moved-again dept.
This blog has moved back to http://l1w0lf.blogspot.com due to drastic improvements in the blogger user interface.
from-the-firing-line dept.
In the Line of Fire is the sort of book that’s worth your money. For a book written by a President/Dictator still in power, its contents are truly unprecedented. For they may be inaccurate or colored to suit the author, but they do create a window into Pakistan and the mind of its leader, the irrepressible General Pervez Musharraf.
The book makes one thing crystal clear. Musharraf, when he was a baby, accidently fell into a cauldron of testosterone. If he didn’t, he sure wishes he had, and any statement, repeated oft enough, becomes true. So the book is an interesting documentation of the thinking process of an out-and-out alpha male.
It also serves a grim reminder, that it very easily could have been written by someone else. Musharraf has already survived two assassination attempts.
His description of the coup against Nawaz Sharif (or in his own words, the the counter coup) reads like something out of Forsyth or Ludlum (no, its not that bad actually). And here we see Musharraf preening his feathers and parading his plumage in all its smartness. When he describes how the coup was led by officers in command of various battalions around Pakistan, all appointed personally by him, from a pool of obseqious juniors and relatives, and all of this when he was incommunicado, in mid-air between Sri-Lanka and Pakistan, I couldn’t help visualizing a smirking Musharraf twirling his moustache and declaring triumphantly, “So who’s got the biggest one, eh?”
maximum-prejudice dept.
The book Maximum City by Suketu Mehta is a classic example of how amplified stereotypes and a healthy dose of prurience can sell like hot cakes. Suketu Mehta does a good job of caricaturing himself in the opening few pages. He is a non-resident Gujarati, returning to Mumbai to write a bestseller. He is surrounded by wealthy traders, who live in a ghetto-like apartment complex. For his subject matter, he targets either the grotesque, or the glamorous (sometimes, both at the same time). Right from the outset, his clear motive is to find the most senational, scandalous material and write a cheap paperback that’ll sell millions.
But here’s what really riled me up (apart form the fact that he’s a milllionare): Marathi to him, in his own words, is a language that sounds like beating a tin drum. Traditionally, this would get outfits like the Shiv-Sena and the Sambhaji Brigade to go on the rampage, attacking brokerage houses and over-turning Dhoklas and Gujarati Thalis. However, after I read about the Sena’s new approach, I decided to resort to a coherent, logical counter-argument to disprove Mr.Suketu’s** parochial notions about Maharashtrians and Marathi.
**(I thought of calling him Mr.Mehta, but that would just be a lot of noise to Google’s indexing engine. Besides, I didn’t want to confuse you into thinking this was an article on some stock-market scam. Also, I felt that ‘Mr.Suketu’ really brings out that sinister, diabolical, villainish aspect of him that I really want to highlight here)
The basis of my argument is this thesis: the sound of any language is best represented by its poetry. Here, at the poet’s disposal, lies the entire vocabulary of the language, and all the permutations within its complete syntactic, semantic and phonetic space. Clearly, conclusions we draw by reading some representative poems aloud would be based on a far more scientific base, than relying on the wholly unsubstantiated claims that Mr. Suketu makes .
So, here are a few lines from some Popular Modern*** Marathi poems. If you can read devanagri, just recite these lines aloud a few times, and don’t leave out the poets’ names either:
***(Popular Modern Marathi literature is anything published after 1857. Anything published after 1947 is Post-Modern. Beyond 1987, Marathi writing is rumored to exist but is possibly so avant-garde that it has not been published for the greater common good. The ‘Modern’ tag has to be applied selectively, though. For instance, any Marathi literature after 1857 that is actually read by Maharashtrians is just Popular Literature).
खादाड असे माझी भूक
चतकोराने मला न सूख
कूपांतील मी नच मंडूक
- कृष्णाजी केशव दामले (केशवसुत)
ऐल तटावर पैल तटावर हिरवाळी घेउन
निळासावळा झरा वाहतो बेटाबेटांतुन.
- त्र्यंबक बापूजी ठोंबरे (बालकवी)
पिपात मेले ओल्या उंदीर
माना पडल्या मुरगळल्याविण
- बाळ सिताराम मर्ढेकर
अंगणात गमले मजला, संपले बालपण माझे
खिडकीवर धुरकट तेंव्हा, कंदील एकटा होता
- माणिक गोडघाटे (ग्रेस)
झुक्-झुक्-झुक्-झुक् आगीन-गाडी, धुरांच्या रेषा हवेत काढी
पळती झाडे पाहुया, मामाच्या गावाला जाऊया…
- Unknown
Clearly, this sound is hardly anything as underwhelming as a tin drum. For me, its more evocative of the rolling thunder, an avalanche, Shivaji’s horsemen riding out of the Sahayadris or perhaps a fast local pulling out of Boribunder station. These judgments are subjective, of course, but surely no one will agree with Mr.Suketu’s wholly unsubstantiated claims.
