Hurry up and wait. Did you know that that’s what foreigners think of us Indians? But it is true you know. There is no point taking offence. We do like to hurry up and wait. We start getting ready for tomorrow from yesterday all the while thinking we are going to be late. Everyone hurries everyone else up, gets ready and waits for god knows what. No community is without this particular eccentricity. We are a nation infamous for our unplanned tardiness.

Like any other Indian community the South Indian community has its own peculiarities, with the multitude of reasons for tardiness being the least of it all. The first of many is that, that for some insane reason, South Indians like their weddings to take place in the early mornings. Even before the sun has decided that it will rise. Muhurat is invariably between 3.00 am to 6.00 am. The bride is made to change into nearly 6 different sarees within a span of 2 hours while the groom watches and waits in a dhoti transparent enough for the underwear’s brand to show through. It’s really, really difficult to be gleefully energetic and happy so early. Why, you tell me, should I wake up so ridiculously early or rather not sleep at all the previous night only to watch them throw coloured rice balls in all directions? Of course one of them, hurled like one of Shohaib Akhtar’s missiles, landing on an innocent Uncle’s face and thereby dislodging his specs, makes it worthwhile. One can also become incredibly heartless when deprived of sleep for many, consecutive nights. Anyhow, incredibly, that’s the highlight of the morning or rather night. The rice ball throwing and the moment when the Mangalsutra is tied around the bride’s neck are the key moments that have Aunties scrambling about in their stiff silk sarees seeking out the best vantage points. The ceremony itself is like a church choir, because, as if one priest is not enough, there is pack of them for chorus and backing vocals. Himmesh is no competition for the early morning nasal screeching. Their vocal chords are situated right in their nasal cavities and are equipped with an unnerving capacity to reach glass shattering pitch. I swear to you, when the chorus begins, it’s like a buzzing bee hive.

And the amount of blinding jewellery, oh. my. God! The shiny, never-dulling bling! We Indians single-handedly deplete the world’s resource of this ore and are responsible for the increasing prices. More than catching up with long lost relatives, more attention is given to who’s wearing what. Apparently most South Indians haven’t heard of silver or pearls or any other type of jewellery not yellow in colour. Being simple and dressing down would involve only 3 gold chains, 4 gold bangles on each hand and one silk saree, either blue or red or green with gold zari border. And lot’s of powder on the face (Foundation? What is that?). Never mind that it’s blisteringly hot in the hall, what with the 100 plus guests and the ceremonial fire blazing in the mandap. No, we want powder and heavy, uncomfortable things to cover ourselves with (I also suspect that the number one cause for our tardiness is all the jewellery and the one-inch layer of powder). Perfume, by the way, is not supposed to be light, floral and haunting that leaves a pleasant fragrance behind. It is a good perfume only when it smells like the concentrate of all the flowers in the world.

Marriage leads to more marriages. What else can you expect when such occasions are treated like a party thrown by a marriage bureau? Seemingly innocuous questions are thrown at you; “What do you? Ahaan… How old are you? Accha… And where do you live?” And just when you thought you were safe, the gleeful smile on that Auntie’s face reveals her sinister leanings. You should get up and run when she starts grinning widely at you and pats your hand. Such personality traits are often overtly visible during certain situations. It’s a sight to see when a bunch of girls go up on stage to wish the couple. All eyes, that were busy with other things, suddenly and rapidly swivel towards the stage, eagerly screening out the potentials and categorizing them into ‘Definitely pursue’ and ‘Out of the question’. It’s rarely the latter. The chase ends only with ‘I’m already married.’

Although there are less than desirable characteristics of this community, there is also a side that is rather endearing. They can be frustratingly orthodox and conservative but they are also fiercely loyal and adamantly helpful. The community itself feels like an extended family which can be at times good and at times bad. But what is undeniable is that the feeling of being included and accepted as if you were just another distant relative, which is quite common in other Indian communities and not just the South Indians, is unmatched by any other country, regardless of however late we all may be.

If ever you want to create a product that could cater to the masses and make you rich, create one that will appeal to any of the five senses that we are blessed with. Movies primarily provide us with visual gratification it’s the reason why the movie business is lucrative as hell.

