The White Tigers and the Slumdogs of India

It was much before all the fan fare and the hoopla that surrounded it, when I watched the movie "Slumdog Millionaire". It was an accidental discovery on a sleepy Saturday afternoon. I liked it for its cinematic brilliance and the good story telling etc. The emphasis is on "story". I never paid much attention to the opposition and negative criticism it got especially in the Indian media mostly because I never regarded it anything more than what it was... "India as seen by the western world through a prism of their own liking". And frankly, in my opinion a mature culture should not be too concerned about how ignorant foreigners perceive it.
When the kids from the slums that acted in the movie were flown to the Kodak arena alongside the likes of Bollywood bigwigs like Irfan Khan (I refuse to misspell his name) and Anil Kapoor to be paraded in front of the western media it touched a chord but it never stirred it too much. I was happy for all of them to be making something good out of their nothing through decent means.


After a while I chanced on the Man-Booker prize winning novel by "Indian" author Arvind Adiga: "The White Tiger". It has been bestowed to be the best novel of the year by a literary society famed for its recommendations throughout the English readership regardless of country or culture ever since one could remember.
The novel had the bearings of a brilliant one too when I started reading it. But as I proceeded with chapter after chapter, a sense of the surreal began to grip me. For me again, the emphasis is on "story". I wont go into too much of the details of the novel simply because it would be in bad taste for people who are yet to read it (personally though I recommend "The House of Blue Mangoes" anytime over it). But while reading it I felt that I was reading a foreigner's novel about how he perceives India. The only thing Indian about the author that I could feel was his name. The novel talks about "The Darkness" in the eastern part of India, feudal lords who like to "dip their beaks" into men and the vast disconnect between the Delhis, Bangalores and Bihars of India. I am not against the artistic liberty that the author takes with his protagonist who seems to have magically learnt not only to speak good English all by himself and have mastered the use of internet to check out pictures of Kim Bassinger, how people started calling him the "White Tiger" when I know it for a fact that there is no such term used for praising and how childish it sounds when spoken in Hindi. But all this while he remains ignorant of all things Indian. Nor am I against the author for having no sense of reality about how democracy in India functions, where the Lalus and Paswans from the alleged "Darkness" fail miserably in elections.


Overall the novel is not a showcase piece of art neither from the literary perspective nor from the story telling one. It has the masala aspect in plenty... in how the main character decides to write a letter not to Bush/Obama or Brown/Blair but to the Chinese premier... how he works in Bangalore for the offshoring call center business... and how he has to treat Muslims with the same alienness that the western world treats the Taliban and Al Qaeda, by calling them "Muslim Uncle".
This got me thinking about what does this novel offer over all the other contenders of the prize this year to have won. And my feeling after a cursory analysis is that it appeases the western notion of how India is. Never mind the author was brought up in western countries and its not his fault that he has the same notions about India. Its the appraisal with the tones of "look how India speaks about itself, so it must be true" that I have issues with.


The only underlying theme of the novel is that to be successful in India you have to be either a crook or a thug, more corrupt and ruthless than others. If you are not, then "India" will make you into a unrepentant one sooner or later. It will corrupt your soul and you'll be proud to have done what you have in order to just plainly succeed. Just as the movie has the hero mercilessly tortured by the police for all but telling the truth, and how the other "successful" kid goes on to become a contract killer.


People who have read the novel may praise it for the "writing style" and may not take it to their hearts when another India bashing story is heralded as the greatest thing to come out of the land of the Tigers. But I am just appalled at how much do we take it from others and how much more we throw at ourselves. If the Oscars approve it must be good. If you have the Booker then you have to be better than others.


Perhaps we need another Mahatma to unite and stand with each other to voice our collective opinion, but until then at least we can stop owning up to the Oscars and the Bookers in return to being called progressive.

The darkest hour always passes

I once started a post on how I watched a Ukrainian taxi driver and a bunch of kids in Kabul in a documentary on BBC world flying kites, but never quite finished it.
After today, I know what exactly it would mean to be able to enjoy such a simple pleasure in a war ravaged land.

