The School

As promised, I will veer away from governed, government and governance, at least for this post. I remember stating previously that this post would be about my grandma or the color of rose. So let me write about the rose….. The rose is clearly non political entity, or is it? Don’t the leftists claim the rose for their own, deep red being their birthright (red as a rose, red as blood, red as their flag)? And wait, so do the rightists (whether rose or lotus what’s the difference.What’s in the category; a lotus, even if garbed in the mantle of a rose, still smells right) and the centrists (the hand that holds the rose rules the nation). Err…. I think I better stick with talking about my grandma.

I have a grandma, actually I had two (what’s new, you may ask; give me a minute, patience pays) but one passed away. She is old (as are all grandmas), the one who is alive I mean, and pious (as they better be)…. Looks like this endeavor is also turning out to be a squib; I better write something else before I lose you, the lone audience that I have.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Dark clouds of ignominy threaten to engulf my already subdued writing. And in these times of desperation, let me turn to my age old favorite – to appear sophisticated through snide comments about passable works in the world of cinema. Let me talk about one such tryst that I had with mediocrity over the weekend.

Paathshaala. The school. When I was told that the cast ensemble included Nana Patekar and Shahid Kapoor, I expected the experience to be memorable. And with Ayesha Takia as the female lead, the male audience is bound to be satiated, or so I thought.

It started off well enough – a close up shot of Shahid’s smiling eyes, a “Krantikari” dialogue and you thought you had a sure one. But the movie turned out to be good only in promises. It was a promising theme, a promising cast, and might have turned out to be a promising act. But it fell flat. Leaving me wondering, what is it that went wrong? For at the heart of the answer lies the answer to one of my favorite questions “What makes a classic?” The cast was good; the acting insipid. The theme was noble; the scripting was by a moron. The intention was altruistic; the direction was pedestrian.

Worst of all, there was no storyline. Cinema is a nuanced form of storytelling, and to tell a story you need to have one. No amount of ad spend, eye-candy and star power can replace a story – however flimsy it may be. Yet this seems to have been neglected. Did the director want to highlight the crass commercialization of education? Or was it his intention to show the nobility of the profession? Did he intend to highlight the importance of individual character? Some questions are meant to remain unanswered.

The plot meandered about so aimlessly that the director was forced to reiterate the roles of the characters time and again. Except for that, I see no other reason why a geography teacher should be shown walking around the school lobby with a globe, all alone. And for a movie that claims to portray education, heaven alone knows why there was no depiction of teacher teaching the taught. Going by the movie, one would believe that all that the profession of teaching involves is jostling with fellow teachers, principal and management.

One supposes that the think-tank behind this movie consists of a bunch of socialist bigots. Commercialization of education, in itself, is an ugly can of worms; there are so many real issues that dog such ventures that you do not have to show the pseudo-"educators" as misanthropes. By trying to convert varying shades of grey to distinct black and white, the movie does injustice to the theme it claims to support. You can take your self righteous pedestal and castigate your capitalistic opponents to eternal damnation even without showing them as people who profit openly from a child’s misery; no sane human will do that, more so because it would hurt him (I meant financially) more than anyone else.

Despite all its shortcomings, the movie had good intentions; and that counts for a lot now a days. It may not have been realistic, yet there were a few moments where you got nostalgic, where the nobility of the teaching profession uplifts you…. And before you get carried away, the movie, with a jarringly awkward narration, moves forward, and you once again curse the stars, sun and moon.

My take on the movie – do not watch it, even if it comes for free. I think its time for the cast and crew of the movie to go to a Pathshaala – a real one this time. However, if you have to watch some movie or the other, choose it over Phoonk 2; I have heard people refuse to believe that the movie they just slept through belonged to the horror genre. Dear makers of Phoonk and its successors, do not go to any sort of gatherings, I am forever scared witless by the thought that ideas could be contagious.

Another groaner, the last one I promise...

Last evening, I was keenly watching the proceedings of what the eponymous Maoists called “pigsty” in action. Let me first place on record my concurrence with Mr. Chidambaram, his anger at being referred to as a pig is justified, I would call it necropolis rather than pigsty most of the time. But characterization of the once great institution is not the objective of this effort and I digress as usual. What caught my attention, the root cause of this article and you pain thereof, was one point made by Mr. Laluji towards the end of the debate. He said, and although I don’t quote, I am trying not to misquote, he said “As I have asked Mr. Home Minister before, he must call an all party meet and discuss this issue. There are a lot of things that we cannot state openly here.” To this Mr. Chidambaram replied without missing a beat, “I will discuss with the Prime Minister and get back to you.”

What shocked me was the brazenness and utter callousness with which the statement was made, received and replied to. On one hand you had a debate whose cornerstone was the sanctity of democracy and transparency and on the other you had politicians clearly and unabashedly wanting to hide discussions and information from the public. It’s an open secret that there is a lot hidden from public eyes, what is distressing is that the modern day legislators are not willing to give the opacity in public administration even a semblance of a secret. Would you like to know the biggest threats to the Indian democracy? – its biggest benefactors, the politicians.

