The Essence of Stupid

This is mostly for me. 

2010 has been the most dramatic year of my life. I found a job, found new friends, then enemies, had my location changed at the last minute to Bombay (I am not calling it Mumbai), found fun, joy, laughter- then anger, bitterness & re-found my sarcasm- something the novel had drained me of, for a few weeks.

I saw new sights, heard new sounds, sweated in Bombay’s (so called) “winter”, ate new foods, fell ill- sometimes seriously, learnt the true meaning of stress, politics; got smarter, sharper, came to understand things I hitherto had never deemed worth understanding; found my heart with hope and then had it bitterly crushed. 

I am amazed at how far I have come, how much I have changed. I still find it difficult to tolerate stupidity, but I am learning to laugh it off. I have realized that the only true friends you will ever have is your own family and then maybe one or two more if you’re lucky; the rest of the world is just mostly a Facebook Friend. I can cook Maggi, omelettes and other semi processed food- progress for someone who was mortally afraid of the stove. I feel wiser, quieter, calmer- yet my quips are sharper, my wit is more hard hitting; I am burning at both ends of the candle.

I am also more & more convinced of the futility of the human race. I meet and talk to several adults a day and I am constantly bored by their unidimensional thinking, put off by their malice coated in a thin layer of concern. I think good writers tend to be good readers of people and sadly this gift puts me at a loss. Every adult I meet is so… predictable, yes predictable is the word. As kids, I remember, we used to ask each other- what do you want to be when you grow up. I remember I once said “Alligator”. One of my male friends who is now a grown man had said “A pair of socks”; another “Traffic Signal”- all of them very seriously and with valid viable kiddy logic. I wish I was any of those things today than an adult human.

Why Bastard Exists

I am in love with Hugh Laurie (no sexual feelings). There might have been no book without him at all. For though Hari is the focal character who drives the book and represents my own anger, disenchantment and confusion during my MBA days, Bastard is the one character who made me enjoy writing the book. 

(For a background to this conversation, please read this http://www.vaibhavanand.com/2010/09/about-bastard.html)

Somehow writing the book was always a chore. Meenakshi was the worst- the most confusing character- whose tricks & dances frustrated me no end. I remember saying this to MG once- “Saalee ko maar hee dete hain.” She was bitching with the plot like hell.

Bastard was the one character I could completely relate to. While writing him, I always had that arrogant, self satisfied face of Hugh Laurie’s Dr. House in my head. Every scene, every dialogue, every sentence with Bastard in it scores (to me)- his bike entry, his vodka flask, his arrogant self satisfied awareness of the fact that he is two notches ahead of everyone in intelligence, his punch(es), his legend(s)… Hari is an everyman- a confused MBA that everyone today tends to be. Bastard transcends.

I had read Sherlock Holmes in entirety much before I saw House (Sherlock Holmes inspired the character of Dr. House). But Laurie was the reason Bastard came to exist and ultimately livened up the book. That cocky smile; those wicked twisted means… God I am so in love!

And if you ever thought Laurie was just a one dimensional actor, sample this- he has a wicked sense of humor in real life, he is a novelist and also a pianist. Below is a video of one of his hilarious performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAzBa3QSpUY

Poet's Mind

In my mornings
as the sun breaks through my faint,
a tiny hand colors my world
with crayons and paint.

I don’t want to see
I want to be blind
I see the unseen
I have a poet’s mind.

Why is India a Great Country? (Death to Patriotism?)

I wrote this piece 5 years ago. Surprised though I am by my maturity at that time (I am sure I would not be able to muster even a minute percentage of the same arguments today) I am also shocked by the timelessness of this piece. We are still where we were 5 years ago...

I do not believe in history. My having been born in an upper caste family, with sufficient resources, does not make me great. True, India has a magnificent history: the Indus civilization, the Mughals, the 1857 uprising, the Gandhian revolution, et al. But, likewise, that does not make for greatness.

India is a barren naked land without its cultures, its colors, its religions. However, as a person cannot be deemed great for the clothes he wears; his shoes or hairstyle or the fragrance he chooses to spray over himself, I doubt if greatness should lie in the clothes of cultures, color or monuments India wears. Not only is such a statement highly propagandist (like BJP’s “India Shining” campaign), it deems other nations with perhaps equally diverse cultures, peoples and religions un-great. For greatness is a crown for the elite few. In the same vein, I thus ask, “Why is the US not a great country? Or the UK? Or Pakistan?” Being a citizen of India should not and does not make one blind to the world. After all, this is the era of globalization.

