why i can't dump the idiot box though i almost never use it

Watching TV can be so therapeutic. I'm talking channel-surfing, post 11 pm. (And no rabid news channels). That fake feeling of vegetating. Of life having no purpose other than pushing the button. Again. Ah!

I indulged in this nothing activity last night after not only what seemed like aeons, but were actual aeons (when I couldn't recognise even one name off the guide list, I knew I was in trouble. Except for Na Aana Is Des Laado, of course). So, the sheer number of choices had me confused, at first, until I realised (remembered, more like) what it's about - SURF TILL EYELIDS DROOP. And hence it was that I saw a bit of I Am Alive on Animal Planet (when the guy's thighs had split in half, and one of his eyes seemed to be popping out, I switched); some Vicki chick sing Florence + the Machine's Dog Days Are Over on The Voice (there's a Team Cee-Lo?! What fun!), fantastically; a bit of some lame movie called Apartment, where there was an entire song-and-dance sequence between Rohit Roy and Tanushree Dutta (I know), about 'Moving In Together', which mostly had her shooing him off, anytime he attempted to inch close to her, in almost old Hindi movie fashion (He probably didn't pay up his share of the EMI on the 'Apartment', am thinking, but I didn't get that far); Zoom's Top 10 Hot List of 'best onscreen kisses', which might've been not-so-bad if they'd done like, maybe top three? No? So, I ended up watching most of some faltu timepass show called Rules of Engagement? Real crappy, but I found myself laughing at the whatever jokes by the end of it. 'Sink-humpers' sticks in the mind. That was kind of funny, at least more so than what followed. The Big Bang Theory. It's when I gave up ... But not on television.

things i love right now

Adele on the radio. Haven't heard a voice like hers since, what, Janis Joplin?

Amaltas on the roads. Ooh, perfect summer yellow!

Steven Tyler's autobiography. Aptly titled.

it sure killed me (this lady)

THE LADYKILLER
Cee Lo Green

Turns out Cee-Lo Green is the new James Bond. Smooth, suave, one of his kind. Except he knows it’s all a joke, and yet chooses to dive off the deep end. So, actually, that makes him better than James Bond. Plus, he’s got that build - the coupling of a Hummer and a mini-bar - which could give Daniel Craig a run for his money, in its own special way.

But then Cee Lo Green (real name: Thomas DeCarlo Callaway - doesn’t it make him sound like a Dickens hero?) is also the new Michael Jackson. He’s got that streak of genius, both eccentric and independent, and trendsetting. Except his production skills are more enhanced; he knows it’s a smart move to do an album that harks back to forgotten eras for a contemporary audience, and he collaborates with several smart asses. Both displayed prominently on The Lady Killer. A will.i.am version 2.0 of sorts; so, maybe, that makes him better than MJ too then. (No, I did not just say that!).

The album reels you in, hook, line and sinker, bang with The Lady Killer Theme Intro, so deliciously noir, bringing you up close and personal with the ladykiller, a character who parties hard and then ruminates on the drama of life and love, harder. ‘What do I do for a living? I do what I want’, he informs you, and a couple of seconds later, shimmies it up with Bright Lights Bigger City, an ode to weekends across the world (‘Fridays are good, but there’s something about Saturday nights…’), but especially to the drool-worthy photogenic after-hours of NYC. This track simply makes you want to hit the town with Cee Lo Green. Period. The mood shifts instantly with Fuck You!, and what more can you say about this phenomenal track, which melts down the ultimate break-up you never ever get over, down to its basics, all on a catchy-as-hell tune (‘I guess she’s an X-Box and I’m more an Atari’ is my favourite line off this one). And we’re still only warming up. Cee Lo thickens the atmosphere, fleshing out the plotline, song after song, delivering with those super-talented vocal chords each time, which can do nuance and soar above mundane detail, any given day. No One’s Gonna Love You (a Band of Horses cover) rethinks the ballad magnetically, and Bodies has you stepping away from the sound-system just a wee bit {you know how he gets that voice as creepy as creepy can be? Remember Run (I’m a Natural Disaster)}? ‘My love is old fashioned but it still works the way it is’, he claims on Old Fashioned, and though The Lady Killer is definitive of contemporary, Cee Lo stays pure, in an almost old-fashioned sense (since there’s no shred of autotune on any of this). Fool for You, featuring Phillip Bailey, is brilliant brilliant brilliant, the song I find myself returning to ad infinitum (besides Fuck You!), and Please, featuring Selah Sue, plays out the drama of a killer on the prowl, in slow-mo. I predict (urge?) Love Gun (featuring the sexy croon of Lauren Bennett - part Björk, part Portishead, part, well, Sheryl Crow) as the new James Bond movie theme, incidentally. Daniel Craig, practice that pout well, ‘cuz here comes Cee Lo!

