And so I am back, and what’s the first thing I read? Plans for a Sepia Mutiny meetup in Los Angeles. A rare desi blog meet in this very country, and where is it held? As far away from Florida as humanly possible. Not a coincidence, I assure you: I know planned it that way.

In case you think I am overreacting, then how do you explain this: People wait for me to leave Chennai, and the very next week, they hold some sort of BlogCamp there. Clearly, it is part of a distrubing trend: Bloggers just don’t want to meet me. I know my intellect can be a little offputting to all you dumbasses, but still… You know what? Screw all you bloggers. (Poor Manoj excepted, of course. The jerk meets me everyday so that he can have something to laugh about with his new wife.) If you are a non blogger, the hot pictures are over on the other blog.

I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again now: My own blog meet, right down the street from my own home. At my favorite coffee shop, run by dear old Mandy and her husband, who were nice enough to give us exclusive access to the place for the whole evening…

Here are snippets from the meet…

________

Bloggera: Smells coffee. Then tastes it. “Wow, this is great coffee. Ummm… just awesome. What would the world be without coffee?”

Falstaff: “A World Without Coffee. 1. It would be illuminating to consider what the word world means in this context. The world…

Bloggera: “Excuse me, but that was a purely rhetorical question. I don’t really want to know what the world would be without coffee.”

Falstaff: “Oh, I see. But can I finish off this speech though? I only have 37 more bullet items to go through. And then, about 18 footnotes.”

Bloggera: “Please, no. Let me drink my coffee.”

Megha: “This coffee is cho chweet. Gleat.”

Bloggercthruz: “What a thoughtful sentence.”

Suddenly, multiple rays of light emanate from her eyes.

Megha: “Don’t worry, that was my eyes twinkling. Thankoo Bloggercthruz. Thankoo cho cho much.”

Me: “I’ll be back guys. Gotta go pee.” Comes back in five minutes. “So did I miss anything?”

Bloggerb: “Umm.. not much. Megha got 18 more comments. Manish wrote four posts at UltraBrown, and made 3 releases of RocketPost. Amit made 11 posts on his blog, and wrote an article each for Cricinfo and the Wall Street Journal.”

Me: “Damn. In other words, ink flowed out of their pens, while piss flowed out of mine?”

“Eww. Groan. Puke. Good Lord.”

Unidentified Young Man: The speaker is trying to make a joke. He is using the fact that pens and penises are shaped similarly. I don’t like the joke much because Amit and Manish use keyboards, not pens.

Me: “Anyways, to be fair to myself, I did think of a post in the bathroom. In fact, I think of most posts when peeing, so I guess you could call me the number one blogger in India.”

Amit: “Damn, that joke was too bad for even India Uncut.”

Kiru: “Wait a minute, does that man I am not the number one anymore?”

Chenthil: “Of course not. Your blog sucks.”

Kiru: “If Himesh Reshammaiya can be the most popular music director in India, why can’t I be the number one blogger?”

Me: “Yeah, and let’s not forget the national award for Amitabh Bachchan.”

Kiru: “Thank you!”

_____

Just then, a knock. I open the door, and much to my horror, find an angry Jai flanked by Chandrahas and Ammani.

Me: “Why are you guys here? Who invited you? Jai, is your DVD player broke or something? Chandrahas, don’t you have a book to review or a mattress to buy? Ammani, what about quick tale 156? Who’ll write it if you are here? Please leave.”

Ammani: “You ingrate. I blogrolled you and all, and you won’t even let me in? Jerk.”

Jai: “Yeah, what’s up with that?”

Me: “Ok, ok. To explain, I got to make a speech.

Quick Tale 1000.

She got into the elevator on the top floor. The well dressed young man got in on the next floor. She smiled at him and he smiled back.

The eleveator stopped on the next floor down and another young man got in. He was dressed like a punkster, and didn’t return her smile.

After that, another floor. Another young man. She wasn’t sure about smiling, so she started fiddling with her cellphone instead. The third man smiles at the second man, and the second man returns his smile.

Ammani: “Go on.”

Me: “That’s it.”

Chandrahas: “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but that was pathetic.”

Ammani: “Horrid. So what’s your point anyway? Why didn’t you invite us?”

Me: “The point is, parody or no parody, I can’t really write like you guys. You write too well for me.”

All: “Aww.”

Me: “Anyways, now that you are here, I’ll give you all non speaking parts. Why don’t you go sit by that man JAP there and watch without speaking? Oh, and thank you for not bringing Amardeep and Anna along.”

Jai: “Why is JAP sitting there all by himself?”

Me: “He is taking notes on how bad everyone’s shoes are. Before you go to that table, I suggest you take off your watches and shoes, unless you want to be called a fashion challenged cretin on tomorrow’s post.”

_____

Meanwhile, Kiru strikes up a conversation with Mandy.

Kiru: “Hi.”

Mandy: “Hello.”

Kiru: “Hmm.. so you own this establishment?”

Mandy: “Yes sir, that’s correct.”

Kiru: “Would it be accurate to call you the attractive, self-made CEO of a growing startup company?”

Mandy: “Maybe.”

Kiru: “I am India’s leading blogger. Can I do a podcast with you?”

Mandy walks away, and returns with her husband.

Mark: “So who here wanted to do something dirty to my wife?”

Kiru: “Podcasting is not something dirty sir. I can do it with you too. I will then post it on the internet.”

Mark: “Do it and then post it on the internet? What the fuck? Do I look like Paris Hilton to you? Get out of here now!”

Unidentified Young Man: “This confusion arose because of the unfamiliarity of this gentleman with the word podcasting. Since he didn’t know the word, he assumed it meant something dirty.”

Me: “Dude, why do you keep stating the obvious all the time? Who are you?”

Unidentified Young Man: “My name is Patrix. I run Desipundit.”

Me: “Ah, that explains it.”

Nilu: “Puke.”

Me: “Is that all you can do? Puke?”

Nilu: “No, I can also talk about prime numbers.”

Me: “That is boring. What else?”

Thennavan: “Oh, I also know a lot about prime numbers.” Widens cheeks, and holds pose.

Me: “What’s that for?”

Thennavan: “That is a smiley. It’s always safe to throw in a few when you are talking. So, I know a lot about prime numbers. I love Chennai, I also love India. When will I find a girl to love?”

Nilu: “Please excuse me, but I need to do this first. Puke. I can also write erotica.”

Me: “Damn, that’s exciting. Give us an example.”

Nilu: “The auntie was chopping onions in the kitchen. The kids were out playing cricket. Uncle comes into the kitchen, and lifts up auntie’s saree. They then roll on the floor, back and forth, back and forth. Up and down, up and down. When he is done, uncle is crying, because of all the onions that got into his eye. Later, when auntie serves coffee to uncle, he flicks away an onion stuck to her ear. She blushes.”

Jai: “I feel a bit nauseous myself.”

Ammani: “Thanks for not inviting us.”

Me: “Wow. You should stick to puking.”

Patrix: Onions cause one to tear up, because they contain oxalic acid. Although people shed tears when they come into contact with onions, they are not actually crying.”

Nilu: “Double puke.”

Unidentified Young Man 2: I, find, all,,,,this,,,very,,,,,,funny;

Me: And who might you be, young man?

Bloggerj: “That’s Saket. Also known as Vulturo. Occasionally, he is known to punctuate his commas with some words.”

___

Me: “This is such a boring blog meet. Le’ts talk about something interesting.”

Amit: “Cows?”

Kaps: “Let’s talk about blogging. I read somewhere that to be a successful blogger, you have to write 365 posts a year. My question is, what does one do during leap years?”

Me: “I said talk about something interesting.”

Amit: It is a logical fallacy to assume that what is interesting to you will be interesting to other people.”

Me: “Well, hmm…”

Amit: “Do you disagree. God, I wish this was my blog. I would’ve linked to eighteen different Latin terms on Wikipedia to prove you wrong.

Actio personalis moritur cum persona.

Pacta sunt servanda.

Sine qua non.”

Falstaff: Ears perk up on hearing some Latin. “What a phrase! Actio personalis moritur cum persona. So lyrical, so poetic. I love poetry in other languages.

Amit: “Um well, that was a legal phrase. But whatever…”

Me: “Maybe we can talk about Hair? What do you guys think about the whole $500000 thing?

Neha: I love to talk about hair. Have I told you about how poetry altered my hairstyle?

Me: “Only a hundred times. But I was not talking about that hair.”

Annie Zaidi: “How mean! Men are pigs. All men are morons.”

Dilip: “What a thought provoking statement. That makes you a fine journalist.”

