Who's Zooming Who?

Aretha Franklin, in her long singing career that started at the age of 18 in 1960, got her 1st ever platinum record in 1985, when she released an album called "Who's Zoomin' Who?". How did essentially useless bit of info suddenly come up in my mind?  

I was reminded of the song when I read through this interview of Veena Malik describing with newfound rapture her blissful married life and finding Love & God. There's a nice film title for you. Oh wait, it's been taken already. 

But it's not her own utterings that got me thinking of this expression. Rather, it's the husband leaping to defend her past and describing her as a simple woman who is pure now, and is planning to take her on an Umrah. Cut to Veena as she piously proclaims that as a child she had TAKEN AN OATH that she would only go to Umrah with the man she loves! (Especially the one that she meets at the US Consulate? Catty, I know!) Hmmm. 

Conventional psychology would have you believe that it is women that seek out bad boys in order to turn them around and redeem them. So in the words of blind Dhritarashtra in Jaano Bhi Do Yaaro, "Yeh kya ho rahaa hai?". 

The reveal comes at the end of the article when the husband talks about their future plans together. 

So here's the article: 
http://gulfnews.com/arts-entertainment/celebrity/pakistani-model-veena-malik-on-finding-islam-love-and-marriage-1.1280955 

And here's the song and lyric, in case you're too lazy to google for it. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnwDkT0lUWI 
http://www.metrolyrics.com/whos-zoomin-who-lyrics-aretha-franklin.html

Read more!

An evening with Vikas Swarup

Vikas Swarup, author of "Q&A", came across as a rather typical educated middle-class Indian, fond of reading books and soaking up the daily newspaper. Very earnest looking and leaning forward frequently to make a forceful point. Quite engaged & involved in his own line of thought. He was casually dressed in trousers and a shirt, with a jacket. No Tie. Grey hair. A lot of them. He strolled in with the interviewer for the evening, a fellow author & teacher of creative writing courses, called Kate Mosse. So there was the obligatory joke about the eager audience waiting to see her, made mercifully at the very outset and got out of the way with.

Today was Friday, the weekend, and I was expecting to see a much larger crowd, considering that it was the prime evening slot and that here was the author of what became "Slumdog Millionaire", that multicultural phenomenon winning a slew of Oscars and Grammies.

Well, I was quite surprised then to discover that the auditorium was not even a third as full as had been the previous day, for Alexander McCall Smith's session. The audience today comprised largely of Asians (let's just be honest and say, Indians!), and a rather sparse count of Europeans. There had been a much larger headcount earlier in the day at 2pm for the session of William Dalrymple, the famed author and Indophile. Personally, I think that though his books are really interesting and full of fascinating details, Dalrymple himself came across as a bit of a stuffed shirt. But since I wasn't able to attend his session and our interaction had been limited to him scrawling his name on a couple of hefty tomes I had been carrying, we will not discuss him further in this blog.

And so, onto Vikas Swarup.

As I did previously with McCall Smith, I will try to capture the main points he made during the hour-long conversation with Mosse.

"I wrote Q&A in 2 months flat. (Kate Mosse interrupts him here to say that she didn't like him all that much anymore, and that she herself took up to 2 years to write a book!) I am a diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service, and was posted at London at the time. I had got to know that a few colleagues of mine were writing a book, so I thought to myself that if *that* person can write a book, then so can I. My wife and son had already gone off to India for a vacation, and I had 2 months to myself. So without telling anyone, including my wife, I started writing the novel. I would come back from work at 5pm every day and then write. In a way, it was just fate that I had all that much time to write, because my next posting wad to Pakistan where normally a diplomat's work continues on after office till late into the night and there's hardly any time to think about writing a book."


Where he got the idea for the book
"This book came to me full blown and ready. It was not as if I thought of a part of the book first. I have always been very interested in quizzing, and hence the "Who wants to be a millionaire" game show was a favourite of mine. The Indian version of show was hosted by Amitabh Bachchan and it was so popular in India that entire families would gather around the TV set at 9pm every Sunday to watch. There would be hardly any shop open at that time, since all of India would be watching. The participants in the show would be ordinary people from all walks of life. At that time, the case of Major Ingram, the guy who was caught having cheated to win the UK version of the program, was making headlines. And I thought to myself, if a UK Army major can be suspected of having cheated on the program and is then imprisoned, then what about if a person from the lower classes, like a waiter or a domestic servant somehow wins on the program? They will definitely suspect him of having cheated. Now most of us are educated people from the middle and upper class, with university education. But we somehow always feel that the lower working class that has never studied or gone to school is somehow less clever than us. So how can we believe that such a person can be cleverer than us, and go all the way in this program? But then the question remains: How can such a person then give all correct answers? Can each question then link up to some episode in his life, where he then got to know the answer? After that, it was a matter of working out episodes which could then be linked to such questions as would be asked in the program. They could of course not be very easy, except a few at the start. Also, what I did was, each chapter started off with the episode from the past first, and then the contest question was revealed. So the reader could also feel part of the story, and then try to work out the answer while reading the past flashback. Had I started the chapter by asking the question and then told the past story, then midway through when the question's answer would have become apparent, the reader would have lost interest in the rest of the chapter."


"I am often asked what advice I would give to budding writers. Frankly, I don't know because I never studied writing formally, I never went to any classes. I was just a voracious reader, and used to read all kinds of books. I didn't know anyone in the book business. I even got my agent off the internet. While choosing an agent, I asked for some advice from someone who told me just that if the agent asked for money to represent you, I should look for another agent. However, recently when I was asked to address a group of students at the University of Tokyo which is where my current posting is, I thought to myself and came up with this list of points as advice and this is what I will tell them when I return.

1. Be Curious. Be curious about everything around you. Be an eclectic reader, and don't limit yourself to just one kind of reading matter. I often tell my son, “Don’t just read the Rolling Stone; read The Economist as well."
2. Be Creative. After the basic plot is there, you need to be creative with that idea.
3. Be Critical. Look at your story with a critical objective eye. Is it readable? Is it interesting to others? Many writers are told, “Write what you know." So they end up writing about their own experiences. But they should think about whether it would be interesting to others as well.
4. Write, Write, Write. Keep writing all the time. (Here the moderator, Kate Mosse, interrupts to say that she often has students coming to her saying that they want to be writers. So she asks them to show her a sample of their writing. And then they say something like, “Well, we haven't written anything yet, but we will! Once you tell us how." So she goes on to say that to be a writer, well you have to write! Vikas Swarup then adds to this by quoting Dorothy Parker,"I hate writing; I love having written.")
5. Keep your manuscript circulating all the time. Send it out constantly to agents and publishers. You never know when someone might take a fancy to it.


Plots
"Every day, an average newspaper in India contains enough news to give more plots than anything else I can think of. So read more newspapers."



On his 2nd novel
"Six Suspects took me almost 18 months to write. It was a much tougher book, because I was trying out something new for myself. A polyphonic novel, where I was speaking through several characters. My publishers had wanted me to do something on the lines of Q&A part 2, like what the waiter did from the age of 18 till 20, or what happened afterwards etc, but I didn't want to do anything with them. Once my books are done, I am done with the characters, and want to try out some new challenge. Out of the six characters in the book, the most difficult one was the Andaman tribal, because there was no way I could get into his head and think what he was thinking. I just didn't know what a person like him would think about. He is in a way the most innocent & pristine of all the characters, and yet the most easily corruptible as well. He comes to the big city and is seduced by its various attractions.

I wrote the entire book as it is published. I did not write out each character's entire story in one go, and then to split it up into separate chapters".

What is next
"I am already working on my next book. I am currently stuck at chapter seven. It is set outside India. It has no Indian characters. (When probed by the moderator further, he reluctantly says, "It could be set in Europe, maybe..")


On the movie adaptation
"The book was mine, but the movie was all Danny Boyle, so all credit to him. Some people in India raised an objection to the word slumdog, but it was coined by the writer Simon Beaufoy to depict the squalid condition of the people living in a slum. At least, the slumdog did have the perseverance to drag himself out of its surroundings. Why didn't the people focus on the second word, "Millionaire"? In fact, when the movie finally released, I believe that some protestors stood outside cinema halls with 2 dogs, one labelled Danny and the other labelled Simon!"