It's Not Like I Love The Stones

Go(ld)phish popped up with a thought bubble of a question the other day. 'Best band of all-time?' closely following it up, in her own special way, with 'Don't think. just say it'. 'The Rolling Stones' urged itself out of my mouth. Most strangely, I thought, one nanosecond later. 'Cuz that's not true, not to my knowledge, no. I don't even consider myself a fan. At all. I do think, yes, that Happy, Pass the Wine, Sympathy for the Devil, Paint it Black are special. Among others. But I think that declaration was a reaction to an eager beaver who was practically jumping at Go(ld)phish, with those obvious two words - 'The Beatles. The Beatles. The Beatles!' You know how you feel like countering The Beatles enthusiasm with some Stones cred. Just. Probably because I do think The Beatles are overrated; I mean, I LOVE, Getting Better, I Want You, Something, She Said, hell, even Come Together, but that universal mass appeal that their music has, guarantees them way too much attention than they deserve, I feel. Purely rationally speaking, of course.
But then, where's the room for reason, in this debate?
The question and its intended immediacy in response is meant to negate reason. Because music that echoes with you, just like books you love, is way too personal, way too abstract and much too beautiful for anything as mundane as reason to find a place in it. Reason tells me that my one word response to 'Best solo artist of all time?' {Goldphish was on a roll that evening} - Madonna - isn't correct. Like, factually. Because god knows there 's Prince and man, there was a Michael Jackson. But I shall claim, for myself, Madonna. And I'd like to amend my answer to the first question (mind rattling with The Doors and Radiohead notwithstanding) with - Pink Floyd. Bring it on!

delhi conundrum aka blast from the past question

Why was (ok, is) The Mezz, that dingy-in-a-good-way rock-centric pub called that, when it was atop a flight of stairs, and not in the mezzanine? Irony?

word of the day: quietude

One of those wonderfully rare words the otherwise sparse/inadequate English language can lay claims to. An apt coupling of quiet and solitude. What we all ache for, some days, and wish away, on others.

'that's sick, even for you' : julia roberts fans, stay away!

Ever wondered how that jawline of Julia Roberts resembles the grin of a Great White Shark (except it's not grinning, the latter, it's preparing to well, disembowel, or something)? But I swear when she looks into the camera and/or co-actor etc, and you know it's that moment when she's gonna flash that world-famous Julia Roberts smile-for-lack-of-better-word * (and with her in a movie, any movie, you can always sense that moment; if you're like me, you dread it even), some of those great Nat Geo documentaries flash through my mind instantly, and I find myself stepping back a few feet from the screen. I mean, it's just the basic instinct of preservation, really.

PS: Was watching Duplicity the other day when this thought articulated itself in my brain. For decades now, I've been wondering why that up-close menace of a facial expression (and it's almost always in close-up) gives me involuntary jitters. On another note, though, it's a brilliant film; an extremely smart, tricky travelogue (even) through NY, Rome, Miami, Dubai (umm, and Cleveland), with sexy Spy vs Spy repartee, keeps you totally hooked. And it's got Clive Owen. A must-watch (even if you agree with moot point of this post).

