Social and Social Networks

Sometime in mid-2004, there was this fad that seized people. Gmail invites were passe, as were cell phones and MMSes ("DPS Zindabad" was still a cry for perverts everywhere). Something was up online, a new thing that you had to be some sort of Ankit Fadia (do you guys even remember that name now ?) to be part of yourself. I'm talking of course, of the now legendary Orkut, a social networking site that was supposed to compete with Myspace in the US but ended up monopolizing India, Pakistan and Brazil.

The procedure of Orkut ops were amazing. You searched for names, and (gasp!!) were greeted by entire pages containing priceless information about those people - their political, religious, linguistic and sexual preferences (OMG!! Sexual preferences!!) - that you could never have picked up from chatting online or meeting face to face.

Batchmates and fellow students at College were the first to be snapped up on the now-standard "Friends" list. Then came friends you emailed and a few you didn't warrant important enough to email. It was after this that the real point of "Orkutting" emerged - the stalker-search.

The question vaguely formed in the mind would be something like "I wonder what happened to XYZ from school/coaching class/tennis class/Secunderabad club etc. ?". The name would be typed, and there you have the joy of seeing XYZ in his/her full glory ("full" being a fond hope in case of girls from middle school you cyber-stalked, together with "single"). Thus would friends be doubled from 100 - 200 or even more.

Orkut ran its course, and now of course most of the people I know have repeated the same pattern with Facebook. Some, like my brother, shut down their accounts realizing that cell numbers and mail id's were sufficient to keep in touch, and that stalking did not equate to much else apart from fond dreams. But it continues, with new ways of decorating pages, posting videos, having creative ways to leave text messages on people's Walls and whatnot. A funny thing struck me in the shift.

It's one thing (a loser thing anyway, but I was at Guwahati, for God's sake) to go looking up girls you hoped had metamorphosed to wan, well-endowed Disney princesses looking for a blast from the past. I am experiencing the same with people from school, college or wherever, who, while I knew, was never a friend of. We may have had friends in common, but in several cases, shared rarely more than a dozen words by way of conversation (including the damn scraps and requests). Friendship with Acquaintance A in turn opens up friendships with his/her acquaintances B,C,D,E etc., and before you know it, you're linked to the entire Mechanical Engineering batch of 2008 or AEC section of 2001, not a member of which has anything to say to you.

So why do they do it? Why request friendships with someone with no decent stalking prospects? The way I see it, there're trends at play here:

1. There's wayyyyyyyyy too much shit being done on networked computers now (I see that as I blog this). I mean, it's when you get on the system and have Net access and Firefox that you go look up Facebook for your Wall posting, and it's when you're there that you start thinking about XYZ.
2. Following on the first, life online is starting to become more real than the real one involving parents, friends on the phone whom you visit, and the vendor at the kirana store. Given how the time people have for the latter is reducing, the e-life which can integrate with work is becoming more significant.
   
3. And following on that, people I think are way lonelier AND unhappier now than ever before. It's only when you dwell long on the past that you figure XYZ's vague connection. And that tenuous connection to XYZ seems to me an attempt to connect with the past.
   

Of course, I could be arbitly playing Freud here. Correct me with your takes.

But if I'm right, it's a disturbing effect of the new modernized world. A bizarre incident occurred on MySpace where a girl's family actually created a fake id that tormented their daughter's friend, who "dumped her". The comments made by the fake persona brought about this.

Is life meant to be that distorted ?

Conference Prep

"So why do you see cells more resistant in this case ?" Mira asks in that smug tone of his (he's a faculty btw)

"Well, there's adaptation" I reply. That's what all the literature said for glucose.

"Why isn't that happening with extraneous cases ? There's time for adaptation there too ?" Mira is most irritating when countering your answer.

"Well...", I begin, but he's got the upper hand. "There's so many generations. Why don't they adapt ?"

"It's not adaptation", is what all this leads up to. "That data you're citing is from glucose fermentation, not xylose fermentation. So how do you figure this happening ?"

Dr. M nods in. This is odd. Who's side is he on ?

"Ok", I say "I don't know why then. Why is it ?"

"I DON'T KNOW EITHER", he says, like it's a giant joke. Dr. M laughs with him. "The point", he says. "is that noone else does either. You need more data to find out. And you don't need to explain THAT with your poster"

"So", I'm struggling here, "if someone asks, I say"

"You say "I DON'T KNOW"!!!!"

Wannabe Cinema

[Disclaimer: I wrote this after reading this column and a couple others. Some points are kinda-sorta restated]

U Me Aur: Hum The Notebook
Race: Goodbye Lover
Shaurya: A Few Good Men
No Smoking: Quitter's Inc.
Kabhie Alvida Naa Kehna : Closer (loosely)
36 China Town: Once Upon a Crime
Naquaab: dot the i
Shakalaka Boom Boom: Amadeus (shudder)
Ta Ra Rum Pum: Cinderella Man, Days of Thunder and (shudder) Life is Beautiful
Partner: Hitch
Speed: Cellular
The Train: ......... : Derailed
Zinda: Oldboy
The Killer: Collateral
Humraaz: A Perfect Murder

... and so on and so forth.

The relationship is fairly obvious. Somebody outside India worked his ass off and produced the stuff on the right. Then Baweja, Bhatt, Darshan, Gupta, Abbas or Mustan picked up the DVD and shat out (in the literal and figurative sense) the stuff on the left.

This history of stealing plots is of course as old as the Aravallis. What's disturbing of late however is the frequency and backdrop of the Bollyversion. Not only are more and more films produced every year rip-offs, but they're stealing films that were barely out on DVD. It's one thing - a pretty contemptible thing anyway - to rip off, say 1954's On the Waterfront, throw in "Aati kya Khandala" and call it Ghulam, or 1938's Angels with Dirty Faces and call it Ram Jaane. It's a different thing to make the movies I pointed out above, most of which were made in the 90's themselves. That these honchos do so, shows their:
(a) increasing lack of creativity
(b) gargantuan egos
(c) contempt for the audience's knowledge and taste of cinema
Agreed, you and I are minorities to the aam admis whom we know puts money in their coffers. But we're significant in our own right, and I for one do feel insulted.