The Indian cinema audience is divided in such a way that most would fall more or less into these two, discrete categories: the purists and the entertainment seekers. For the purists, the story and execution are of utmost importance. They believe that a movie should make an individual think, without which the purpose of making the film itself is lost. The execution – the narration, the way stories come together, etc – should be credible and art should in fact quite literally mimic life in this case. Extravagant set designs, lavish costumes and melodrama account for nothing here. If it’s not plausible then it’s not worth watching. Situations and characters that seem contrived and seem to have no purpose in the bigger picture are discarded from consideration without a second thought about their entertainment value. For the purists, the stories that need to be told are almost always bigger than the stars themselves.

The entertainment seekers on the other hand are a relatively easier lot to please. They often come to the cinemas looking for popcorn entertainment; a movie that will let them leave their brains and thinking capacity at home for a change and just enjoy. Now this particular type of audience either chooses not to think, and ergo opts for such a genre of movie on purpose or they are simply enamoured by the stars and are effectively drawn to them like moths to a flame. In this case, bigger the film and everything in it, more the value placed on it. Characters, dialogues, slapstick comedy, sets, songs, etc are more important than the story itself. Tunes leave much more of an impression on their minds than a critical issue. The concept of plausibility doesn’t exist.  

And then there is me. Call me a traitor, call me tasteless but I enjoy both types of movies – the ones that are made for pure entertainment purposes and the ones that tell a story of relevance. I do enjoy and appreciate movies that make me think, movies that deal with a social issue or an international concern; basically movies that tell a story that’s real. But I also love the other ones. I enjoy a slapstick comedy which, by the way, is not a comment on my sense of humour. I enjoy the songs; they let me see these places, giving them a memory even if it’s not entirely mine. Most of all, I love the fact that each emotion or feeling has a song or music to it. It gives life a context because it makes so many things so much more intense and the experiences so much more memorable. There are so many times that I’ve wished the life itself would have a soundtrack. Come on, wouldn’t you want songs that play only for you in different situations, say for example, ‘4 minutes to save the world’ when you enter a club? Or ‘White Flag’ when you are thinking about someone? No? Then how about you exchanging looks with someone when a song that both of you have labelled ‘Our Song’ plays somewhere? How do you explain that?

Anyway, most of all, regardless of what I’m watching, I love going to a theatre and getting lost in the dark for a few hours where reality is what is playing before my eyes. It gives me a kind of hope; watching people do the most extraordinary of things, say the most difficult of things when everything is on the line for them to loose, making the toughest of choices and heart-breaking decisions in situations; situations in which you have pictured or imagined yourself a thousand times. After all is over, when I walk out of that theatre, I feel rejuvenated. I’m walking with a bounce in my step, thinking about how everything seems so much more possible.

It’s crazy, the things that make me nervous. It’s really silly, little things for which I have my upbringing to thank for. You live and grow up in a particular environment; I guess you imbibe the nervous tics and habits of the people you see around you. You see your elders behave in a particular way and whether it is making sense or not, you have a tendency to integrate it into your way of behaving, which, by the way, may have been perfectly alright and functional till then, only to be thrown into a spiral of nervous dysfunction.

Thankfully, none of it is a deranged type of dysfunction like beating the person in front of you in a queue so you can move ahead faster, or spitting from my balcony to see if I can hit the head of someone walking by, or talking to myself loudly while in public places, or referring to myself in third person when in a conversation with someone else, or holding an annoying kid upside down by his ankles till he stops screaming. The things that get me on the edge are all seemingly insignificant things but they manage to tie my stomach in knots each time. The worst bit is that I know the reasons for my stress are completely, if not most of the times, irrational. But even though I know that, I cannot rationalize enough to bring my blood pressure down.

