Switching Coordinates

Nietzsche said, “Love is more afraid of change than destruction”. The love for a city, a place, a pigeon hole is so terrified of change. And the logistics is only least of the problems. It takes quite some time to fall in love with the place you’ve moved in. And once you are firmly settled in the comfort zone, it is difficult to come out of it. But then as they say, change is inevitable.

In my twenty three years of existence, I have lived in three cities. Two in India and one, in the United States. And three months in a fourth city in the United States, that did seem like a lifetime. A wonderful one at that. I’ve been away from home for six years. Or rather, away from family. Four years of bachelors in Chennai and twenty two months of Masters and job search in the US of A.

But it was a family in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was the coming together of the most appropriate four characters. Each markedly different from the other, yet united not just by their quest for a better resume, but also attitude, respect for each other and the tolerance levels. I couldn’t have found nicer room mates. Ours was apparently the cleanest house at NC State. Or rather one of the few houses that was NOT infested with bed bugs! Why? Because we cared. None of us was the quintessential grad student having no time in his hand to do some basic household chores, cook daily or eat properly. The Crest Rd apartment did not have such rules. We cooked daily, never compromised on spending for food, vacuumed the house regularly and had as minimum furniture as possible. The learning curve is steep when you start living alone trying to co-operate with a bunch of people. Most folks don’t realise that and are never ready to change themselves in a certain way.

Raleigh, as a city, is all about tranquillity. With its myriad of oak trees giving it an effect of an enclosed township within a city, it is not difficult to fall in love. For all its boastings about the presence of Research Triangle Park and a fast growing US city, it is a lot cleaner and quieter compared to other major cities in the east coast. It’s probably due to the absence of a snowy winter. But given that, the weather can get quite unpredictable and at the same time, nice in a way. A rich academic culture with three major universities in the area, I’ve always felt Raleigh is the ideal place to lock your doors and get a degree, or open your doors and start a career!

To repeat, I did not have the traditional when-will-this-end type of grad student life. Not that we had a Bessie to go to on Sat evenings, or had a popular hangout in campus to order one coffee and sit for 3 hours. No, not like that. That was still a far cry. Just that, I quite enjoyed my 22 month stay in the United States to the fullest. I think I can say that about my room mates too as far as life in a broader context is discussed. We shopped at the Indian store regularly. Every week that is. Our bills at the Indian store alone has often touched $100, for a week. Why? Because the Ghee we bought last week got over thanks to Pongal and Kesari on Saturday! Or it would be time to buy that bag of rice. Absolutely zero tolerance when it came to food. Grad students are not supposed to live like that! Thanks to a responsible, matured beyond age room mate, who had become a mentor of sorts, we had the comfort of a car from the second semester. We had our regular trips to the temple. A weekly visit to the Indian restaurant during summer when we had all the time in our hands. We went on a number of road trips. I drove some great cars that I would probably never be able to buy in my life. I enjoyed New York City to the fullest. And so on. This was also the period when my writing improved incredibly. I became more regular in the blogging circuit and the concept of blog friends started emerging. Soon there would be more readers than posts, more friends on the net than in school and more accessible to contacts online than the next door neighbour.

Such all encompassing experience has to bring a lot of good into you. It prepares you for the life ahead in more ways than one. I have had to make some important decisions over the last six months. And the wisdom behind those decisions has a lot to do with the experience in a new country, new environment and the interaction with some new wonderful people. I returned to India about two months ago and though it was not hard, it was an uneasy decision to make. The last three months in the US were spent in New Jersey. At a beautiful house with some beautiful people. I wondered why I had not discovered them earlier. Much earlier. But better late than never, and am sure this relationship has a long way to go.

Remember that you have everything to gain when you get displaced. Try as much as possible, to get lost in this big bad world. It could turn into the greatest lesson of your life.

(This was inspired by Dsplaced, a project started by Jinal Shah and Mansi Trivedi)

Sandbox

The vast expanse of the beach lay before him like the open world that waited for him to challenge himself. But he wouldn’t budge from his squatting position in the middle. He picked up a handful of sand and held it in front of his eyes, the hand over his knees. He gently closed his fist tighter, the nails biting into the sand, and as they escaped his possessive fingers, his palm. He wondered why.

He tried everything he could. He caught the free flowing sand in his other hand and tried the same. The hand was slowly getting dispossessed every time. He took some water and poured all over it. Now he could shape and mold the sand as he wanted. None of the cast he made was impressive. The fun of the free flowing sand was lost on these shape shifting figures. It was not lovable anymore.

He decided to leave the sand to itself. The impatience was not going to pay off. Not trying hard this time, he let it fall from his hand. This is probably the right thing, he thought to himself. The little that stayed back in his hand, was lovable, priceless and secured. His sandbox.