GreatBong: Clears throat.

Bloggerathruzandsomeothers: “Ha, Ha, Ha. Hilarious.”

GreatBong: “Shut up guys, this is serious stuff. So, Dilip, tell us how calling all men morons makes one a fine journalist?”

Dilip: “Oh a difficult question. How I wish this was my blog – I could’ve buried this one under a deluge of posts.”

GreatBong: “So ?”

Dilip: “Goodbye!”

___

And just as quickly as they came, everyone was gone.

PS: Please, please, don’t remove me from your blogrolls. That would break my heart. I love you all. Well, sorta.

Srinivasa is the tall guy that sits with her in the Data Structures class. He hails from Nellore and has only a vague idea of how big Amitabh Bachchan is up north, but he gets Data Structures really well. He used to look down upon Harpreet because she sucked at Computer Science, but every time he did , he ended up staring at the prettiest pair of boobs in the world. And so, he fell in love with her.

Harpreet, on the other hand, liked the guy – especially on days he did her homework for her – but she wasn’t in love with him or anything. It didn’t help that he kept mixing up Lata and M.S.Subbulakhmi all the time. “I always have trouble differentiating between old women singing in alien tongues,” he told her when confronted. She wasn’t impressed at all by that answer…

Harpreet didn’t know it then, but change was in the air.

A few days later, Harpreet came down with a nasty flu that brought the meanest headache along. She took a Tylenol, and asked her roommate Aparna Shah if she could bring her a bowl of Campbell soup, but Aparna refused because the Campbell soup in the refrigerator was purchased from her share of the grocery fund.

Unable to counter her roomate’s sound logic, Harpreet went hungry that afternoon, and was delirious by the time Srinivasa came to visit her. He had stopped by to find out if she had really bunked classes to “be with her boyfriend,” like his friend Ravikiran had speculated.

Moved by her plight (and by the sight a pretty girl coiled vulnerably on a used Sealy Mattress), he made her some soup, and then sat by her bed and said comforting things to her until she fell asleep. He then watched the Tonight Show and spent the night on the couch in her apartment. He could’ve walked to his place, but it was his turn to cook today.

The next day, he woke up, used Aparna’s Listerine, made some coffee and drank it together with Harpreet. He experienced bliss, or something like it.

This pattern continued for a few days, and Harpreet no longer had the flu, though she was still not attending classes because she felt weak. Sri wasn’t going to classes either, “to provide her some company.” He was now a regular in Harpreet’s apartment, regular enough that his toothbrush was in her bathroom, and regular enough for Aparna Shah to demand that he pay 14% of the rent that month. Things were going very well indeed…

“What do you like? ” he asked her that afternoon, acting on advice from Ravikiran “to find out her likes and dislikes.”

“My favorite thing in the world is Amitabh Bachchan”

“My favorite thing would be my iPod. But I do like Amitabh Bachchan. He is a great actor.”

“Really? Thats so sweet. What’s your favorite movie of his? ”

“Err…I thought Shahenshah was great. So was Giraftar ”

“Shahenshah? Even I couldn’t stand that one. Tell me the truth now – how many Bachchan movies have you watched?”

“Only those two on the video coach bus from Madras to Bangalore. Nellore theaters only play Telugu and Tamil movies. But there was a lot of potential in his angry eyes.. I could see it very clearly.”

“Oh you poor thing. That’s such a sad story… I need to show you how much you are missing.”

So she said, and put in a copy of Black into their Apex DVD player. A few minutes into the movie, and Sri hits the pause button.

“So you say Amitabh Bachchan is a big star in Bollywood, right? ”

“Of course, he is a superstar. ”

“If that is so, how come the title card doesn’t say SuperStar Amitabh Bachchan. If I call him a Megastar, would that be ok?”

“Yes, he is a megastar, a superstar, a huge star. The biggest there is.”

“He can only be one star. Tell me which one. ”

“I don’t think I understand where this is going. ”

Sri takes her hand, and holds it against his chest.

“Baby, before you explain Amitabh Bachchan to me, let me explain the Southern movie industry to you. ”

“I am all ears. ”

And thus the lesson begins.

“Down south, we tell people exactly what kind of star every actor is right in the title card. ”

“How so? ”

SuperStar!

“Like Rajinikanth is the Superstar. Every movie of his, right at the beginning, will have a powerpoint animation that shows the letters SUPER STAR flying into the screen, with an awful cover version of the James Bond Theme playing in the background. He owns the title, it belongs to him. If someone else uses it, his fans will enforce copyright laws by doing nasty things to him. ”

“I see. ”

“But the domicile of the copyright only extends to the state. ”

“Is domicile a Telugu word? ”

SuperStar, Mark Two

“No.. err, whatever. I meant to say that Rajinikanth is the SuperStar only in TamilNadu. In Andhra Pradesh, Krishna is the SuperStar.”

“How sweet. I love Krishna … my whole family worships him. ”

“I worship Krishna too. No one looks better in an orange jumpsuit.”

“Yes, yes. Go on though – let’s not talk about Gods now.”

“Gods? Oh I see now. For a second I thought SuperStar Krishna was famous in Punjab.”

“You know, I like Kamalhassan a lot. What type of star is he? ”

“You like Kamalhassan? Wait till you watch Hey Ram. And just for the record, he used to call himself the Universal Hero, but now he prefers PadmaShree. ”

“Oh! ”

“Yeah, one of the reasons he is not as popular as Rajinikanth is that he doesn’t have a fixed name for himself. How will people know if the Universal Hero is acting in this movie or if it is the Padmashree. ”

“Quite true. This is so interesting. Let’s munch on a paratha while you tell me more.”

Merely a revolutionary Actor.

“The Tamils are obsessed with revolutions. And stars. MGR started off calling himself the Revolutionary Leader, and then Vijaykanth became the Captain formerly known as the Revolutionary Artist and Sathyaraj became the Revolutionary Tamil.

Rajinikanth is the SuperStar, Ajit Kumar is the Ultimate Star and to top it all off, S.J. Surya is the Multiple Star. Oh, and one must not ignore Sarathkumar, who even signs his own letters Supreme Star and Murali, who is the Revolutionary Actor.”

“Great. I can’t say I’ve heard of all these people. I never knew that people named their kids Merely.”

“Merely? No, he is actually…”

“Before you move on, I have a question. Is Ultimate bigger than Super? Is Multiple greater than Revolution? Is Supreme better than Multiple?”

Multiple.

“The hierarchical rules are very complex. Lets just say there is Super, and then there is the rest. Let me also add that Multiple is less than everything else.”

“By the way, who gives them these names?”

“Give? What do you mean give?”

“Well.. someone has to name you, right?”

“Usually, they just wait for a movie or two. If someone doesn’t call them by an epithet, they just pick one they like.”

“This is so fascinating. Another paratha?”

“Sure. Now if Tamil fascinates, Telugu megafascinates.”

“You got a great vocabulary.”

“Thank you. You got a great… never mind.. so, the Telugu field is replete with star-sons. To account for this phenomenon, they pass epithets down from one generation to another with slight modifications.”

“Theory flies over my head. Give me examples.”

“I should’ve known that my honeybun. Chiranjeevi, the most popular star in Telugu, is the Mega Star. So when his brother made his acting debut, he chose to call himself the Power Star. Chiranjeevi’s father-in-law is the Ace Producer. He has another brother, and naturally enough, this brother is the Mega Brother.”

“Ok…”

“When Chiranjeevi’s nephew made his debut, he became the Mega Power Star. And when his son does make his debut, he will be the Yuva Mega Star”

Mega, Power, MegaPower. All Stars.

“Oh, what a simple algorithm. So if the another nephew debuts, he could be the Power Mega Star. Yet another could be the Mega Brother Power Star. And then Ace Power Brother Star Mega Yuva. This could go on for several generations.”

Real Star. Real Scary.

“Exactly! Ok, let me ask you something. There is a scary dude called Srihari – the Real Star. His wife is Disco Shanti, the ex-vamp. Now … ”

“Their son could be the Ex Star. Their daughter the Ex Vamp. Or VampEx. Finally an algorithm I get. ”

“Eh, maybe. I shouldn’t forget Tarun – who sounds like a girl and claims that his proudest achievement is his shoe collection – he calls himself the Lover Boy. Positive Reinforcement, sort of.”

One of these is the Lover Boy.

“Hmm… ”

“No such worries in the case of the Crazy Star: Ravi Teja. Prabhas is the Young Rebel Star, coz someone else took Rebel Star by the time he came on board.”

“Umm…”

“Anyways, moving on…”

“Can we stop here? I’ve been bored now for the last twenty lines. You don’t know where to stop”

“Ok, whatever you say, my Princess.”

