Oh Chennai, my Chennai!

 

Last night, or must I say this morning, my husband decided to apply for a record of sorts. Guinness, Limca, anything really. He felt, fairly, that if there was a record going for the longest time taken to reach from a reasonable point A to point B, roughly 10 km, then he had a good chance. Given that he had unusually, therefore cheerily, set forth from his office at about 5-45 pm but stayed on the roads till about 12-45 am, a solid seven hours, he though he was justifiably calling dibs.

Last night is also when I well and truly lost it. As a life long Chennaite, I have never been so angry before, and God knows this city tests us all sorely from time to time. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I wondered what this city had come to. As a city, Chennai had failed us all miserably last night. As a friend said, pardon his French, bloody suburb!

I’m usually the first to rush to the defense of the city, sometimes my task is to defend the indefensible, and it hasn’t fazed me yet, until yesterday.

With a few hours of very heavy rainfall on Monday, this city of mine careened to a grinding, screeching halt. Roads were inundated immediately, the only scorching that was happening was of our hopes that the flood waters would * somehow* drain out. But in a sense, the worst was yet to be, as we stepped out to make the brave journey home.

Public transport, in the best of times, indifferent in this city, was no bet. Buses were leaking initially as it rained, friends reported, and anyway were stuck in the great big traffic mess that the roads had become. MRTS was a life saver, if you lived along its snaking route, but you’d have to step off the train, into the icy, black waters of Chennai roads. If you were lucky to put to use the Metro Rail that basically, at this stage, connects nowhere with nowhere, there was still the small matter of getting home from the station.

If you were in a car, then woe be to you. You could go as fast as you could to the nearest traffic jam and then wait there, moving forward in interstitial progression between the car in front of you, and the truck behind, both of which were crawling, when they moved. In most places, the water beneath, if you were lucky. The water in your auto, if you were not.
Which made that guy who slept in his car in Saidapet a smart cookie, actually, but only if he woke up before the flood waters came in. Or he and his precious car might be bobbing along the Adyar in spate, under the Maraimalai Adigal bridge. We hope he hasn’t.

 

SuperSucker machines, rescuing Chennai from the flood waters.Pic. Ramya Kannan

Because the roads, frankly they were best negotiated on boats. Several roads of Chennai that had just emerged after the showers of last week had gone right back to bring invisible again. Water was everywhere, like an albatross, reminding us of past trespasses.
For certainly, we have failed to do things right. We have been anal in the way we planned the city’s burgeoning growth, we’ve allowed housing schemes on lakes, squatters on the banks of rivers, allowed waterways to be built on and covered up, left storm water drains clogged, always planned for a deficit monsoon, whilst praying for bountiful rains. And the fault, my friends, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.
That we allowed our great acquisitive greed to subsume this city. That in the floodwaters of our callousness, this city of mine is submerged. It’s a fait accompli, and this season it rides on El Nino, discomfiting our daily lives, making diehard fans of the city like me wonder. What’s a city, after all. It’s you and me, and the people who govern it. It’s the people who fail a city, it’s us that have failed Chennai. I’ve no business being angry, I’m guilty.

As you are.

Pics: Ramya Kannan

நள்ளிரவில் ஓர் முடிவு

முதல் முறையாக “வேண்டாம்” என்றாள். 

அவன் அதிர்ச்சியில் மட்டும் உறைந்தான்; நிசப்தம். 

கும்மிருட்டில் அந்த ஒற்றை அறையின் சாளரங்கள் 

மட்டும் ‘டம’ ‘டம’ என்று காற்றில் 

அடித்துக் கொண்டிருந்தன…

அவள் காதுகளுக்கு அது 

முரசு கொட்டும் சத்தம்.

When the Sandhya Ragam stopped. RIP Balu Mahendra

Image: This totally cool image comes via Twitter, credit to Vikatan Publications.