This is another instance of outsiders getting the better of Maharashtrians, taking advantage of their generous and tolerant nature. Clearly the Marathi community has to up the ante a bit, and make its voice heard. Only then will other Indians take notice, and go: “Its a plane! Its a storm! Its a train! Naah, its just those Marathis talking…”
karla dept.
Climb up on a hill, through winding narrow stone stairs
Feel the mingling of the sweat and the swearing
Under the breath, and the silence of a million thoughts
Overlaid by the thousand unsparing voices
Ashamed to add your own, out of place.
Fear the smell, foreign and unknown even in daylight
And the strange lingering expanse that preys on itself
You can hear the clamor and feel the gaudy lines
Stretching finitely before your eyes in ecstatic motion
That is not your destination.
Your destination is a hole in the wall behind it all.
Deserted by those who carved their souls into
heartless rock, Treaded by the curious soles of
those who feel lost, and yet find their way
Here, within these stone walls.
jai-mardhekar-ki dept.
In the water-drum, drown the hapless mice
Necks broken, and by no strangler’s hands
Lip falls on lip, and without a struggle,
Their still heads , lifeless, hang
Their’s, a pitiful lot — survival in a hole
and death in a drum, with a hiccup
and the day spills down over their eyes
and washes their impotent genitals
Life is an obligation, here
And death — an obligation too.
The gift of despondency:
A poison sight; glaring through glass eyes
Even the beeswax mildewed on their lips
Is cheap bakelite, bakelite
And again, they meet, lip touches lip
the drowning mice, bathing in the dip
– Bal Sitaram Mardhekar
(with my sincere apologies to the deceased)
could’ve-been-verse dept.
This is a great poem I came across long ago while watching the Mel-Gibson-directed movie The Man Without A Face. The poem was written by a nineteen-year-old American Pilot named John Gillespie Magee, Jr. during World War II, only a few months before he died in a plane crash.
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
गावठी कविता dept.
मन वढाय वढाय
उभ्या पीकातलं ढोर
किती हाकला हाकला
फिरी येतं पिकांवरमन मोकाट मोकाट
त्याले ठायी ठायी वाटा
जशा वार्यानं चालल्या
पानावर्हल्यारे लाटामन लहरी लहरी
त्याले हाती धरे कोन?
उंडारलं उंडारलं
जसं वारा वाहादनमन जह्यरी जह्यरी
याचं न्यारं रे तंतर
आरे, इचू, साप बरा
त्याले उतारे मंतर!मन पाखरू पाखरू
त्याची काय सांगू मात?
आता व्हतं भुईवर
गेलं गेलं आभायातमन चप्पय चप्पय
त्याले नही जरा धीर
तठे व्हयीसनी ईज
आलं आलं धर्तीवरमन एवढं एवढं
जसा खाकसचा दाना
मन केवढं केवढं?
आभायात बी मायेनादेवा, कसं देलं मन
आसं नही दुनियात!
आसा कसा रे तू योगी
काय तुझी करामत!देवा, आसं कसं मन?
आसं कसं रे घडलं
कुठे जागेपनी तूले
असं सपनं पडलं!
– बहिणाबाई चौधरी
buddha-mil-gayaa dept.
Somehow, this day and this year, reminds me of that exquisitely lyrical book I read once: Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.
The part which affected me most (and the part which I think makes any reader of a certain disposition identify with the main character) was when Siddhartha encounters the Buddha, preaching to his followers. After the sermon, Siddhartha goes up to him and congratulates him on the wonderful symmetry and beauty of his philosophy, and the benefits it might potentially bring to any that adheres to it. But, he points out, it does not teach me how I myself might become the Buddha. The Buddha smiles, and agrees, and his answer is pretty much an apologetic, “Sorry son, but you have to find your own way in life”.
The rest of the book and the part that precedes this point is suddenly all rendered superfluous. What follows, has to follow, and what has already transpired was inevitable. I wonder, why no one just told me that before I read the book.
In the book, Siddhartha explores renunciation, religion, philosophy, indulgence, ambition, and disillusionment. Eventually he settles on routine, plying a boat on a river and trying to keep his emotional state as ephemeral as the river water. He might as well have tried crack cocaine, but the technology of the day does not provide that convenience to him.
Somehow, in the course of my seeking, I would like to end up making smarter choices than Siddhartha made.
meter-down dept.
Taxi no. 9-2-11 is an interesting little hot-rod of the Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson vehicle Changing Lanes. Its well-made, the performances are good all-round. But…the climax. the climax jars. It was a bit like taking a Porsche to get the groceries.
I mean there is nothing feasibly, ethically, morally or legally inconsistent in doing so, but a Porsche parked in a supermarket parking lot just violates the beauty and symmetry of nature, don’t you think?
nein-nein-nein dept.
I have observed that the best employees, i.e. individual contributors, are those who always say “No.”. By always negating everything, they put the onus on their managers to come up with irrefutable logic and nail down the specifications for tasks, so that they would not get no for an answer.
Unfortunately, such people are also not the best people to get along with.
However if you’re looking to start a product company, hire only these naysayers as programmers. Optimisitc kids with stars in their eyes will overcommit themselves and be the bane of your scheduling endeavors.