“Princess? Aww. You are my Tera Star.”

“Our kid would be the PrinTer Star. Ha Ha Ha.”

“Eww. Pathetic. I am hungry now.”

“I am always hungry. For your love.”

“Stop it.”

And we will.

Picture Courtesy Wikipedia

Golden dragons sit atop the striking green faďż˝ade, flanked by golden arches on the left and (overpriced) gold topped taxis beneath. A unsightly blue roof stretches along the entire street, designed to keep out the elements and whatever little charm the facade has to offer. “Jalan Petaling,” the multilingual signboard suspended from the lowest tier says. Petaling Street.

Petaling Street, a narrow stretch of road in downtown Kuala Lumpur is the green dragon facaded, blue roofed home to a gigantic flea market selling bootleg merchandise. Fittingly, the market operates from dawn to midnight, drawing an enormous throng of bargain hunters looking for Rolexes and Patek Philippes; Guesses, Guccis, Givenchys and Louis Vittons; Star Wars and Flight Plan and Sims and Civilization and food.

A row of stores on each side of the street, and down the middle of the street a double row of stores with their backs to each other, splitting the narrow alley into two narrower alleys. Enter through the left, bargain your way up the street till the end, gawk at the vendors selling fried fish, and kabab rolls and ice kacang, and a Rolex or two; turn around and haggle back down the other way. Along the way, a sensual treat: the bright flouroscent lighting, the smell of sweaty bodies laden with faux Italian fashion goods mixed in with the the smell of barbecued fish, the sounds of hagglers haggling and touts touting.

To the shopper, the bustle is endearing, an alluring setting for an exotic shopping experience. To the non-shopper, the bustle sucks. It overwhelms, intimidates, drains.

And hence, I choose to stand guard at the dragons while the wife enters the market.

“Be back soon,” she says.

“Ok.” And I start waiting…

A young man wearing a shirt that requests people to consume him walks up real close to me, and smiles. I smileback. “DVD, boss?” he asks. “I got all good movies.”

What followed was chaos. Before I could answer, he walks up sneakily behind another person who is not wearing a shirt – his friend, I would learn later. Eat Me then loudly screams into the shirtless guy’s ear, scaring shirtless out of his wits. Shirtless turns around and angrily shoves Eat-Me, who staggers back into the waiting arms of an old Englishman who lets out a startled scream himself and then recovers enough to say “Wot?”

Eat-Me grins insolently, puts his arm around Englishman and asks him, “You want DVDs?”

“No, and don’t touch me. I don’t want to be touched.”

EatMe finds this hilarious, so he laughs very loudly and punches me on the stomach.

“Don’t touch me, ha-ha-ha, Don’t touch me. You want DVD boss?”

“I would love to, but that Rolex burnt a big hole in my pocket.” Proud grin accompanies bad joke. Eat-me looks bemused and then leaves.

Cue the next person in. Thin. Male. Dirty white shirt. Button-down, adding to the incongruity. Rings on his ear, a ring on his nose, and one around the lower lip. Several rings on his fingers, a box in his hand. Incredibly, Ring walks to me.

“Here boss, you wanted Rolex?”

“No.”

“He said you want to buy Rolex,” he says, pointing to Eat-Me.

“No, I was joking.”

“Don’t joke boss, this is our business.”

***

Ring moves away. Eat-me comes back. I duck into McDonalds and buy a tea and sit down at a table. I must’ve been halfway through the tea when a young man in a yellow shirt approaches me.

“Sir, when are you leaving?”

“Excuse me?”

“When are you leaving the table?”

“After I finish my tea. Why do you ask?”

“People are waiting.”

So I set this tea aside, and order another one. This one tides me over for a minute more. Yellow shirt approaches, and I beat a hasty retreat in anticipation of conversation.

Back outdoors. Ring spots me first.

“I got Tag also. See this watch, runs only on body heat. Also Bentley. Buy one boss.”

“I don’t want anything.”

Ring leaves, only to reappear in a minute.

“Watch?”

“No. One minute ago, I said said no watch. Does that RING a bell?” Prouder grin, poorer joke.

“Why you laugh boss, this is my business.”

“Sorry, but no thanks.”

Ring now walks up to EatMe. Without any obvious provocation, EatMe kicks Ring hard on the shins. Ring yelps. Shirtless enters the fray and shoves EatMe.

EatMe falls hard on the ground, and does a backwards somersault, landing right in front of me.

“This guy must be nuts”, I think to myself.

“You will think I am mad boss,” he says, with the now obligatory punch on my stomach.

“Why?” I respond, stunned. “I don’t think that.”

“No, you will think now boss if I say I will sell you DVD for only 5 Ringgits. You are my friend.”

This here was a mind reading moron.

“Sorry.” I rush back into the McDonalds, back into the hands of my yellow shirted friend who can’t stay away from me for more than a minute.

More tea later, the wife shows up. Looking cheery and refreshed. I whisk her away in a hurry, before my new friends spot her and insist on being introduced.

“You look grumpy?”

“Not grumpy, just sad. I wish I’d said goodbye to him.”

“Who?”

“Don’t worry about it…”

I was sixteen. She must’ve been a few years older.

I was the kid that snottily buried his head in a book through the hourlong bus ride to school, except to look at the occasional poster. After her, I was the kid that was starting to fantasize about burying the head elsewhere. Dirty thoughts, I know, but not as dirty as you think. I didn’t know all that then.

In truth, she wasn’t all that pretty. Thin and wiry and bespectacled and fair and squeaky and rude and unsmiling. But she wore exceptionally short skirts that fell just below the knee. Can you imagine? And traveled the same route as me every single day for two years, standing but a few feet away from me. And most important of all, she went to Nrimala[1] College. What could be hotter?

Ever since a we’d heard that story about a bunch of girls at Rinmala who raped the milkman that went to deliver milk to their hostel, the hotness quotient of everyone that spent any time at all in the general vicinity of the campus had increased by several orders of magnitude in our eyes. Especially because Rex – who assured us all that he knew – informed us that the story was very true. He also threw in a few details of the incident – oh my! – that made me think that being a milkman wouldn’t be a bad way to make a living. Wake up, clean bullshit, milk cow, visit college, get raped. Bliss.

Could the girl on the bus be a rapist, I wondered. And then hastily assured myself that she couldn’t have been. Given the time of the incident, she was probably in this very bus when her classmates were doing the nasties to the poor milkman. Unless it was a predetermined crime, and she had stayed back that night. Quite possible, you know, with these young college going types.

Now, in case you think we believed every story we heard about IrNmala, you are so wrong. That story about the girl and a broken test tube for example: In spite of the obvious truth that in those days – most young girls possessed rather loose morals and were capable of most acts of debauchery a male brain could think of, this one was a little too farfetched to be true. Also, it coincided a little too well with our entry into the world of pipettes and burettes and – you guessed it – test tubes. So we only partly believed the story.

And then one day, the girl didn’t show up. After she kept up the habit of not showing up for a few more days, I knew I had lost her – either she had graduated or she had fled the law. It must’ve been the latter – how could someone graduate in December anyway?

She had vanished without a word, my scheming rapist shrew girlfriend. Thank God I hadn’t introduced her to my parents or bragged about her to Rex.

We’d been seeing each other for a good year and a half, and what did I get out it? A sorry glimpse of knee.

This won’t do.

“Man.”

“Yeah?”

“Umm..,”

“Yeah?”

“Err.. have you seen a, umm.. a.. you know what?”

“Do still pictures count?”

“No. I’ve seen those in the Illustrated Weekly too.”

“Then, damn. no dude. Don’t tell me you have.”

“Only a knee.”

“Ooh.. wow. Tell me all about it.”

“Well, it was a knee. Looked suspiciously like a male knee to me.”

“No way. Tell me more about it.”

“Well, it was rounded and protruding and bony.”

“You lucky dog. Was that it?”

“Yeah.”

“This just won’t do.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Hey, can you bring that Illustrated Weekly to school tomorrow?”

***

A plan was hatched: We would go to a morning show theater and see a live, writhing, nubile, hot female body. Without clothes. A simple enough plan, but the details needed some fleshing out.

“Where?”

“Murugan?”

“No way. My dad takes a bus through that place everyday.”

“Now that you mention it, it is on my dad’s route as well.”

“Padmalaya?”

“Too close to my house.”

“Swami?”

“Too close to my mom’s school.”

“Oh you chicken.”

“Screw you. Let’s do Padmalaya then.”

“Ok. sorry. Jayshanthi, then. It is far away from the city.”