Talking of City Profiles…

The title refers to buddy’s beautiful prose on city profiles. A city as lovable as Bombay.

This is not a city that I’ve loved right from the word go. It’s not the city I grew up in. The more appropriate statement would be that the city grew upon me. Like buddy articulates, the je ne sais quoi of a city takes keen observation and experience to come in terms with. That’s exactly what happened with Madras and me.

This is going to be short and simple. There is no question of being defensive. The city is not revered for famous buildings or past happenings of importance. The city pulsates with a characteristic balance absent in other cities. Madras does not enjoy cult status. Nobody asks you if you’ve seen the Gateway of India. Nobody asks you if you’ve had bun maska and chai or a pitcher of beer at Leopold’s. Nobody asks you if you’ve visited at least one pub on M.G. Road. Nobody asks you if we can go on a weekend visit to Madras(It is totally Bangloreans fault in projecting MG Road and Brigade road as The City). Nobody asks you if you’ve traveled in a tram. Nobody asks you if you’ve taken part in a protest in college.

You don’t need all that. They say you are what your company is. So there. Your city becomes what you are. I believe that you and your interactions with the people you know in a city shapes what you think of it. It’s not about landmarks, characteristics or pop culture references. It is pedestrian to think that you love New York City because you walked on Wall Street, went clubbing on 14th street and took a leak at the eighth avenue subway(true story!).

This may sound pretentious but sample this. Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar may be from Bombay. Virender Sehwag may be from Delhi. Dada comes from Kolkata and, not to leave the south, Kumble and Dravid may come from Bangalore. But you need a Madras to witness the best Test match. History and statistics tell you that the chances of Sachin scoring a century at Chepauk are higher than any other place. I know this doesn’t drive home the point. I confessed this is not an explanation. I don’t feel obligated to give one. Just wanted to write something on the eve of the semi-finals.

But hey! The credit for the best promotional video among the IPL teams, also goes to Chennai:

Pasanga

There is a thoughtful ringtone running gag in the movie. It jumps at you suddenly and you think it is one of those set pieces incorporated by separate comedy tracks using scores from old movies to create the comic mismatch effect. But it is not. It is the ringtone playing and provides for some original laughs.

The movie works because of that original writing and real characters. Where do directors like Sasikumar and the new guy – Pandiaraj, find these actors? Vega is the only known face and all the performances are first rate. Vega and the guy who plays her love interest have some of the best lines and their romance is built up wonderfully.

For a film titled Pasanga, the performances of the kids is mandatory. The kids do it beautifully and their antics are lovable for the most part. Dandilsa and I had this small discussion on how kids are irritating in many movies. Even in few moments in Anjali. Thankfully, not the case here. They are all quite natural. Everything from the ragging, Kamal Haasan spoofs, Vijay Kant spoofs, the manipulative nature, the competetive spirit – works.

What I personally liked in the concept is the fact that nobody is evil. Especially, the initially predictable school teacher character who is also Jeeva’s father. There is no nepotism or any other issue that would have driven the movie on a different tangent. This also proves to be the downside for the movie where things are mostly feel good, that the director has no clue how to wrap it up. Thats the reason you get an awful last hour introducing melodrama that was thankfully avoided until then. And not to mention the incongrous emotional ending for a movie that had realism written all over it. In Pandiaraj’s defense, he probably wanted to give a nod to Anjali.

Do yourself two favors this week. Watch Pasanga. And vote!

Almost Famous: A Synopsis

(This was written as part of the application process for Chennai International Screenwriting Workshop. It’s not 200 words, as the rules say, but I chose to keep the full version for the blog. Hat Tip: Maami.)

Almost Famous would never miss the list of  my Top 5 favorite movies. Probably because it combines two of my passions – movies and music. Or probably because, it is just so well written, so well made and so well enacted, it just deserves to be there.

The movie starts off establishing the upbringing of William Miller, whose hero is Atticus Finch. His only connection to rock ‘n’ roll is his sister, who is mad about the phenomenon, much to their mother’s despair. When he is 15, William gets a chance to write for Rolling Stones, following an upcoming band, Stillwater, on their tour. The movie revolves around a number of brilliant moments on this tour, the “growing up” of William Miller, his relationship with the band, particuarly Russel Hammond, a groupie, interestingly named, Penny Lane and his one on one sessions with Lester Bangs, the Rolling Stones and Creem reporter, famous for his views on rock.

