BramhaRakshasa-The Demonic Scribe BramhaRakshasa-The Demonic Scribe In the fertile valleys of Indian folklore there exist legions of characters painted in shades of grey.Of subdued pastels and intents.Of a background of good and a present of evil.Of known beneficence and unknown portents of damning currents.Of learne Articles
The Inheritance of Blogs
2007-09-22 08:53:00 Sadly I have decided to kill this blog as well, and have been posting my attempts at reflection of self at an undisclosed blog without any readers. It's better this way. I try to keep my blogs in a constant state of fucking flux. I am not here to make friends. I am definitely not here to read poorly crafted mood pieces by some dimbulb who assumes just becuase he or she is typing out their thoughts it makes them less mundane. I do not like to discuss my personal life on blogs, unlike my ex whose blog is based on the assumption that she is the center of the universe. Well with the size of her fat ass, it would be surprising if she wasn't commanding some kind of gravitational field of her own.But, I digress. Blogs pot was alluring for a bit because it didnt place that emphasis livejournal does on having blog "friends" and it kinda looked cooler. But as all those idiots who get a tattoo of their favourite band stamped on their forehead find out, bands fade away, affections wane and eve... More About: Inheritance
Breaking News and other Redundant Phrases
2007-09-02 10:11:00 We live in sadly unimaginative times and mass media in its bid to catch our attention tends to overuse certain phrases which at one point signified something but now are a blur for our cognitive powers.Breakin g News : Formerly signifying an event of importance and generally something out of the ordinary. Nowadays this term is used wantonly by tv news channels for everyhting ranging from a cow that can allegdly count to a temple visit by Amitabh Bachchan.New and Improved: The globalised standard space filler for advertising copy writers, never meant much to begin with, nowadays signifies that the packaging of the product is changed and not much else.Super-Hit: A term which was sparingly applied before, but in the new age of spin doctors where credibility of claims is generally suspect, it is applied to every creative piece in the country. In the old days this was a term which was annointed upon you, now it is generally used by whoever is pushing the artistic product.Man of the Masses:... More About: Breaking News , Phrases
Anti Social Elements for Dummies
2007-08-29 07:48:00 If you believe that the universe is imploding and exploding in an alternating fashion, then it shouldn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to picture us doing the same. I find that half our lives are spent carving a path away from who we are being told we are, and the other half trying desperately to claw ourselves back into our original comfort zone of conformity.Maybe it a rule of the powers that be, maybe its just our nature to be indecisive, or maybe its the after effects of thousands of hours of mainstream media brainwashing. The bad boy goes good, the washout finds salvation by coaching a kid's team, the devil may care protaganist asks for his mommy at his deathbed. Behaviour patterns deviating from the norm are classified as desirable only if they come back to the norm eventually. It's the classic definition of a Happy Ending (pun not intended), because it is assumed that only in normalcy is there happiness.But in my experiences being away from the herd is not ... More About: Social , Dummies , Elements , Anti , Element
How to be Famous
2007-08-24 04:56:00 When one is in their late teens and the world has not yet beaten the will out of them, we tend to dream big and bold. The world will be circumnavigated on a surfboard and so on and so forth. In each of these dreams there is the endearing quality of a total recall or a permanence in the book of mankind. If not a page to oneself, atleast a paragraph, a fanclub or if not anything atleast a mention in Wikipedia as a subject of note. But nowadays with genuine celebrities(is that an oxymoron?) finding it hard to stay in the minds of a populace with the attention span of a 2-year old on cocaine, average joes have to give their dreams of fame a shove. Or worse still fall in for marketing gimmicks like talent shows, yeah right, you are special just like the two million other desperate wannabes in the line behind you.In the past one sure way of making it big, if not for acts of god like goodness, were acts of unbelievable shocking wantoness, ala Charles Manson. Kiss the monkey, dance on stage... More About: Famous
Mumbai:Travelogue for the resident
2007-08-15 19:24:00 Dom Moraes put it best when he said,"The eye of the painter is dipped freshly in air, the world washes his eyes as if for the first time." That is how the city of Mumbai affects me, every so often I run into an image that haunts and quickly catch it on my cellphone camera.The view of a distant lighthouse and a stormy sea from the United Services Golf Club in Colaba A sample of the havoc brought in by the first rains in Colaba A crow framed in chains at the Worli Sea Face opposite Atria Mall The architecture of old Mumbai around VT station Irony A game of rugby on at the Bombay Gymkhana Origin of Symmetry-The pavement More About: Travelogue , Resident