On whether he liked the movie
"There was a Bengali writer called Mani Shankar Mukherjee, commonly known as Shankar, one of whose famous novels was made into a movie by the great Satyajit Ray. When asked his opinion of the movie, Shankar would reply,"A book is like a daughter. Once made into a movie, it's as if the daughter has got married and gone to her husband's place. And in India, one never speaks ill of one's son-in-law!""


Audience Questions

"Why did it take 20 years of service for you to suddenly think about writing a book? You could have written one any time"

"That is true. My posting prior to London had been to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, which was a very quiet time for me, as there was not a single Indian delegation visiting Addis Ababa in the entire 2 years that I was there. So I must say that it was a matter of complete chance that I managed to write a while novel in 2 months. And that too, I finished the novel on 11th Sept, and was on the place to India on the 12th, waiting for my next posting."

Read more!

An evening with Alexander McCall Smith

My first encounter with a "Literary Festival" yesterday was rather pleasant, surprisingly. I say surprisingly, because I mean it's just a book fair after all, isn't it? My relationship with books and authors is very deep & profound, but it's still personal and exists in my mind. All images of the characters & situations, as well as of the author behind those images, are in my own mind. I am not sure if I want to actually meet the author, and put a face to the name behind the words.

So it was with mixed feelings that I went off to the Emirates Literary Festival.

The hotel lobby was quite crowded, with people milling around. I could hardly make out who were the authors, the event organisers, the participants. Were there actually so many booklovers in Dubai? Or were they mostly here to meet the famous names? Finally I caught sight of a welcome desk, where a very polite person sorted me out with my invite to the session for which I was there; Alexander McCall Smith in conversation with Paul Blezard.

And here's the official communiqué about this session:


Alexander McCall Smith: In Conversation

Event 32 Thursday 11 March, 5.30pm
Al Ras 1
An evening with Alexander McCall Smith is never predictable but always hugely entertaining. Best known as the creator of the delightful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and the inimitable Precious Ramotswe, he has written more than 60 books and been translated into forty five languages. Before his success as a writer he was a distinguished professor of medical law at Edinburgh University; he is also a keen amateur bassoonist and co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra.

It is rare to come across a writer who is as charming and witty in public appearances as he is in his writing. Sandy is an utterly delightful speaker, a great raconteur and one of the warmest and funniest people on the festival circuit. He will be in conversation about his life and work. Not to be missed by his myriad fans or by anyone who delights in the lighter side of life.

Alexander will be in conversation with Paul Blezard.


So this program was to start from 5:30pm, and the ballroom had already started filling up nicely. By the time I showed my e-ticket to the ushers and entered, the 5-6 front rows had already been filled up, and I had to take up the aisle seat some 7 or 8 rows deep. But that was okay, since I still had an okay view of the dais where a small table covered with a white tablecloth and a couple of chairs had been set up. The problem was, all the chairs and the dais were on the same level. It would have been really great, had they raised the speaker table a bit high so as to allow the audience at the very back to have a convenient view. Alternatively, they could have had placed a camera strategically to capture the debate and then broadcast it on the huge screen right behind the speakers. As it was, the giant screen displayed nothing but the seminar title, and the names of the sponsors all through the show.

Right on time, the 2 panellists came out from behind the screen, to the sound of tremendous applause. The room was absolutely jam packed, mostly with European ladies of a certain age. There were a few pitiful specimens of the unfair sex, but mostly accompanying their spouses. I was the only male I could see who was a) Brown b) Asian c) Indian d) By myself.

Blezard started off by saying something like this,"Ladies and Gentlemen! Arrogant.... Rude.... impolite ..... loudmouthed .... are NOT some of the words that come to mind while describing Sandy McCall Smith!" Due laughter in the audience. He then went on to properly introduce Smith with mention of his literary experience. The interaction between the 2 was quite informal and full of banter. It was easy to see why Smith comes across in his books the way he does. That's because he really does seem to be a nice person in real life.

I don't think I can reproduce verbatim the entire conversation, but here are the main notable comments & repartees that McCall Smith addressed to the audience.

How the entire NOLDA series came about:
"In the 1980s, I was working with Swaziland University for a year. I was a bachelor at the time. Having some friends who ran a charity hospital in Botswana, I would often go over to visit them over the weekend. One day, they took me to meet a local friend of theirs, a traditionally built Botswana lady, for lunch at her place. When we reached there, we sat inside and watched as this really large lady went out to the yard to catch the chicken that was to be our lunch. The chicken had a premonition of its fate, and so was proving to be rather hard to catch. There was an almighty kerfuffle, with dust and feathers everywhere, but in the end the lady prevailed. It was then that I had the idea to write a story about this incident. A story, nothing more. This idea lay dormant in my mind for many years after that. Then finally, when I did get some time, I started to develop a story about such a traditionally built lady who would come into a bit of money after her father passed away. In fact, what was in my mind was this mental picture: The old man is on his deathbed, and is advising his daughter that she should sell the cattle they have, after he dies, and then she should open up a business for herself. Now, what he has in mind is something traditional and proper, like a grocery shop. But then the lady comes up with "I shall open a detective agency". On hearing this radical idea, the old man is literally shocked out of his life, and passes away. And this was where I intended to end the story."

On Diehard Fans
"I once received a letter from New Zealand from a lady who wrote that she and her husband pretended they were Mma Ramotswe and Rra Matekoni in their everyday life, addressing each other gravely as such, and sitting about, sipping red bush tea!"


"Once when I was in Santa Barbara, which is where all those rich Californians live... you know, when they get too rich, they are packed off to Santa Barbara... anyway as I was saying about those Santa Barbarians, there were 2 old ladies who came up to me during a book meet, and told me,"Ohhh, Mr. Smith, your books have changed our lives!" And how had their lives changed? Well, they bought a little white van similar to what Mma Ramotswe has, and now drive around town pretending to be Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi. And they even have a vanity license plate that read LWV1 (for Little White Van)."


On How Fans want to influence the story
"Once I was attending a luncheon talk in Texas, where they have these wonderfully tall and big-shouldered ladies... so I was at this golf club surrounded by these wonderful tall ladies, and there was this one solitary mousy man, who had wandered in by mistake after his rounds of golf, and was now trapped in the room... and I said to them that I was planning to have Mma Ramotswe's ex-husband come back into her life. And all these wonderful ladies said in unison, "No, no, Mr. Smith, you cannot DO that!" and they shook their heads very disapprovingly and wagged their finger at me. And then one lady said, "Weeelll, you MAY bring him baaaaack.... but only to punish him!""

On his latest venture, the Baboon opera
"Once my literary agent and I were taking a boat ride along a river in Botswana, when I spied a few huts along the bank. When I asked the guide about them, he said that they belonged to the "baboon people". Now I knew exactly what he was talking about, because just a few days earlier, I had been reading this book titled "Baboon Metaphysics" and I knew that there were these 2 scientists who were camping there and studying this colony of baboons. So as we neared the bank, and heard some activity in the huts, I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, "I have read Baboon Metaphysics, and I know who you are!" A shout came back, "Well we know who *you* are too!" So it was like a "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" moment.

Baboons are a quite hierarchical society, so I thought of a she-baboon who has a rather lowly mate, but she has Lady Macbeth-like tendencies. So I wrote an opera about this situation, called "Okavango Macbeth", and it's been performed in Botswana's first opera hall, a converted garage that seats 70!"


On Isabel Dalhousie vs. Mma Ramotswe
"As you all know, Isabel is a trained philosopher, and she likes to think things through and analyse situations. That way, she is in complete contrast to Mma Ramotswe, who has an instinctive knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. Mma Ramotswe says to herself, "Whatever were the old fashioned ways and traditions of Botswana served the people in earlier times very well. And so they should be good enough for me as well." And as you see, most of the time Mma Ramotswe turns out to be right in her judgment, while Isabel frequently turns out to be wrong."

On Isabel Dalhousie and the fans
"As you know, Isabel is living with a younger...much younger man, Jamie, who is 14 years her junior. I had initially introduced Jamie as just her friend. But at a dinner with female journalists, they told me,"Mr Smith, you MUST let Isabel have an affair with this younger guy! It will be so empowering for females!"