The silent third guy chimed in now: “But, that’s a stones throw from my house.”

“Umm.. too bad dude. The two of us are going there anyway.”

A week spent in anticipation. Nubile. Live. Naked. Big screen. Getting caught. Naked. Nubile.

“What do we wear?”

“Eh?”

“What do we wear tomorrow?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, to the movie.”

“Oh. Bring another set of clothes. Let’s change somewhere.”

“My mom’ll get suspicious.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s wear our school uniform. We’ll let the shirt out, so that it covers the belt with the school logo. Your shoes look cheap anyway, so we’ll end up looking like local school students.”

“Great idea. By the way, your shoes look like crap too.”

“Isn’t that the whole point?”

“And hey, don’t forget your underwear.”

Laughter.

We arrived early. After a little bit of haggling over who should buy the tickets, we walked up to the counter together. Two balcony seats (we were high-class, weren’t we?) to a movie called Aadhi Thaalam. Primal Rhythm. Tickets bought, we rushed to our seats.

“Hey man, I saw a guy walk past the theater when we were buying tickets. He stared at me for a long time. It looked a lot like someone we know.”

“Uh-oh. So that’s it for you. You are caught! I am glad I had my back to the outside when I bought the tickets.”

“Oh, no way. He knew you were there for sure. Don’t we always hang out together?”

“Oh! In that case, we should tell everyone that we were here for the afternoon show in case they ask.”

“Good call.”

Movie plays. A very frustrated young housewife who is neither nubile nor naked nor writhing nor hot (and perhaps not alive) occupies most of the screen. In both dimensions: space and time.

It was obvious from looking at her that the frustration had caused severe depression, which in turn had led her to take up on junk food in a big way.
Later, the frustration really gets to the housewife, and she decides to take up on a boyfriend instead. Sadly for us, the boyfriend turns out to be a stupid moron who insists on leaving her clothes on when making love. Jerk. (To be fair to him, the one time he tried, he got himself into a time warp, and the night was over in a second. It also caused a large section of the audience to scream in unison: “Votha censoru.”)

We were fast losing hope.

But towards the end of the movie, just as someone was stabbing someone else with a screwdriver, the young housewife’s clothes moved away and we saw it. The fleshiest knee in the world. We left at that point.

“Dude?”

“What?”

“This won’t do.”

“Yeah.”

Our quest started then. Oh, and to those who think young men are not patriotic anymore, take this: We must’ve ignored over a million recommendations to go Hollywood, because we were not interested in foreign flesh. Be Indian, See Indian.

Over the next year or so, we must’ve watched almost every adult Malayalam movie that was ever made. Some of them twice, to confirm suspicions that we could’ve missed a fleeting glimpse of something important when we were talking to each other.

And what did we end up with? Several sorry glimpses of knee.

We then left school and headed for college. At the exact moment we entered college a mysterious force had caused all college age women to turn into paragons of virtue. No rapists as far as the eye could see. And so we had to be content with cursing our bad luck and making same-sex friends.

“Man.”

“Yeah?”

“Listen, there is a theater here that shows scene movies. Should we go tonight?”

“You mean in the morning?”

“Nah, all four shows show the same thing here.”

“Wow.”

And thus the quest was restarted with much earnestness. But earnestness, I’ve come to realize, has nothing to do with eventual results. More knee. Maybe a bit (pats himself on back for clever pun) of grainy black and white action. But no nubile, no naked, no live, no nothing. Crapola.

Meanwhile, Hollywood was on a roll. Sirocco and Basic Instinct. In the Cold of The Night and Inheritance. Lots of nubility, lots of writhing, lots of what we wanted. Great, but wrong color, dudes. Sigh.

And then one day realization struck.

“Dude. The stupid censors have a different standard for English movies.”

“Of course, you dunce.”

And then one day realization struck someone else.

This guy then proceeded to name himself Sa J Jan (I swear that’s his real name) and shot a movie with the usual Malayalam actors and actresses. The same frustrated wife plot, boyfriend and psychiatrist and screw driver. Only difference was, when the crew showed up at the sound recording studio the next day, they were in for a surprise: their lines were all in English. Reading from transliterated Malayalam notes, they said things like:

“Please, oh please. Please let your finger linger on me.”

The movie was released as Secrets of Love and we watched it on the day of release. Our persistence had paid off! There was live flesh onscreen. It moved. It writhed. And it was not a knee. We had succeeded in our quest!.

Clever operator that he was, Sa J Jan rechristened himself all over again as Jai De Van, and made a sequel – Secrets of Marriage smashed box office records the world over, and set to rest any doubts we might have had about what we saw the last time. The Quest was done, dried and dusted.

But still we waited. Surely, this topic merited a trilogy atleast? Secrets of Divorce. Or maybe Secrets of ChildBirth. But I was quite sure there were more secrets… there had to be.

And sure enough, there were. Secret of Secrets was released a few months later – a fitting end to a grand trilogy. As we walked out contented, we secretly told ourselves that this would surely do.
Around that time, I graduated.

These days, when people talk about dubbing Basic Instinct into Tamil, all I can do is smile wanly. If I were you, folks, I would dub the Secret of Secrets. At the very least, it has a much better plot and the director’s name sounds more exotic.

[1] In a masterly stroke of self-protection, I’ve deliberately inserted one or more typos into the name of the institution. Hah. I hardly have enough time for blogging these days, leave alone libel lawsuits.

PS: Apologies are due for the break in blogging. I’ve always wondered if work could keep one too busy to spend an hour or two a week on blogging, and I know now. It can. Believe me, I didn’t really mean to take a break. And thanks to those who asked. It felt good.

We watched four horrid Tamil movies. While that in itself is not remarkable, what is remarkable is that we have refrained from reviewing any of them. Even this post is not a review per se. It is about celebrating the movies in question and rewarding them for the things they did.

And so, without further ado, Ladies, Pharmaceutical Industry Representatives and other Gentlemen, here we go.

The Freakist Bird Flu-ke Award:

Kamna Jethmalani, the lead girl in Idhaya Thirudan wants to send an anonymous email to her mom. She types up the email – whose contents are the proud recipients of another award – but she can’t figure out how to sign the email.

Unable to pick a random name, she picks up a pigeon hovering nearby and lays it gently on top of the keyboard. The pigeon walks back, then forth. Then forth again, and back once more. And then flies away, to leave the half dressed girl staring at the screen.

The pigeon had just keyed in T. Mahesh, which happens to be the name of.. you guessed it, the hero of the movie. What an incredibly clever way to move a story forward. Anyone out there who still thinks our moviemakers are unimaginative?

The Best Case Against Intelligent Design Award:

A no brainer here. Kamna Jethmalani, the lead girl in Idhaya Thirudan wants to piss her mom off. She thinks for an instant about her modul operandi, and then promptly takes her clothes off – at least all the clothes the censors would let her take off. She then takes lewd pictures of herself using a mobile phone, attaches the pictures to an email, uses a pigeon to sign the email and hits send.

Honorary mention: The two people who paid hard earned ringgits to go watch Kalvanin Kadhali.

The Inspired Acting Award:

Madhavan, long haired lead man in Thambi puts in an inspired performance as the (translated) Che Guevera quoting leftist rebel who beats people up to teach them the value of non violence.

Unfortunately, he chooses the wrong person to draw inspiration from – Jyothika in Chandramukhi. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head and thrusts his face and yells his dialogues and dances like a guy. Thankfully, there was no Telugu song playing in the background or we wouldn’t have known the difference.

The “Gratuitous Mention of Better Half in a Very Cool Context” Award:

To Renuka Menon, village belle in Kalaba Kadhalan, for going to an ice cream parlor and asking for Lavanya ice cream. Turns out she meant Vanilla, but couldn’t remember the right name because she happened to be a village belle. But still.

The Tom Cruise Award for Dumb Psychatrists:

To the Psychiatrist lady in Kalaba Kadhalan. The plot revolves around a girl falling for her sister’s husband. The husband tries his best to shoo her away, but she keeps singing steamy songs with him in her dreams. And finally, the exasperated husband goes seeks help from the psychiatrist. Her suggestion?

“Such girls like forceful men, so go talk to the moron who used to harass her in public in her native village. From what you say, I get the feeling he is madly in love with her. Ask him to come woo her. And ask him to be forceful. That will fix her up good.”

The moron arrives, and then goes on to rape the girl.

The Blank Noise Awards for Bringing Harrassment Out Into the Open:

S.J. Surya, for trying to look down an unsuspecting Nayanthara’s dress in Kalvanin Kadhali.