The sequences that follow are so masterfully written that every frame, every dialog touches your heart. The music, handpicked by Cameron Crowe, goes on top of most of the scenes, that you follow the music rather than the characters. Especially the sequence when Elton John sings Tiny Dancer, right after the band is in shambles thanks to a dispute over a T-shirt and Russel Hammond’s omnipresence as the face of Stillwater. Lester Bangs , Ben-Fong Torres and Jan Wenner were real people and played by look alike actors in the movie. Lester Bangs gives the go ahead to William and gives him timely advice along the way. And arguably, this character gets some of the best lines of the movie. And my favorite is – “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”

The magic is apparent because every character is generously carved and you can see the actors enjoying the parts. An interesting trivia associated with the movie is when William meets Penny Lane for the first time and she invites him to Morocco. William says, “Ask me again”. This is actually Patrick Fugit, the actor getting out of character to ask Kate Hudson to repeat the lines for another take. Crowe liked it and kept it for the final cut. It is a beautiful beautiful scene that merits repeat viewing. Here it is.

The writing is what makes this movie special and next comes the performances. Not entirely surprising with a brilliant cast in Frances Mcdormand, Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, Patrick Fugit and Philip Seymour Hoffman. I shamelessly promote this movie to anyone who listens and would never miss the TV reruns. I would have loved to see this movie win many Oscars but am happy with Cameron Crowe’s Oscar for original screenplay.

Remembering the Campus

H has requested relief for the shift Fri 01/30/2009 12:00A – 5:00P. If you would like to sign up for this shift, please go to…

Its part of my b-day! please take.

Oh no! Belated wishes, H! I am sorry but I won’t be available. How are things?

Would someone like to answer Dr. S’s phones from 1:15pm-3:45pm on Feb.4?  If you are interested, let me know ASAP.

Thanks,

I really have to ask this. All the time that I was there, I never knew who Dr. S is, where he sits, which is his office and which phone is his. My hand was never the first to go up when this question was asked. And that’s precisely because I had no idea who the person is.

FYI -

2nd Floor Women’s Bathroom will be unavailable for about a week.  Renovations are underway to create a lactation station.  For those of you who are not baby inclined, it will accommodate breast feeding/ breast pumping.

Hehehehehe! I am sorry but though it is a genuinely useful information but reading about a bathroom in a building thousands of miles away with so much attention to detail is damn funny.

Hello Everyone,

Since we missed the previously scheduled All Staff Meeting due to the snow, we have rescheduled for the Sunday, 8 Feb 09 @ 6:30pm.  Please mark your calendars and check for conflicts now.

WHAT? It snowed there? For all those years I was put up there, it did not even pull flake to the ground. And it snowed so much that a meeting got cancelled? Hmph.

Hey!Any one want to go to the ball

Dancing from 8pm to 12am.  Semi-formal attire. $10 for single and $15 for a couple. A XYZ charity event to benefit UNICEF. Let know me if you are thinking about it, ‘cuz then maybe we could grab a bite to eat before we go.

T

Oh, I would have loved to go with you, T! But sadly, wrong place, wrong time. My twitter friends would like to take note of the fact that XYZ is the office where the PYT used to work. Oh, what chance that would have been!

Greetings,

If anyone is interested in playing tennis Sunday around 4pm let me know. It’s supposed to be in the high 70s so the weather will be too awesome to miss. If you need a ride or a racket let me know also.

Please bring something to drink so you dont pass out. Granted there will be certified people there who can assist you if you do but lets try to avoid the possibility of someone putting their mouth on you to do CPR
unless you really like that person and then it becomes a different story.

Well A, I know quite a few people who work at the gym and am sitting here pairing up you guys to know who can possibly give CPR to one of you. And you have to hear this out. I came up with some interesting matches!

So Ms. J, as you might have already realized, I am still on the Centre mailing list. It’s been three months since i graduated and a week since I shifted to India. It is quite funny to read these mails now. So, kindly oblige!

Shifting the Stick

They just zoom past you on all fours. As in, from all the four sides. The green scooter guy dares to butt in just in front of your side mirror. He has three people squatting tight behind him. An elderly woman holding a kid and a five year old sandwiched in between. You just apply the breaks to let him pass through. And there you are contributing to the unruly traffic.

The second gear is down and as you negotiate a pothole, a grand convoy of three bikes try to slip in on the left. There is just daylight between the car and the parked SUV. It’s whats popularly known as cycle gap. When you just thought you succesfully negotiated the daring family man, you are stalled once again by the Valentino Rossis of Madras. Back to first gear and the pothole means you rev up to more than 2000 RPM wondering if you are really that bad a driver.

It’s all smooth again and the car is making the perfect noise on third gear. A couple of rickshaws have adopted right hand drive and create chaos in your mind. They just took a free right in front of you and you had to hit the breaks hard, hold the clutch and come to a full stop. Silence follows and you are authorized to move again.

As you digest all the swear words and the occasional Oram Pos, you become one among them. Then driving in this city is as electric as it is watching it from the sidelines. By now it’s a guilty pleasure and then you feel at home on the roads of Madras. The fifth gear is just a showpiece.

Madras

It was not supposed to be this way but we’ll take this anyway. For now, we are on a break, going around this wonderful city and meeting lots and lots of people! It’s good to be back after about 22 months.