And for all its culture, its history, its religion, its minarets, its color, India like any other country is made of people. Human beings. Little pink creatures, with dark hearts. This is again not a license to greatness, because every country I know of, is made up of human beings.

But I do not intend to deny India greatness…Just to clarify the weights and measures of  greatness. The Himalayas, the Ganges, the Taj Mahal, the Qutab Minar with all their quiet beauty and serenity are not the weights and measures of greatness; but of tourism, perhaps. 

The man on the street, the rickshaw puller, the tobacco- paan seller, will easily enter into an animated debate on the issue of India’s greatness. To them, all the corruption, the famines (and the Rs. 3 cheques), the electricity shortages, the broken roads, the stinking sewers, peddled to them by their hindi dailies, are signs of a nation gone to the dogs, faltering and staggering and falling.

But the same paan-wallah, the rickshaw puller, will glue themselves to any available radio set if India is playing hockey/ cricket; will talk in higher, happier tones of Sunita Williams, as if she were their blood sister; and celebrate the Indo-US nuclear deal (without being sure of its meaning). Thus is India great, for its people never give up hope. For all our rot and rust and famine and flood, we never stop believing in the Indian dream. Thus, we call her "Mother India" for its peoples are always expecting.

Heartly Welcome!

Got this in my inbox a few days ago... Too good to be true.

On a serious note, do Contact Please for all Countries, Parties & Governments!

Why they got drunk

If there is one sequence in the book that anyone has to name as their favorite or something that readers will remember it for, it’s without a doubt the drunken night sequence (my favorite is Bastard’s bike entry scene though). It is a set piece that’s so obviously filmy yet incredibly believable that everyone who’s ever had a hangover will believe it and laugh at it with consummate ease.

The sequence is a tribute to the awesomeness of the movie Hangover- a bunch of madcap funny nonsense, which is actually a clear, well thought out and defined sequence of comic events (though no event in the book is actually copied from the movie). When discussing the sequence, we were very clear that this was going to be the book what the Mahabharata scene is to Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. And the scene had more thought put into it than some parts of the book. Consider this conversation for example-

Vaibhav: Yaar bahut serious ho gaya. Abhi tak love scene nai aaya.

MG: (in agreement) Haan haan love/ sex scene to aana hee chahiye. Uss ******* ke novel to isiliye bikte hain.

Vaibhav: Buss iss hafte sex scene hai.

And so it was. The love scene/ interaction between Hari and Meenakshi actually had no thought put into it; nor was it planned to be there in the beginning. It was just meant to be a draw for some of our more perverted readers. However, though its origins might be impromptu it is one of my favorite sequences in the book and in my biased opinion, the most well written. I wrote it in a single shot and knew that it would need zero changes even as I was writing it. And it didn’t.

The drunk night scene however was much more arduous to write. It began with us going forth about what would be the stupidest and most ridiculous possible things to do when drunk. I remember the initial few ideas:

V: Kutte ko tie pehnaate hain.

MG: Chor ko pakadvate hain.

V: Rickshaw!

MG: (who has had a few experiences with policemen) Tango to Charlie!! Alpha to Delta!!

So we had four to five set events and the drunk night story was to travel from the origin flowing through these plot points. I wrote it the very first time as Matar remembering the night and remembering it all because he had apparently been drinking since he was ten & had thus acquired a tolerance for alcohol. This was where I went wrong- introducing logic into madness. MG hated the finished first draft. For one, it had Matar going somewhat on & on about how Hari moaned about Meenakshi when he was drunk.

MG was entirely convinced that that the entire chapter would have to be rewritten. But I believed in the strength of the material- of the little set pieces that made up the big set piece. And with about six changes that removed all semblance of logic from what is best an illogical night the chapter was set.

One of my aunts told me that when she was reading the book, it was like I was talking to her. Cynical, bitter, poking/ insulting, self deprecating and dark humored. But the drunk night scene is not much me. It is more Wodehouse. And the best part is- that unlike the novel itself, it has a perfect ending- a tail ender hitting the very last ball for a huge six.