We live out our mundane lives, going through the routines and fall into the trap of cocooning ourselves in the fragile fibers of misplaced sense of security. With our plum jobs and good earnings we assume that we have a parachute ready to open if we suddenly face a nosedive and a plush cushion to land gently into.
Seldom do we realize that it is all make believe. We are as fragile as our prehistoric ancestors who did not have the courage to climb down the trees even to drink water. When we get hit by anything unexpected we are too shell-shocked to realize that we are the ones who have been setting us up for such a shock.

I would not go into the details of the events of today, but the extent to which it has shocked has left me feeling as helpless as Nero's ministers would be feeling when they reported to him that Rome was burning, and he played with his fiddle. (Well that's not an entirely true historical fact, but we are not into that business anyway)

But after all this I realize that it was never them (the Nero's around me) but only me who has set myself up for such a disappointment. Its not that I didn't try to prevent it, but it was never easy when you have a "Chopat Raja" at the helm.

The sense of despair cannot be more complete and the helplessness not more profound than I felt today. But it also suddenly reminded me of the feeling that I had then when I started writing that post on the Ukrainian taxi driver in Kabul. I could not quite understand what keeps him to stay in that barren land which is now full of only land mines and have rains of ballistic missiles.
Today I can relate to his resolve to stay on, despite the grievous threats that he and his family members face. He was never born into the country but he chose it as his home. He chose it and he stuck through it during thick and thin. Others who never made that choice could be reluctant to stay on and face the onslaught. They wouldn't believe that there would be ever an end to the turmoil in their land. But the taxi driver on the other hand, has that optimism that comes from the surety of conviction.

It may be the darkest before the dawn and it may take an eternity to pass, but at the end my dear, the darkest hour always passes.

The Leap Towards Life

T'was a rainy night, I don't remember the exact date though. Well you can't blame me for that as I was only 7 going 0n 8 or 6 going on 7, and it isn't one of the fondest memories of my parents, so there is little discussed about it anyway.

So it was a night as I remember it, but it couldn't have been more than 7 PM or so, 'coz that was the usual time my dad would come home from work. It was a tradition with me to keep guessing what exactly he would be bringing for me, apart from the usual Cadbury's chocolate bar. I had it all figured out you see. I had my own little algorithm about it too. It went something like..., if there were grapes yesterday and mangoes the day before then it would be watermelon or apples today. :-)

It used to work too.

Well to be honest, I always ended up saying, "Look mom, I told you it was going to be ... tonight!" and both of them would agree that I had guessed it correctly. :-) After all who would deny a sweet little kid like me (pun intended) as small a joy as that, least of all my parents.

It was the late 80's and telephone was a luxury still, so one had to rely on such guesswork. It had its own share of fun too. We used to stay on the first floor of our building and the balcony of our house overlooked the adjoining alley where my dad used to park his scooter. And being the "smart" kid as I was, I had learned to distinguish the sound of my dad's Vespa 150, from the other Chetaks and Lamrettas in our neighbourhood. So every night I used to wait in anticipation, guessing whether it would be apples, or pomegranates or kaju, kishmish etc... and at the same time, listening intently and deciphering the engine sounds from the road leading up to our building, just so that I could then say, "Look Ma.. I told you..."

So back from the tangent...this was also one of those nights, but it was raining (that's the saving grace for me). Mom was in the kitchen and I have this clear image of her sitting beside the gas stove making rotis with if I remember correctly daal (which was the only thing I used to eat then), when I think I heard the sound of my dad's scooter. It was already a bit late from his usual time and I was absolutely certain that it was him, so I ran from the kitchen towards the balcony to confirm and wish him welcome. I ran saying, "Daddy aa gaye.. daddy aa gaye" with all my might and that turned out to be just a bit more than enough... As when I reached the boundary wall of our balcony (which incidentally, was a bit lower in height than normal ;-) ) I couldn't stop and kept on running on the slippery floor of the balcony, suddenly to realise that I have long ago left the safety of the first floor and was heading face first towards the recently cobbled alley down below.