S.J.Surya, for going up to a guy who had just pinched his unsuspecting girlfriend in public(the hapless Nayanthara again) and advising him to use his “mouth” instead. A pregnant pause later, he clarifies that he meant for the guy to talk his way into a woman’s heart. Yeah right. To paraphrase Seinfeld (thanks Manoj), we are offended by how lame the joke was.

The motley crew of actors in Kalaba Kadhalan, who ask a raped girl to “stop being dumb” and “not act like a stuck up bitch” and marry the guy who raped her. Extra special mention of the girl’s mom, who strikes the girl really hard and then cries for a long time, probably because her hands hurt.

Honorary Award for the Sudden Use of Shudh Tamil to Startle Someone:

To hep, modern Pooja, long haired Madhavan’s girl in Thambi.

She wins an award of some sort in the movie (not from a blog) and a friend congratulates her:

“Congratulations!”

Pooja startles the poor girl with her response: A perfectly articulated “Nandri.” The friend’s expression was priceless.

One would do well to remember that the movie was directed by a dude called Seeman, who is a Tamil lover.

Another Honorary Award for the Consistent Use of Crude Tamil to Startle Everyone:

To Arya, Kalaba Kadhalan’s lead man, suave software engineer, for switching over to a dreadful variation of Madras Bashai whenever he gets excited.

To Arya, Kalaba Kadhalan’s lead man, for remaining excited throughout the movie.

The “I will give it to myself if you don’t” award:

To Jayam Ravi, pigeonpicked boyfriend of Kamna in Idhaya Thirudan. For stealing a trophy meant for the winners of a shooting contest, and then taking the trouble to attach the trophy – all two feet of it – to his motorcycle and not taking it off till the very end of the movie.

The Most Ostentatious Display of Bibliophilia Award:

To Manivannan in Thambi. For walking around with a collection of translated leftie literature in a dirty old bag. The books will later save his life.

The (Faithfully Following a Fad) or (Boldly Inventing a Trend) Award:

To Igore, director of Kalaba Kadhalan for giving himself a Russian name, and then adding an e to the end in a nod to numerology. We believe this was inspired by Myshkin, director of Chithiram Pesudhadi who named himself after a Russian literary character.

Unless Igore arrived at his name by removing an N from Ignore, in which case, he gets the Boldly Inventing a Trend award. When you watch the next movie directed by Mron or Idot, you will know who their inspiration was.

The Scene With the Most Educational Value Award:

Idhaya Thirudan (which would’ve swept the awards if not for a little category tweaking we did) takes this one by a mile.

So a guy and a girl find themselves locked in a themepark called Snow World. True to its name, the theme park starts blowing in a lot of cold air to keep the snow from melting. It gets colder and colder. The girl runs to the guy, hugs him real tight. Cut to song.

The next day, the girl tells the guy that her hugging him was purely to take advantage of the principles of Heat Transfer as stated in reference books on Thermodynamics. Yes, that is exactly what she said.

We can go on in this vein, but we are bored. Not as bored as we were when we watched three of these movies over a single weekend, but that’s a mark that will likely not be beat any time soon.

Blogging seems to be an activity with a very limited lifetime, and quite a few people are retiring rather early. Burnt out, bored, tired, whatever. As I toss and turn, I know that some day in the future, I will have to call it a day. And when I do, what would I leave behind? What will I be remembered for?

You see, dear reader, I am worried about my legacy. I am also slightly concerned about dozing off at work tomorrow, but let’s set that aside for a minute and talk about my legacy.

After giving it a lot of thought (three nights, no sleep) I think I have figured out what I need to do – I need to transfer my considerable knowledge of almost everything under the sun (except Konkani classical music) to people. After some more thought (one night, no sleep) I have decided that the best place for me to start this process would be movies.

As I write this, visions of numerologically correct movie titles that say “Thanks to Stochhasticcca” or “A Klassic Koncieved at Karthik’s Blag” cloud my mind. Maybe someone from Hollywood’ll pick up these lessons, and when she wins an Oscar she’ll say “I owe it all to Karthik”, as tear drops roll down her cheeks, fall on her neck and continue on downwards. Nice. Why did I not think of this earlier?

I will sleep a little and then come back and start off with the first lesson in the Stochastica Sinema School Series.

__________________________________________________

I am up now, and visions of that lonely tear drop still linger. Tempting as it is to start off with the acting school for women, I will selflessly start off the first lesson with tips on writing good punch lines for Indian movies.

But the truth is, if you don’t know how to write good punch lines, you will never make it big as a screenwriter in any language but Hindi. To be successful in Hindi, screenwriters need to make it big in Hollywood first. And oh, before I forget, the acting school for women will meet next week, soon after I get my haircut.

Let’s start with a question.

A fat man is beating up fit people. Unable to bear the overpowering strength of his flab, the fit guys have no option but to try and electrocute the fat man. But he is stronger than that, so the moment the wires touch him, the power station that generated the electricity that dared approach the fat man explodes. Spectacularly.

The fat man turns to the fit guys, and tells them, “Don’t be shocked! I can shock electricity!” He then swishes his hands, turns around and walks away in slow motion – the camera focusing on his fat ass. [Navin, you know now.]

What did he just do?

Answer, students, is that he just mouthed a punch line.

A punch line, to start off with a formal definition is:

1. A pithy piece of gibberish.
2. Spoken by mostly fat men in lead roles, but there are exceptions.
3. The point of which is to (appear to) highlight the virtues of the speaker.
4. The speaker of the line is the subject. (In other words, fat man on himself).

Another example of a punch line would be:

“If you try to touch a woman when George is around, George will turn into a man and turn you into a woman.”

Notice that George is the speaker, and the subtext of the sentence is that George would castrate the toucher. This technique of referring to oneself by one’s first name is quite popular and is employed in every other punch line. It is something you should file away for future use.

We will close this part of the lesson with a few more examples. Please try writing some more at home, and test them out by saying them out loud in crowded places. If you get into trouble, sue me, please.

Whenever people are in need, I help them. I can’t help doing this.

God might forgive you for this sin, but I will never forgive you. May God forgive me.

A type of punch line that is less frequently used is the pithy sentence about nothing. These are mostly spoken by the hero to a skimpily clad girl. After this sentence is spoken, the girl usually falls in love with the hero.

For a woman, not wearing mini-skirts is the only way to skirt trouble.

If you wear a dress with a plunging neckline
On you bad men will want to recline.
On them lies no blame,
for you have no shame.

.

The amount of trouble you invite is inversely proportional to the amount of clothes you wear.

This is only for classy movies, I think. Will work in A centers.

If your blouse is always cut high
and you act shy (by lowering your eye)
no man will open his fly
this is not a lie.

This one is poetic, so please email me before using this in your movie.

After the girl falls in love, she will proceed to dance with the hero on the alps, clad in a bikini. It is quite important to not have your leading man speak any punch lines now.

We are almost at the end of our lesson, folks. The last type of punch line is similar to the first type, except that some leading men don’t feel comfortable talking about themselves all the time. In such cases, we have a comedian mouth the line and this gives us the latitude to make it even more outrageous.

Lo and Behold!
Brother will turn sand into gold;
the young into old;
He will never be sold.

If you make women cry,
Brother will take a pan
put you in there and fry
you until you turn tan.

Nice observation, student number 1. Yes, indeed, a comedian should always call the hero brother.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of Stochastica Sinema School Lesson #1.

__________________________________________________

Before you leave, remember this: I am an electrical fire. Even water cannot touch me. Let me go back to sleep now.

So anyways, in deference to my secret (but not very strong) admirer, I will restrict myself to a strictly objective, factual reportage about this movie called Sivakasi. It is in Tamil, and it stars an actor called Vijay. What? Ok, sure. I will defer to the spirit of this report (objective, factual) and revise the last sentence. It is in Tamil, and it stars a person called Vijay.

Close Shaves:

A group of people headed by a guy called Palanquin Pandi surround another group of people. After a series of scuffles, Palanquin Pandi’s group reveals their motive – they want to know who heads the other group of people. “Fairly easy question,” I thought to myself. Regular movie watchers know what would happen next: The hero will come up to Palanquin and punch him a few times, and then look at the cameraman and inform him that he heads the group, and owns their hearts. Cue a song.

Now imagine my horror when the scene unfolded differently – someone that did not look like Vijay at all duly stepped forward, applied generous amounts of ash on his head and moved his hands up and down. “This guy, hero?”, “Oh no!”, “What the ..” were the thoughts that ran through my mind. The guy then used several long sentences and clever placement of a title card to inform the cameraman that the hero was wise and strong and that he was the director of the movie. I am not sure Palanquin got the point, but I heaved a sigh of relief. Phew.