Mother India at Sixty:Arthritic,Short Sighted and Disappointed by her Pensi
2007-08-15 06:36:00 Sixty is the new fifty or so the Marketing whizkids would have us believe. I don't remember what elaborate celebrations I did ten years back when the fifteeth year of our Independence was celebrated, maybe I'm losing my memory or perhaps this time is really special(yeah right!) or just maybe the harbingers of hype are working harder this time around. Ten years ago there weren't so many news channels and just as much news, so to fill in the deficit nowadays every small occassion is made into a one hour tv special.The media houses are having a field day with the independence day hoopla, retrospectives which involve replaying old footage and very little creative effort are the flavour of the day.If indeed there was a woman called India , born on 15th Aug 1947, the last sixty years would certainly have been rough on her. Firstly soon after her birth her father would be killed by one of the people he worked so selflessly for. The first few years, that is assuming she wasn't a victim o... More About: Mother , Short , Sixty , Sapp
What Gilbert Grape is eating
2007-08-12 08:28:00 Irony is a bittersweet pill which you sometimes have to swallow and sometimes is prescribed as a suppository(in which case taste is the least of your concerns). I've spent most of my first week in the States trying to figure out which end is up. New Grad students come in all shapes and sizes but those of the indic persuasion have some common characteristic. They forget all the multiplication tables forcefed to them by whatever iit coaching class they went to,other than the one which goes 40 times whatever,a walking talking monetary conversion machine. They dream of learning and earning in dollars and spending in rupees. They bring enough baggage with them so that even in the worst case, if el nino wipes out the walmart and the rest of the retail brigade of the face of the earth, they ll still have a 10 litre case of Dalda leftover. As if the stereotype of the Indian traveller with the elephantine luggage wasn't reinforced strongly enough, our wordly wise desi traveller tries to br... More About: Eating , Gilbert
Let down by the Gods or Dubya or the damn tourists!
2007-07-01 23:36:00 After thousands of pilgrims had made the long arduous journey to the Amarnath shrine to see the natural shivling which is recreated anually, they witnessed the enormity of the anti climax awaiting them. The shivling had quite simply melted.Now who is at fault is difficult to ascertain. Is it the temple trustees who let in loads of tourists with their paraffin lamps inside before the shivling could fully form. The temple trustees are quick to absolve themselves of guilt, but seeing that they constructed a plastic replica last time this happened, it's hard to take them for their word. Is it because of global warming and the likes of George.W not committing to Climate change proposals. Is it a freak natural occurence. Is it a sign of wrath of the God's, as the more supernaturally inclined amongst us would like to believe. This humble respondent knows not where to point the finger(the choice of digits is left to the reader), although I could believe its those damn news teams and their... More About: Tourists , Damn , Dubya , Gods , The Go
Dr.Death and the Hype Machine
2007-06-03 16:58:00 With Dr.Jack Kevorkian out of jail and back in suburbia, the wheels of the conservative populace and the media that feeds it have begun to systematically hype his misdeeds again. Kevorkianknown for his obsession with death, has been often been depicted as a sadistic and slightly loony man. I remember reading the transript of a surreal interview of the Doc taken by Micheal Moore for his classic show TvNation, picnic basket et al. It showed Kevorkian to be a pleasant enough, mild mannered old guy who is passionate about his work. Now the bone of contention people have with him is the pleasure he takes in assisted suicide, but I feel only a certain kind of man will be able to perform a difficult task like this. Just like how not everybody is cut out to be a surgeon similarly not everybody is made to dispense death. Had not Kevorkian sent a tape of himself to 60 minutes in a self publicity gimmick which he continued even during his persecution (which also explains why Moore was able to ... More About: Machine , Death , Hype , Mach
Only Happy When It Rains
2007-06-01 22:29:00 Call me an idiot but for me the break of the Monsoon season is always something to cherish. And following the idiom that stupid is as stupid does, I clicked a picture or two. The pic above was taken round midnight when a freak lightning flash illumined half the frame and half the crane(easy rhyme scheme) above the Y.V.Chauhan Auditorium. The second shot captures a sunny shower at the David Sasson Library and quite well at that, if I do say so myself. For those interested in the hi res version click here.Before any scenes of mass boredom ensue, I'll close this chapter of meterological wonderment. More About: Happy
Movie Review: Goodbye Lenin!