* Cuz when your jaw expands beyond normal human measurements, it's not a smile. One has to come up with a better word. Invent it.

inked index

I remember it as exciting. A thrilling day, full of promise and anticipation and something momentous, I wasn't sure what. I remember asking Maa what it meant. And finding the ink blot, not pretty. ‘An ugly blob of blue’, I would’ve said if I knew the words.
But then she showed me the map of India in it, Maa. At first, I couldn’t see it, but there it was, on her left index finger. Bengal and Gujarat and Kanyakumari, the tips and Kashmir.
Now I know it wasn’t actually there. But I saw it. It was like a bedtime story again, with all of them alive - Captain Hook and Arjuna, the fox in the Jataka tales, and the Brahmin in Hitopadesha. I thought she had the country almost in her palm. Balanced on a finger, like Krishna’s sudarshan chakra, in all those Amar Chitra Kathas she made so real for me.
“The power to decide who shall run the country is with me”, Maa smiled at me, when we came back home after standing in a queue for about an hour in the sun and pressing a blue button next to a funny picture at the end of it all, “and with everyone else who’s voting today.”
I remember I couldn’t wait to turn 18.

G World

5 years since the world went G. Who'd have thunk?

It's 'cuz of this that blogging, IM-ing, chatting, video-chatting, our constantly online planet, exists and thrives. And it's 'cuz of this that no one can remember their yahoo or (god almighty) hotmail passwords anymore. Gawd, can't even remember we were even ever on it?! (Were we? In this lifetime? Seriously?). And suddenly 'ping' is a verb.

Happy 5, Gmail! (Please always stay free!)

iShuffle

It's like radio, with the jockeys ignored, and the commercial breaks DELETED. The best station, hence!
The magic of radio, that charm of not knowing what track comes up next. So, current fave Dilli 6 (yeh sheher nahi mehfil hai!) can be followed up with Radiohead contemplating suicide, or Prince planning another successful seduction, or Dave Matthews going for another unsuccessful one, or Gnarls Barkley crafting loops around a syncopated heartbeat, or Jagjit Singh recreating Hazaaron Khwaishein, making you feel every word in Ghalib's amazingly-articulated pain, or the Black Eyed Peas pushing you to Pump It, or even Travolta and Jackson discussing the still-funny Royale with Cheese.
iShuffling forever!

karaoke your lungs out!

Do not underestimate the power of the sing-along ever.
Nothing works well enough for heartache and nothing ups the upbeat tempo, more than the karaoke.

The power of knowing every word and throwing it out there.
Of being a ROCKSTAR.

Tracks best experimented with, in my book:

Merdith Brook's Bitch. Just when you think you got me figured out, the season's already changing.

Sheryl Crow's All I Wanna Do. Billy likes to peel the labels off bottles of Bud.

No Doubt's Don't Speak. I know you're good, I know you're good, I know you're real good.

Fiona Apple (seriously). And if you wanna make sense, wotcha lookin at me for? I'm no good at Math.

Aerosmith's Amazing and Cryin'. We're partners in crime, you got that certain something.

Michael Jackson's Bille Jean. She looked more like a beauty queen from a movie scene.

marketing

Since when did going to the market start meaning the malls?
Was it around the same time that Almost Famous, that magical thunderbolt of a film you happened to see on Star Movies by accident (and not by planning DVD night based on the Salon list we shop at Palika Bazar for) became the name for a trite show on television?
'Cuz I missed when that happened too.

4 am haiku

'Tis 4 am/And sleep's not all I'm missing.

wanted: harder candy

So, was singing Like a Virgin at age eight or thereabouts. Complete with the oohs and aahs and ows. Much to the consternation of my folks, of course. But they didn't know what I already did. I had/have a connection with M. And so it is that I anticipate, listen, buy, dance to, appreciate (critically, ahem!) all of Madonna's albums. And so it is that I went through it all with her latest, Hard Candy too. 'Cept I just didn't feel the love this time. Even loyal me.

And to cope with adjusting to this brutally altered status quo (where Madonna can err and bring out an entire bad album), I did my recap:

Ray of Light (1998) The streak and bright spark of living and loving the world. Trippy title track, her post-Lourdes epiphanies (Drowned World/Substitute for Love), and an urging to convert (Frozen) in a parched landscape of your head. The one she's trying to talk to - 'Youonly see what your eyes want to see/How can life be what you want it to be?'.