The second is the backdrop. How many big-budget films of late have been set in India ? Even the semi-mythical India that is inhabited by the stars of K3G ? New York and London are where Indians are to be found now, though Johannesburg and Cape Town will not be far behind now that Race is a hit (check friend lexicomaniac's review of it). These Indians employ Indians at home, frequent cafes where everyone from the busboy up is an Indian, work in offices where everyone save the copy boy is an Indian, have Indian rivals in business, are greeted by Indian managers and maitre-d's in hotels and even have Hindi-speaking cops investigate their crimes. To complete the ensemble, there will be an Indian peanut vendor when they sing songs on the beach and a white-boy/homie to do something stereotypical. When you come up with an expressive art form - story, play or movie - the most vital thing is the sense of place. Where do your characters work ? Play ? Eat ? Sleep ? Shop ? What kind of language is spoken there ? What kind of people are to be found there ? These things are as vital to the plot as the plot itself, which is where one has to give credit to people like RGV and Sriram Raghavan who set their plots in known places, or find details about Kenya or Singapore when they want their protagonists there. The Darshans and Johars and Advanis on the other hand, ignore the elements of place altogether, giving Indian cops Indian smugglers to chase, Indian men Indian women (even if they're in some place like Seoul) to fuck about with and I suppose, Indian dogs Indian cats to chase. To see films like KANK, Shakalaka Boom Boom and Race is in a way amusing because we are turning the tables on people like Lucas, Spielberg and the fucks who focus solely on cows and "Thank you come again" accents when their films are set in India. We are reducing foreign nations to featureless backdrops with a stereotype thrown in here and there. Nevertheless, there is something mind-blowing (or -sucking) about seeing XYZ rule the music scene in New York by playing a fusion of Himesh and Juggy-D. Or Desi ABC run the number one business in Hamburg, rivaled only by Desi DEF, when we really know they're there because the Western script required a setup on those lines.

Stealing however, isn't the only thing that cheapens the stuff on the left. The real issue is its unfaithfulness to the original. Consider, for example, Race (which I saw on DVD - it's a great if unintentional comedy). The film ripped off "Goodbye Lover". The premise of the latter, however was far more effective than this. Why ? There was no long romantic buildup to two characters getting married, the movie opened with the lead screwing with his brother's wife. There was none of the bull about the secretary making soft eyes and singing "Zara zara touch touch me" (which you need a cast iron stomach to endure by the way), she was abruptly brought in after the millionaire's murder. And the finale did not have a grand narration where evil characters realized their sins and took part in a final winner-take-all, it had all but two characters dead, with the bad guys (and I mean bad, no "I'm coolly Saif-style bad" bad) getting away with the loot. It was, in short a film noir and quirkily good (though overdone). And on top of all this, it was a comedy (intentional).

Why was none of this retained ? Why only the bare bones and some shit about twists ? Well, Abbas and Mustan lacked balls. No selling film-noirs to people who like such films. They want to sell their shat out product to everyone - to Chintu-Pintu, Mummy-Daddy, Dada-Dadi, Raju Chacha, his college friends and the autowallahs who brought all of the above to the theater, irrespective of their tastes in cinema. Net result - a lukewarm product that appeals to ... I dunno who or why, unless they analyze it as a comedy. Anyone who liked the film or any other released (Other than Johnny Gaddar and Taare...) this year, do write to me. Tell me just what the fuck it is that keeps you in.

The latter trend, of taking bare bones and doing nothing with them for fear of what the public will do, is what makes this post title. Mohabbatein wants to be a great epic coming-of-age love story, but ends up a hammed ultra-PG-13 version of Dead Poets' Society. Race wants to be a thriller, but refuses to provide any genuine thrills. Dus and Don want to be slick action thrillers, but are slow-mo wash-outs. Shaka...., oh fuck, this film wanted to be Amadeus, without a script or original idea in its head.

I actually respect films like OSO, Sivaji and the Sunny Deol action pics. The director very clearly knows what he's out to do and does it, unlike these people who're shit-scared to. Indeed, my favorite Hindi movie now, after Sholay and Andaz Apna Apna (both of which did what they wanted) is Mithun's 1998 classic Gunda. Here's the wiki explanation. Here's the film itself. Watch it. Laugh at it. And admire the director's courage at passing this off as a film.

It Was Inevitable

Well, the Supreme Court is only the guardian of the Constitution, which is itself only a piece of paper with things written on it. The will of the pippuls is sacrosanct, irrespective of whether it penalizes people for the fault of existence.

Oh fuck, just check this out.

Engineers

Shashi Tharoor commented on engineers this Sunday, in response to a study that made me go ``Holy wtf maderchod". The easy link is here. The study itself is here. It's findings - for reasons unknown, a fantastically large number of Islamist terrorists are or were engineers. This includes OBL himself, the two pilots during 9/11 and some 40-60% of currently documented fundamentalist terrorists.

Why is this so ? The sociologists give some vague fundaes about the Engineering mindset and what not. My take - Frust Extremis or pure absolute frustapa. When you're frustrated enough, who knows what you can do ?

PS: Perhaps Jehadi wasn't the best nickname for Amit after all.

On Writing

It's been a while since I posted. This semester has been so draining that I have actually had to give up Swing dancing and semi-skip martial arts. If my fear of lasting obesity were not as great as it is, I might have lost touch with Taekwondo and Aikijutsu as well.

The drain's been mainly due to this semester being a sem of writing. I've been writing a lot - either chapters for my thesis on ethanol inhibition of xylose fermentation, which a lot of you would not care to read, or short stories for a fiction writing class, which I'm pretty sure you've read by now - mail me if you haven't and would like to.

Writing classes are a hell of an experience, not least due to the strain of writing. Equally important though is the experience of having people critique your work. Being brought up in this whole chamattu-paapa/gettikaara paiyyan/school smartie atmosphere, I automatically assume anything I write is great - I mean, all my English essays oh so long ago were soooo well recieved. It's a learning and deflating experience to have people suggest corrections and (heaven forbid) improvements. "Why is your story like this? Why isn't it like that?" "This character is unnecessary. Why is this in dialogue?" "Why not leave that out?" Such questions get the blood boiling, the rage of my pitris from Kauntinya down threatening to break forth. It's only upon re-reading my material in light of the point made that I realize its validity - this by the way, does not apply to all comments, there was this b*#@h who said I put too many names when I was describing a wedding.

This stuff is most important when you realize the pressures of commercial writing. You may be a genius. But it's of no use if nobody is going to read your work. And make no mistake, no writer from Salman Rushdie to J. K. Rowling can ever afford to say "F#@k fans, this is my artistic vision". Not if they want to make some money off their books at any rate. To be able to understand what an audience wants, and to put your vision on that- that makes a good publishable writer.

The other thing I wanted to point out for those not in the know; check out The Angrez. It's a classic example of what Roger Ebert calls a good movie trapped in a very bad one. The bad one is about two idiots who run afoul of an Old City gang in Hyderabad. The good, in fact great movie is a documentary of how proper Hyderabadis talk, which is reduced to clips like this, this and this.