What happens to the losers on Jeopardy?

Dad A complains to Dad B that Dad B’s son tried to rape his daughter. Dad B is very angry, and tries to beat up his son with a stout object. After a couple of blows that didn’t land that well, Dad B asks his son if he is indeed his son. The bemused son asks the dad to check with his mom. Unable to stand this question, dad promptly dies. Hard questions can kill.

What a total waist?

Music Director Srikanth Deva in a cameo appearance shakes his enormous waist to the beats of Maama Un Ponnai Kodu, an old Illayaraja number.

Actress Nayanthara in a cameo appearance shakes her enormous waist to the beats of a song I can’t remember. Coming to think of it, I am not even sure it was a song, but the waist was enormous. She is now a cabalite.

Best Song in the Movie:

Music Director Srikanth Deva in a cameo appearance shakes his enormous waist to the beats of Maama Un Ponnai Kodu, an old Illayaraja number.

The rap-like song (wanna, shake it, s to the i to the blah) that plays in the background. Music can be mirthful too.

Movies can educate too:

A male human being is defined as someone that:

a. Falls in Love with a girl.
b. Marries the girl.
c. Sleeps with the girl.

Any change in the order of events is not acceptable. What will happen to such people though? I want to ask someone, but I am afraid it might be a hard question.

Chicks will dig this:

Several (male) actors show off their thighs during fight sequences. I even detected a glimpse (or three) of undergarments. Sorry, no thongs though.

Biggest expense item:

The amount of ash purchased for the movie. The good guys show their goodness by applying generous amounts of it on their foreheads.

Second biggest expense item:

The amount of kum-kum purchased for the movie. The good guys show their goodness by applying generous amounts of it on their foreheads.

Dialogues heard the most:

“Start the car!”

“Beat that guy!”

Decrease most noticeable:

Quantity of clothes worn by Asin over the last few movies.

Increase most noticeable:

The number of times Vijay speaks to the cameraman. They must be close friends.

Optimism:

Majaa will be better. Surely.

Impossible:

The opinion of my dad – reliable critic, born, brought up and living in India still. Both movies are bad, Majaa is a tad worse. Such depths exist?

Cross-posted on teakada.

On second thoughts, do stay: Losing sixty percent of my two person strong regular readership is bad, so I will explain. Now here is how it works. After a plot is decided upon, a screenwriter sits down and writes the entire screenplay but wherever the screenplay has characters talking, he leaves the page blank. Like so:

Shriya enters the room from the left.

Sanjay is sitting on the bed.

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Now Sanjay hugs Shriya. Takes off her red saree to reveal a black saree inside. Sanjay now brings his lips closer to Shriya’s lips. Giant rose covers lips. Shriya wipes off her lips sensuouly; camera focuses on her waist. Music begins. Cut to song.

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Shriya:

Sanjay:

Now Ms. Fancy-Schmancy, if you are still there, the person that fills the first set of blanks is the Dialogue Writer. And, yes, the person that fills the second set of blanks is the Lyricist.

In the real world, a conversation between Sanjay and Shriya would probably go,

Shriya: Hi, you are late.

Sanjay: Hello, you are hot.

Shriya: Thats so sweet, thank you.

Sanjay: Let me take off your clothes now.

Shriya: Ok.

Ok, I will stop here. My mind wandereth.

Once upon a time, the person that filled the first set of blanks had a clear-cut job description: he was to write exchanges that were completely different from any real world exchange ever. So he would write something like

Shriya: Sweetheart, why art thou cometh late. I waited long, took a shower, and have withered like yonder flower.

Sanjay: Huh? I had to go to the loo. But now that I’m here, let me stick to you like glue.

The more unrealistic it was, the more people would clap and whistle. Easy enough. Today though, things are murkier. The Dialogue Writer is expected to be a little bit more realistic, but if he writes something like “Um, you smell good, let’s have a go at it,” the censor board will immediately intervene and do a couple of things:

1. Misspell the dialogue as “Um, you small goon, let’s have a go at it.”
2. Mark the dialogue as offensive, and ask that it be removed.

So now the dialogue writer has to go back and write something that fits the lip movement but is not offensive anymore. Like, “Um, your mail came. Let’s take a look at it.” Imagine doing this constantly for every line. Very hard work. There is some hope though: A new technique that consists of Sanjay making violent speaking motions with his mouth, with sound muted is doing the rounds. But that will be for a later post.

Fancy-Schmancy? Please don’t go away now. I will grovel. Will buy you coffee when we next run into each other. Maybe a Mocha Latte from Starbucks.

Now a lyricist has no such worries. All that is required to be a successful lyricist is is a certain set of easily available tools – the metaphor, the simile and the names of ancient works of Tamil literature. There is minimal interference from the censors, and whatever interference there is can be circumvented with ease. Say you are asked to write a steamy song to describe the courtship betwen the lead couple, you just reach into your toolkit and pick the tool of choice. For example, in this song, the lyricist uses a metaphor (from the movie Mazhai, starring someone called Ravi and the real Shriya, who is not in any way related to the Shriya in our screenplay).

Let your kisses be the hammer
that drives a nail into my brain

It should be obvious by now that metaphors in songs don’t really need to make sense. You just say Y is like X, where X and Y can be quite random. And there is plenty of latitude. Imagine Ravi saying “Let me put my sword into your scabbard” to Shriya. That would drive the censors into apoplexy (and create a new record for bad spelling). But on the other hand, a lyricist can effortlessly slip in stuff like that in a song and no one will blink.

Let out bodies unite
like a sword and a scabbard

Or you could say,

Let me be the Thriukkural
to your Kurunthokai

where Thirukkural and Kurunthokai are the names of literary works. Naturally, the names chosen here are random. You could put Silappadhikaram instead of Thirukkural and no one would care. In this case, people will call this gibberish literature and even try to slip a few awards to you. Yes, that’s how easy it is.

Occasionally though, some lyricists go overboard and the censors notice.

In your hand a pile of books
And you, a pile of sex.

And when they gently chide you for using the word seks, you just pick a random word from the dictionary that rhymes. In this case the song became,

In your hand a pile of books
And you, a pile of Vicks.

Yes, that’s how easy it is. We got our favorite lyricist to comment on this, and he said:

This is easy, I sound the horn
as easy as eating a cob of corn
you can even slip in some p*rn
and the dialog writers will go darn.

Fancy-Schmancy, please wake up and smell the corn. If you are wondering about the releavance of the title to the post, I’ll put you out of your misery by confessing that I am not too sure either. But it seemed very cool, and the words simile and camera appear in the post.

Also posted at teakada

Update: Manoj manages to find a few (non-blogging) people who translate verses much better. Go here. I hope Venky listened to Shriya and let her stay in his cute smile during one of his watery orgies.

a) currently very miserable.
b) centered around dreams of making it big some day.

One day, Krishna says, he got to meet the head of a large production house. After complimenting the head of the large production house on his magnificent pecs (you can be a hero saar!), Krishna went on to narrate the screenplay of his dream movie to the guy. The narration went well, Krishna says, and the head thanked him and told him he would keep him in mind for his next movie.

A few months on, the large production house announces a big budget movie. And wonder of wonders, Krishna says, it is based on his screenplay. So he approaches an arbitration body. The hearing went like this:

“Mr. Krishna, you claim that this movie is based on your screenplay.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Of course sir. I will narrate the screenplay line by line right here.”

Proceeds to narrate it.

“That’s pretty good. But you could’ve just sneaked a peek at it when it was lying around somewhere. Got more proof?”

“Sir, yes sir. I will now tell you exactly when and where I narrated the screenplay to the head of the large production house.”

Proceeds to tell them exactly when and where he narrated the screenplay to the head of the large production house.

“And that’s proof? Give us something more concrete man.”

“I will go to the temple of your choice, light some camphor and swear in front of the deity of your choice that it is my story. I dare you to ask the head of the large production house to do the same thing sir.”

“Holy cow, that is irrefutable proof. Let me call the head of the large production house and set up the showdown.”

Other members of the arbitration committee nod sagely.

No not 55-word story that ran over, though I wish it was. This came straight out of this story from an online newsmagazine. Link (in Tamil). The only part I made up was the line about the arbitration committee members nodding sagely.

I believe this legal strategy has a lot of potential. For starters, I sent an email to Mr. Banville today claiming that The Sea was my work. I’ll even go to a church if he wants me to.

Venue: An expensive coffee shop somewhere in the world. We had called ahead to book the biggest table in the house, but when we enter, some poor sod is sitting there all by himself, sipping coffee. There are a couple of guys on the next table, gawking without shame, periodically interrupting their gawking to type something on their laptops.