2007-06-01 09:56:00 Rarely can foreign flicks transcend the cold, lifeless feel of subtitles and strike a moving note, but, Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye Lenin does just that. Set in the troubled and fast changing communist GDR of the late 80's, the film is primarily centered around the idea of simulating an idealistic reality. Christiane Kerner, a dedicated party worker and diehard communist suffers a heart attack after she witnesses her teenage son Alexander being arrested whilst taking part in a demonstration. She subsequently falls into a coma in October of 1989, only to awaken eight months later. In this time the Berlin wall has come down and all that she believed in has ceased to exist. The doctor warns Christiane's children that if she receives any further shocks in her present fragile state she will surely not make it. Alex begins an elaborate ruse, confining his mother to a single room and trying to make it seem like the times of the erstwhile GDR. This is when this dark comedy comes into its o... More About: Movie , Movie Review , Review
Hijab Hijinx or Orthodolls
2007-05-30 19:12:00 While flipping channels I stumbled onto something that must have made a million feminists pop an artery or two, a fashion channel was showcasing the Malaysian International Fashion Week(MIFW for those who follow these things rather more closely). The ramp residents were like at any other fashion week, with one important difference, they were all covered up head to toe, including the traditional headscarve, the hijab. No long legs, no bare arms and for the more risque amongst us, waiting for perhaps an unclad derriere, the wait was endless. It seems this is part of an initiative by the more conservative of the Malay community to make the hijab more, hold onto your headgear, trendy. I guess this is why they were liberal enough not to make veils mandatory. It is hoped that through fashion shows like this the mindset of the young Malaysian female can be changed enough so that when asked to take off their hijab and liberate themselves by those legions of western kafirs, they can confiden... More About: Hijab , Doll
Book Review:Dom Moraes-My Son's Father
2007-05-30 11:56:00 A fortunate quirk of fate presented this wonderful autobiography to me at the not so friendly confines of the neighbourhood second hand bookshop. Dom Moraes is one of the defining personalities of modern Indian writing in English. But due to my incapibility in handling verse, I have been largely unacquainted with his work. This charming piece of self documentation shows that Moraes is just as good with prose. Born to an illustrious background(father Frank Moraes being editor of Times of India for many a year), Dom brings a breath of fresh air to this genre as such. This book is not like any other autobiography, primarily because he was thirty at the time he wrote it and also because of the brutal honesty with which he treats his childhood and family. It is this very un-Indian trait of baring all, spots and blemishes et al, that sets this book apart. Moraes covers his complex relationship with his mentally unstable mother over the years in a thoroughly evocative way. Moraes misadvent... More About: Book Review , Review , Book , Father , Fath
Audio Book:Noam Chomsky-Class War
2007-05-28 20:52:00 This seminal lecture recorded by Chomsky at MIT in 1995, captures the history and nature of the class war waged by corporations and rich people in a long diatribe peppered with the dry wit which is characteristic of his addresses.Ol' Noam illustrates how corporations using the vast and limitless resources and powers available to them have successfully created an attitude of "anti politics". A situation where governments are totally bought and controlled by giant all subsuming corporates. The government which is only the shadow of big business and not the substance is made to be the target of the ire, rage and dissatifaction of the so called "angry young white male". Chomsky offers a theory that although this rage is real and pertinent, it is misdirected at the governance which is totally and utterly fettered to the dictums of bizland. Ze profesor quite eruditely covers the labor movement of the states and how the corporations were finally able to make it irrelevant. Although global... More About: Audio , Book , Class , Audio book , Noam Chomsky
Midnight musing
2007-05-28 13:42:00 A late night sausage salad , much like revenge, is best served cold. More About: Midnight
Book Review: Snow by Orhan Pamuk
2007-05-28 12:54:00 There are very few writers of our time who can give us a palatable version of poetic prose.Orhan Pamuk , who came into the international spotlight only recently, is a gifted wordsmith who can craft magical scenes in even the most joyless of landscapes.Snow , the seventh novel by Pamuk traces the journey of Ka, a poet exiled to Germany for many a year back to the small, sleepy and isolated town of Kars. Kars has been grappling for the last few decades with the ideas of modernity and Islamism. This tussle of idealogies has come down to a dangerous triviality. A spate of young women who have been barred from wearing headscarves are killing themselves in the most routine and disturbingly unobstrusive way. Ka who has turned up in this town only on the vague hope of reuniting and wooing an old acquaintance, the beautiful Ipek, claims to be there to research and report the suicides of the headscarve girls for a western newspaper. The narrator is Ka's friend, very unsurprisingly called Orha... More About: Book Review , Review , Book |
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