I can't recommend this film, but I'm glad they made it. Hopefully, Hindi films from now won't to be about Mumbai taporis or Delhi upper class types alone.

Did you know....


.... that it's been over two months since I last posted?

.... that there are people who actually read this blog, even ask me when I'm posting next?

.... that a thesis is a headache to write?

.... that short stories are even harder?

.... that I wrote one in this period?

.... and that my next post is probably going to be on an unrelatable topic?

You did? Good heavens!!!

The Guns of Gurgaon

I read about the Columbine massacre sometime during the summer of 1999, a while after it went off the front page. A feature article in The Hindu Magazine described the whole thing in chilling detail. The actions of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, as they procured arms, planned logistics and then shot 35 people at their school, killing 12 fellow students and a teacher before shooting themselves.

The thing didn't make much news in India. Possessed of the Pardes/Aa Ab Laut Chalein mentality, Indians could convince themselves that this was yet another symptom of Sanskriti-deficiency, hot on the heels of divorce, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy, drug usage and homosexuality. "That will never happen here!!!" was the consensus. Not with "Bharatiya" culture and values.

The 2000's began to prove us wrong. For starters, India Today began to publish salacious accounts of schoolchild-sex in Delhi and Bombay (with Literotica-level titles like "Alma Amorous" and "Young Innocence Lost") which sent shivers down parents' spines (and resentment up mine. Why wasn't I enrolled at these Institutions of Iniquity?). High schools were increasingly known for the good life their students led, as opposed to how many made it to IIT or St. Stephens. And in the fullness of time, came the first nail in the coffin of the Sanskritic youth - the DPS sex scandal (or Dhamaka, as some pervert alliterators called it)

There was amazing response - "Moral messages", lengthened skirts, banned cell phones, concerned MPs (why were they not in on this?) and so on. None of which had any effect on two children from class VIII at Euro International (that name itself is a portent), who drove the second nail in with their gunning of a classmate because he was a bully.

The usual people have made the usual noises about "moral vaccums" and "violent media" and what not. About a hundred fingers are currently pointing westwards, decrying the "corrupting influences" of StarTV, FTV, Sony Playstation, Grand Theft Auto and MAD magazine. The victim's family has made some wierd noises, talking about getting justice at whatver cost. The killer's father has been arrested for being negligent with his gun and the two killers have been sent to Juvenile detention. Meanwhile, cameraman have been rushing to find the victims, their families, friends, friends of friends and people who might have 2 cents to put in.

Amidst this brouhaha, a few points seem to have escaped everyone.

Let's start with motive. The motive given out is that the victim was a bully. The result has been a debate of "Was victim such a bad bully?" vs "He had it coming", with the usual assortment of "Concerned Parents", "Child Experts", "School counsellors" and "Rajdeep Sardesai", each making appropriate noises.

All miss a crucial point - motive requires a clear-thinking mind that has a grip on reality as it is. The kids were teenage males. People for whom violent thoughts and words were a staple thanks to feeling testosterone for the first time. Who were feeling angst and insecurity, and who were developing a grip on reality outside their heads. These guys were in a fight with the victim, whoever started it and to whatever extent.

It is characteristic of people at this point to go into "Bastard I'll kill you" modes. During my class VI-X years, I went through several "Bastard I'll kill you" rages with respect to several people - including my brother. What kept me from changing my last name to Manson was:

1. Sufficient knowledge of reprisals and real life consequence to minimize acting on those rages - when you know what's coming later, beating somebody's brains out isn't as good as it looks when Sanjay Dutt, Steven Seagal or yourself-as-Carl-Johnson do it
   
2. Somebody with whom I could discuss feelings and emotions so as to get em off my chest, removing the buildup that needs you to act out those savage fantasies of throat slashing, shooting or bashing
   
3. Activities that helped me zone out, forgetting those moments of rage
4. I was also a wee bit overweight, which made running an easy option (a) for anyone who could see those rages forming

With the exception of 4., all the above require at least 1 decent parent. Even a mediocre one would at least take sufficient care of 1. Someone/s decent would take care of 2, and a good one of all 3. This kid's parents definitely lacked in 1. itself, which (in all probability) precludes their handling of 2. and 3. The precise motive that NDTV, Aaj Tak and IBN are hounding shrinks and schoolmates for is absolutely nonexistent. Kids do stupid things for no reason. That's why they need parents - to minimize the damage and reduce the stupidity over time. Which brings me to point two.

Egregious parenting. No denying it here. Let us see what Mummy and Puppaa here didn't do:

1. They didn't impart a sense of real life and its consequences to their little laadla
   
2. They didn't communicate enough with their teenage son to know there was a kid he wasn't getting along with, let alone a bully he wanted to kill
   
3. They didn't, at least Puppa didn't, keep a gun in a place where an eighth grader couldn't get hold of it
4. They didn't (This is incredible but true) go to see their son when news of the shooting came out. Not at school. Not at the station. Not even at the courthouse where the kids were remanded to juvenile detention before the preliminary hearing. They didn't see their flesh and blood when he needed them the most (till today)
   

And not content with passive inaction, Mommy and Puppa did something quite fantastic. They absconded altogether, running off to their "natiew pliss". Not until last Friday did Puppa, who was wanted for owning the damn gun, turn up. And upon turning himself in, his first act was to deny ownership of the gun, followed with a call for his son's punishment. No regret, no suprise, no expression of any connection to the boy whatsoever. Truly a coup de gras in the annals of parenting.

Finally, the media. I have not mentioned the names of the shooters or the victim here intentionally - they're kids, and kids at least deserve some privacy. But you need not fear. Those seeking names will find them with a simple Google news search. The school has been open with names, faces, families - they even put I-cards on camera. And every newspaper and news channel has been merrily splashing the names in big, bold letters on their front pages and slides (with Euro International now becoming "a prominent Gurgaon school"). Meaning that the shooters - who unlike American shooters were content to take out one individual and not a class - will never have the anonymity needed to rebuild their lives when they have paid their debts to society and perhaps had a shrink set their heads right. And while murder is unforgivable, these two were kids. Not late teenagers, and not druggies or gang members. There's a reason minors are held not responsible legally for their actions. The media is morally and legally (according to this article) responsible for the destruction of two futures.

Childhood and puberty are possibly the most complicated periods parents and their offspring go through. These kids' pasts can't have been good - not if they led to this point. Their present is a nightmare no one would want to go through as child or adult. And their future, thanks to a headline-hungry media and people keen for 15 minutes of fame, is clouded at best.

