Ganpati Bappa Less-ia

The fact that Ganesh pandals have sprung up here and there in Chennai is good evidence of a singular lack of imagination. As a primarily Maharastrian custom, it is not too popular here. Nevertheless the State units of the more ‘nationalistic’ political parties labour on every year in the hope of generating mass hysteria and cutting through to the vote base of the Dravidian parties. As most of their other laughable ideas, this has also not worked too well so far.

One of the Ganesha pandals I managed to pass by this year was an example of why these State units should seriously consider dropping the idea. The pandal owner had neatly come up with various avatars of Ganesha depending on what had caught his fancy. I noticed a ‘nut’ Ganesh, a ‘grass’ Ganesh, a fruity Ganesh, a coconut Ganesh and turmeric Ganesh. In case you are reaching out for your Penguin book of Hindu mythology, let me assure you that all these are definitely not sanctioned avatars of the elephant god. Clearly an overactive imagination had been at work. The only problem was that the level of competence had clearly not matched the level of enthusiasm. The turmeric Ganesha was alright, merely looking like he was suffering from an advanced case of Hepatitis B. The nuts and fruits Ganeshas were also reasonably fine. The grass Ganesha looked like a mutant child of a union between Ganesh and an Ent from Lord of the Rings. What really took the cake was the coconut Ganesha. The statue was embossed on all sides with empty coconut shells all covered in a fine layer of mud. The effect was of watching Ganesh suffering from some unspeakable disease, no doubt contracted by being promiscuous with the Apsaras. Just looking at it made me want to shut my eyes and sing songs to calm myself down.

I am not the one to quibble about Ganesh being given new forms. Infact, assimilation of new ideas is probably the cornerstone of a religion’s survival. As a child I had heartily applauded when I saw Ma Durga riding a dinosaur in a pandal in Kolkatha (Jurassic Park had just been released that year). However I do protest against my aesthetic senses being offended like this.

The irony was that despite the stark ugliness of the whole range of Ganeshas, devotees were still passing by them in a steady line, touching the feet of the statues. Boy, religion sure sells!

Big brother

Live coverage of news is thrilling. However very few of us appreciate the many obstacles in bringing cutting edge journalism straight into your living room. This was especially in evidence when an issue of national importance rocked us about a week ago.

Salman Khan was sentenced to five years of prison imprisonment. The nation was shown 24/7 footage of Salman Khan admirably overcoming the handicap of having to choose from the repertoire of five expressions he has. If the debate on whether Salman is to surrender or be arrested was heated, it was nothing to the high melodrama on Rakshabandan. Salman’s two sisters came to the Jodhpur prison to tie a rakhi. Enthusiastic journalists covered this with blow-by-blow commentary till the sisters disappeared into the prison. At this point the government played spoil sport and would not allow anybody to shoot inside. The nation had to be content with an interview with the Jodhpur police on the merits of leniency on Rakshabandan.

This is the kind of news coverage challenge which separates the creative from the merely competent. Every channel showed the sisters walking to the prison door. Only Headlines Today had the ability to seamlessly switch onto a graphic novel version of the sisters meeting Salman and tying the Rakhi. Cut back to live interview with the police. And then back to the drawings of a penitent looking Salman (Hey, here is your sixth expression) in designer prison wear extending his muscular arm. It was no longer just a news item but a splicing of techniques from the very best of visual art.

This is the kind of report that makes you feel proud about how far Indian TV has moved from the time when we had to meekly listen to Geetanjali Aiyer’s crisp accent on DD reading out insipid political news.

Better safe than sorry

Imagine you walk into an office. You see a big iron door that can be swung open only if you really took the effort. It has a handle that looks like the mother of all Godrej cupboard handles. Also assume you have had a normal upbringing, with exposure to all kinds of movies where robberies were shown. What would you think it was?

a. The door to the pantry

b. The door to the washroom

c. The door to the safe

I suspect most people would vote for three.

However, some discerning personnel in facilities management had clearly decided that one must not leave anything to chance (lest the deluded public make coffee in it or worse still, go for option 2). Hence there has appeared on the door, in big bold letters, a sticker announcing ‘SAFE’.

Being conscientious. That is the name of the game.

Poster boys and girls

One area that seldom gets attention in Dravidian politics is the fine art of making posters. For some reasons, the minions of the party have long felt that the one way of displaying loyalty is to ensure that your constituency is choc-o-bloc with posters of all relevant leaders. Presumably when the party chief’s car whizzes by at 100 kmph on roads cleared by the traffic police, some special vision capability will make them note that T Nagar had only 149 posters as opposed to Adyar which had 152 posters. The Adyar MLA gets a pat on the back and looks forward to becoming a central minister some day.