On the 44 Scotland Street novels
"Now this series is about a young boy Bertie and his pushy mother. In Edinburgh, we have rather pushy mothers who take charge of their children's lives completely. So here's Bertie who is rather small... in fact, he has been 6 years old for the last 4 or 5 books. So in the next book, he finally turns a year older, and so the book is titled "The Importance of Being Seven." Bertie's mother makes his learn Italian, because she wants him to enjoy the opera in its original richness. She makes him learn to play the saxophone.

Now one day, his mother, Irene is at the spa enjoying herself, when she gets a call from Bertie's kindergarten principal. "Mrs. Pollock, there's been an incident. Please come at once." (here McCall Smith imitates a prissy principal with a rolling BBC accent). So Irene rushes to the KG school, where the Principal meets her and says,"Mrs. Pollock, some child has written some graffiti in the bathroom." So Irene bristles and asks her,"So what? Why are you looking at me like that? How do you know Bertie has had anything to do with it?"

The principal replies, "Because.... only Bertie knows how to write, in this school.... and because..... the graffiti is in Italian!""

McCall Smith then read out a rather funny extract from the latest 44 Scotland Street novel, which he said he had been writing that very day in the hotel room upstairs. The background involves Bertie's mother, who is a general do-gooder and likes to help out with charities, suddenly disappearing while helping out with the packing of lorries carrying clothes and food to poor people in Romania. Bertie of course is very disturbed and wants his mummy back. In the read-out extract, Bertie is waylaid in the school playground by a pushy girl (whose name I've forgotten, but who reminds one of Arabella in Dennis the Menace who's bent on marrying Dennis when they grow up) and her sidekick, a girl unfortunately named Tofu by her Vegan parents. The two girls manage to fill Bertie's anguished mind with all sorts of horrible scenarios and possibilities involving his mum, including kidnappings, murder etc. Any feeble attempts by Bertie to postulate a sort of normal everyday happenings is regally waved aside by the two tormentors.

On the film adaptation of NOLDA
"As soon as I got to know that Anthony Minghella had acquired the rights for the series, I knew it was in safe hands. I had particularly admired his deft handling of Patricia Highsmith's novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley"."

"After the rights were acquired, many years went by before shooting actually commenced. I would have an annual dinner with the makers, who would assure that everything had been arranged and that shooting would commence very soon. After the first few years, I would reply, “Okay guys, see you next year for lunch." "

"Anthony came to Botswana not as a European or a big shot film director, benevolently bestowing his largesse on the locals, but as a genuinely curious person, wanting to know more about the traditions and lives of the people. The hunt for the lead actress went on all over the world. The basic criteria were of course known to all. She should be of traditional built, of African origin. Once I was in Adelaide of all places, checking into the hotel when I saw a large African lady sitting in the lobby. Sure enough, when I checked in, I was told that there was a visitor for me. It was the same lady, asking me to recommend her for the part."

"As for myself, I was sure that the Minister of Health in Botswana was ideal for the part. I said as much to the makers, who thought I was being facetious. Later when they actually came to Botswana and met the lady in question, they realised I was right after all, and did give her a walk-on part in the movie."

The lady is named Sheila Tlou, by the way if you want to google her later.


"I was very kindly asked to direct a short segment of the movie. Anthony put his arm around me and told me to shout ACTION when he would dig me in the ribs and to shout CUT when he did that again. I didn't know that movie people actually did shout things like that. So anyway, I did as I was told. The scene I had to "direct" involved a donkey that had wandered into Mma Ramotswe's office just before she was moving in for the first time. Now I don't know if you know this, but apparently in Africa, there are what are called..... "Donkey Whisperers"... Yes, there are. So our donkey whisperer whispered something in the ear of the donkey, and made him walk along the room. The donkey eventually stopped in the middle and started chewing on some of the paper strewn on the floor. I said CUT, and that was the end of my directing career. The scene was finally cut out of the final version."


Audience Questions
One elderly lady who proclaimed herself to be one of the Edinburgh pushy mothers said that when she was a child living in Edinburgh, she would often visit a friend of hers on Scotland Street and play chequers with her in the afternoons. She vividly recalled them having a room under the stairs which was large enough to have a whole bed and where there used to be a woman living in. She wanted to know if people still stayed under the stairs in Scotland Street.

Smith thanked her for the vivid memory of playing chequers and promised her he would incorporate it somehow in a future story. He then suggested that what the lady was talking about was probably the maid living in the room under the stairs, and that it was still very much the practice.

Another lady then asked about some unresolved strands in "La's Orchestra saves the World". Smith replied that he does leave some unresolved strands of stories or incidents in many of his books, maybe hoping to come back to them some novels later. He cited a few examples of this, namely in one of the NOLDA novels, Mma Ramotswe comes out of her house to find a big pumpkin lying there. Till now, no one knows who put it there and why. Another example quoted was from one of Isabel Dalhousie novels, where apparently the dog has an "affair" with the neighbour's lady dog... a very short affair actually.... lasting just about 2 minutes, but resulting in 7 pups. The grumpy neighbour brings all 7 pups to Isabel and says, “These are YOUR responsibility" and walks away. Isabel is desperate to give the pups away, and so one day someone comes over to her, weighs the pups and then takes them all. Now no one knows what happened to the pups, after this. According to Smith, he started receiving a lot of anxious worried queries from all over the world inquiring as to what exactly happened to the pups. So he then had to resolve the mystery in a later book. Apparently they were sold to an Irish travelling circus, and are now a troupe of performing pups.

One guy asked about a certain scene in a book where Mma Ramotswe is looking at some old pictures of her father in Mrs. Moffat's house, and she lingers at one specific picture of Mrs. and Dr. Moffat asking her who this other person is behind Moffat’s mother. She replies that this is a writer who stays with them from time to time. So the question was: Is this the author himself, inserting himself into the book?

McCall Smith said, “Well done, you! Yes, indeed, this was my attempt to meet Mma Ramotswe for myself."

Incidentally, the book in question is The Kalahari Typing School for Men.

Someone asked about the utter lack of violence or even dead bodies in his novels. McCall Smith acknowledged that and said that he deliberately avoided all such stuff because his aim was not to focus on the crime per se, but more on the human aspects of the people concerned. In fact, he continued, the only character he had killed off in any novel was a Glagow "business man" (euphemism for a gangster) called Lard O'Connor, that too only because he wanted to write about the funeral of a gangster. Apparently, gangster funerals in Scotland are accompanied with huge floral wreaths, spelling out some characteristic of the deceased!

The last question, from a guy, was: Ian Rankin, a fellow Edinburgh author, has had a couple of cameo appearances in the 44 Scotland Street books. Will he be returning the favour by featuring McCall Smith in a future Rebus novel?

McCall Smith gave a big hearty guffaw at this question, and said that indeed he had done so. In fact, it was a running joke between him and Rankin. The last time Rankin appeared in his book was when he had been hit by an apple (?) thrown by Bertie, and then while being walked home, has the mortification of hearing Bertie tell him,"Look Mr. Rankin! There's your book in that bookshop window... and it's only 50p!"

So, Smith concluded, if he does appear in any Rebus novel, it will most likely be as a corpse!

This is all that I recall from the session itself.

Later after the session ended, there was a long (really long!) queue to get books signed by the author in the outside hall. All the time I was in the queue, I was wondering what to say to McCall Smith. Other than the usual banal inanities (Big fan of yours, wife loves your books etc etc), I couldn't think of anything.

Eventually when my turn came to get the 2 books autographed, I said that his easy flowing style reminded of an Indian author I used to read in my childhood, R K Narayan. And his eyes and entire face lit up. He said that he was himself a big fan of Narayan, and was in fact just finishing writing the foreword to a new American edition of Narayan's legendary Malgudi Days to "introduce him to an American audience". Then he said "Narayan should have won the Nobel Prize, you know."

I would have loved to talk more about that and how Narayan's good friend Graham Greene did get one, but then there were people breathing down my neck. So with the final comment from McCall Smith "It's great to meet a fellow R K Narayan fan" ringing in my ears, I thanked him and went home. Read more!

All Day Long

I've been watching a couple of movies recently that each spanned the course of just one day. And what stories! So that got me thinking....

It's remarkable how such powerful stories can be told and so much action unfold (wow, that rhymes too!) within such a short time span.

So here's a (very) short selection of daylong movies.

Dog Day Afternoon: Is it a bank robbery gone crazy? Or is it a take about something else? And who exactly are these robbers? And what's their motivation? Real crazy stuff!