Jai Guru Deva

Words are flowing out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe

It’s a sad sad life when all our happiness and sorrow is derived from others expectations of us. Or so we think. But we still live trapped inside an infinite space of monotony sucking us further away from our true capabilities. We convince ourselves to be happy with what we have and if we don’t succeed, we better try and make others think we are happy. And then comes the epiphany. Let it be an excuse, let it be a way to console ourselves. Let this be impulsive even if this is the only one that fights its way out of our psyche.

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe

An endless number of thoughts cross our mind each day, wanting to be explored, begging to be experienced but seldom do we give in. We want the same things to happen everyday, we want the same happiness that others have, we want the same satisfaction that others seem to have been guaranteed. We don’t want the same tragedy to happen to us, we don’t want the same sadness to envelope us. We want to live someone’s life. Heck, we cannot even commit our own mistakes. We disagree to make our own mistakes and learn from the ones committed by others. For once let us be Cristina and not Vicky.

Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
inciting and inviting me

There is no definite path to go against the mold. That is in fact the best thing about it. It lets you define your own happiness, your own sorrows. When we were kids, we took things slowly. Random things happened but they did gradually. Some started speaking early, some started walking early, some were prodigies. But there was never a big leap across the fence where our ambitions and wants increased exponentially. Then why is it that we are expected to do great things as soon as we step into the real world. Why is it that the course from thereon has to follow the beaten path. Why can’t you take things slowly then too. When we were small, we didn’t think twice about breaking a toy. Why is it that now we have an excruciating fear of shaking things up?

Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Ayn Rand and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar don’t teach life lessons as much as Randall Munroe does. A lesson for the ages.

The Color of Fun

Knock. Knock. Knock.

V was knocking on my door. And M’s. V and C used to live on the fifth floor. S uncle on the sixth, and he usually started the proceedings. So, they start from flat 606, knocking on each door as they come down. I was put up on fourth.  And M was my immediate neighbor. As soon as I opened the door, I was green in my face. Quite literally. My dad and mom were red. Y’s mom on third floor wanted her son to be left alone. It was his board exams and I realized my mom would be speaking the same lines next year. All of us moved on.

We had a long corridor and it allowed us to form fine trajectories with our balloons. The ones filled previous night and the ones that survived their downfall from the 7th floor over the past one week. K’s throws on the second floor were the most lethal ones. K was never a sport. He used to be the only one to insist the kids call him bhaiyya. And the only one to yell at the kid when the poor thing wouldn’t take V’s wicket. The kid was 8 and V, 19  then.The P sisters lived on second floor too. The P sisters were the cutest and sweetest sisters. And turns out, they still are, as I found out last week.

The plan was to head to Decor after leaving the kids with their pichkaris. The way was filled with usual spotting. Got introduced to N’s sister, having no way to figure out how she actually looks. And meeting that girl from Mithibhai who was one of the serious victims of our balloons day before. M noted that she was considered to be the queen of Mithibai. Thank God, I did not go to Mithibai, I had said to myself.

The usual floor by floor visit happened in Decor too. There were the funny brothers with very interesting anecdotes, that deserve a post of their own, the maverick Aks and the little S, my nemesis A and couple of also rans. So A was the only one to join us in the next stop at Karthik. Now this was a long walk, through Lokhandwala Complex and, for A, the most interesting one. He would stop at Embassy to meet the queen of Bhavans(yeah, our neighborhood was cool like that), then a couple more at Ascot and Sunrise. On the way, the waiters at Mcdonalds and Dominos have to put up with our smearings and love.

The folks at Karthik had a lot of water. It used to gush out from the endless tubes running all across the dirty, wet concrete badminton court. You usually had no idea who was playing with you and who you were playing with. Whether it was the aunty or was it the daughter. Was it your dad’s manager or was it the watchman. These questions, though valid, never passed through your mind. It was Holi, and that’s all you cared about. And of course, it was time for revenge.

“Adi, that guy over there, seedha paanch balloons, aankh pe”, shouted C from the other end of the court. “Kaun Hai?”, I wanted to know the motive. “That’s R, jisne V ko caught and bowled kiya thaa. Yaad hai? Finals, Juhu wale tournament mein”, remembered C.

“Aah!”, I realized, picking up two balloons from the bucket and stood up. Whack! Pow! Thump! I was out cold, and there was a small fear, if I had just lost an eye.

V got married earlier this year. A is somewhere in Kolkata. I have no idea where M is. I think C does. C is in Hyderabad, designing graphics for films like Evan Almighty, The Hulk among others. I still have the picture of M, V, myself and our then watchman, Singh, that my mom clicked on the terrace. All of us in a collage of colors from head to toe, completely disfigured and unrecognizable. No wonder, Holi is the festival, I miss the most.