The casual observer however immediately notices a flaw in this strategy that emphasizes volumes. The T Nagar guy takes a mere day to up his count to 160 and the Adyar guy obliterates all business signs, trees, people on the road with his increases. Sooner or later, both chaps run out of walls, the general public is complaining about the lack of space to spit without disfiguring your favourite leader and there is chaos all around. It was at this fine moment of despondence that some worthy invented the ‘Cutout’.

A Cutout is a huge, larger than life cardboard picture of your beloved leader that one can erect on wooden poles. If mere walls were a constraint earlier, then the Cutout solved the problem in one stroke. You did not need walls anymore. Footpaths did nicely. So what if the voter had to swerve his way around every Cutout and jump onto the road and back on to the footpath constantly. That is the kind of aerobic exercise that makes the average citizen fit and brings down health expenditure in the government budget.

Sadly the Cutouts began to disappear one day. My guess is a passing flight bumped into one of them and as they say 'what tangled webs we weave'.

So innovation became the name of the game. MBA style cunning was used to subtly differentiate poster A from poster B. What was hitherto a piece of cheap paper listing down details of the leader being praised, the ambitious sponsor of the poster and some general terms of sucking up (‘Our great leader’, ‘the greatest son of the soil’, ‘may we be humbly permitted to give a bath to your dog’ etc) became a work of art.

People decided to take their inspiration from the movies. Remember the good old days when the hero and heroine methodically changed clothes every twenty seconds in movie songs? Watching a series of posters on the Beach road gives you the feeling of watching such a song. First there is the poster with the leader’s head morphed onto western clothes, then onto Indian clothes and finally some colourful casuals. That the morphing has transformed the perpetually dhoti-clad man into a somewhat thinner, shapelier and nifty dresser is considered artistic license.

Not to mention, it is not just sartorial elegance that wins votes. Apparently during the last elections one of the reasons the incumbent was rumoured to have lost was because of the serious, unsmiling face in the posters. This election the posters were modified to show a benign smile that the electorate could apparently identify with. Sadly in the more remote villages where wall paintings are still cheaper than posters, the benign smile turned slightly constipated in the artist’s reinterpretation of the original work. It seemed to understand the common man’s urgent need to perform ablutions by the wall

My latest fancy has been to gawk at a poster that depicts a smiling yesteryear leader now deceased. Emerging from the open heart of the deceased leader, like some grotesque mid way picture of a heart transplant is the smiling mug of a current leader. Still it is a whole lot better than the Congress posters. Devoid of any imagination and burdened by history, the congressmen feel obliged to make family snaps with pictures of various generations of the Gandhi-Nehru family appropriately sized to depict current levels of importance. Thus Nehru would be fluttering like a fly by Sonia Gandhi’s head. Entertaining but not in the same league as the open-heart surgery one.

Some day, I am sure Chennai citizens will be too advanced to vote going by the posters. But I do hope as an art form it finds its place in history.

Religion

Today I spent lunch hour arguing with colleagues on faith and religion. It all started off with an innocuous discussion on when the Mahabarath and Ramayan were said to have happened. We were all speculating when a colleague triumphantly announced that as per both mythologies, the world is divided into 4 yugas. The current yuga is around 3000 years old and started at the end of Ramayan. During Ramayan 3 yugas had passed and hence the story must be roughly 12000 years old. I pointed out the fallacy in placing the timing of a mythology by concepts told in the mythology. And before we knew it, all of us were in a full fledged discussion on how true the mythology is.

I have always been an ‘on the fence’ person not being able to make up my mind on whether God exists. In practice, he does, since most of my toughest times involve some serious prayers and results. One thing though I am clear on is that the concept of religion is nothing but a mass movement that evolves based on local politics and cultural ethos. This is why you have a choice of religions across the world. And each of these religions has its own mythologies. Most of these mythologies should be grounded in some kind of historical happening. However, obviously over a period of time, they have been told and retold till the principal characters have reached some status of divinity. So from who was probably a local tribal chieftain’s son, Rama is now a major God.

I thought this argument made plenty of sense. Apparently not. My colleagues insisted that the entire stories of Mahabarath and Ramayan are as divine as they come and it was none other than God who played the principal characters in them. Infact all of them agreed that the Ganges is not on account of the simple geographic phenomenon of continental drift leading to the Himalayas being formed and glaciers being formed and then melting to form a river. Faith makes them believe that the Ganges was created when it fell from Lord Shiva’s hairlock in the heavens above.