Until yesterday, whenever I heard Mr. Chidambaram use his “Us Vs Them” rhetoric, I considered myself to be a part of the “us”; that by the “us”, he referred to the entire fed up/disillusioned/not yet disillusioned but still horrified Indian populace. Yet if you read through Chidambaram “Us vs Them” statement presented in the Parliament, you realize there are now three section where previously there were two – the “Us”(Hon. Parliamentarians and their ilk), the “Them”(Hon. Maoists and their loyal fans) and a third “neither us nor them” (typically you and me - plz note there is no Hon. for this category). And all of sudden I am wondering that if I am not a stakeholder in the conflict, why is it that I should be the worst affected? Mr. Chidambaram says he is not afraid of the Maoists. I wouldn’t be too, if I had a battalion of the best trained men armed to teeth protecting my sorry posterior. Mr. Chidambaram, I am sorry to say, but you ought to be saying “We Indians are not afraid of facing the Maoists”.

I had, in all my ignorance, assumed that Maoist presented a danger to the concept of India; it is now clear that they too believe in the concept of India, only India with a different system of governance. I ask you, Is that too bad? What I mean is that as a system of governance, democracy needn’t be the best. And that too in a day and time when people are openly speculating that one Mr. Tharoor Tweet will not be pressurized too badly to come open with his dealings in the murky world of IPL; the reason being too many of his brethren have “innocent” dealings in the same arena. If these are the gladiators, why don’t we abandon the sport?

Let me clarify and I state this with my hand held against my heart, I am against Maoism. But this doesn’t mean I root for democracy. I now wonder if we wouldn’t be better off minding our affairs for the most part, a division of populace into rulers and ruled-overs clearly isn’t working.

Going through my recent posts would convince you that you could lay your hands on a potential Maoist. Let your mind be at ease, because all said and done, I am a typical Indian, an insufferable know it all who is ready to provide a cynical snide for anything under the sun but unwilling to move even a finger towards changing what he detests. Yet I think there is one change that I ought to bring about - I think its time I change the distinctly political nature of recent posts. The blog now seems more like a propaganda machine than humorous expression of candid thoughts of an overly cynical mind. I would, from now on, prefer apolitical expression, like essays on my grandma and the color of rose. If any of you find political leanings in that, please do indicate the same; I would, as usual, bend backwards to accommodate all your views.

What next?

Running up a hill.....
Chased by a tiger......
I lose a foothold. Falling, falling, blindly falling with eyes closed …..

On the ground with a thud.
Bright light pierces through the tightly shut eyelids.
Eyes open, painful bump on the head.
But where are the hill, the tiger and the foothold?
All dissolve, feared will-o-wisps.

Chasing dreams. Chased by dreams. Societal dictums.....
Where is the slippery foothold that will jerk me out of slumber.

Of Sleepy Days and Sleepless Nights

A persistent plonking. But this is not how my wake up call should sound. The plonking turns into an insistent wail. Eyes flutter open. The cuff directs itself to clear the slowly forming drool. Panicky fingers reach out for nearest switch to snuff the life out of the annoying device. Eyes frantically seek for familiar objects to latch on.

Curious eyes. Angry Eyes. Amused Eyes. All looking into my embarrassed eyes. A weak smile here, a muttered apology there and I make my dazed way into the restroom. The first splash of cold water, and I realize that I am in office; second splash – the horror of my disheveled clothes; the third splash leaves me begging for avoiding another splash – each splash unwrapping a new horror. My day in the office has started.

Before I proceed any further, a disclaimer: This article does not refer to anything even remotely explicit; the sensor board of any country would be more than glad to give it a U/A rating. Rather the article would endeavor to educate (the few, lucky) non IT guys about the grime beneath the shine in IT industry.

Let me confess, I am a reluctant participant in the IT revolution, an unseen cog in an untraceable component of the IT juggernaut. I had even selected my streams in collage to minimize the risk of me being sucked into this seemingly enormous black hole. But paraphrasing an ancient Vedic saying “Like all the rain water finally flows to the ocean, all modern day graduates depend on IT”.

I left the portals of my college (after a solid 7 year stint) a blue eyed, eager individual ready to make a dent in the universe. Unafraid of a hard days’ toil and eager to roll my sleeves, I looked forward to satisfying work, hectic though it may be. That was when I was introduced to the concept of “honeymoon period”. People tell me that, in the days of old, a new student/recruit was, in his initial days, literally ground on the stone. The intent was to test the commitment and endurance; if a tight rope walk is achieved, a walk on an expressway later on would be no big feat. The modern companies have another version of the same – give you all the time in the world; so much time that you begin to repeat every thought twice – and check out your levels of enthusiasm. A non brain dead individual at the end of the period is an achievement.

What is worse, its not as though you have no work, oh no dude, there is lots of it to go around. But the entire day going in contesting for pieces of work, in loops of mails and counter mails – between client and team, between team members and of course between you and your buddies. And suddenly you hear people politely smiling and wishing each other good night and reality hits you that the juicy piece of work you grabbed for yourself has remained just so – a juicy piece of work to be done. And your night and day merge in the twilight.

If anyone were to ask me what the biggest enablers of the Indian IT revolution are, even increased internet bandwidth would take a second place (we guys would have found ways to send the software by carrier pigeons, if need be). To me, the single biggest catalyst that enabled the miracle of IT is modern day office architecture. Kudos to the architect tribe, you now cannot differentiate between night and day, rain and shine, swelter and freeze; its al a plain dry office climate, as predictable as Chennai heat, and equally annoying.

But why am I complaining? A small (ok, a small but tending towards huge) belly, a thick pair of soda glass are small sacrifices against the handsome salary and a chance to retain my not-so-fair complexion. Or are they?