Training Day: A police procedural on high. Why didn't *both* the lead actors get an Oscar each?

"King Kong ain't got shit on me!"

Falling Down: Michael Douglas acts almost as good as Robert Duvall. Brilliant.

"I'm just going home".

Any other memorable ones you can think of? Any from Bollywood?

Read more!

Just One Word

How famous do you have to be to compel the world to notice and address you by one, just ONE word? You and only you are identified with that one single eponymous word. Not your father, nor any other relative, indeed none of your family. When that word is uttered, it's you they are talking about. You own that name!

Who does make it then?

How about Madonna? Hmm, that would be cheating, right? Coz she does have just one name anyways, right? Nope! She was born Madonna Ciccione, and despite having had the handicap of being named after a really famous personage, has made the name her very own in the modern world.

And hey, pseudonyms shouldn't count. I mean, which parent would have normally named their kids Sting (Gordon Sumner, Ladies & Gentlemen) or Bono (Paul Hewson, everyone!)?

Well, my own nominees for this honour would be Gandhi, Mandela, Garbo, Ali, Churchill. All real heavyweights!

Anyone else come to mind?

Read more!

Glory Days

"Glory Days....
...They'll pass you by..
..in the wink of a young girl's eye.."

The Boss might as well have written the song for Indian politicians. The song pops into my head just like that, when I see Laloo Prasad interviewed on tv by Barkha Dutt, the other day.

Laloo is half-seated half-sprawled over a sofa seat. He is wearing a singlet and a rather bemused and resigned expression. His hand is frequently to his head, supporting it or just holding it. All fight seems to have gone out of him. And no wonder. His party strength in Lok Sabha has been reduced to just 4 in 2009, down from 24. Twenty. Four.

Lalu Yadav has lesser seats than the evergreen थाली का बैंगन Ajit Singh of Baghpat.

Four months back, Lalu was on a trip to Japan (Japan!) leading a group of Railways officials, to lecture them about the success of Indian Railways, of which he was the minister in the previous government. A year back, he gave a talk to the students of IIM-Ahmedabad, *the* most prestigious management institute in the country. 2 years back, he was vociferously demanding renaming of Patna.

Yesterday, the RPF police team assigned for his security at his bungalow in Patna was removed completely.

Renuka Chowdhury is another example. Bold, brash, outspoken, prime example of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Lost her seat, lost her cabinet post, lost her tongue.

All these adjectives put into mind yet another opinionated gasbag, Mani Shankar Aiyer. Again, lost his seat, lost his cabonet post, and not a peep out of him. But in all fairness, having been relegated to Panchayati Raj minister in the previous govt had not done anything to improve his telepresence. The only time I recall seeing him on tv over the last 2 years has been when he recently launched his book on Rajiv Gandhi.

If movie heroes live and die every Friday, then politicians live, die or get resurrected every 5 years.

"Life is short, the Art is long, opportunity fleeting, experience delusive, judgment difficult." - Hippocrates.
Read more!

Stuck with it

What is it that belongs to you, but is normally used by everyone else except you?

It's your name.

The one thing that defines you, follows you and is an integral part of yourself, your identity and what you are perceived as your entire life, and the one thing that is not yours to choose or decide upon.

What inspires fond parents of a newborn defenceless slobbering baby to come up with creative yet risible names? Is it a latent sense of revenge, inspired by visions of potential sleepless nights catering to the whims & fancies of the tyke that's incessantly leaking from both ends? Or is the revenge directed towards the previous generation, the parents themselves having been saddled with unfortunate handles?

We are not talking celebrities here, who are anyway ensconced in their own crazy world, and who don't realise that fame doesn't get passed on with genes. Their progeny may not grow up to lead a rock lifestyle and may actually have to work for a living, in which case a name like Peaches may not be well suited for an accountant. What about an insurance broker named Moon Unit? They would much rather have "M. U. Zappa" on their visitng card, right? Hmm, in this case actually, the surname is weird enough to begin with. Iss ka kuchh nahin ho sakta. The only thing keeping this kid sane is probably the fact that her 3 siblings are named Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan & Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen.

So okay, let's not worry about Chastity Bono, Apple Martin, Pilot Inspektor Lee, Sage Moonblood Stallone or any other unfortunate kids of fortune. We aren't likely to meet any of them normally in a social situation.

I am more concerned about people we do meet or have met in our very own lives, whose names elicit a stunned reaction or perhaps one of awe!

For instance, I had a lecturer in college who went by the name of K L Sharma. All very normal, you would presume. Maybe a Kishen Lal, or a Kanhaiya Lal or something mundane like that. But no. We discovered to our intense amusement that his parents had decided in their infinite wisdom to name him Kabaari (ragpicker) Lal! 

Well, if you do have to think of a career for your child while naming them, you can't fault all those aspiring parents in Punjab who names their sons Jarnail (corrupted form of General) or Karnail (ditto of Colonel).

A college mate of mine married TripuraSundari, quite a mouthful, but hey, who's complaining if you get married to "The Most Beautiful One in 3 worlds"!

A post like this can never ignore the claims of Shrimati Laloo Yadav, our own sweet Rabri Devi, who is alleged to have a sister named Imarti. On the subject, Laloo tried his best Zappa impersonation (no, not musically!) by naming his daughter Misa, as a protest against the Maintenance of Internal Security Act.

More recently, I came across a salesgirl whose nametag announced her to the world as "Girly". Girly? Girly??? Don't tell me her brother is named Boysie! 

No, he wasn't. 

I asked her. :-)..
Read more!

About a dog

I was trying to watch this movie called Dus

My mind went numb & my heart said बस!

Desperately trying to be slick, smooth & grand

just like the real stuff from Hollywoodland.

Oh, Anubhav Anubhav Anubhav, why were you so rash

to follow up this stinker with yet another one called "Cash"?

In all honesty, it's not the only hindi movie

to make believe it's oh-so funky n groovy.

Think of काँटे, धूम, धूम २ & दोस्ताना

Swagger, pouts, Shades, & cleavage दिखाना

Mahesh, Karan & Co., here's some heartfelt advice

We want a good story, not rehashed Miami Vice!

Where's the challenge in ripping off Bad Boys 2?

If Johnny Gaddar could do it, so can you!

It could be somewhat funny if it wasn't so grating

Frankly My Dear, it's just nauseating.

All these cool auteurs remind me of a little girl

trying on, for the first time, her mama's pearls.

Her face all powdery, & red with rouge

stumbling & fumbling in grownup shoes.

Read more!

Dar Lage Toh Gaana Gaa...

They say an average person fears public speaking more than they fear death. At least that's what Seinfeld says. In my lexicon of useless information, there's even a word for this fear, Glossophobia! (from the Greek word Glossa meaning tongue).

My own source of terror is singing in public, probably only topped by the mortification of hearing my own singing voice. Any intentions that I could have possibly harboured of leading life as a wandering minstrel were nipped in the bud, thanks to my mother, who fondly recorded her pubescent son once, while encouraging him to give vent to his singing urge. Poor mom didn't realise that apart from Michael Jackson, no one has yet mastered the art of staying contralto post the age of 13!

That tape was played just once in my hearing and then I fled the room. My singing muse has never had the courage to show its face in my conscious mind yet. That tape probably still exists, and is being used to ward off evil spirits in a house far far away.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, with such a buildup to my historical aversion, it was a complete & utter surprise when last Saturday, I found myself singing! In a stranger's house. Hindi songs. On Karaoke. Will the ignominy never end?

Thankfully, there were just 2 witnesses to my crime against humanity, not counting the maid, who incidentally was singing an aria to herself while making Indian food in the kitchen! Figure that out!

Was I drunk? Could Bacchus be the one to conveniently blame for my lapse? Not really! Mine kind host had offered me his lavish hospitality, but I had limited myself to a wee dram of Glenfiddich.

I had been invited for dinner by an ex-colleague who had recently gotten married. A very interesting match it was too, the couple being from different countries, different religions, different marital statuses before this one... you name any tradition, this couple broke it! Any topic of conversation in this particular social setting was a potential minefield, especially when a clunky person like myself was concerned! Just ask my wife; she's been trying to housetrain me for years. But I think all women secretly love having such socially inept hubbies to shout at and moan about to their friends, than they would let on!