When I write this, I suddenly realise that I still clearly remember my "leap". It couldn't have been more than 6-7 seconds that it took me to complete the journey (thankfully only towards the ground... as you see I am still here today writing about this at 3:33 AM) . But I still remember the window of our next door neighbour which had a grill painted in blue rising above me, and the rain drops falling down below on the stony pathway.

I even remember the dress I was wearing that night. It was a blue and white checked shirt with blue nickers.

So after the 6-7 seconds that could have been my last on the face of this earth, I hit the ground below with my head just above my left eyebrow and felt the gravel and sand and water hit my face... there may have been some blood too. But I didn't loose consciousness immediately and mustered enough strength to get up (yes that's true) and find the door of our building. When I look back, I think I must have cried too... and I must have shouted while taking the "leap", but it was raining pretty heavily and my voice must have been lost. Being in the state that I was in, I still did manage to find the correct door and walked into it and then I fell.

I don't know how long it took my mom to reach downstairs and pick me up and rush me to the Emergency Room, but it wouldn't have been too long. The last thing I remember is the doctor putting the anesthesia mask over my mouth. Mom tells me that I was struggling too much to let him check me up and my head was any way double the normal side already, so he decided to get me ready for an emergency operation. I don't remember the details of how many stitches it took them to sow me up back again, and then how many hours were past after which I opened my other eye, but I did. Mom tells me that on his way to the hospital dad overturned some auto rickshaw which was blocking the way,with his bare hands!! Poor auto wallah... chose the worried father on a bad night to mess up with...

As it was a head injury, the doctor has already said that your son may get up being paralysed or invalid for the rest of his life or being completely insane..., but I did open the other eye and I spoke and I smiled.. and I cried.

While I was nursing my injury in the hospital, my dad brought me a box of crayons and a drawing book to play with. And guess what did I choose to draw first of all...?

It was me, taking the leap from our balcony, wearing my blue and white checks and the criss-crossed cobbled pavement below, with rain falling over. It was kind of a top view self portrait with me heading towards potential oblivion.

So this brings me to the point... it was the potential fatality of the jump which was not to be, and I can look back and see myself to have been blessed. After all I have kissed death already and have come back okay. Well almost... my grandma always mentions to even complete strangers, "He fell on his head when he was young and that too from 15 feet on stony ground". :$

I found a penny

Well, there are a couple of things that I want to talk of in this post.

1) What's so special about finding a penny lying on the road

2) Why it's extra special tonight to warrant a post... ;-)

Without even bending the norm, I'll start with the first...

My grandma is the most carefree soul in the world and one of the fondest memories that I have of my childhood is when "daadi" would take me to the railway station to watch, what she used to call "locomotives" (the huge steam engines of that time). Every now and then on a weekend she would tell my mom that she's gonna take me to the railway station. And both of us would have this charade in front of my mom & dad when she would ask me what I want to do on a saturday and I would say "Go see a 'locomotive'". And after my dad would give 10 Rs (or some such sum) to her to take me to the railway station and a warning from my mom to take care of "daadi" (which I used to take quite seriously) we would set off on our journey.

I still remember, literally dragging her to the bus stop and then running around here and there once we would reach the station. She would buy a platform ticket and off we would go on the lookout of the biggest locomotives. The biggest ones would usually be working with the goods trains and this search would normally take us away from the hulla balloo of the passenger platforms. No stray passengers waiting for their trains sleeping on the platforms, no beggars etc.

The goods trains usually have a separate platforms and we would go there and wait for the waiting train to depart. I still go to the railway station early when I am coming back to Pune and visit that platform where the station master's cabin is adjacent to a huge bougainvillea plant with pink flowers.

We would sometimes sit there for hours when she would buy all sort of stuff to eat like 'time pass moongfali' and never buy me the orange Popsicle from the platform vendor. "You would get meningitis", she used to stay whenever I asked her to buy me the orange one, "Its made of dirty water".