I met Balu Mahendra once. Long ago, at a far off place. And spent two long hours with him. He spoke cinema, I listened, and then we discussed cinema, particularly whether it was possible to be sensitive and realistic while making films. I had heard tales, like the rest of us, on his infamous temper, his strong points of view and his ability to be dismissive, not to mention the rumours of his relationship with actor Shoba, and naturally,  I was a little wary. But Balu Mahendra was nothing of the sort with me. He seemed as eager to speak to me, as I was with him; you could say the circumstances had thrown us together in an age when smart phones did not provide company, but beyond that, he was eager. He did not treat me like the kid I was then, certainly green behind the ears. He seemed older then, older than his screen presence, and his trademark cap seemed squashed on his head, his face gaunt, his beard fuller.

But none of that mattered when he spoke, and when I disagreed with what he said, he was amused at my youthful anger, saying he was pleased by it. “This is how the young should be,” he said, pleased as punch, “or what’s youth for.” He did not ask the usual questions people used to ask those days of young women journalists: what does your dad do, don’t your folks mind you going home late, isn’t this job risky for a woman? He din’t care, and he had accepted that if I wanted to be a journalist, then that was what I had to be. He was concerned that I thought Rettai Vaal Kuruvi was not his style; he chuckled when I said Chockalinga Bhagavathar was cute; but not when I, in my pubescent naivete, said I hated him for the way Veedu ended; and he was surprised at me for thinking Azhiyatha Kolangal was a bold story. I even asked cheekily if he went for the dusky, sultry women, he just winked.

That was the only time I met him. I love some of his films, but I think I will remember him more for those couple of hours, when we sat in a bright, airy room, sipping on endless cups of sweetened tea, discussing stuff like we were old pals, equals. As if nothing else mattered.

Rest in peace, sir.

 

 

The name is Gram, Telegram

Oh, vile, vile curiosity

What do we make a trend of?
After she is dead and cremated, we host online images of a young girl raped and damaged so badly, that even her doctors secretly hoped she would be relieved of her suffering.
After outraging her assault, holding candle light vigils and writing reams on Blogger and WordPress, what do we do today, after the Delhi girl has been interred. We put up pictures, allegedly, of her so that the 1000 friends on our list can see her too? Beneath our anger is there only voyeurism?
People, hark! The name of a victim of “alleged” or “real sexual abuse”, whether the victim is alive or deceased is concealed, not only because we need to protect her from stigma, but also because it is plain illegal.
Arnob Goswami tried to make a virtue of not revealing the name of the girl after she died in Singapore, but hey, guess what, that is illegal too. Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code makes the publication of the name of a victim illegal, even after death. UNLESS, there is written consent from the next of kin of the victim to allow publication of details. Violations can be punished with a two-year imprisonment term, plus fine.
No. You don’t have to believe me. Read for yourselves :http:// http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1696350/
Nothing of the sort exists in the Delhi case. As far as we know, the family is saying “leave us alone.” And yet we, in our infinite sympathy and outrage and basest curiosity, will not.
Kill it, folks. Stab it in its heart and throw it away. Your curiosity is vile, insensitive and illegal.
Or get ready to cool your heels on the cold concrete floor of a prison cell. Friend RK, has promised to help you with that:

Do what you think is best. I mean, for you.

in a breath…

The master speaks
through a distant thunderclap;
In the middle of an inhalation,
a half-yogi finds revelation.

In Sorority

The sight of an engorged male organ can be traumatic for a little school girl. It’s also a sight she can never forget. On a public bus, squished in the last two rows, on my way back from school, that is where I first encountered the perverted male. In living memory.

His dhoti parted and that monstrosity sticking out. I first thought he was ill. So I looked up with concern at his face, and then understood that the ecstacy on it was perversion. I dont think any one else on the bus saw him. His show was for one girl in pigtails, a school uniform; for the fear in her eyes; and as it dawned on her, the disgust. But, the fear mostly; and the thrill of doing it in public.

Most children of my generation and socio economic standing went to school by bus, until they were old enough to cycle to and from home. Buses crowded, spilling over with people, just making that it much more easier for the grope, the breast-grab, ass-fondle, and dhoti-part. Or if we walked to school, young turks on bicycles would speed by and as they swung past, make that desperate lunge for your pubescent breasts. Even if your dad was walking with you. Both you and your dad are angry. You are so angry, there are tears in your eyes. It also hurts where he grabbed you visciously, and yet, quite casually.  You assuage yourself by dreaming of a nasty accident for the boy on his cycle.