The couple was very nice and gracious, the food was pretty good and the conversation was freeflowing and interesting (and very measured, from my side!). Contrary to all my apprehensions, there was no awkwardness at all while we chatted about various things, primarily because the couple were very much in tune (and dare I use the sappy word, Love?) with each other.

Then while at the dining table, I happened to see some strange contraption on the sideboard and asked about it. "It" was the karaoke attachment, which was promptly plugged in for a demo for the guest of honour! You just can't beat North Indians, especially Punjabis, for warmth, impulsiveness & an innate urge to show off! :-)

That "demo" went on for an hour, with the husband and wife both promptly grabbing a wireless mike each and singing out the lyrics of old hindi songs from the giant screen on the living room wall. I obviously declined all offers to being involved in the singing, and had to make ridiculous excuses. But there's no punjabi like a persistent punjabi, and hence I had to make my own contributions to the city's noise pollution.

After a couple of halfheartedly sung songs, I think I began to hit my stride and even secretly enjoyed the music. The funny part: all songs were accompanied by a random sequence of stock photographs, preprogrammed in the karaoke machine. So, while "Rafi" was singing a classical tune, the background shot would be of the Eiffel Tower or a hill in Scotland! Quite amusing.

It was almost midnight when I rose to bid adieu to my hosts. So after a lifetime of Singlossophobia (clever coinage, eh?), I finally found I could in fact enjoy singing loud in public.

Just goes to show you that life is full of surprises. There's no end to enriching and discovering yourself.

Be that as it may, I am still looking to destroy that tape!

Read more!

Courage

"What is courage?"

The story goes that a prestigious college had this as a question in their application form. The students were expected to write long essays in response. According to legend, one student, when faced with this question simply wrote the sentence 'This is courage.' and sent in his application. He was selected.

You know what I think courage is?

Sending the T-shirt below to the धोबी for ironing!



I haven't been able to muster enough courage for it, even a week after I washed the shirt! Read more!

And the Oscar for Best Dad goes to...

So who make the best screen dads? Who are our role models for how to be kind, stern, responsible, loving, strict, wise, playful...the qualifications list for daddy'ism goes on.

My own nominations would be:

In Hindi movies:

- Balraj Sahni: An example of this great man's portrayal of a father is "Paraya Dhan". But how does one forget "Garam Hawa" or "Waqt"? Or "Kabuliwala"?

- Nazir Hussain: "बेटी, आज अगर तेरी माँ ज़िंदा होती.." The quintessential maudlin & tormented father. :-)

In Hollywood:

- Danny Aiello: Apart from being a fine movie actor, he played Madonna's dad in the "Papa Don't Preach" video.

-John Goodman : Check out "Coyote Ugly".

Read more!

Into The Light

A couple of days back, a friend gave me a nefarious time-soaking device: Season 1 and the pilot DVDs of Battlestar Galactica. It's coming to an end right now in the US, and I have not been that fond of SF serials anyway. But when I started watching it, I just couldn't stop at one, as the potato chips ad goes!

What really gripped my attention was the title music for the pilot and the episodes. Both have operatic voices singing some strangely familiar chants. And it dawned on me that these are the same mantras that we have known for a long time.

The pilot uses the chant "Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamayaa". Having heard and read this one so many times, I was finally curious to delve deeper into the exact meaning and significance of this phrase. A little bit of research told me that this is part of a complete chant, as below:

"असतो मा सदगमय; तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय; मृत्योर मा अमृतं गमय; ॐ शांति शांति शांति"

"Asato Ma SadGamaya; Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya; Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya; Om Shanti Shanti Shanti"

Meaning:
"O Lord, Lead Us From Untruth To Truth, Lead Us From Darkness To Light, Lead Us From Death To Immortality, Om (signifying the sound of the Eternal) Let There Be Peace Peace Peace."

This chant is taken from the Third Brahmana of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.3.27).

The things we have to relearn from foreign shores! Even the link above is to the Max Muller translation of the Upanishad. Well, knowledge doesn't really belong to anyone, I guess!

Okay, this was just the pilot. The episodes use a different chant as their title music. More on that in a separate post. Read more!

Scotland trip in pix

Balmoral Hotel: View from my hotel window

Queen Margaret's Chapel window

Fly, the terrier

The famous Glenkinchie copper stills

The whisky tasting chamber

Read more!

Scotch & Sailboats : 5th day in Scotland

Day 5

August 23rd

This was to be the day of the pilgrimage, the day we were all waiting for, the day we would go to visit the motherlode. A visit to the scotch whisky distillery. Every person's brain had just 2 words flashing in big neon lettering: FREE TASTING!

An hour's bus journey through grassy fields and small villages brought us to the Glenkinchie distillery at about 10am. The distillery itself seemed somewhat small to me. It was just a couple of buildings close to each other. Not much bigger than a couple of large barns stuck together. Not what you would expect of a multimillion, multinational business.

But then, midway through the factory tour, one realises that all that is needed for a whisky distillery is a couple of giant fermenting vats which can be housed in, you guessed it, a couple of big barns. That, and the right water, the right soil, the right climate etc.

How whisky is actually made is quite simple: Soak a lot of barley in water and let it germinate. Then dry it out with smoke. Mash the lot and dump it in huge vats (tuns) filled with warm water and let it all ferment & turn to warm smelly mush. Cool and then distil in copper vats. Keep distilling continuously till the whole liquid becomes highly concentrated. Fill in oak casks and then store it cool dry place for maturing. The maturing period determines the quality of the final whisky. Different aged whiskies are then mixed together to get blended scotch. Alternatively, a whisky from a single batch or a single distillery can be bottled straighaway & sold, as a Single Malt.

The fumes inside the tun chamber were so strong that one of the guys (the same person who was relieved at not having won the whsky bottle) was overcome by them, and had to retire outdoors to get some fresh air. As for the rest of us, we though we were in beer heaven! The smell was exactly like that.

After checking out the shiny copper stills, and me having asked a couple of intelligent (!) questions, we came out into the whisky tasting room! At long last! There was an entire wall of different whiskies which were there to be served and enjoyed. I tried out a couple of unusual ones, asking the master for advice. Don't really recall which ones I tasted. One of them was a rare Caol Ila, I remember.

Later, it was time to shop in Glenkinchie's dutyfree whisky shop. I picked up 4 bottles of various Single Malts, and only stopped at the thought of my overweight baggage which I would be having to carry to Leicester on a local flight before returning to Dubai.

Back to the hotel, we advised everyone for get a bit of rest after lunch so as to be fresh for the evening's gala dinner. It was to be the grand finale of the trip. And what a finale!

At 7pm sharp, a bus came to fetch our entire group and take us to the docks. As we got down from the bus, the group could see a red carpet laid out, leading towards the steps of the HMY Britannia. There was a huge mustachioed royal piper in full regalia playing by the side of the boat.

At the top of the steps, we were met by the blonde tour guide, Shelley Ryan. At the sight of her, suddenly every guy's tummy got sucked in and they got taller by at least 2 inches! Amazing scientific phenomenon, this.

A purser come across to greet us, since our group was being given a personalised tour of the boat. He led us to the Queen's drawing room which had a grand fireplace and an equally grand piano. We draped ourselves over various settees & sofas while drinks were served. As expected, every person had their cameras out and was busy clicking away.

After 15 minutes of posing every which way, we were led all along the boat to have a look at the living chambers of various royal personalities, including the Queen, the Duke, The Prince etc. Their quarters were sealed off and preserved in an everyday kind of scenario. The queen had a rather small single bed along one side of the room, and a desk at right angles to it. The quarters were rather small, but they would have had to be, on board a ship.

We slowly made out way through the captain's quarters, the officers' mess room and the huge dining room. There were pictures of the royal family on the corridor walls. It was funny to see all the princes as they were decades ago.

Four different Royal couples have had their honeymoons on board this yacht. Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones were the first to get the Britannia treatment when, in 1960, it took them on a 6,000 mile voyage to the Caribbean. Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips were next, cruising the West Indies in 1973. In 1981 Charles & Diana boarded in Gibraltar at the start of their 16-day honeymoon voyage in the Mediterranean. Finally, in 1986  Britannia hosted her final honeymoon for the Duke and Duchess of York who spent five days aboard the Yacht cruising around the Azores.