When I was in school I usually didn’t get pocket money. When I was in primary school, everything was taken care of for me. I had a bus to go and come by. I had my lunch with me. When I graduated to secondary school, I went walking to school and came back the same way. And when we did go out socially back then, we avoided taking autos and taxis. Buses or walking was preferred because they cost less. Even now it’s the same story except I now have more pester power and am very young-adult-type-ish lazy. Anyhow, this particular idiosyncrasy of my family has left me predisposed to nervousness every time I get into a taxi or an auto. I constantly eye the meter like a sleeping dog guarding the house. Beyond 20.00, every time the digits change my blood pressure jumps up a point. I intensely dislike traffic jams and I don’t have to tell you why. I have actually thought of getting down and walking because the meter was moving faster than my vehicle. I think I might have done that but like any other traumatic memory I seem to have repressed it.

Then there were the ominous warnings of the dire consequences of staying out late. Late for my parents till recently was 9.00 pm. Now it’s 11 but I have stopped caring. At least I pretend not to. Pretend, because it makes me nervous if I’m out after 10.00 pm. All thanks to my parents’ supposed clairvoyance about possible fallouts from spontaneous and inevitable breakdown of the society’s moral codes spurred on by the onset of sunset. And all this despite being caught in traffic jams at 12 in the night. I know alright, that it’s okay to be out late if you are careful and anyway things are not how they used to be 6 years ago. There are people out late these days. And it’s not like I live in New York or I venture into dark alleys all by myself because I find that one dark corner very interesting or take candy from strangers or carry a board around my neck that says, ‘Come, mug me.’  I’m not even alone when I’m out. But still, you know? Sigh.

This one is the last but not the least by far. Just like I haven’t figured out why the rainy season makes me nervous, I haven’t figured out why, if I’m still in bed and the clock strikes 11, I get nervous. It could be memories of my parents hollering at me about how half the day has gone by; the urgency in their loud voices that made me feel as if I have missed the last bus from Timbuktu to civilization. I don’t know. I’m still to figure some things out, yes.

There is a method in psychology where they tell you to do exactly what scares you so that you are not afraid of them anymore. I’m on that therapy. And I have meekly declared war.

As IPL gains speed and races towards the finishing line, I’m unable to decide if it has changed cricket for the better or for worse. Had it not been a 20-20 format, I’d have been sure as to where I stand on this issue. Although I love the excitement it is generating, I am disappointed at the way the whole thing took shape. I feel guilty in a way because I find myself enjoying the matches in spite of my disappointment.

It’s such a shame that the idea to sign up international players and have them play against each other was not even an original idea. It was stolen from ICL. And just like you would take candy from a child and get away with it just because you are more powerful, BCCI got away with it. The ban on ICL and it being branded as a rogue or a rebel league was, if you ask me, very unfair. Just because you can and because someone didn’t listen to, you don’t ban them. It was uncalled for and BCCI was being unreasonably territorial. What happens to all the players who signed up with ICL? It’s so immature that all those players are banned from playing for the country. Is that what matters? That who one plays with or for will be the deciding factor as to whether one will play for the country or not? Shouldn’t we be encouraging talent? Because I’m sure that there are some players out there who have signed up with ICL that BCCI will miss out on just because they refused to act like adults.

While BCCI the bully, flexes its muscles and promises its players a pool of money to splash around in, talent takes a back seat. While one of the reasons that ICL was set up was to scout for and nourish talent in a professional environment, which is another reason that makes the ban seems unwarranted, IPL seems to have been set up for pure entertainment and financial reasons. Since when did cricket become about making money? And where is BCCI getting so much money to throw around from? The rate at which players are being paid and splurged on, there is no need for NGOs to look for funding from corporates and wealthy, philanthropic individuals. The nonchalance with which players are awarded bonuses, it wouldn’t be a surprise if tomorrow the world doesn’t consider us a developing, second-world country and international bodies like the UN veto all appeals for developmental loans.

It’s a given that IPL is a lucrative affair to be in, but whether it will help hone talent is a big question mark. The claim that youngsters are being given the opportunity to play at the international level and that it will do wonders for them are all baseless assumptions that to me seem more like justifications for the league to exist. It’s pure entertainment and let’s not mince words by calling it anything else. They all have to go back to playing ODIs and Tests and a 20-20 format, where sheer, brute force matters more than anything, is not something that will equip them with the necessary skills. One of the key factors to being a good player is to develop patience and technique. IPL, I’m not sure, provides a platform for that.