The Immaculate Collection (1990). Okay so it's not really an 'album' album. But we all bought (into) it, right? These were the days when we didn't care for (or indeed knew about) that concept - Greatest Hits Compilations. We just found them all and loved them all in one place.Cherish, Like a Virgin, Borderline, Lucky Star, Material Girl, Crazy for You, Into the Groove, Live to Tell, Papa Don't Preach, Open Your Heart, Like a Prayer, La Isla Bonita, Express Yourself, Vogue, Justify my Love, Rescue Me. Neat. And for the taking.

Confessions on a Dancefloor (2005). All hail Stuart Price! Or the po-mo Thin White Duke (responsible for the sound). Once it was obvious that all she cared for now is to make people move and only in one way. This one's all volume, discoballs, groove, D.A.N.C.E.

Erotica (1992) Most favoured, I confess. Just the range of this takes my breath away. Not one track out of place, this is a perfect, genuine Madonna album. Why's it so Hard, In this Life, Secret Garden and gang take you through it all. Getting even (Bye Bye Baby), cunnilingus (Where Life Begins), feeling lust in your veins that's almost spiritual (Deeper and Deeper), loneliness (Rain) and infidelities (Bad Girl). Besides a cover (Fever), a brilliant gabfest (Words), Waiting, Thief of Hearts and the one she still performs (Erotica). Beautifully lyrical, with compositions (and awesome videos) to match, this one's in its own league. A Madonna album that gives the rest of them serious competition.

American Life (2003) By this time, things had started getting dangerously Madonna-esque. Taking on the unrenounced possessions (nannies, agents, bodyguards, trainers, private jets, lawyers) in a critical appreciation album, self-consciously cerebal. But the gimmicksworked, no matter what most people said, since tracklist included Hollywood, Die Another Day, Nobody Knows Me, and a stance that might've been politically weak, but then, that was the only weak thing about it. Also, this gave us Stuart Price in an underrated X-Static Process.

Bedtime Stories (1994) The lash-out feminism after she was lashed out upon, post-Erotica. 'Oops, I didn't know we couldn't talk about sex', 'Would it sound better if I was a man, would you like me better if I was?', and such conundrums in Human Nature (with THAT video!), sexysexy Secret, before you even understood 'Until I learnt to love myself, I was never ever loving anybody else'. Or maybe YOU did. And of course, Take a Bow, for those who thought she's always about the sex.

Music (2000) Uff! Title track to celebrate the diva's roots moved bourgoisie, rebel and everything in between. Plus, there was Amazing, the amazing cowboy fetish-ised Don't Tell Me, the impressively, almost depressingly written What it Feels Like for a Girl (with Guy Ritchie making that fabulous video outta it), Gone, Impressive Instant, Runaway Lover.

SOS: Thriller

The undead grooving in a cemetery. Chills down spine like hell, but what cool moves!

Pure genius, the video of Thriller, which came out back when it came out. I still remember watching it accidentally (no, really), because the newest, freshest VCR tape (ah! VCR!) just happened to be lying around in my neighbour's house. Unclaimed! And of course, I popped it in! (of course). I cannot, for the life of me, remember this (coolio-in-retrospect) neighbour, though I do remember my first time watching it! I pop it in. And everything was fine, there was good ol' MJ whose moonwalk I was so sure I'd cracked by then (definitely more than my brother, who was equally sure he'd cracked it too), and MJ's talking to this girl who was all 'Oh, Michael. This and that'. There was a ring presentation ceremony somewhere and all that talk about 'me being different' with the girl giving us more of 'Oh, Michael. This and that.' And then.

The full moon. And MJ dropping to his knees, helpless. And looking up. Transformed. Creepy, yellow, bulging eyes. And fangs. 'Go away', he screams, and then becomes a werewolf. (As the girl, who I'd forgotten by this point, but who's shrieking constantly in the background is stupid enough to keep watching. And
screaming).

shitshitshit. I still remember thinking. also mummymummywhere'smummy.

Feeling rivetted and so bloody scared. Unable to find the remote control. Unable to walk out!

Not knowing then it was history I was about to watch unfold, on the screen. Or knowing it, in a way.

Absolutely. Thrilled.

I'm Not There...

Never thought he would be. There. In the first place. Really. Bob Dylan.