Amit: “Waiter, looks like our table isn’t available yet.”

Waiter: “Why yes sir, let me go tell the guy to move to another table.”

PrufrockTwo: “One should give him a few minutes. Let the poor guy finish his coffee.”

Dilip: (Ears perking up on hearing the word poor): “Who said something about finishing the poor? Haven’t we done that enough already? We should all give up our houses for them for this city runs on their sweat. I took a train journey through India last week, and there was this poor lady who grinned at me through her tears of hunger. She had a red saree on her, how symbolic. That’s India for you.”

Meanwhile, someone arrives.

Hurree Babu: “Hello, I am Hureee”

Me: (to anonymous blogger sitting next to me): “Hurree Babu is a cross-dresser?”

Anonymous Blogger: “No you dork. Hurree Babu is her pseudonym.”

Suitably chastised, I shut up for the rest of the meeting. The poor guy finishes his coffee, and we are all seated. Another arrival now.

J Alfred Prufrock: “Hello everyone, sorry I’m a little late.”

Chandrahas: “That’s ok, dear sir. Dear waiter, can you please bring me a cup of coffee?”

Falstaff: “Coffee reminds me of a poem.” Starts speaking in verse.

Amit: Looks around at the glum faces. “Ok, let me break the ice with a joke. The license raj is a joke. Big Government is a joke. God is a joke. Heh. That was three jokes in one.”

J Alfred Prufrock: “Great joke! Let me ask you guys a question that has been bothering me for some time. I’d like to find out how you tell someone their coffee sucks.”

Nilu: “You puke on them.”

Waiters: “You seem to be hinting our coffee sucks. We smell superiority. You are a pompous man.”

J Alfred Prufrock: “Oh no, That’s not what I meant. I mean, I was not trying to make a statement on the quality of this specific coffee. I was idly wondering about a potential social situation.”

Tilotamma: “Idly? Idlies make my mouth water. Especially with coconut chutney. Man, oh man.”

J Alfred Prufrock: “As an addendum, I would like to issue a clarification; your coffee might actually be ok.”

Waiters: “Might?”

Falstaff: “Give the poor guy a break will you, all he did was ask an academic question.”

Dilip: “Poor? Did someone say poor? Yes, the poor need a break from capitalist oppression.”

Amit: “Cut it out will ya? Waiter, can I get another coffee please? With cow’s milk. Cows are very cool.”

Bridalbeer: “ Brian liked Mountain Dew. Bill does too. But I don’t. Meanwhile, the dog barks. A good cup of coffee helps people ruminate. It also helps them urinate.”

PrufrockTwo: “One is impressed by your convoluted logic. One would have never thought ruminate and urinate could be linked together so effortlessly. One would like to point you to a story on how great writers ruminate that appeared in this Zambian newspaper.”

Bridalbeer: “Brian surfs the internets. He shows as always Away on Yahoo. Ruminators are wimps. The barking dog is gone now.”

J Alfred Prufrock: “Interesting points. All three of them. I would like to add a corrigendum to my earlier response. Did I mention my question was purely academic?”

Dilip: “Did you say poorly academic? How can the poor think of academics when their houses are being destroyed?”

Rohan: “Who said something about letting the poor be? Haven’t we done that enough already? We should give up our houses for them for this city runs on their sweat. I took a train journey through India last week, and there was this poor lady who grinned at me through her tears of hunger. She had a red saree on her, how ironic.”

Dilip: “Yes, exactly.”

Kiru: Sneezes.

Anon Commenter 1: “That was cool.”

Anon Commenter 2: “Very cool machan.”

Anon Commenter 3: “I love the way you sneeze.”

Kiru: “Thanks. I will post pictures tomorrow.”

Rohan: “Ok, Let me break the ice by starting off with a joke. The license raj is a joke. Big Governement is a joke. God is a joke. Heh. That was three jokes in one.”

PrufrockTwo: “One gets the feeling one has heard this joke before..”

Dilip: “So what if he plagiarized a joke? It was a bad joke to start off with. Goverment is not funny business.”

BridalBeer: “The smell of thievery wafts in like a gentle breeze. Brian lacked chivalry. His shoelaces never stay tied.”

Nilu: “Puke.”

Jabberwock: Lifts head up from book, checks out crowd, and buries head back.

Chandrahas: “Time to end, I guess. This meet is almost as long as my posts.”

Amit: “Wait, I wanted to talk about why Big Government sucks. Maybe a few more minutes.”

J Alfred Prufrock: “A few more minutes is fine. I don’t know if I mentioned that I thought the coffee here is actually much better than the one I make…”

Amit: “I guess you were right, Hash. We should be leaving.”

As we walk out, I asked the anonymous blogger next to me who the gawkers at the next table were.

“Oh them? They are the Desipundit guys. They keep track of everything that happens in the blogosphere.”

“Ah!”

PS: In case you didn’t notice, this post is categorized under Humor. Heh.

Viewed from a lens thus recalibrated, Ghajini is an eminently enjoyable movie. Murugadoss borrows the rudimentary plot from Memento – revenge of the amnesiac – and manages to Indianise it without too many holes. The scriptwork and screenplay are tidy, and the dialogues refreshingly down to earth. Even the two heroines don’t seem too out of place in the script and that in itself is an achievement.

Surya and Asin act reasonably well and Nayanthara has a role that is peripheral enough that her performance doesn’t matter too much. Although, I must admit I was a little traumatized when I saw her dance to an item number – every part of her literally shook, and in a startling reminder of Newton’s first law, certain parts kept shaking even after she had stopped dancing.

*Digression* If you are a college professor who came to this page through Google looking for “Nayanthara, shaking, Newton,” feel free to ignore my Creative Commons license and use this example to teach Newton to your students. You can even take them on a field trip to the nearest movie theater playing Ghajini. *End Digression*

Surprisingly enough, the best part of the movie is the flashback – the mandatory sequence to explain how Surya lost his memory and hair. Murugadoss is very comfortable handling the romantic scenes between his lead pair, and the casual humor that pervades the romance between Surya and Asin is a treat.

The songs are atrocious, and the stunt sequences are a little too long, but overall Ghajini is one of the better masala movies out of Tamil this year.

The Fly On The Wall:

Regular readers of this blog (can you laugh a little less loudly, please?) are probably aware that we have sources all over the place. A couple of them were willing to talk to us (off the record of course, what do you think?) for this review.

A conversation between Harris Jayaraj, the music composer and Murugadoss, the director:

“So Harris, what do you think about the movie?”

Harris mumbles, then stops, grins, scratches his hair, picks his nose and mumbles again.

“So Harris, what do you think about the movie?”

Harris mumbles again. “Do you think my hair is long enough?”

“Let us get this straight man – you do a pathetic Rahman imitation. Now answer my frickin’ question.”

“Hmm, it is good. Grunt. Umm. The flashback is funny. But the rest of it is very serious. Need more comedy.”

“You think so? I asked the producer for more money to shoot some funny scenes, but he said no. Now I am worried.”

“Hmm. Umm. Hmm. Umm. I will take care of it with my background music.”

“Huh?”

“Wait and watch.”

Watch we did. And we are glad to report that Harris was very, very successful in his endeavour.

Whenever Surya shows up on screen, a voice screams in the background:

“Bo Zo….. Bo Zo. Booooo…. Zooooo.” The speed of the chant varies according to the need of the scene (naturally). To ensure that the same joke doesn’t get repeated too often the next time Surya shows up, the same voice chants:

“Zo Lo.. Zo Lo…Zo Lo”.

I have to admit, it had me in splits. Great job, dude.

A conversation between Surya and his Dad:

“Dad, I have this role in this new movie and I am supposed to be an amnesiac for good two hours. Any advice?”

“Drink coconut water, don’t smoke, don’t drink, do Yoga and get out of your relationship with Jothika.”

“Dad, I asked for acting tips, not this crap.”

“Oh, ok. Have you seen me act angry in movies?”

“You mean where you keep your body erect, roll your eyes and shake your head robotically back and forth?”

“Yes. Exactly. Do that.”

For once, Surya listened to his dad.

PS: Hemant has a more conventional review up on Instant Kaapi, and I agree with most of what he says.

9. You look for ways to read your office email through bloglines.

8. You refresh blogger comment windows lots of times, to try and see if your name shows up as the word verification graphic. (not yet.)

7. You hold hands with your wife a lot more, because it is a way to link to her. You also insist she hold your other hand.