See the pattern? None of the marriages survived! :-)

Out on the deck, it was getting to be dark, and the lights of the city were coming on one by one. The guide expolained to us that the Queen used to sail to various countries on the yacht on official visits, and when they arrived at the destination, the yacht would drop anchor off the coast, the royal Rolls Royce that was also on the boat, would be carried to the shore, the Queen would then get onto a smaller motorboat to get ashore, and then with full pomp and show, the Rolls would carry her to the official ceremonies. 

The Rolls is now permanently stationed in a glass-sided garage on the deck, and is still always kept in full working condition.

We continued our deck tour, and checked out the badminton court as well as a huge bell with the yacht name and "1953" the year of its commissioning engraved on it.

I made a quick detour here to go to the gift shop and pick up a couple of mementoes, including a commemorative Wedgewood. The shop was doing brisk business and the queues at the counter were really long. The place seems to be very popular with tourists.

We proceeded to the stateroom where a massive table had been laid out for us, with placeholders indicating our seating places. Each placeholder had an embossed royal insignia along with our names, making it an instant collectible. It was the same with the menus, which were individually designed, with the same embossed insignia, the individual's name inside and their specific diets taken into account in the individually customised menus. The Royal treatment!

After dinner was over and the plates had been cleared, I got up to thank the group for their performance, and then handed out the certificates to the winners, accompanied with a lot of applause and popping flashbulbs. Finally we made our way out of the boat, happy and sated.

This was the final event in the tour itinerary, and we would be making our way home from the next morning onwards. I would not accompany the group which would be taking a direct flight home, but would take a short local flight from Edinburgh to Leicester.

The next 2 days, including the weekend were spent happily in the company of the "golden haired" Maami'ma, the English cousins, boisterous kids running amok, toy trains laid out in the guest room (with their precise running schedules scrawled in spidery writing & pasted on various doors), visits to the local botanical garden (where I saw a Venus flytrap for the 1st time!), icecreams in the back garden in nice cool sunny weather. Oh, and not to forget, kitchen table discussions with a Shakespearean drama critic named Janet Jackson! (DISCLAIMER: No wardrobe malfunctions occurred during the course of such discussions). A good time was had by all.

Read more!

Highland Games: 4th day in Scotland

Day 4

August 22th

Today was the day for the team-building activity at Mavis Hall park. We had arranged for some highland games to be played between teams comprising our group members, though I had no idea what these games were. After a 45 minute drive, we arrived at the farm. 

It was a grey morning, and it had been drizzling all through our journey. We squelched our way through muddy paths into a warm cozy barn where coffee was being served. I think a few of our guys wouldn't have minded a tot of something stronger, even that early in the morning! Fly, the terrier, was running around, darting between everyone's legs and then disappearing under the serving tables. On  our way in, we have seen a few hens clucking about, and then everyone had stopped to click away. It was really funny to see the mother hen pecking away at the ground, and her brood of tiny chicks following her, stopping every now and then to peck away on their own. I joked that catching the hen was one of the highland games we would be playing.

We ambled through leafy woods to the vast clearing which was to be the scene of the intense competition between the 4 "clans". There were to be 4 separate competitions:

Tossing the Caber: You have to lift a caber (a large pole) so that it is perpendicular to your body with one end pointing to the sky. The pole is then tossed forward in the air to rotate (at least once!) and fall over to lie in the 12 o’clock position, or as near that as possible.

Weight over Bar: This involves (obviously!) swinging a wooden block over a bar which somewhat resembles the rugby goalposts. The bar is behind you and you swing the block with the help of strong ropes tied around it, over your head , letting it go at the critical moment.

Highland Dancing: Teams watch a short demo of highland dancing by pretty girls in flouncy long skirts to the tune of bagpipes before they have to dance the very same intricate steps themselves.

Welly Boot Hurling: Team members have to throw a large wellie boot towards big tyre hoping to land it plumb inside, but it’s not as easy as it sounds, especially if you are under intense pressure to score points for your team!

As one can imagine, the teams were really charged up for the competitions, and the resulting antics were rather funny to watch! Especially when pot-bellied not-so-young guys huffed and puffed while trying to lift the oh-so-heavy cabers and balance them precariously over their shoulders. Funnier still was the spectacle of leadfooted guys in wellingtons trying to match the nimble-footed steps of the young girls doing the highland jig! As for me, I stuck to the only few steps I know, the bhangra steps made famous in all his movies by Dharmendra!

After the fun and games were over and the team totals added up, there was one more little game to be played: Haggis Malt Challenge. A bottle of malt whisky was placed on the uneven grassy field, and every person had to try throwing Scotland’s national dish (or a wooden skittle as a representation) as close to Scotland’s favourite drink as they could. The person who would get closest to the bottle would win the Challenge and the bottle! Our guide, Stuart, talked us through this game, and then proceeded to give us a quick demo with the wooden skittle which to everyone's amazement (and probably his own too!) went on to bounce a coule of times on the uneven ground and hit that bottle smack on target!

Of course, none of us proved to be that accurate (or lucky?). There was a bit of a tension at the very end, when the very last person to throw the skittle inched ahead to the bootle, and was declared the winner. Later. much later, I got to know that the person who ended up losing in the end was the most relieved person. It seems that he was not too keen to handle a whisky bottle, owing to the compulsions of his sectarian beliefs. Well, it's not too often that a contest ends up making not one but two people equally happy!

A happily tired, slightly wet & bedraggled lot finally made their way to the bus, to be taken directly to the lunch venue, The Living Room, that I have written about earlier. Afterwards, it was a quiet stroll along the streets back to the hotel, for some rest & recuperation.

Read more!

The Castle & the Fire: 3rd day in Scotland

Day 3

August 21st

Picture this: You are in the middle of the jungle in a forest lodge, the South African veldt is all around you, it is the middle of the night, you can hear the quiet noise of the wild outside, the whisper of the wind, the distant growl of the lion, you are preparing to retire for the night in your comfy cottage, as the rest of your group tiredly trudges to their respective ones. And then a female voice says to you, "I can't sleep alone at night!"

Banish all prurient thoughts from your head right now. This was serious. This grown up woman of ... well whatever age, had lived all her life in a big joint family, and would always be surrounded by lots of people, boisterous kids running underfoot, and generally be surrounded by a lot of noise. When she found herself in silent surroundings in a cottage all to herself in the middle of the African jungle, she obviously got the jitters very badly. Hmmmm.

We had to come up with a serious solution to this seemingly frivolous probem, since this woman was very much part of our group and we were responsible for their welfare.

The 2 other women in our group immediately whispered urgently into my unoccupied ear that they would *not* share their cottages with anyone. Mind you, one of these women was our event organiser and the other was a colleague from my company! But compulsions of privacy ranked way beyond the call of duty, and I couldn't really blame them for that.

Finally, after a lot of options had been examined and discarded, a solution was proposed by our little tale's protagonist herself. It was bizarre and yet it worked for her.

She spent the night on the sofa in the reception of our jungle lodge. All through the night, people kept coming on to rearrange the furniture, sweep the floor or to check out of the lodge. All that noise was enough for her to drift off into a peaceful sleep.

OK, apart from the fact that I had referred to this episode casually in my last blog entry, what does this have to do with our current Scotland trip, ? Well, nothing as yet. But will any member of our current group come up with some request like this? Keep reading.

Edinburgh is not a very large spreadout city. We could see the ramparts of the Edinburgh Castle  from our hotel. The bus journey took not more than 15 minutes, through narrow uphill streets. The bus parked on what I later discovered was the Esplanade. Unfortunately the Edinburgh Military Tattoo had finished just the previous day, so the entire area was rather desolate and forelorn. The sky was grey and overcast, which gave the castle a very Scottish look. 

The Esplanade area is surrounded on all sides by stadium-style seatings. I don't know whether this is a permanent arrangement or was rigged especially for the Tattoo. A quick explanation of what the Tattoo is. It is a kind of annual military parade given by British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and International military bands and display teams in Edinburgh every August as part of the Edinburgh Festival. So why is it called a tattoo, if there is no tattooing to be done? 

The word "tattoo" originally dates from the eighteenth century, when British Army units were stationed in Flanders. Drummers from the garrison were sent out into the towns each evening to Beat Retreat, summoning the soldiers to return to barracks for the night. The process was known as "tap toe" and encouraged the inn keepers to stop serving beer and send the soldiers back for the night. That devolved into the word tattoo. So now you know!