Birthday Bumps

Friend lexicomaniac, whom I am fond of pestering for movie reviews, upped the ante today with a birthday post request. It took a lot of thinking over, but here're some thoughts for the day:

Birthdays Past and Present:
Birthdays were always something to look forward to from the ages of 6 - 16. During the pre-10 years, they were the days you could come to school in "civil dress" (which in some cases, extended to fancy dress), the days you stepped up to the podium and got people to sing to you and - this was way back, when I was in class I at La Martiniere's Calcutta and had a really hot teacher - got a kiss from the teacher of your class (fortunately it ceased with that point, as hotness-wise, teachers have only gone downhill since). During the post 10 years, as you matured (realized how goofy civil dress was, and how idiotic it felt to be on stage for no reason) you still enjoyed the feeling of growth, the increasing respect people gave you and standing shoulder to shoulder with former giants (dads, uncles, PT masters etc.) Sixteen, however, is kind of a peak. It's the point where your cup runneth over, your springtime is at its bloom and well, you grow about as tall as you're going to. As the teens gave way to the 20s, I wished fervently for time to first turn back, then stop and with increasingly feeble hope, slow down. Needless to say, time chose (d) - none of the above.

Coming to the present age of 24, I'm apprehensive about birthdays. They're not a sign of growing any longer, but a sign of aging. I hope, as of now, people will pull off miracles with stem cell research and telomere engineering to reverse aging. Like Bryan Adams, I want to stay 18 till I die.

People in my life:
Another area of apprehension. Wierdly, I was a bit clamped with the opposite sex in high school. Not ''tee hee hee'' shy, which girls sometimes find endearing, but clammy, stone-faced and somewhat creepy. I haven't gained much skill in socializing since. I mean, UG at Guwahati with it's ~20 girls (or rather 20 ~girls) amidst 1000 frustrated males didn't help much.

In this day and age of orkut, when I see people ''committed" left and right, I feel scared about finding my own significant other and fast. Having never dated is forgivable (I guess) through high school, but in this day and age, datelessness beyond the age of 30 indicates "arranged" marriages or closet-exiting on the horizon, both of which call for a bullet through the brain.

Dreams, life and where it's headed:
I'm pretty sure as of now that I'm not going to be a billionaire businessman, a Hollywood actor, a song-writer or a television comedian (Yes, all of those were dreams at one point). I'm left with
dreams of being a writer of some sort, with which I'm making progress and a scientist, for which the PhD is helping. Where will they in turn take me - who knows?

I'm not too apprehensive about time with these two dreams. Writing and scientisting (let's call it that) both take travel and experience, which only come with time. So long as I keep at it, life's cool.

At the end, the birthday is a dry run version of the New Year. It's a time to take stock of what's behind and resolve to make the best of what's ahead. It doesn't hurt, in my case, that it comes 20 days before 31 Dec.

A Semester of Swing - II

Ok, to the specifics. What did I learn from a semester of Swing classes:

1. Don't be overtly self conscious when dancing. If you really screw up, you can always join another dance club (I picked this up from a Tango class btw!!)
2. Be conscious of your partner. Couples dancing requires two people to pull off. It's a bad idea to dance with your eyes to the floor, the ceiling or some oblique point at u = infinity.
3. Any idiot can go to lessons. The real learning process comes from asking people to dance with you.
4. When your partner is relaxed, be focussed. When your partner is focussed, you've screwed up somewhere.
5. When your partner tells you where you're going wrong at a dance:
1. Understand the mistake and correct
2. Don't dance with her/him till you have
   
6. Scoring a turn between two eight count swing-outs is improv. Carrying out a turn to a six-count is just plain wrong.
7. There's always going to be someone hotter than your partner on the floor. It does not do well to stare at him/her when dancing with your partner
8. You may be dancing with a girl for the first time, but don't stare at her accordingly. It's creepy.
1. Corollary: Be conscious of your partner and not any of your partner's specific appendages. Time enough to (ahem!) worry about them when you're alone
   
9. If you'd like to dance with that cute girl you saw at the last class, but are worried you'll screw up:
1. The fact that she's in the class means she isn't exactly of Elvis/Prabhudeva lineage
   
2. Nevertheless, there'll be any number of guys wanting to dance with her, so stop worrying and get in quick!!
10. If you walk up to one girl in a group only for someone else to swoop in at the last minute, it's not bad luck, it's bad timing. If you stare at the rest of the group awkwardly, it's just.... bad.
11. Don't worry about the ramifications of asking a total stranger to dance with you. You are NOT going to get any.
12. And lastly - fast, passionate dancing cuts immediately to R+-rated scenes only for Pierce Brosnan, Antonio Banderas or suchlike. Don't try it at your level, or you're likely to pull a major stinker.

A Semester of Swing

Back during the golden age of classes VIII-X, dancing was either something a Tam-Bram girl did under the tutelage of Smt. So and So to the tune of ''Thaa thaiii thatha thaiii", or some sort of ghastly aerobic excercise to be carried out as part of ''[School] Day", "Annual Day", "Sports Day" and any such number of days, carefully choreographed by Vanita and Padmaja Mams. Proper free style dancing was something a lot of us bookish types had no idea about. We were told we'd eventually have to do it during the Class X farewell party. And with a girl. Our combined hormones and awkwardness led to a range of responses, the standard being "Teeheeheee" with a foot shuffle. [Mine was a constipated "Haehh!!'']

My immediate seniors (the class of 1998) were possibly the coolest people ever. They pulled off a co-ed dance to the tune of Cecilia, on Teacher's Day no less, with the girls dressed like hotties out of a Salma Hayek movie and the guys... ah, who notices guys at such times? There were raised eyebrows amongst the faculty, and other raised things amongst juniors when it was over. But we wretches, admire them as we might, were unable to emulate when we were in X. And when the farewell party did come, we didn't run up to that girl of our dreams and pull off something befitting "All I Have to Give", "As Long as You Love Me" or similar tracks of the time. No sir. What did we do? First we shuffled awkwardly. Then we looked around to see who'd be foolhardy enough to get on the dance floor first. Then when the girls shrugged, collectively giving us [all of us] up as a lost cause, huddled together on the floor. Boys here, girls there. Proper interaction of the sexes. Padmaja, Vanita and Srilata Mams could not be happier.

The dancing scenario remained pretty dismal for years to come. Most of us huddled during the class XII farewell again, save a very very few. And coming to IITG, for starters there were like 7-10 girls to go round for 400+ guys, so huddling wasn't really a matter of choice. And for another this was Guwahati with the 95% humidity - we got to know our collective BO in like 5 minues flat.