There were plenty of experiences that I had during such trips, from witnessing my first cop chase to seeing my first artellery tanks which still don't cease to fascinate me. I also learnt that there were two types of steam engines, ones which have conical noses and the ones with the flat fronted engines with a red dot encircled by a silver star, which were especially magestic to watch as they had huge number of bogies attached. She asked me to count the bogies aloud in english and it used to be fun when I could count over eleventy two.

On one such visits something happened that still sticks in my memory. We were going towards the waiting bench in the sun (I think it was winter time) and this huge locomotive was blowing its whistle ready to depart, so I was dragging her behind me to hurry up, othewise we would miss watching the "chuk chuk". But she suddenly stopped and started going towards the tree, where eventually she bent over and picked up a shining new 1 rupee coin. She later bought me a popsicle with that money (but not the same coin) and told me that finding money in such a fashion was lucky. Strange thing is that she would ask me to throw away the pencil sharpeners and pencils that I would bring home from school which I similarly found lying on the floor of my classroom, saying that I would fail the exam if I kept that pencil or the sharpener.

With this background its clearly established that I believe that finding money lying on the road is a good omen. :-)

Now to the second point.

Of late, I have been more superstitious than I normally am, and I have started believing that when people think; bad stuff do happen to you and vice versa. Not quite voo doo, but still who knows.. ;-) .

Now tonight the special thing is that while I was walking back from the office I had this feeling that someone is sure to be cursing me (I can't think of many but there are certainly a few, who would do that) as I had suddenly developed this strange ache in my leg. So... finding a penny while I was really hoping to be lucky if I didn't fall over is certainly a great omen, and a sign of better things to come. Hope its sooner than later.. :)

"Dude.. I want you in the night"... All in a day's work.

Well this was destined to be the first post of 2009.

My Blog has anyway been begging me to add some flair to it since long.


So before further ado, and to stop your filthy minds from associating some vulgar connotations to the title, here is the summary of what happened.



It was somewhere close to the lunch break and I was as usual busy cursing TINA and C@fe (they are the main IT apps of the company I serve and deserve a post in their own right, but that will be for some later day) and was busy as hell trying to at once monitor 7 different PCs when I suddenly got this call. As is my usual custom in such hectic times, I didn't stop to check the caller ID and answered the cell immediately. Well actually I was secretly hoping to hear a sweet voice at the other end and it was my impatience that led to me to it, but all said and done... here I am... posting this.



I have this habit of going on tangents... irritating, isn't it... ;-)

Think again, its just a cheeky tactic...



Well coming back to the core... so first unexpected thing.. a male voice.. followed by the question.."Dude.. I want you in the night"... Huh!!! ... blankness... shock and awe... (to be precise, he asked me in Hindi, so it sounded more like you'd think it would, to make me go silent, berserk, amazed, perplexed and what not... all at once)



I thought it was someone trying to pull my leg, and I should use this opportunity to vent out some of the curses I keep uttering to TINA and C@fe, by giving him a piece of my mind. So I locked the PC and got up, thinking that this bugger better have some good explanation and came out to the corridor. I knew that I'd have to use some heavy duty expletives which even though the Dutch speaking junta sitting around me wouldn't be able to understand but they'd still get the idea with the tone I was going to use.



All this happened so quickly that I never thought of checking the caller ID. But to cut a short story shorter, it turned out to be my boss, (with whom, unfortunately or fortunately whichever way you'd like to put, I had have the pleasure of talking only once previously in this new year and very rarely on the phone in general). He had called me to confirm the planning for the Post Go Live for the upcoming release next weekend.



Well it was fortunate that he quickly identified himself otherwise I was on the verge of starting with the barrage. After that I couldn't stop laughing thinking of how his unwitting query turned out to be. When I pointed it to him how it actually sounded, then he also joined in and even tendered an explanation. :-))
I decided to not push it further and to not get on the wrong side of the appraisal in the process. Thus ended the short lived affair which promised grandeur but alas it was not be.