As we trooped over the drawbridge into the castle, we noticed a dry moat below us, and statues of Robert the Bruce and William "Braveheart" Wallace on either side of the main gate. By the time we had crossed inside, it had started to drizzle. Most of our own brave hearts had obviously come without any umbrella or cover. So we were scrambling over stoney cobbled paths to reach the nearest stone building. The castle itself is arranged more or less like the Tower of London; there is a large vacant square in the middle, surrounded by stone structures on all sides. These structures house various rooms or chambers, including the royalty's rooms, the throne room, the Crown Jewels collection etc. Then there are steps leading underground to dungeons, to chambers where World War 1 prisoners were kept etc.

The very first structure we entered had a tourist shop, which stocked blue colored ponchos. When I pointed this out to a few of my semi-soaked group members, there was a rush on them, and soon after I could see the entire group wearing them. As for me, I was prepared for the inclement weather with an all-purpose rainproof & windproof jacket. I always carry such a raiment whenever I travel abroad to colder climes. It has proven to be a great all-in-one jacket that has kept me warm and (mostly) dry in places like Jo'burg (in August), Switzerland (in December), St. Petersburg (in March) and numerous trips in Germany in the winters.

The tourist shop also gave me the opportunity to buy a few knick knacks for the family. That serious business conducted, I settled down to take in the rest of the tour. We ambled through the various structures that included these:

- The Royal Palace (apartments of the royalty dating from the 15th century, including Mary Queen of Scots. She gave birth here to King James VI of Scotland, later James I of England)

- The Crown Room: This houses the Scottish Crown Jewels and Regalia. They include the Crown of Scotland, sceptre and sword of state. The crown dates from 1540, is made of Scottish gold and is set with pearls,  diamonds and other gemstones. The Sceptre is also made of gold, and topped with a large quartz crystal. The most treasured possession of Scotland is the Stone of Destiny, upon which the monarchs of Scotland are traditionally crowned.

- St. Margaret's Chapel: It's the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh Castle and the oldest building in Edinburgh. Legend had it that St. Margaret worshipped in this small chapel, but research indicates that it was built at the beginning of the 12th century by her fourth son who became King David. This is a small irregular stone building. The rectangular structure with an internal width of about 10 ft has an entrance door at one side near the back of the nave which is about 16 ft long, then there's a round arch on columns leading into a sanctuary. A very quaint peaceful place despite the hordes of tourists pouring in through the narrow entrance. Since there was room for one person to either enter or exit through the only entrance, and since everyone stood aside in deference to the other tourists in typically polite British style, there was a gaggle of people inside and a long queue of people outside just dying to rush in.

By the time I came out of the chapel onto the upper ramparts of the castle where the cannons were kept, the sun had come out and there were large crowds of families with children enjoying the view of Edinburgh city spread out far below us. It was almost time to return to the bus.

Our lunch venue was The Dome on St. George's Street. This restaurant used to be a bank earlier, which is pretty apparent once you stand in front of its imposing facade of huge Roman-style pillars. The main doors lead to a plush lobby which wouldn't be out of place in any grand clubs or colonial buildings frequenting Bombay or Calcutta. This lobby in turn opens into a huge dining area completely overwhelmed by a huge glass-covered dome (what else?). There are ceiling-length pillars and potted plants scattered throughout the Grill Room. Overall impression? Elegant and cool.

During lunch, we had the same old problems about individual persons' dietary requirements. Some people didn't want to have meat because of halal issues, some wanted seafood, some had requested for just vegetarian cuisine and one person wanted raw fruits and vegetables, in other words, a Jain meal. To each his own.

Once lunch was finished, our group had free time to itself. People were told to make their own way on foot back to the hotel, if they so pleased. Else they could just wander about and discover the city, so to say. St. George's Street is not too far from the hotel, and the weather was pleasant too. So our group of 4-5 persons decided to stroll back to the hotel, taking in the sights.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival had taken over the city and High Street, right next to our hotel, was jammed with street performers as well as the crowds thronging around them. The pavements were packed tight, and it really was some effort to actually move through the crowd, since the street sloped gently uphill. In addition to the interesting performers, who apart from being skilled at their art were glib talkers as well, I was drawn to the couple of specialist whisky shops on the street. The more authentic looking one was Royal Mile Whiskeys, at the junction of High Street and St. Giles Street. I ventured in with my troop of curious onlookers. The entire shop was crammed with single malt whiskeys, not surprisingly. The bottles were neatly standing against wall cabinets, clearly labelled and marked with prices, ranging from 20 pounds to 300 pounds. On the shop floor were cane baskets filled with miniature whiskey bottles for a pound to 5 pounds each. There was a shelf in the middle of the shop that had confectionary made from malt whiskey. Something for everyone. More importantly, the sales persons were very knowledgeable and happy to help. I caught snatches of conversation between some of them and the customers who were animatedly discussed obscure varieties of whiskey. It was a lovely atmosphere to absorb in. I didn't buy anything right then, but returned later on another day and bought a bottle each of 16 yo Lagavulin, 10 yo Tamdhu and 12 yo Glendronach, and also an assortment of miniatures to gift friends. Oh, and I couldn't resist getting a small box of whiskey fudge for my family! It was back to the hotel after the long walk, and get some rest for the evening ahead.

In the evening, we all trooped back to High Street where we were met by a theatrical guy dressed all in black, either a clergyman or a judge. He led us through back alleys and pathways all the while talking about various dark episodes in the city's history that had happened there. I thought the entire walking tour could have been much better, but then maybe he didn't talk about the best bits. We ended up at an entrance to an underground tunnel, in a light drizzle. The tunnel smelt rather musty, and was the start of an entire mesh of interconnecting rooms and passages under the city, dated back to 1540, as we were told. These underground cellars had a bloodthirsty history which I won't go into details here, but all this can be read on their website.

Finally, we ended up in a large cavern where we were served dinner. It was a weird feeling, having dinner underground beneath a bridge.

When we came out of the cavern, it was in the foyer of a nice modern restaurant! The drizzle outside had turned into full fledged rain, and I was thankful I had on my trusted all-in-one wind- and rain-proof jacket. The hotel was within walking distance (of course!) and we proceeded towards it.

When we reached there and tried to get in, we were met by a couple of firemen who told us not to enter, and to stay out on the main street. A couple of hotel guests were being shepherded out as well. One elderly woman was clad in just a bathrobe and hotel slippers, having been hurriedly summoned out of her room, and was shivering at just the thought of going out in the rain. But the firemen were adamant, and had been joined by the hotel staff. The explanation for this was that there was a fire alarm and they were checking out the entire hotel.

So then our entire group members trudged out slowly on the street, where a fire brigade truck had arrived. Soon, two other trucks joined it and the entire hotel area was cordoned off. A long-legged blonde rushed out of the hotel and identifying herself as a hotel employee, asked us all to go off to the Carlton Hotel across the street rather than stand on the road. It took a lot of imploring the entire contingent to actually accomplish this, because by then the guests were feeling the effect of the late night and the tiredness of a full day. Shortly thereafter, the other hotel's lobby was completely taken over by tired sleepy guests sprawled all over every available seat in the vast lobby. The helpful staff of the Carlton even arranged for some refreshments for the hungry ones. It was past 1 am already with no further news from the firemen.

I kept going out into the street and standing across from the Scotsman to check out what was happening. It was almost fun to be out there in the rain. About 2am, we were finally told that there had been a fire alarm in one of the guest bathrooms due to some "malfunction", and now it was safe to again go in.

The bed was lovely, soft and deep, and I had just seconds to ponder before I slept.

Read more!

Mirrors

Suppose you are standing in front of your bathroom mirror, looking at your own face. What would be the size of your face on the mirror surface? And if you were to back away slowly, what would happen to that face size on the surface?

Check out the answers & the reasoning in this fascinating article by Natalie Angier:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/science/22angi.html?pagewanted=1&em

Read more!

The Scottish farm: 2nd day in Scotland

Day 2

Enid Blyton's descriptions of English farms came alive as I looked upon the barn with clucking hens pecking away merrily and a little cocker spaniel (named Buster maybe? No, Buster was a Scottish Terrier and anyway that would have been asking for too much!) panted and gazed expectantly with sad eyes at us, as if willing us to throw a wooden stick for him to catch.