It’s about time that cricket is taken seriously and it’s played for the love of the game and the desire to be the best in the world. Inclusion in the squad should not depend on who you know or what strings you can pull. Players should be judged purely on merit and not on how they performed in a few previous matches. Selection should be based on a sensible mix of form and experience. I agree that players need to be phased out of the team once they are past their prime. But to undermine experience and saying that we need a younger and more energetic team and using that as a justification to leave senior players out is outrageous and insulting. Shane Warne, 38, is coach and captain of a team that tops the IPL table. Ganguly, 35, who was written off by critics and benched by a headstrong Dhoni, is proving to be a great captain, showing the world that he’s still got it in him. Tendulkar, Jayasuriya, McGrath, Pollock, Gibbs, Hayden, Hussey, to name a few, are all pushing 35 but are still performing better than most youngsters. Jayasuriya is 38 and is still capable of scoring 114 (not out) from 48 balls.

Experience speaks for itself. It’s obvious that talent needs to be nourished and players need to be molded and that all this will take some time. Money needs to be made but not at the cost of this. BCCI needs to rethink its attitude towards cricket and focus on nurturing the game and not turn it into a charade where the rich, who don’t know what to do with their money, are playing with it like a game of monopoly.

Most of us like or love music. But the involvement level is different for each. For some, music is just background noise, something that they have on while doing other things that have their full attention. For some, it’s something that they listen to while they read or write, where the attention is half and half. You know this because there are these occasional head bobs and body movements that let you know that they are hearing it as well. And then there are some who can’t do any tasks that require attention while they are listening to music.

I belong to the last category. I don’t know about others but I definitely can’t focus on reading or writing or talking to someone when I’m listening to music. My mind automatically starts following the tune and if I know the song then my head starts humming the lyrics. Often, I’ve found myself getting irritated when I’m trying to focus on something and there is music playing. Then I just want the music to stop. Wishing for something like that is almost like blasphemy but then music is something that I would want to pay complete attention to and pay attention not because it’s a task. It’s because it deserves that kind of attention. It’s as if you are not doing justice to it when you don’t hear it and just listen to it.

There is so much intricacy and detailing that goes into creating any piece of music. One has to look out for them or they just pass you by and you don’t even realize they exist. There are multiple layers that are added on as and when the production of a song progresses. Each layer is equally important and although the focus on each and the balance between all shifts in the end, they all add their own indispensable touch to the finished product. By layers I mean the vocals, the instruments, the chorus and so many others that one often doesn’t know about. Of course each genre of music has its own method of dubbing, re-recording and finishing. It’s what makes each of them so unique.

The next time you hear a song, try not to focus on particular instruments or the lyrics. The first time try hearing it as a whole. Pay attention to the rhythm, the tempo, the pitch, the harmony of different sounds. Then play it one more time and this time try and identify the different instruments. Pick one and try and follow only that, disregarding vocals and other instruments, from beginning to end. Next time pick another instrument. And when you are done with the instruments, follow the vocals. Pay attention to the range, the timbre and how they keep time with the instruments. Then focus on the finishing. What does it sound like? Does it sound like an old, vinyl record? Does it have a stereophonic effect, more echo and resonance? Or does it sound very techno or electronic, where a synthesizer has been used to create all the sounds that one would generally hear from varied instruments? Try and identify the loops – bits of music that are forever repeating – that function as a base layer. Then go online and read up on the song. When you do all this, then you will be doing justice to a song.

Music is classified into different genres because of stylistic preferences. Genres often develop because of slight variations, where one style of beat or tempo or recording or some other characteristic that defines a genre, is modified by giving it more attention or relegating it to the background. It is amazing how the sound or feel alters by such variations and it is fascinating to understand them all because then you understand the genres better and then the song itself makes more sense.