Coming to US therefore, I was extremely out of place anywhere near a dance floor. My standard routine at this point was to act as idiotic or stoned as possible, so as to evoke a "Gosh, you're silly (giggle)" or a "Ok, you need to sit down for a bit". Either saved me the embarassment of showing people precisely how I moved to the beat.

It wasn't till this fall that I decided to correct this situation. I joined the Swing dance club at Purdue - think slow music from the 40's and 50's and you get the idea. Swinging has taught me a lot. Broadly, how to move to a beat. How to develop a rhythm. And how to improvise on a routine without looking idiotic - Ok, that's an ongoing process. It also helped bring about an amazing sensation - moving with a girl (who isn't a relation of any sort) in your arms.

Ok, that is a rotten ending. But that's only to make way for a follow-up post. What precisely did I learn during Swing dancing?

OMG-ShahRukh-OMG

This is pointless excercise, 2-3 weeks after the film has released. It would have been equally pointless at the time of release, seeing as how all MSM people are gaga over Shah Rukh and Farah Khan. But hey, it allows me to think about a Hindi movie, and to compete with friend lexicomaniac (whom I've now beaten to the review. Poor chap's in Amsterdam)

People say Om Shanti Om is a remake of Karz. I disagree. Karz was about reincarnation - specifically of Rishi Kapoor's character, and the impact on other characters in the plot. This movie isn't.

What Om Shanti Om is is an adaptation of ''The Truman Show''. Like Jim Carrey in the Truman Show SRK acts as someone who is in a movie, as opposed to a person of flesh and blood. Like Truman in the Truman Show, SRK reaches out to the audience, unshackled by the confines of whoever he is supposed to be, rather than to his fellow cast. And like in The Truman Show, the broken fourth wall context is required so as not to mistake the protagonist's actions for overacting.

But, you will ask, is that not the same case with any Shah Rukh film since Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa? No, for the simple reason that unlike any previous SRK (or non-SRK for that matter) film, everyone and their respective characters - who coincidentally are all movie people - is aware they are in a movie. Farah Khan is aware of SRK's Truman-esque behaviour (he, unlike Truman, is aware he is in a movie) and recognizes its potential dissonance (to put it mildly) with the narrative flow of a film. She solves this problem by tearing apart the fourth wall altogether, and making every character (save Arjun Rampal) conscious of his/her role in the grand scheme of things both sides of the silver screen. It's no coincidence that "Om Shanti Om" - the film title - is not only the compounded name of the lead pair, but also of the film being made within the film. Very Shakespearan. On the upside, this fissure in the fourth wall (widened every few minutes) makes Shah Rukh's Khan-isms and hamming (which could compare with the output of Oscar Mayer's largest factory) easier to bear. On the downside, when everyone knows they're in a film, what exactly is it that you're seeing? Greatbong calls it a product, which I guess it is, for the reason that it is something that makes money.

The plot is exceedingly simple - Boy (SRK) meets girl (Deepika). Both die. Both are reborn. Both meet again. Somebody else (bad guy - Arjun Rampal) dies. In between, the whole of Bollywood does an extended cameo in a party, for no other reason than to blur the lines between fact and fiction even further.

A note about this cameo by the way. It included Akshay Kumar in a Khiladi avatar that has to be seen to be believed - something for the archives of YouTube. It included Jeetendra, who looks remarkably well preserved for his age, and Tushar Kapoor, who presumably got in by supergluing himself to his father.

Shah Rukh Khan is, well, Truman with the self-awareness and a six-pack. Deepika Padukone is HOT. I mean it. The only song worth a dekko in the whole film is the one where she's a cabaret dancer from the 70's. She's got a beautiful smile too. Unfortunately, that's about it. She's eye candy, and in this flick, has a role comparable to one of the 295 unnamed Spartans from 300.

Arjun Rampal does a decent job as a villain. More significantly, he is the one person in the whole movie who is unaware he is in a movie. Kudos to him for that. He and his shifty-eyed villain though, are perfunctory characters, comparable to one of the thousands of unnamed Persians from 300. Considering his similarly sidey role in Don, I wonder if he has to shine SRK's shoes or clean his trailer on set or something. Poor fellow.

OSO in all is a weird thing, a sort of Powerpoint presentation where Shah Rukh is slide template, layout and 90% of the content. It knows itself to be one. The question is, do we?

Beowulf - The Review

One of the common resentments against Bollywood movies is that you inevitably see the same stuff over and over again, whatever the title, theme or (for lack of a better word) plot. Coming to US, I find the same applies to a lot of Hollywood movies, the difference being that Bollywood films all pretty much rank as ''family entertainment'' while Hollywood films tend to fall into several genres - romantic comedy, heroic action, college flick, chick flick, slasher and so forth. Know the genre, however, and with a lot of films you will know the plot. Beowulf is one such film.

Beowulf falls under the "mythological recreation" subcategory of "heroic action". You can therefore figure out several things about it, even if you don't know the legendary Old English poem.

Since the movie is about a hero not in a war, there has to be a hero-requiring situation. Hence the opening fifteen minutes when King Hrothgar's feast, on opening night of his mead-hall is wrecked by Grendel, Gollum's twenty-five-foot cousin who speaks lispy Old English, has the skin of a Ramsay Brothers' zombie and hates the sounds of festivities - he'd have been a hit with the Taliban.

Prior to his attack we see Hrothgar, the drunken fat old king. His Queen is much younger, wayyy thinner and a good deal more refined - clear indications of romantic tension and triangles once Beowulf turns up.

He does, leading a crew of people all but but one of whom have no dialogue. It's clear - Beowulf is going to kill Grendel, just after the monster has wiped out this entire valiant gang. The guy with dialogue might just get in a dying inspirational speech or give Beowulf his wife's amulet or something.

He meets the King and Queen and in no time, the air's electric. Hrothgar offers him a golden dragon-shaped cup if he kills the beast, but it's clear Beowulf would prefer something to put his dragon into.

The beast comes, kills about 75% of the dialogue-less crew and wrestles Beowulf, who wierdly takes it on naked. He deals with it by yelling at it and chaining it to a chandelier and swinging about the rafters and so on - general naked hero stuff.

All this takes place in about 45 minutes. Since it's an hour-plus till the next show, the threat's not dealt with yet. It reveals itself as Angelina Jolie, who can slay men silently, appear in dreams and, when Beowulf confronts her, walk nude so sinuously as to cause a penis explosion. Highly dangerous, this mother of Grendel.