We had just alighted from our car after a 45 minutes journey from Edinburgh, to check out Mavis Hall Park, the venue for the outdoors activity we had planned for our group. The drive was again very pleasant, passing through small villages with quaint names and with green hillocks on both sides. It was drizzling lightly when we started and got steadily stronger as the journey progressed. But then that's the charm of English (sorry, Scottish!) weather!

A charming and pleasantly smiling lady named Fiona met us on arrival and ushered the three of us into her room. This was a converted shed on the farm, and was very cosy inside though cluttered all over just like a regular office space. There was another connected chamber which was occupied by some mysterious female voice that materialised just once to hand us some tea and then was never seen again (I mean, by us during our visit!).

The aforementioned spaniel, Fly was busy running between our legs and trying to introduce himself. Our hostess meanwhile had asked for some hot tea from that disembodied voice and there were some pieces of Scottish shortbread on the table. While Kirstie, our local contact and Shady, our event coordinator were busy sorting out the program details with the hostess, I was looking around the room. It was somewhat disconcerting to find a PC in these surroundings with windows of emails and Word documents open on the monitor. There was a small fax somewhere too. There were stacks of neatly labelled files on the floor. Visiting cards were put up on corkboard. Various Scottish-themed knickknacks like clan badges were scattered all over.

Having gone through the program details, we then pulled on some Wellingtons and clomped our way into the barn behind the office. This would be where the guests would be welcomed with a hot cup of tea or coffee (nothing stronger!). We came out of the barn, crossed the road and walked along a muddy path winding through the woods. We were closely surrounded with trees and shrubs on both sides of the ath. I could also hear the gurgling sound of a brook up ahead. Soon enough, we saw the brook somewhat below us to our right. The scene was absolutely enchanting.

After a few minutes of walking, we came across a vast clearing of grass that had a charming little loch at the far end. This was where our group would be playing traditional Scottish highland games. I could also see a medium sized castle to my left which presumably belonged to the landlord. The entire area was surrounded by mountains on three sides which gave it a very charming air.

We came back to the hotel by noon, and I retired to my room for a bit of rest and also to catch up on my email. I ordered a club sandwich from room service, which was an adventure by itself, since this hotel is not one of those conventional touristy hotels but is a character by itself. Anyway, I rested a while and waited for the group to arrive by 2pm. Their flight got delayed and they finally arrived by around 5pm or so.

Most people in the group were already familiar to me from previous trips but there were a few new faces as well, including a female. Hmm, the last time we had had a female in our trip had been a couple of years back in South Africa and that had turned out to be a rather interesting experience! But more on that later.

We had kept a light schedule for the group for the day of their arrival; just a spot of dinner followed by bed or the more adventurous ones could go out to explore the nightlife.

Over the light dinner, I welcomed the group to the event and congratulated them for being the high achievers that they were. I outlined the coming 3 days' program and explained a few helpful facts, including the contents of haggis, the Scots national dish. They were gratifyingly revolted. Read more!

Stranger in a strange land: Memories of Scotland

Day 1

"Ajfxrtr jrrr uwg fgnkrng?" The girl at the immigration asked me. I looked uncomprehendingly at her.

She tried again, "Fheryjf sf krhg gtekjgfa sdtjhyg?" I gaped at her like a country bumpkin.

Then she tried it slower and louder, at this mentally retarded person.

"Do you speak English?"

The indignation was dripping from my voice as I answered, "Of course I do!"

And that was my introduction to Glasgow English.

I had a taste of more of the same when our driver who was driving us to Edinburgh tried to explain some of the scenery to us, and we would just try to read his lips and nod away smiling, because for the life of us, we could not figure out what he was saying. He kept asking me about some collar and I kept trying to figure out where that fitted into our conversation, because we had been discussing neither shirts nor dogs. Then it dawned on me that he was asking me if we found Glasgow cooler!

It is a rather humbling experience when after a lifetime of speaking and writing English fluently, you run into the wall of regional dialects and are made to appear a fool or a retard.


The flight from Dubai had been very comfortable though a bit long. Thankfully I had been bumped up to business class, so it was okay. I spent the long flight watching movies ("I Could Never Be Your Woman", "Charlie Bartlett"). We actually landed a couple of minutes before schedule (12:30pm), and the pilot announced this fact as if expecting an applause!

So after we had cleared immigration & customs, and collected out baggage which didn't take very long since I had just 1 small case, we ventured out and were met by the aforementioned driver who ushered us into a large sleek Merc. Hmmm!

We stopped just outside the airport to check out a hotel called Glynhill for lunch arrangements for the large group that would be following us tomorrow in the same flight. Nice hotel, but a tad expensive. We didn't think the group would be sufficiently hungry for a full-fledged 3 course meal. So then we went on to check other places, like a roadside service station which had a nice convenience store serving big sandwiches, juices and coffee.

After that, we continued onwards to Edinburgh. On both sides of the road were undulating green valleys full of bales of hay and sheep. Not many cows though. The weather was pretty good, with overcast skies and quite a bit of sunshine.

We reached Edinburgh at around 3pm. The Scotsman where we were staying is a very different kind of a hotel. First of all, it was never built to be one. It was the headquarters of The Scotsman newspaper, and was later converted into a hotel. So the entire design of this place is bewildering. The rooms are very comfortable and impressive though they were obviously some poor editor's office once upon a time. The Editor's suite where I was put up is a grand old place with wooden panelling all over the rooms, and small knobs indicating where there is a cupboard built cleverly into the wooden panel. There is even a secret hatch through which one can slide out the room service plates once one is finished with the meals, or put out one's shoes to be polished in the evening. The bedroom window looks out over the railway station a couple of stories below us, and one can gaze upon the stately structure of The Balmoral, another hotel nearby.

All this was not discovered by me immediately, since we had to rush out by 4pm to examine a venue for the Grand Dinner to be held on the last night of the event. And what a venue it turned out to be!

The Royal Yacht Britannia is a decommissioned Royal Yacht previously belonging to the Queen. It was decommissioned in 1997, and as the story goes, the Queen shed a tear when it was finally docked at its berth in Edinburgh port.

We were met by a lovely blonde (no, it's not relevant to the story, but still!) girl who took us around the boat and showed us the arrangements for the Grand Dinner. I will not go into details now, but let this be said, the plans were really Grand!

While discussing all the details over a cup of tea served in a monogrammed tea set (but of course!), I espied some mementos in the wall shelves, and asked the tour guide if there was a tourist shop on the boat. Of course there was. But since it wouldn't be open during our dinner time on Friday, I asked to be taken to it afterward so as to do some "impromptu" shopping. Having done that, we left the boat.

In the evening, we went off to The Living Room, a restaurant which would be hosting our group later this week. A nice cozy place, with live music. I had a grilled salmon washed down with 1664 beer, and then had a shot of 10 year old Macallan. Lovely! Read more!

It takes a village

A few minutes back, I see a little girl of 3 or 4 stepping off the curb at the traffic light, and there's no adult in sight. So instinctively I wag a finger at her, sternly telling her to stay on the pavement. She obeys immediately, with a guilty look on her face.

So then I am thinking to myself while walking the rest of the way home that these days you don't really see any children being admonished or told off by some unrelated grown up, when the kids are seen making some wrong move in public. We all want to be seen as politically correct. Even when parents are present and don't lift a finger to quieten a screaming child in a restaurant or to shake their head at a kid busily exploring the inside of her nose while being introduced to people in public, other adults will sit there, beaming beatifically at the "little angel". Their attitude seems to be either that this is none of their business or a quiet feeling of heartwarming schadenfreude.

In either case, kids get to feel that whatever they do is perfectly all right, and that they are generally free to create any ruckus anywhere anytime. If this was all there was to it, I could still console myself that the world will just have to adjust itself to several more ill-behaved grownups 20 years later. But serious implications can happen if such acquiescence continues to be extended towards antisocial or even reckless tendencies. Consider the example I started off my blog with. A kid that steps off the curb unattended and survives will be encouraged to do the same thing again and again. Oh, maybe that sort of behaviour does explain jaywalkers in Calcutta!

Previous generations would never have stood for this sort of mollycoddling. A firm whack on the side of the head was due to any kid that dared raise his voice in public, even if the administerer was someone not directly related. Horror of horrors, the parents would never take the side of the kid, as & when they got to know of it. It would be the principle that mattered, not the individuals involved or their relationship to the parents.

It does take an entire village to bring up a child. Read more!