Mahabharat and Ramayan are stories that have fascinated me for a very long time. But the numerous characters involved in the stories along with the multiple, interlinked stories have stopped me from picking up literature related to either of these and just read to get to know them better. I, of course, like any other kid from my generation (!), used to watch these on the telly every other Sunday along with ‘Stone Boy’ and ‘Giant Robot’ and ‘He-Man’. I enjoyed Ravan as much as Skeletor and Ram as much as He-Man and Hanuman as much as Orko as I tried to keep pace with the battle between families and the exile of Ram and the pursuit of Sita.

I’m sure most of us, at one time or another at Dadar station, have come across this bunch of people (who, I think are from ISKCON) selling the ‘Bhagavad-Gita As It Is’. Although tempted to buy, having this latent desire to get myself familiar with the two epic stories of our time, I have resisted consistently knowing that it would be relegated to one corner of my bookshelf. But recently, I thought of writing something about either of these and I happened to notice a copy of the above mentioned book at a friend’s house. So, I picked it up and rifled through it, the result of which is the following:

The Bhagavad-Gita is divided into Chapters with each Chapter having these Texts. I don’t know why I chose this particular Chapter and these Texts to write about. They were among  the first things I came across and I didn’t go any further because I immediately found it relevant considering how the world functions and because of the phase I am in – a struggle between a desire to earn money and revel in luxuries and a desire to do something that leaves one with not so much money as satisfaction.

CHAPTER SEVEN:

Knowledge of the absolute

Lord Krsna is the Supreme Truth, the supreme cause and sustaining force of everything, both material and spiritual. Advanced souls surrender unto Him in devotion, whereas impious souls divert their minds to other objects of worship.

Text 20: (Translation)

Those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires surrender unto demigods and follow the particular rules and regulations according to their own natures.

My interpretation:

Being the sensual creatures of luxury that we are, we have elevated money, power, lust, etc to demigod statuses. We worship them. We pursue them relentlessly. The pursuit never ends for we also fall prey to comparison. We compare ourselves constantly which only eggs us on even more, not unlike a drug addict, who needs a bigger and bigger fix every time to achieve the same high as he or she did the first time. And we are often blinded by this all consuming desire to get more and more. Governed by this new rule of desire, as ordained by these demigods, common sense takes a back seat and we become savages.

Text 21: (Translation)

I am in everyone’s heart as the Supersoul. As soon as one desires to worship some demigod, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity.

My interpretation:

Of course, like Krsna says, each of us is blessed with faith: an inherent capability for unwavering focus, attention and devotion. We continue to pursue these demigods as if it were programmed into us, which, in a way it is, by society, by family, by peers, etc. We worship these demigods because we are taught to. We devote ourselves to a demigod or gods of our choice.

Text 22: (Translation)

Endowed with such a faith, he endeavours to worship a particular demigod and obtain his desires. But in actuality these benefits are bestowed by Me alone.

My interpretation:

Our ability to persevere lets us chase them without letting up, believing that they will bring us much happiness and satisfaction; believing that more money will make us happy not realizing that we become more and more fearful; believing that power will bring us love and respect not realizing that we make enemies and incur hatred, jealousy and envy; assuming our actions will have no dire consequences and giving into lust and suffering from guilt. Not realizing that while we worship these demigods, the happiness and satisfaction we seek as a boon, are often obtained from the simplest of things.

Text 23: (Translation)

Men of small intelligence worship the demigods and their fruits are limited and temporary. Those who worship the demigods go to the planets of the demigods, but My devotees ultimately reach My supreme planet.

My interpretation:

Blinded by gratification, that is an almost immediate consequence, we chase. But there is only so much we can do once we acquire wealth, power, etc. The euphoria of achievement is short-lived. The feeling reaches a plateau, once again making us victims of the desire to seek immediate gratification, pulling us yet again into the cycle of worshipping these addictive demigods whose boons are miserably ephemeral.

Like automatons, millions of us wake up and follow the same routines everyday for the same results not understanding that these are not the only things that we should be pursuing and that the happiness and peace of mind we are looking for are not going to be achieved by putting in 100 working hours per week and taking home a huge salary. And we wait, wondering why our quests are not returning any satisfactory answers.