You say fight for yourself. How do little girls do that? Little girls of my generation were happy to carry heavy backpacks with books. It was heavy, but it was a shield of sorts. And then a lunch bag, held strategically, was further protection. We grew nails too, for more than cosmetic reasons, but I have never used them once on a bus. All this was before we picked up the courage to shout at or even injure a molester on a bus. Before we realised that courage built up in you, from education, or from realising you don’t have to put up with it. Not that it ever stops. At any age. Not on the bus, not anywhere else. 

At home, post cards with crude pornography come from anonymous strangers. Curiosity and puzzlement before your mother angrily tears up that yellow card. Then you realise it is embarrassing. It messes with your mind.

Later, in adult situations, several surreptitious glances at your chest, a wink, the suggestive gesture passing off as a joke. In the subway, a flasher. Men on bikes who screech close to you as you wait at the signal. In the auto, a perverted driver. Or a taxi driver – one who looks too often at you in the rear view mirror; the man on the flight who edges close to your thighs pretending to sleep and snore. 

Little crimes you can hardly complain about. It’s tiring to fight, again and again.

And yet, now, you must. So that when your little girl grows up, the men and woman who are today outraging the Delhi rape will have raised sons who will be free to love a woman, or hate her, without feeling her up on the bus.

Also so that an anonymous 23-year old aspiring physiotherapist would not have died in vain. 

 

 

WordPress on android

Just downloaded WordPress on my Samsung Galaxy S2. Now does this mean I will blog more often. In this case, maybe I should just say restart blogging. 🙂

Avan, Ivan and everything in between

I knew I had to watch Avan Ivan. Despite the reviews. Despite reluctant companions who cribbed any film that was not booked out on a weekend was bound to be a disaster. I knew a Bala film could not be bad, however violent or foul-mouthed it might turn out to be.

And yet, I was still unprepared for the feast when the opening scenes began to roll.

Avan Ivan is a bold attempt at creating characters and setting a milieu even as Bala forsakes the plot. But it is that rivetting kind of film-making that just about dispenses with the plot with little deletrious effects.

I’d tweeted about the opening sequences – where an entire village gets ready to fete their ‘ighness’ a former local prince in a sad state of decline. It sets the tone, then, for the film and I remember remarking to myself that if the rest of the film was half as interesting as its intro, it would suffice. Bala begins, not only to add colour by introducing local culture, but also etches deeply two characters who would go on to dominate the film -‘ighness’ played to a T by Director Kumar, and Walter Vanagamudi essayed brilliantly by Vishal (how does he manage that squint unerringly even if underwater?)

So much so that I think ‘ighness’ is one of the finest portrayals in Indian cinema I have watched in recent years. He is the central character of the film, nevermind the title, it is about Avan or Ivan only marginally. ‘aInessu’ as the locals call him is an original. A character so well etched, from his braggadacio, to his childlike laughter, his stuck-on moustache, his dips in the pond for being insulted in front of foreigners, legal battles that threaten to impoverish him further, his pride, and then, in the end his absolute lack of it.

Apart from ‘ighness’, the only two other characters that are fleshed out are those of Walter and his half brother Kumbidaren Samy (Arya). The conflict rests between them, just as peace and a sense of brotherhood does. Apparently, Arya is the masculine element, the yang to his half-brother’s more effeminate yin. Even his mother (good comeback role chides him constantly for being effemintedAnd yet, it is Vishal, the cross dressing thief, with a heart that melts, who is the aggressor in the fights. It is Walter who is the man of action in the climax, while Kumbidaren Samy simply collapses, distraught with grief; it is the same Walter that wreaks a violent revenge typical of a Bala film.

Even when he portrays subsidiary characters – the heroines, the inspector (classic scene when he faints at the barrage of abuse from the boys’ mothers), the mothers, the marginal henpecked father – there are an essential part of the mileu, bolstering the natural situational comedy.