6. Your favorite beverages are Google Juice and Bridal Beer.

5. When your employees ask you for comments, you ask them for a trackback link.

4. You wonder if Atom feeds are edible, and are reasonably sure that blogrolls taste better than cinnamon rolls (which suck anyway).

3. You Copyscape protect emails to your mom.

2. You have memorized the IP addresses of all the gambling websites ever created, and can recite them backwards and forwards.

1. When someone asks you for your name, you go “a href equals http colon double slash www dot stochastica dot net Karthik” and gesture with your fingers to make sure the quotes don’t get lost and invalidate your xhtml.

PS: Yes it is a Friday. Yes I am bored.

Mr. Thief: “Heh.”

Judge: “Heh? That’s all you have to say about it?”

Mr. Thief: “Heh is the sound of me laughing self-righteously. I would like to let you know that I didn’t do it. It was an invisible man that killed the manager and stole all the gold.”

Judge: “That’s bullsh.., I mean, impossible.”

Mr. Thief: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Judge: “You lost me there, what are you talking about?”

Mr. Thief: “Never mind, but I am sticking to my story. It was an invisible man that killed the manager and stole all the gold.”

Judge: “Invisible man? That is scientifically impossible. Do you have any witnesses?”

Mr. Thief: “As a matter of fact, I do. I would like to call H.G Wells to the stand.”

Judge: “But he is dead, I thought. Or maybe that’s Orson Wells.” Checks with someone. “Yeah, they are both dead.”

Mr. Thief: “Too bad, I will call Ram Gopal Verma instead. He made a movie called Gayab, and can use the scientific expertise he gained during the making of the movie to prove that invisible men are not impossible.”

Judge: “I think you might have a point there. Even if I buy that for a minute, how do you explain all the gold in your house?”

Mr. Thief: “Oh, that was stuff I produced using alchemy.”

Judge: “Huh? Ok, this is becoming a farce. Alchemy is a ridiculous explanation.”

Mr. Thief: “Oh yeah? I will call Neal Stephenson to the stand prove it is not that ridiculous.”

Judge: “Dude, this is tiring. What are you smoking?”

Mr. Thief: “If you must know, I read this on my way to court this morning.“

No one else comes even close.

I’ve heard quite a few people claim that they love Sherlock Holmes, but I am not sure they know what true love means. Holmes, if you recall, was the deductive genius constructed from bones and brain who subsisted on tobacco and said things like “It’s elementary, my dear Watson” (although his handlers now say he was misquoted). Now he is the type of person that inspired awe, not love. He was a skillful detective, who was aware – too aware – of his skill. He was moody and aloof, and seemed to prefer hanging out with dumb doctors.

If he were to stop by unannouced at my house one of these days, I’d be leery of letting him in. Not without clearing my list of visited sites, and making sure my shoes were out of eyeshot, with no traces of soil on the soles. I’d make him a generic brand of tea – characterless – and make sure I drink my tea when he is not around. I’d fret about the way I eat my food, and make sure I don’t look at anything on the wall when thinking about stuff – this dude can pick up trains of thought. Thank you very much, but I’d rather watch him drinking tea with you.

Who else, I wonder.

Miss Marple was possibly a hottie (if and) when she was young, and could sometimes make intuitve leaps that could shame Holmes, but she was boring and mean. She was an anachronism even in her time, and talking to her over tea would be umm.. boring. And there is the small matter of her thinking of us young folks as fools.

Perhaps the only thing that would make me do it with her (why do you snicker? I meant the act of drinking tea) is the threat of an evening with Poirot. Uggh. I shudder when I think of the reactions at the restaurant when I walk in with this funnily dressed dude with an upturned moustache.

Although I think it would be kinda cool if I take him to the local restaurant that plays “Mangalu Mangalu” all the time. (Alright, Alright that was a lame reference: just because Poirot’s moustache is upturned doesn’t mean he looks as bad as Aamir Khan does in Mangal Pandey).

Marlowe? No way. How long can you stand someone wisecracking through the sides of their mouth? And that, by the way, rules out most of the detective populace since Marlowe.

Well, maybe young Christopher would fit the bill – we could talk prime numbers and the big bang theory – but he’s a little too young. And coming to think of it, pet detectives don’t count. So no Christopher, and (thank goodness) no Ace Ventura.

As we started walking towards the theater, we noticed a crowd of very wet people walking towards us. The relationship between the wetness of their clothes and the magnitude of the rain was puzzling (I thought it was exponential, Manoj thought it was strange), more so when you consider that the wetness was unevenly distributed across the length of their bodies. We walked over to someone, and politely enquired, “Umm.. how come you wet your pants?”

The guy didn’t get the joke – he told us earnestly that a storm sewer had broken, and that there was knee-deep water on the roads leading to where we were going.

Without hesitation, we took our shoes off, folded up our jeans and started walking. (towards, of course). In a couple of minutes, we were wading through murky water (“It doesn’t look like a storm water sewer, man”), that got higher and higher. People kept squealing, as unknown objects whose specific gravity was just right floated below the surface of the water and kept striking them at inconvenient places.

By the time we reached the theater, shoes in one hand, wallet in the other, our shirts were wet, and it was not from the rain. Around the same time, realization dawned on us: the guy that didn’t get the joke meant ass when he said knee.

I headed straight to the bathroom, which was filled with a few hundred people in various states of undress, pouring water over themselves from a communal bucket. It was quite entertaining, and I would have stayed there for some more time if not for the clanging of the bell that announced the start of the movie.

The movie was horrible; and the audience filled with squirming wet bodies (heh!) hated it. It was the same old overweight-hero-rescues-a-callgirl-who-is-still-a-virgin plot with a twist: the girl was overweight too. I thanked the storm sewer guys for the distraction of wondering if the water would do bad things to me as I squirmed – it saved me from losing my mind completely. In case you want to know, the movie was called Kolangal. All said and done, Kolangal was the worst movie I’ve watched in my life.

Last week, I had been to a movie called Oru Naal Oru Kanavu (A Dream A Day). In hindsight, the parallels were obvious – rainy day, directed by an acclaimed movie maker from Kerala, music by Illayaraja. After the movie, I couldn’t help telling myself, ” You know what, Kolangal wasn’t all that bad.”

Proud software engineer listens to aunts talking on a visit to India.

“My son’s a wastrel, I don’t think he’ll finish college.”

“If he is that bad at studies, you should ask him to attend a few computer courses. He can become a software engineer.”

Proud software engineer makes hurried exit.

My last 55-word-thingie, I swear. At least for today.

What this means is that RamaNarayanan could make a movie about an anaconda’s affair with Meena, and call it “Anacondas” without hurting the Tamil names lobby. Sweet.

Come back in 10 minutes.

Just buy the ones you want, don’t just stand there gawking.

I hurried in, and headed straight for the information counter. A winsome girl gave me smile just as winsome – but I remembered the second rule and asked her in my best business-like tone,

“I’m looking for a book called Never Let Me Go.”

“Author?”

“I-s-h-i-g-u-r-o”

“Sorry. Don’t have that author.”

Uh-oh.

“What about Smith, Z-a-d-i-e?”

“Book name?”

“On Beauty.”

Taps on keyboard, “Yes, we have.”

One out of two isn’t too bad.

“Ok, where is it?”

“No stock.”

“What does ‘we have’ mean?”

“Have in database.”

Damn. I start to walk out disappointed – not smart to sign up to review two books at Veena’s Booker Mela without checking for availability. Just then, the girl calls me,

“Sir.”

“Yeah?”

“We currently have a sale. 25% discount on all Danielle Steel books.”

I wanted to thank her for rubbing it in, but my ten minutes were up.

The soaraway favourite was The Da Vinci Code. Mention of this book is often suffixed by how many copies it has sold, as if sheer weight of numbers obviates all consideration of how rubbish it is. And it’s a bit late to launch into a critique of a work that makes people feel physically sick when they finish it, like a pound of strawberry bonbons, but the question remains – why aren’t they embarrassed?

[...]the ubiquitous Harry Potter, a series so infantile that it is, quite literally, a children’s book, a work that even the publishers admit that an adult ought to be embarrassed to be caught reading (well, they have a special “adult” edition, with a discreet cover; this is like reading Playboy inside the Economist. Except that it’s slightly worse, since if one of these representatives had said “I shall be holidaying with a copy of Playboy hidden inside an Economist”, I would probably vote for that person).

Williams theorizes that the lack of class in the preferences might be because the politicians deliberately dumbed down their list to appear more human and accessible to the average guy on the street (read voter), ending with a bit of advice for the ones that chose Potter: “Children aren’t allowed to vote.” Yes, but juveniles are.