Lesson learnt - You can argue with facts. But not with faith. And that is why religion, for all its goodness, is such a dangerous concept.

Holy God

Here is an interesting article my friend sent me

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/11/ap3604705.html

The first line is rather catchy I would say since it goes ‘A federal bankruptcy judge Wednesday ordered an external audit of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego amid accusations church leaders are trying to hide assets to avoid payment to sex abuse victims.’

Firstly, I have never heard of churches going bankrupt (and just imageine, the article goes on to say there have been five church bankruptcies recently). Largely because I have this romantic image of religious institutions being some sort of charitable places that run on divine intervention (or maybe govt funding).

Secondly I never thought churches go bankrupt because they have run out of money to pay victims who are sexually abused. I mean, why become a priest if you are clearly not going to be able to do your job viz. toe the moral line. (Though this does explain why funding does not come on account of divine intervention)

Thirdly, they hide assets in order to avoid payments!

Don’t get me wrong. I am a believer in religion to a certain extent, no matter which one it is. But really when statistics show that more and more people lack faith these days; you don’t have to look too far for the reason do you?

D

One of the toughest things to do when you are a current President and publish your autobiography is to maintain the balance between political correctness and honesty. The dedication in President Musharaf’s book ‘Line of Fire’ was shining with honesty stating that it was dedicated to the people of Pakistan as they wait for a better day…Or perhaps that was too much honesty. The bits and pieces I managed to read before I gave up, however, was politically correct to the T. There is an innocuous paragraph right at the beginning about how when the first leader of Pakistan, Jinnah died, time stopped, skies darkened, the birds stopped singing etc and there were tears in everyone’s eyes. Which is pretty touching except that Musharaf was a five-year-old kid at that point in time.

What was the first death you cried for and how old were you at that time?

I mulled over this question for a couple of days and figured out that the first genuine tears I shed was for my paternal grandfather. Not when he passed away since I was still a kid trying to make sense of why my strong uncles were shedding copious tears. It was sometime when I was around 13 – 14. It suddenly hit me that I would never hear first hand the man who had had the temerity to think beyond his humble origins, educate his sons and set them on paths that would ensure that they (and their progeny) lead far more prosperous lives than he ever would.

Then I thought some more

And I realised that the first time I actually felt sorry for a death was when I was ten. I still remember the day. My sister and me snuggled on a single sofa, watching intently as the lead protagonist of the movie ‘Short Circuit’ was being beaten up. My sister’s tears were freely flowing down her cheeks. As the older, and ostensibly wiser sister, I merely blinked back my tears as the character’s lights went out of his eyes. Literally. The protagonist was a robot and it was the first time in my life someone’s death had moved me to tears. To my parents’ credit (sitting on the sofa behind the two of us), they did not hold their sides and laugh – atleast not too loudly - or try to console us that this was a mere movie. My sister and I watched delighted as were introduced for the first time in our conscious memory to Hollywood’s happy endings. The robot was repaired, given new life and voila! Short Circuit 2 was under production.

All I can say is that the fact I cried for a robot when I was ten as opposed to crying for the father of the nation when I was five probably indicates that I am just not cut out to be President. Or when I do become President and write my autobiography, I might have to edit out some of the parts.

Happy Diwali

This Diwali I have immersed myself completely in the pure and joyous commercialism of the season. I bought lots of new clothes, I collected plenty of money from unsuspecting relatives by falling at their feet for their blessings and I even undertook a project to paint our old mud lamps in delightful designer colours till my mom pointed out that South Indians light lamps for Karthigai Deepam not Diwali. In line with these activities, I decided to accompany a colleague to buy sweets from a popular sweet shop.

As expected the place was packed with last minute shoppers and we finally managed to make it to the billing counter. My colleague’s inventory was substantial and while she struggled to make payments I fell into overhearing a conversation between two people

Male 1: You will never guess my age.

Male 2 (in flattering voice): Don’t know. maybe early 30s…?

Male 1: (laughing in an embarrassed tone hiding a lot of glee): Actually I am 43.

At this point, curiosity got better of me and moving to Convenient Gaping Position #1, I casually took a look at the man. He looked 40, not 43 but definitely not early 30s. Since my work sometimes involves coming up with such white lies, I completely sympathized with Male 2. Coming back to Convenient Overhearing Position #1, I continued.

Male 2: (Who obviously had not stopped gushing during my subtle spy walks): I just can’t believe it. This is amazing

Male 1: (Still laughing)

Male 2: Infact no one would say you were single. You look like a normal, married man.

Hello!! Since when did normal = married. This was the point where I felt like moving to Convenient Bashing up Silly Goose Position #1.