The new movie by Todd Haynes, I'm Not There, is brilliantly titled. A movie on Bob Dylan's life and music, based on truths, real, imagined, exaggerated. Borrowing from the poet-troubadour's words, penned to the cheery-lament tone of his mouth organ. A movie made with with the man's blessings, himself. Counts for something!

It made me turn turn to Zimmerman and his
music after many, many years. A turn back of sorts. After detesting the pretensions and the hypocrisy and the POSE of Bob Dylan for so long. In this volteface, I heard it all nonstop and it's replaced the soundtrack of life for now. Just for the music, the words, the POETRY ('cuz who else could write 'For let us not talk falsely now/The hour is getting late'), and that Cate Blanchett seriously seems like a revelation to watch, CANNOT wait for it.

reader's block

It's true, it's for real. If you've read something so amazing, you get readers' block. Cannot get yourself to read anything else. I'm talking the kinda book you're actually sad to finish, 'cuz you know it'll never be the same again, no. It's over, you've read it. Now you can only re-read it.

Gerard Woodward's A Curious Earth is one such phenomenon of a book. Causing serious readers'
block. When I finished it, I couldn't even get myself to consider my options, glance at the
potentials that surround me, let alone make that decision on actually reading something.
'What could be the next best thing?', I asked myself. 'Nothing, obviously', my mind reasoned back.

It's all about Aldous and the hours. His hours. Living on a borrowed Emily Dickinson phrase, 'a
curious earth'. An old man, a one-time art teacher, whose wife has recently passed away, the big deal in Aldous' day is the watching over of potato tubers that have taken over his cupboard, which happens to be in his line of vision. He observes their growth, from moment to moment, following it day by day, like the latest crime thriller. He spends his time thus, feels spent, and above all, drinks as if there's no tomorrow. But of course, tomorrow always comes. His only visitor is his daughter, who attempts to save him, by admonishing and indulging, failing to understand, in a peculiar way that only a daughter can fuly understand and appreciate. And though things begin to 'happen' as such only after Aldous takes a fall (literally) and has his blood changed (again, literally), the novel has a pace that is its own, and I can't call it langorous and I won't call it upbeat. There's a trip to Ostend, there's more of the children, problems with
children, women, many walks and meals across London, flirting and dates even, alongwith talk
of Rembrandt, false teeth and several trivial pursuits. And through it all, Gerard Woodward
controls perfectly, the overtones and subtleties of a life lived, being lived. Giving the
reader an unforgettable sense of life's complexities, ironies, heartbreaks and pleasures, as
he/she reads on, distanced and mesmerised. Somehow never alienated.
Nothing I can say will say it all. Read it to experience the readers' block.

the 'diss' in the dissident

When words have enveloped you and yet stayed non-committal, you tend to remember what you were reading. Nell Freudenberger's Lucky Girls, a short story I stumbled across, a coupla years ago, about a girl in a situation (well, read it!), was everything you hope, wish (and in hindsight, pray) for a short story to be. You could see the house, hear the characters, listen in on the protagonist's thought process, and be all 'negative capability' like with the female narrative (Screw you, feminists, I'm calling it that! And why is a woman an actor, while we're on the subject?!). There was guilt in Lucky Girls, melancholy, fleeting happiness, and other familiar twists and head-on collisions. And all of this happened within those many pages that maketh a comfortable short story... And so it goes. Or rather, went. That I made the proverbial beeline for the Nell novel, The Dissident, in the Ed Room here, that's always bursting with books. (Believe me, sometimes, that ain't a good thing). I couldn't wait to plunge into good fiction (know that craving?), a debut by someone who had done all that (see above). And tempted fate with a title like Lucky Girls. And retrospect (precious, bites you in the ass later, retrospect) tells me I'd tempted fate myself with the expectations.The only diss in the dissident is disappointing. It has (had) such potential in premise, such anticipation in storyline, so much promise in just the landscape, that it kind of failed to take off. A malfunction that did not say, 'All systems go'. But Nell thought she could push it still.What she didn't manage, though, is to pull it off.PS: More disappointment with music follows soon. Waddya do when music and books diss ya?! Huh? Kill me. I mean, tell me...

Am not even a fan

... But he has that MJ potential. And is smart enough to get his cool collaborations right. