Turning ten equates going crazy

November is a busy month for me. The magazine I work with will turn ten in December and that for the editorial team means a crazy month. I had an absolutely hectic month, throw in Sa birthday, a cousin’s wedding and Ra’s engagement meant that it was only yesterday afternoon when we signed out I could breathe a sigh of relief. I did 26 bloody interviews this month and at one point, while working on three different stories I had no clue what and with whom I was talking. With all of us getting increasingly angry and worked up each passing day, it’s a wonder we closed the issue, even three days late! All said, it has been a productive month and I can happily lie low for a month or two before my editor again turns the heat on me.

Was reading Tavleen Singh’s amazing book “Durbar”, which has been receiving mixed reviews but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the first time I read non- fiction so quickly and the book offers a decisive as well as a different insight into the Indira- Rajiv years. Most people I discussed with said that it relied heavily on hearsay and gossip, and as a journalist I would say that they are more reliable than people at times. I also loved her interview with Abhinandan Sekhri on Newslaundry, a highly amusing episode in which the interviewer and interviewee cross swords and Tavleen was ruthless when the actor tried to be condescending.

Caught the lovely Bombay Jayshree in action after two years and was still as amazed at her grace and voice. Timeless performer.

Festivals

Its Diwali and as I'm writing this post people are going gaga bursting crackers. I've never really been a crackers person and the few I got this year cost a whopping 1700, but I'm both sad and happy that people are showing lesser inclination to burst crackers, be it due to increasing costs or declining interest, atleast in Hyderabad the festivities have been tapered down in the past few years. I'm sad because that's become the same with all festivals, no one has anytime to celebrate them and almost everything has become perfunctionary, Sankranti, Holi or Diwali.

Diwali when my grandfather was alive was fun, great fun and growing up as my siblings left the family nest I realized that festivals were fun only with more people. How many crackers could I burst alone or how many kites could I fly all by myself. Festivals like most things tell us about the importance of people and how sharing is okay once in a while. Unlike the innate consumerism of festivities, the fact that they offer a break from the routine makes them worthwhile.

This Diwali, for change I had two wishes and though I dare not hope too much, I do hope that they make the screening test of the powers that be. I have to hope for the best....time for me to enjoy some delicious food along with Hyderabadi spciality, phirni...

PS: While a friend of mine got 40 bloody thou as Diwali gift, I got a measly half kilo sweet box and when we opened it today they were totally dry and tasteless!

November Blues

-  It’s November again and it has started on a beautiful note today, with a heavy down pour due to the rains. Feels wonderful to be up and about.

      -   Watched , the terrible “Student of the Year” yesterday and felt that I deserved what I saw because I knew it would be disastrous and still went along…Karan Johar seemed to have directed it in between his many reality shows, no sense cinema and the three leads were such funny faces!

      - I am so hooked to the Rekha Bharadwaj song from Barfi, “ Phir le aaya dil”. There is something so magic about her voice that it manages to enchant you each time you listen to it. I wish it was used in the movie though…

      -  November is a busy busy month as far as work is concerned. There is so much to do but I really don’t know where do I start, worked really hard on two stories and did 1 interviews last month and that story was chopped…so am a little pissed off and am taking it a little easy right now.

     -  Everyone I know is getting married, big time. Friends, the last remaining single friends of my siblings and to top it all, juniors from colleges. It’s getting so annoying that I have been off facebook for a while, cant face another status which says…”Starting a new life” or “can’t wait to get married!”

     - While I am on it, everyone I know is either getting married or if they already are, getting their first flat, car or baby and me, am still where I saw 6 years back. It doesn't bother me that much but I swear I cannot handle one more conversation about growing up finally or finally finding their feet.

     -  Read the amazing book “Book Thief” by Markus Zusak which I have been recommending to everyone I know, it’s written in such a brilliant way that it really tugs at your very core.

Say Sush

A long standing wish came true some time back when I interviewed Sushmita Sen. She was as dazzling in person as I expected her to be and the thing about her is that when she turns on the charm it really hits you in the face, there is no way in hell  you can escape it! Surrounded by beauty queens half her age, Sush really managed to hold her own and that’s really quite something. For one, I didn’t write down any questions and was really tongue tied in her presence. Two, to her credit she never shied away from giving any answer however personal. My personal favorite was when I asked her if she felt that her Bollywood career never really took off, the lady replied, “ I only fight when there is a position and two times in my life when I had to fight for the top position I won, the Miss India final and the Miss Universe final.” Amen to that.

Watching “English Vinglish” was such a treat. I cannot remember the last time, when I wished that a movie was longer. Sridevi remains the undisputed actress she always was and I just hope that she chooses scripts which do her justice! On the same note, Aiyya had to be the worst movie of the year, I really don’t know why I would spend 150 bucks to watch such nonsense.

Hoping to meet Yuraj Singh in a few hours from now, the PR is notorious for being flippant, so let’s see if Yuraj actually turns up! Will be back with that...

 

PS: a later update, did meet Yuvraj Singh...didnt like him much, very standoffish...

The journey of a bibliophile

A recent story I did and loved....

 

A staircase leads to a comfortable room which is bursting with books and is embalmed in a quiet that is hard to find nowadays, BS Prakash’s library is a book lover’s paradise, intimate but not intimidating. Rows and rows of books spread across genres of every imaginable kind greet the discerning visitor, from history, literature, poetry and classics neatly stacked according to author and genre. The elegance of the library is compounded by the old world charm of the house replete with wooden rocking chairs and spacious seating areas.

 Prakash’s tryst with reading started at the age of 3, when his mother gifted him a copy of the book, “The tale of two bad mice”. As he shows us the book which was presented to him in 1950 he says, “I have always been reading. I still have the fairy tale books gifted by my parents. It’s been a deep and abiding interest all through my life. Since I wasn’t an athletic type and we had no radio, reading was the natural alternative during childhood. My father and grandfather were avid readers and in fact, a quarter of my collection (about 2000 books) was inherited from them.” Today his collection has grown to roughly around 8000 books, and he admits that cataloguing them is a huge challenge.

The book collector remembers his childhood days where he bought books at many stores in Abids (a street in Hyderabad) with great fondness. He recollects the many times he bought classics for a steal, “I used to buy a lot of books at AA Hussain in Abids apart from that there was a second hand book store called Ilyas down the same road which had a great collection. The second hand market at Abids was a great haunt to buy different kinds of books, I once got 16 volumes of Charles Dickens for 32 rupees!”

 Also a part of  a club of theater and literature enthusiasts, Prakash says that reading opens up different worlds to the reader which is an experience in itself. Showing us the first edition of Charles Dickens’s “Pickwick Papers” which was published in 1837, a book  which has withstood the vagaries of time for almost three centuries, he also narrates many anecdotes which he says only enriched his love of reading, “I once bought a book of C Rajagopalachari’s writings for the Swatantra Party, in which two pages were stuck. Later I found that he had gifted the book to his biographer, Monica Felton. In my father’s books I have come across his thoughts on the ideas expressed by the author. All of it makes the process of reading very intriguing.”

 Lending his books to very few people as Prakash believes that most books which are lent never come back; he also strikes a chord with many people when he says that he prefers reading novels in paperbacks to reading on an Ipad or a kindle. Currently planning to write a book on the social history of a middle class South Indian Brahmin family he brings the interview to a close by saying, “Books for me brings out solitude from loneliness.”

 

A song that raised a thousand bogeys

Last week while driving to work, I saw a sign which said 360 degrees, inexplicably that reminded me of my Yahoo 360 blog which was my space to ramble in around 2004-2007…while I was thinking of it, one of my favorites blogs there wound its way into my mind…a post there with the following lyrics from a Johnny Cash song is one of my favorites pieces I have ever written and brought in a sweeping stroke of nostalgia, both for the song and the times gone by. I rushed to office and spent the whole day listening to Johnny Cash. Though I often think about the times in which I was in college, it never really succeeds in wearing me down as much as it did that day…

The lyrics of the song go something like this

Save my love through loneliness,
Save my love for sorrow,
I'm given you my onliness,
Come give your tomorrow

I am no fan of English music but for some reason Johnny Cash’s songs get to me like no one ever has. Read through the above lines and there is so much you see, such angst, such abundance of love and so much suffering that it calls out to your own pain and forms a bond. That day brought in so many memories of so many particular things. Memory is sometimes so fickle, you feel a pang for the past but the past as a whole, you never think about the individual entities which made the past a whole. This day and that song brought back such individual memories that I was lost the whole day: the way I used to read Harry Potter every day for years, the way I used to snuggle on the bed with those no longer here and was so content, the way I was so hopeful about things, the many long walks to muse about life, the way life seemed such a huge possibility when I used to talk with friend, the obtuse passing of times at bus stops, the thrill if I actually went to a place I liked…much of that hope is exhausted now, much of that warmth missing and most of the optimism misplaced.

The journey from your early to late twenties changes so much of you that it is hard to believe that you shed so much of yourself and still are you. As I pause, while I am writing this…it is difficult to believe that so much has been slowly lost over the years…an accumulated angst has occupied the place of hope and has made it home…I know not what is worse, that it refuses to fade or that I refuse to let go.

Books I recently read and loved

Reading is a getaway for which I’m immensely thankful, allowing me to know more about life, people and experiences in such a vicarious and voyeuristic manner. Though my reading has come down, I have read some immensely wonderful books, in the past which have enriched and touched me in so many ways.

A suitable girl: Vikram Seth

This book is so huge that you cannot lug it around, I placed it on three pillows and read it just like old ladies read out from Ramayana at a prayer meet. It also amazed me (again after An Unequal Music) about the unrivaled genius of Vikram Seth. I fell in love at the contents page itself, instead of names of chapters, it has couplets with a tantalizing hint as to what you can expect in that chapter. The sheer number of characters and the exquisite detailing which went into it numbs you. Full of characters you can relate to, an old world charm which no longer exists, it was a marathon of a book and the fact that it has a sequel coming out is just the icing on the cake! My family heaved a sigh when I finished it in five wonderful days and was brought back to the world.

The help: Kathryn Stockett

Gifted by Na, on my birthday this wasn’t my usual book. Narrating the journey of black maids in 1960’s who raise white kids, it opened my eyes to the sort of exploitation we thought was limited to our own country. Full of humor, pain and courage it describes an inhuman human in an incredibly humane way. Two days after I finished the book, the adaptation came on TV which was good but was nowhere close to the book!

Em and the big hoom- Jerry Pinto

This touching book, which by the way is simply gorgeous to look at, with its black bound cover and colored pages was a gift from Pt and was so engrossing. A story about a mentally ill mother and her two kids who try to decipher the reason behind her illness, it shocks you with its crudity and makes you wonder about the concept of life itself. A semi-biographical account of the author, the sarcasm, lyrical humor, the love and the grief really affect you. I, for one didn’t want the book to end even though the despair in its narration was heart wrenching. A wonderful, depressing book!