Has it been a valuable lesson in my corporate life... not quite.
Is it something that has prepared me for some unforeseen circumstances... I hope not. ;-)



But it did add that extra little bit of humor to my day and I hope it would make a nice story to tell at opportune moments. All the components that make one are certainly there.

The importance of the Smile

Not so long ago I quoted in my "Adieu" e-mail from my last assignment that one is successful when he doesn't know whether what he is doing is work or play. Work- for me has been for most of the times- play. Even though life does play hard ball quite regularly, it's something that I never had to learn to tackle. It came naturally.

The way I have dealt with adversity in work place till now has been such that people who don't know the specifics and who do not have the chance to observe from close quarters, come to think that I'm having too much fun. It so happens that 'the smile' that I have on appears to be growing according to the difficulty of the situation. (Even though it is not easy and I have lost my cool in some situations, this is how it generally has been). The harder the situation to handle, the broader "the smile" would appear to be.

But this post is not a self congratulatory note about my prowess with what I do.

Let me come to the point. What I refer to by "the smile" is not just what you have to put on your face. It’s the cheerfulness that reflects on the outside when the thrill of tackling a challenge would be the driving factor. When you think of the innate satisfaction of achieving a seemingly impossible feat which you have set out to achieve and not think about how many hardships you'd have to go through, then it’s easy to have 'the smile'.

The trouble with such a scenario is that success in such situations begins to be the 'expected' instead of the 'outstanding'. But that is food for thought for some other post. This one is about 'the smile'.

It could be that after the daunting tasks that I set out to achieve at the beginning, many simplistic tasks don't challenge me enough, but of late the sheer tediousness of simple tasks is beginning to weigh me down, and I have been putting off work just because it’s not challenging enough. And the smile has been missing ever since.

I realize now that I have been trying to put the cart before the horse. It should not be the challenge that one should enjoy rather than the joy of completing a task to the best of one's ability, however trivial it may appear to the intellect. It's the smile that is important and not the challenge. The smile would always have to be the single unquantifiable factor and not proportional to the task at hand, simply because of the fact that a smile does not have degrees. There is no measurement to the amount of a smile. It is, to put it bluntly - a binary. It either is there or is not. There is no more to it than less.

To be successful one should not aim at achieving the impossible; or climb Mt. Everest every time there is a chance, but to look at the satisfaction of a job well done. It’s important to have 'the smile' and not to measure it. Success in the end is just to quote one of my friends, "Doesn't even matters" (improper grammar intentional). It's the journey and not the destination or the speed with which you travel that matters.

The Trouble with Harry

That's is a 1955 movie I watched recently. The tag line of the movie says "The trouble with Harry is that he's dead". It's from Hitchcock, but probably the only one of its kind. Hitchcock is famous for being a great exponent of the suspense/thriller genre but in this movie he tries to tickle the funny bone (He doesn't do particularly well, which is evident by the fact that probably you would have never heard of this movie before).

But this post is not about Hitchcock or the movie. There's Wikipedia for that.
In the movie the character of the wife of Harry, (who ends up killing Harry later because he comes looking for her to the quiet little town) tells another character (an eccentric artist), "On the day of our marriage, I read my horoscope which said, 'You should not start a new project today, for if you do, you'll never be able to finish it'. So I just left and came here."

Of course Hitchcock was famous for his telling commentary on the human subconscious and this dialogue though absurd, carries more meaning to it than seems obvious.

We keep finding excuses for what we are just simply afraid of doing.
Had the wife of Harry just stayed and decided to complete what she started; had she taken the chance which she was on the verge of anyway taking, the trouble with Harry wouldn't have started in the first place.

We keep on putting off things just to avoid having to face the "consequences".
Well if you look at it, you anyway end up facing the consequence of not doing it, which more often then not, you regret later.

So why not regret having done it, than having to regret not having done it at all.
And there's always the sweet chance that you end up committing the "best" mistake of all.