Seeing as it's Angelina Jolie, you know she can't die before the credits roll, and so must do some Satanic seduction stuff with our naked (Again!!) hero.

Beowulf, like any red-blooded male with functional sausage and meatballs, is taken in by this sinuous beauty, and ''agrees'' to ''give her a son'' (Oh the mortification of selling one's soul so!!!).

The rest of the movie deals with the consequences of his ''sin'' (And no, it does not end with Angelina Jolie and him moving in together a la ''Knocked Up'' to raise the baby. Neither am I talking something out of Masoom or Salaam Namaste). Suffice it to say that Beowulf's mighty dragon begets more of its kind.

The movie's motion capture based animation was unique, allowing CGI to blend in nicely with actual acting done by actual actors. But cinematography alone does not a good movie make, and when your plot is so riddled with cliches as to be checked off a list, the end result is sheer boredom.

Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich and Brendan Gleeson play Beowulf, Hrothgar, Hrothgar's minister and the sole survivor of Beowulf's crew. The real show stealer (and, when you see the trailer, the USP of this movie) is Angelina Jolie, who looks golden skinned, flies, has a serpent tail behind her and is mostly nude throughout her parts. Her digital body remains about the only worthwhile thing to see in this otherwise predictable film.

Brokeback Pottery

Dumbledore is all knowing and intelligent. He's supportive of wizards with odd quirks - lycanthropy, giant heritage and so forth. He dresses in highly colorful clothing. And he loves chocolate. All of which should, I suppose, have prepared us for this little ''outing'' of his.

''Shocking" hardly covers the reaction of kids and parents worldwide - self included despite this post poking fun at it. That the wise-mentor father figure had a functional fig and olives is OK - though we didn't need to know it. But now we find he liked figs, or rather a particular fig - growing off Gellert Grindelwald, with his blonde merry face and charming blue eyes or whatever.

Harry Potter has officially made the transition from Dahlicious PG-13 to R, as Rowling leaps from murder and incest to man-man love. How tainted I feel. I'll have to re-read every scene from Potter that involved Dumbledore and be sure there was nothing gay about it. Now we know, I suppose, why Dumbledore attended all the Quidditch matches with Harry in them. And why he gave Harry all those one-on-one lessons. The Chosen One indeed.

From Here to Eternity

Literally. That's what it was. A journey from here to eternity. In addition to which, it will accompany me on my own journey from here to eternity..... (Don't mind if I'm starting to sound like a C++ recursive function call)

Strangely enough, I was the calmest through the trip to the airfield. Bored even - that drive lasted 3 damned hours, and when we got there we had to fill forms for an hour and wait for two more. Aurv and Srutesh went first. Both were a bit wobbly going, and considerably more than shell shocked coming back (Grinning from ear to ear though). Jeroen was quite uncomfortable as we boarded. I alone smiled, and straight into the camera (I'll get into that later). Eric, the pro I was in tandem with, backslapped me heartily as we got on. Even as the wrist dial started to go wild I was collected.

About the time it hit 16 they opened the door. A certain twinge of unease occured as people began to disappear into the void outside. But courage, Arun, courage - I told myself. Imagine Amma encouraging you to have adventures. And Appa's expression if you told him 170 dollars went to no use.

I did what they said, facing the door. Rock back and forth squatting. Arms crossed and folded. 5..4...3..2..it wasn't till we jumped right out the plane that the first "Naaaaaraaaaayanaaaaaa ......." escaped

The first sensation was cold. It was cold at 16000 feet, up above the clouds. Then came the wail of the wind in the ears. And the realization that it was wailing because you were whizzing down. From 16000 feet. Wierdly though, this wasn't the scariest part. For starters, I suppose there's no mystery in what's going to happen if you impact the ground from that height. Also, you can wierdly do turns and twists (even in tandem) in the air. Pretend you're Superman till the ground proves you otherwise.

That damned cameraman was hovering with us, grinning all the way. He signalled for me to smile, grabbing my hand as he hovered up. For God's sake, man. I'm falling down. Let me fall in peace. Oh all right, here's your damned smile for the camera. Grin from ear to ear with my cheeks flapping in the wind - not a bad thing to do before getting smashed to a thousand bits.

The altimeter was merrily climbing down. As it neared 5, Eric nudged me. At 5, wind screaming and all, I pulled the cord he told me to pull, "Narayanaaaaaa"ing all the way.

Silence. Suddenly the air's not screaming. The ground's a lot closer, but not charging at you like a paparazzi at Angelina Jolie. I can talk again. And am upright (head towards the sky and feet towards the ground) again. Whew. If only there was something for my feet stand on.

Eric pointed out the sun, now red, in the distance. "No sunset like one at 4000 feet" Amazing sight, considering that for people on the ground it's probably over the horizon. It would probably be possible to see the shadows lengthen on the ground with binoculars or something. The sights at this point were, to say the least, unbelievable.

This leg of the journey however proved to be the real challenge. For starters, the harness needed some adjustment (as a matter of routine) and Eric actually undid a couple of clips in the air. Not reassuring, to say the least. Also, he wore the parachute. So while we were what's-mine- is-yours with the acceleration towards the ground, the parachute belonged to him (In the Resnick and Halliday fbd mechanics sense). I was attached to Eric through the harness, and so was held up, but the result was like being hung off a hook. Damned uncomfortable. Specially when the hook went under and between your thighs.

That adjustment thing actually made we wobbly and I asked Eric if I was attached right. He told me, if I weren't, we'd be a hundred feet apart already. Gallows humour. There's no beating it.

The parachute needed guidance. Pulling on two additional cords turned us in the air. Soon we were gliding more than falling, and at one point we began turning circles in the air, spiralling downwards.

I can't explain why, but the queasiest quease (No other word for it) hit my stomach and covered me in a panic. Suddenly, I felt it would be OK if I only were free of the parachute. If I kicked and screamed and struggled. I had to get rid of the harness. The thing feels like a bad dream now, but it felt then like the only way out of one.

I suppose having my hands on the separated taught cords gave me some control (in that I was restrained). I asked Eric to cut out the turning "It's making me sick, man" I said. He stopped the spiral immediately.

The descent was more diagonal now. And steadier. The ground was looking a lot clearer. There were stalks visible where there was just an expanse of green. And wasn't that white cubical building a spot a minute ago?