Male 2: So are your parents looking out for you.

Welcome to Indian society where people actually hold your parents responsible for your singleton status even if you are 43

Male 1: Er..not really. Think if it happens, I will just find someone of my own.

Thank God. Finally some sense.

My colleague had finished with her purchases by then and it was time to move on. However, I have suddenly realized what an entertaining experience overhearing can be.

Salman Can

Salman Khan has broken his silence in the black buck case. Defending his actions, the actor claimed that he had really been aiming at the director of the movie, Hum Saath Saath Hain, which was being shot – ha ha no pun intended – at that time. When incredulous media persons asked him if he was sure, Salman retorted ‘Dude. Have you seen the movie?’

Renowned psychologists have admitted that Salman could have possibly been suffering from a reverse Dick Cheney syndrome where you mistake animals for people and shoot them by mistake.

Salman further claimed that he could not see why killing people would pose a problem. Infact this notion was reinforced when he did actually manage to kill someone later on. The public may recollect the time he got away with running over a person in front of a bakery shop in Mumbai. “I would have been more careful if I knew the damn black buck would get in the way”, he was quoted as saying.

Police personnel when contacted admitted that Salman had a point given the mounting number of suspects who get away with killing people.

What's in a name

By now most people are aware of the fact that an 11-year old boy named Hari has sued Naukri.com for releasing an advertisement where the name 'Hari' is expanded into 'Hitler, Arrogant, Rascal, Idiot'. Apparently our 11-year-old has been called 'Hitler' by his schoolmates and is going through intolerable grief. To make things better for Hari, his dad has helped him sue Naukri.com for Rs. 10 Million. I will not comment on obvious points like how his dad must have an excellent understanding of child psychology to realise that a 10 mn-lawsuit is just the method to handle teasing at school. Nor will I comment on how Hari, when he grows up will probably be sanctioned American citizenship immediately since when I last heard that was the only place where people filed lawsuits almost as ridiculous. Instead I will dwell upon this other loser kid who went through a similar trauma thanks to her name.

About fourteen years ago a Tamil movie was made on the theme of two stepbrothers. It was a major hit thanks to the excellent songs, avant garde lighting (atleast at that time), terse dialogues and great casting. It was watched by almost everybody who could speak the language. There was one minor scene, which escaped the attention of all but a little girl's classmates. It was the culmination of the comedy track, which involved a car driver helping his elderly employer to get laid. The duo manages to track down a call girl to do the job. And guess what the name of her character was? You are right. It was the same as the little girl's. Of course her classmates were too young to understand what exactly were the services expected from this hot looking lady who appeared in the scene. But they certainly knew that the homely heroine was not called by this name. (In a city like Chennai, every 9-year-old wants to be the homely heroine and not the sexy siren). So for a week the little girl had atleast one person chant out her name in the same tone of gleeful anticipation used in the movie.

The little girl was of course me (fairly obvious wasn't it?). If there is anyone to blame for my not having 10 mn in my bank account, it is me. I believe Hari was sent a box of chocolates as a token of apology by the company and the ad agency. Our little Hari has however rejected it by quickly using his mental arithmetic skills to figure out how many boxes of chocolates he can buy with so much money.

Sigh. I wish I had atleast got some chocolates.

Disturbing Images

I have always been a fan of horror movies. Throw more blood and gore at me and I lap it all up happily on TV. However, real life horror is a different story and I can usually watch about ten minutes of live footage on any tragedy – 9/11, Iraqi war, Tsunami, Kashmir earthquake- before I start feeling depressed. I do however believe that a reasonable coverage of the horror experienced by people in such events is helpful . Sometimes it brings into sharp focus the human cost of man-made disasters and hopefully will influence people to stop the nonsense. At other times, in case of natural disasters, the ten minutes of footage probably made someone contribute to rebuilding and rehabilitation.

What about personal tragedies though? This morning, I was having breakfast and watching the news, when the reporter told the story of five college girls who drowned at Hoggenakkal Falls. Then suddenly there were the bloated faces of two of those girls floating underwater with their hair streaming around their faces. What was till then an impersonal story giving you some sound advice about being careful around water bodies, became a full-fledged invasion of privacy in a personal tragedy. Who benefits by watching this footage? The parents of the girls must be distraught enough without having the pictures being flashed on National TV. They certainly deserve privacy in their moment of grief. The viewer does not need these disturbing pictures thrown at them. For one, everyday someone is dying and the collective effect of watching all of this is not going to make anyone’s day better. For another, what does the viewer get out of this footage except some voyeuristic pleasure, if you are the type?

Can anyone else think of a reason to show such footage?