And that is where this Bala film distinguishes itself by being light, and unpretentious. Of course, with the Suriya – Laila segment in in Pithamagan, Bala had already exhibited his potential for hilarity. I can’t help feeling pleased that he has decided to rely on this instinct for a surprisingly substantial part of the film.

So, what grates? That cheesy dance scene with Suriya wowing Vishal’s overacting; I would have appreciated a story, instead of a belated introduction of vengeance with the cattle smuggler; songs are not completely memorable; the debate about giving an A certificate given the intense and bloody violence; and well, not much else. What is that in a count of all the stuff that is wrong with Tamil movies.

Bala – Avan kalakittaanya!

Google Plus-sed!

And thus, with Plus, Google owns us whole.

That is, of course, only one way at looking at Google’s labour of over one year. So for the one year the Google guys sat writing codes, eager to make as big an impact in the social media sector as it has in the mail, search, photo and document storage domains. This time, they were also hoping they would do one better than Orkut, which was literally steam-rollered by Facebook in terms of popularity and functionality, and certainly better than its disastrous Wave. The idea, one supposes, was to create a product that would be a mash of its prime competitors Facebook and Twitter, and slowly edge them out. Will Google + do that?

Google + is still in its snooty, exclusive, I-will-call-you-don’t-call-me phase, but let us remember that was Mark Zuckerberg’s strategy initially as well. Facebook was the privy of exclusive Ivy league schools in the US and UK until the blitz happened. So, invitations are still scarce to come by, not all those in the Plus can extend invitations to friends who are still non-Plused. However, for sure, there are many more being added to my circles every night, nearly thrice the number than I started off with.

But when you are in, you may not notice this, it automatically signs you in on a secure (https) server, significant if you consider the recent controversies over Facebook taking liberties with users’ privacy. So far, so good.

Even if you missed that, there is no way you cannot pause at the nearly spartan, neat, user interface. As yet uncluttered in comparison to FB, and only four silos (Home, Photos, Profile, Circles) to click on. Yeah, no games, and thankfully, no Farmville! On the face of it, it is simple, and yet, it takes some initially to figure out the Google +. The ‘Stream’ is the equivalent of FB’s scroll newsfeed, and there are similar options – to share, edit, host photos and videos, and delete them.You can also ‘mute’ those annoying conversations on your Stream. Phew! There is also the ‘Sparks’ component, which according to Plus, “..looks for videos and articles that it thinks you’ll like, so that when you’re free there’s always something to watch, read and share.” Your grandpa will approve, it adds, but who is looking for Grandpa’s approval rating on social media?
What is utterly out of the box for social media is the ‘Circle’ concept. Literally, you can create ur own social spheres, including friends, accquaintances, colleagues and contacts in different circles that are more than faintly reminiscent of school level Set Theory. You can chose who you want to share specific information with, hiving off various groups that may be in conflict with each other: A boss versus someone to whom you are bitching about him.

A thumb tack aid you to transfer multiple persons on to the circles; and every circle you delete merrily jigs away out of the screen. Will subsets of intersecting Venn diagrams soon come to play, where diagramatic impressions mapping friends who belong to more than one circle? It certainly will jazz plus up. ‘Hangout’ is Google’s version of ‘teleportation’, a.k.a. ‘video chat’ and is certainly cool thus far.

Mobile Google Plus is adapted finely for Apple’s iOS, and is functional on the Android platform (tried on HTC phones) but does not deign to work on the Symbian platform (Tried on two of Nokia’s E-series). Snooty again? Because even as the migration to Android or iOS gathers steam, there are still millions of users on Symbian and everyone knows the link between Twitter’s phenomenal growth and the facility of mobile phones.

Even if you are in, there is the fact that Plus is about a week old. Though social media is turning out to be the natural hyperbole of human communication, it is frustrating that updates will have to be done separately, since Google currently offers no integration with FB and Twitter (though a patch is available only on Chrome). Google’s domination of your life is also upsetting if you think of it. Ergo, for now, Google Plus remains, at best, a tantalising and yet, brief dalliance outside of marriage.