"When I tell you to, kick your legs out" Eric said. "Sure" I replied. We were picking up a bit of speed, and the downward motion was clearer. The altimeter was somewhere between 1 and 0, and nearing the latter. At about (I found out later) 50 feet he said "Now". I kicked out and gave my abs the toughest workout they had. I found out why as we sailed to ground, reaching it while moving horizontally. Had I not kicked out, the impact would have broken an ankle at least. As it were, I took the impact on the old gluteus maximus, glad for once to have been relaxed with recent diets. Funny, 16000 feet and you land on your synonym-for-a-donkey. Hell of a way down. I got up, mouthing holy names of Vishnu and truly unholy profanities in the same breath. In that frame of mind, it matters more that you say something, than what you say.

Eric later told me the queasiness was due to my persistent looking down at the ground. "When you're up there, look around you. Look at the ground and you're head'll spin" Verily, a profound lesson - don't be distracted by the memories of Earth, when sampling the joys of Heaven.

iPod, therefore Isolate

You see them everywhere. They're enjoying a sutta or a book on park or campus benches. They're waiting at bus and train stations. They're driving, biking or just walking around. They're lifting weights or jogging on a treadmill. Any one of hazaar such activities. And while doing so, they're listening to flat little cigar boxes with white earphones. It might be music, a comedy album, a radio play, hell even a recorded lecture. But they all come out of that little shiny box with a bitten-off apple and a metallic underside. While the iPod took the world by storm, it's taken the US... period.

The late 90's were the Golden Age for digital audiophiles. Before Napster got into all that RIAA trouble, MP3's were all the rage among the net-savvy (and I'm just talking about us guys in India). There was no more buying an album to listen to that one song that you loved on MTV. Get the song itself from Napster. Burn it onto a CD to carry with you, or just play it on your computer. Napster got sued, shut down and re-animated as an emasculated version of itself, but the playlist-based-singles-driven music craze continued to grow, generating an interest in digital players that were also a storage unit.

The first ones were uber-delicate 32-64 MB storing clunky little things whose memory would be wiped out when you removed the batteries. Then came some upgrades from America-based companies like Archos, Singapore-based Creative Labs and Korean companies like Samsung. Compaq licensed the technology for the first GB-order player to HanGo Electronics (I haven't heard of them either) which released the PJB in 1999. The competition around GB-order music players grew, until of course Apple came up with the iPod.

The market's never been the same. Apple remains the leader worldwide in digital music players and digital music. There's a few other players around, but no product matches the sleekness of the iPod, while the Apple store competes with Amazon on the music front.

More significantly, digitally spread mobile media has gained importance like never before. People downloaded songs from the Internet. Now they can do it off Starbucks' WiFi. Internet radio used to require a computer to listen to. Now it's on podcasts. People needed reruns or season tapes to catch missed episodes. Now they download them off company websites and watch it on their iPod videos. And Apple's latest product, the WiFi-enabled iPod Touch, lets the user download media without a computer. This on top of the iPhone, which is a phone-cum-address book-cum-iPod-cum-Net browser-cum-God knows what else.

This explosion of media was once an awesome thing. Now it feels a bit, well like an explosion, which is rarely a good thing.

As I mentioned before, music players before used to hold 64-128 MB. the GB player, when it emerged was considered something rally awesome. Given the opportunity to pick up a 20 GB Creative Jukebox, I jumped at it.

But since then I have found, at no given time can I listen to more than about 500 MB worth of music. No period of motion really lasts longer (or even as long as) the time required to play 125 4-minute songs. The only time now that I really use my player is when travelling out of town. How many of us really need even 1 GB of music to carry around when moving about the place? A computer is one thing but to need that in one's hand....it's bordering on the ridiculous (I understand (a) this does not extend to iPod nanos and flashes (b) I'm an idiot for buying my jukebox to begin with)

My next gripe is with the device itself. As I mentioned, music was just the tip of the iceberg. People now carry TV shows and movies on their systems. Again, do you need media that much whenever mobile? In fact more significantly, how do you get way from all that media? There used to be a time when Moms and Dads would tell us "Get away from that walkman/stereo/ television" so we could go out into the world and smell real air, touch real objects and feel real emotions. Interact with the real world and build self (Or as Calvin's dad would put it, character). But when the TV is now something in your pocket? Britney, Fallout Boy, Heroes, Lost, American Idol (replace them with their analogues outside the US) are things that stream into your head anywhere and anytime. That can't be good for you, to have them tinge reality like that. Makes you wonder - does the i stand for idiot?

My final point has to do with why portable media players and their supporting data networks so popular. What is it about being able to drag 2 episodes and/or 125 songs with you? My opinion - the playlist. I mentioned the playlist earlier as the base of the digital audio craze. It became much more than that. While mix tapes and CDs existed beforehand, they needed people, well to mess about with mixers and what not. The late 90's was the era of GUI driven systems with software that downloaded and coded music for you. This era turned the playlist from a figure of entertainment to a fingerprint, first for the techhead elite, eventually for the (still techy) hoi polloi. When you make a playlist, it's your playlist. It defines an action you've taken. It is a small you-zone. And when that playlist is 2000 songs long, you-zone becomes You-World. That's why people carry so much media organized in such fashion with them. They want to carry a bit of their world (which was restricted to such areas as the room or the house) with them. What's outside is a mixed bag. What's in the magic box can shut it all out, and so the investment in a flatbox with wires coming out of it. Something that I think marks an atavistic return to frogs in wells/ponds. It's more disturbing when you realize that world you cocoon yourself is defined by a handful of information someone else recorded. Someone else's world, so to speak.

Where will this lead us? What will it do to reality as we percieve it? Will we have a new "Ghost in the Shell"ish world, where people spend life cocooned in their own artificial reality (like 6 billion one-person Matrixes)?

Who knows??

Of Phoren Phillums Past and Present

The Indian nominee for the Oscar Foreign Film thing has run aground before reaching the western shores. As I mentioned earlier, a comical war of words has come up with everyone and their brother screaming about which film ought to go.

Was there a bias this year, in favour of VVC? Not improbable by a long shot, given the committee's track record:

2007 - Eklavya: AB-baby is the palace guard Eklavya who butts heads with his unacknowledged son, reluctant London-returned prince (white ewe black lamb etc.) Saif Ali Khan, who in turn butts heads with other, evil royals while checking out Vidya Balan's butt. There's a lot of palace scenery and helicopters and so forth in between the skulls cracking. Prediction: Has as much a chance of winning a Foreign Film Oscar as my hindi vlog

2006 - Rang de B: The most over-hyped, feel-good-for-no-reason movie made. Showed a set of hip college kids who role-play for Bhagat Singh and co. Halfway through, a ''serious'' (he joined the Air Force) friend gets killed. Friends get the impression (it's never explained how) that a corrupt minister and a businessman are responsible. Their dharna fails. They have no options left (????) They shoot the two (blossoming from role-players into skilled and ruthless marksmen overnight) and take over a radio station to explain why. As they're shot dead in turn, the ghosts of dead freedom fighters appear. The nation wails in lament. Credits roll. This was selected over Omkara - not only an adaptation of an understandable-to-worldwide-audiences classic, but a movie with an authentic and gritty feel to it.