My favorite feel-good review

This is one book that I have been waiting for long and have not been able to keep it away from my mind ever since I have heard about the same. This weird sounding book is one of the best my-college life-experience books that I have ever read. If you have ever been to a B-school, you can easily relate to the madness that is described in it. It is like the wet mud that reminds you of the beautiful days of the rat race.

The novel has beautifully captured the emotions of each milestone and integrated it with personalization of the cities. The entry to hell, CVs, lecture, break ups, hook ups, Placecom, recession, this book has colored every aspect of the MBA life. My favorite chapter is Joker & the Thief & the Night with the madness at its peak, it just reminds of that one incidence that happens in those two years which you love telling to the rest of the world describing your filmy – otherwise slogging – b school life.

At the end the book just left me thinking of HP, the guy that everyone wants to be in THAT moment of self realization but then abandons him for the fear of the social world around us. An awesome read for anyone and everyone who is or has ever been a student.

-Komal Deep Kaur

Wings

I mourn oftentimes for
that bird- no flight
-Windless Wings yet its
sweet song of delight.

Lessons From Chittagong

Watched Khelien Hum Jee Jaan Sey yesterday. I must say I had not much clue about the scale of the Chittagong revolution. History books have a tendency of reducing historic efforts to short answer questions. Write two lines on the Chittagong revolution.

However the movie then set me thinking on the inherent lack of any kind of patriotism/ regionalism in my own core. I have a flagrant disregard for most things national- flag, anthem, bird, animal, etc. National holidays are good, however. We should have a few more of those.

My point, before I choose to meander again, is- how different is the average Chittagong revolutionary- undoubtedly heroic, jaw droppingly inspiring and profitable in terms of the movie business- from a revolutionary/ terrorist belonging to the LeT or ULFA or Babbar Khalsa? All these organizations have their roots in the same psyche that a national revolution germinates from- a recognition of regional/ potential national identity, aided perhaps by injustices of whoever be the current ruling authority. What allures the terrorist also is the fact that the terrorist of today would be the revolutionary of tomorrow; might be read about in history books; might have small tortured souls write short notes on him to pass exams.

I do not have an issue with the forefathers of India who chose the path of violence. I do not also have any intention of belittling the efforts of people like Surjya Sen or Nirmal Sen or Azad or Bhagat Singh. I think however that a nation conquered/ forged by violence will inevitably disintegrate. Bhagat Singh was smart enough to realize this- he had the foresight to look beyond the British rule- how India must be governed, etc. My point is- and stay with me here- is that every nation or at least nations that I can think of that emerged from some kind of foreign overlordship have had their eventual paths forged by their first leaders. 

 The birthing years of a new/ young nation are very important and steady hand at the centre, whatever his inclinations/ leanings/ ideas, will define the state of the nation in the future. Nehru’s socialistic designs on India, even though outdated in today’s capitalistic context, gave India a steady, rock solid childhood. Lincoln’s concept of building roads & infrastructure in a newly freed America, gave its childhood, eventual adolescence, youth and now middle age the kind of nutritional support that sees it as the world’s largest economy. Look at Pakistan however- a nation whose father died six months into independence- leaving it an orphan- leaving it to stepfathers who abused its potential entirely.

My point thus, with all my segues, is that I oppose patriotism/ regionalism for two reasons. Inevitably patriotism/ regionalism will create revolutionaries/ terrorists who are infinitely more dangerous should they succeed. A set of people consumed wholly by the thought of independence will be incredibly clueless as to what to do after becoming independent- perhaps like in Pakistan/ Afghanistan. Revolution/ terrorism, in my mind, shall create a bloodlust- an easy route out- that no end goal, not even another independence, will be able to satiate. Also the kind of birthing process a nation has will define its entire life- a violently obtained nation has a tendency to stay violent. Which is where a victory through terror is dangerous.

Also my issue with patriotism is that where does it stop? Do I call myself an Asian? Or an Indian? Or a Punjabi? Or a Delhiite? It is very easy for the common man to confuse patriotism and regionalism & as regionalism (look at the Maratha Manus movement) will eventually disintegrate a nation, patriotism- overt that is- shall disintegrate the world.

However, to each his own.

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