell me.
They say there is that exact moment in time when everything just falls into place, till then, all you can do is enjoy the stillness! But then again, you will never know the stillness until its gone.
Footnote: Barring 2-3 dear friends, all the married people I know are stuffy and extremely condescending. Who do I think are the happier ones... my single friends or this bunch? I don't think you need an answer to that!

do u have friends in the city u have chosen to live in?

I went to Bangalore recently and a dear friend of mine asked me, So, do you have lots of friends in Pune ( where I now live)? And I promptly answered, Actually I have lots of friends in Bangalore and lots of friends in Bombay...but in Pune... I am not so sure. As an afterthought actually I have just one friend. SO that set me thinking: what constitutes a good friend in an alien city? I would say someone who has seen you go through dramatic changes in your life. And has always been around for a great chat no matter how much time has elapsed since the last time you'll met... (This is an arguable point.)
The other conundrum is --do you like the city you live in? From my point of view, I have lived in Pune, Bangalore and Bombay and have come to realise that if you love the people you encounter each day whether at home or at work, the city doesn't really matter. As one person I know put it- who cares where you live, life is about a glass of whisky, some fish fry and decent conversation. If you can't get it where you live right now, then get out.
This coming from someone sitting in the heart of New York! Its amazing how divinely simple life actually is!

diabolical divas

A very good friend of mine who now lives in Singapore was chatting with me one day. And we got around to "so what are you reading right now?" She on the off chance that I might get logged out in a hurry rattled off a series of authors' names and the one that registered was Margaret Atwood. I browsed through the bookstores (I was living in Bangalore then) with the other avid reader I know,(friend of mine who buys books each time she returns home from work), and chanced upon Dancing Girls. It was a collection of short stories on different women in different situations. I thought the concept was interesting then, so i picked it up. I was actually looking for Robber Bride at the time... but did not find it. DG proved to be engaging -- at that point in my life I was a short story buff, though the Atwood that really blew me over was Blind Assassin. I found it in my neighbourhood library last week and picked it up on a whim. And what a great time I had with it. I have always liked books with dark undertones... I somehow don't like reading (or for that matter hanging out)with people who are as pure as the driven snow. And BA was pure evil! It was the saga of 2 sisters and right until the end you never did know who was the good one and who was the bad. I liked that-- the mystery. Also, often in my life, I find myself asking... why are all the women, that I love spending time with, diabolical divas? My mother surmises that it's because I was born to one!!I rest my case.

Why am I doing this?

Because I am a writer and writers are supposed to write. And I find myself writing copiously about everyone else, when I am actually the most interesting person I know;)