2005 - Paheli: A horror movie showcasing the kind of hard-on Rani Mukherjee can elicit from the undead, as she falls in love with SRK, a ghost. It gets scarier as you see SRK sport a Rajasthani turban and moustache, and you're haunted forever when you find out Amol Palekhar was the director of this excercise in necrophilia. Selected over Page 3 and Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, both of which were again understandable to world-wide audiences AND had a gritty, gut-wrenching pathos in them. Paheli had about a ghost of a ghost of a chance.

2002 - Devdas: Once upon a time there was a young man. He decided to drink himself to death. Sanjay Leela Bhansali then decided to spend 50 crores showcasing his demise. Rather than send his film to Alcoholics Anonymous, the committee decided to send it to Hollywood. In place of, say, Monsoon Wedding.

The committee in short, is either malleable to the wishes of super-Khans, irrespective of film quality; or is phenomenally stupid. Given what we know about Indian goarnament committees, each is equally likely.

Having said that, it's equally idiotic and ungracious of a director to first scream "No fair" and then get a court order challenging Committee rulings. How are they now going to decide the best film? Have court judges or SC justices see both (It would be a unique first for our judges)? Take the two to a Lok Sabha session? Or will they go "Indian Idol" and carry out an SMS campaign? What's to stop a third person from screaming that his/her film was unfairly left out? And in the midst of all this, have any of these films much of a chance at the Academy (I haven't seen Eklavya or Dharm) Awards?

My verdict: Disband the Selection committee and have every director who can, send his/her film to the Oscars. People say films have to be chosen to represent the tastes and aspirations of the "Indian pippuls". Our tastes weren't much to speak of to begin with, and are now confused as well.

Stranger Than Fiction

It was officially announced - Vidhu Vinod Chopra's "Eklavya" is going to the 2008 Oscars as the Indian Foreign Language entry. The announcement met with the usual "will it ?"s and "won't it ?"s for a while, and would have been shoved aside to make news for Rahul Gandhi, when all hell broke loose.

Bhavna Talwar, who made "Dharm", another contender for the Academy entry, first went to the media telling whoever would listen that Eklavya was a bad film and her film deserved to go to the Oscars [You'll find the HT link here] Once HT, TOI, the Hindu and IE had saturated their Filmi Khabar section and Aaj Tak had aired her views on that "Breaking News" strip at the bottom of the screen, she actually - I mean it, she did this - filed a petition at the Bombay high court, calling for an investigation into the selection of Eklavya. In the meantime, selection committee members, "serious" actors, "joking" actors, Bhavna Talwar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and NDTV knows who else have presented soundbytes to the media either describing the shadowy conspiracy in smoke-filled selection committee rooms, or deriding "The young filmmaker whose film hasn’t gone..." for "having durrty crab mentality". The latest has been this "Front Page Headline" - the Bombay High court has given the Film Selection committee 10 days to file a reply to their evaluation that "there seems to be merit in the argument that the selection process was biased....." The matter will be decided during a date in October blah blah blah

The truth has not only become stranger than fiction, it's turned into some sort of Academy Award winning screenplay itself now - the kind of satirical one Cho Ramaswamy would write and Farooq Sheikh/Naseeruddin Shah would act in back in the 80's.

Amazing, ain't it?

Shakespeare 'n Love

Here's a sign of trouble - I'm running out of things to rave and rant about. lexicomaniac sums this blog as reflections, and to my regret, you (or rather, I) can only reflect so much.

So anyways, this post is a set of little thingies going on....... with me rather than the world at large. So, no thoughtful Being Vir Sanghvi today.

Shakespeare. I've joined this dramatics group that can loosely be defined as a Shakespeare sketch show. We're planning a show with little clips from the Great Playwright's Greatest Plays. A feather in Yours Truly's cap is his bagging a role as Iago in an Othello scene, which should allow me one of those evil fourth wall grins that were creepy in Kaun and The Omen.

The role brought back memories from high and middle school. Of a time before IIT, when English wasn't quite English, but well.... English English. Or rather, ICSE English English. I'm referring of course to English spoken in a semi sing-song high pitched tone with special emphasis on diction and pronounciation, when reciting a poem on stage or acting out a classic drama. Don't get me? Ok, put simply, try reciting this, stressing on each sound:

"In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
Did whisper often very secretly"

Yep, that English. It's the one ICSE students pride themselves on in Calcutta or Bangalore. It's about as dead as the literature you enact in it, but it's fun. Coming to IIT, where Hinglish was more the lingua franca, and drama meant Hindi dialogue (and names like Kaal Bhuchandi), I lost touch with it. It's fun to relive it.

It's also a reminder of what kind of person you are. I had to summon IEE when reciting my lines. But the rest of the people in the group (all Americans born and bred) did not. Shakespeare rolls smoothly off their tongues. They doth their ayes and quoth their thees with cunning fluency. I don't. It's kind of a racial thing, but there you are.

I've also joined the Purdue swing dance club. Swing is something you'd see from the black and white films they had in the fifties - think "Eena Meena Deeka". It's informal, more fun and a less strenuous way to meet members of the opposite sex than say, salsa or tango (believe, they are best left to Banderas). Neways, swing is fun. What isn't is the interaction with the opposite sex.

It's been about two weeks since the club began. But wierdly, boys and girls are starting to pair up on a permanent basis already. Partner rotations are starting to feel more unwelcome and the post-class dances are seeing fixed couples, who dance looking all starry-eyed at each other. How in heaven did they go about it? I'm starting to feel left out, like the shithead you see in teen movies looking forlorn and pup-eyed at events like this, when he sees the class hot-chick dance with the jerk-jock. I wish they'd slow down and give me enough time to figure out the tricks of the trade and be smoother and less awkward when in close proximity to girls. Y'know, everyone starting the race at the same position. The science of coupling up. I wish they'd teach that in a course at IIT. The science of coupling. Way more practical than the effect of coupling forces on a tressle centre of gravity - D'you even come across such things in the real world?

Anyway, that's life now. Let's see where Shakespeare and Swing take it.

Below

Basically, I decided to cut loose with all typical romace cliches and see how I could substitute em with some sort of scientificreference. There's poetry in sunrise and sunset and fruit and all that... so there should be in what I've described.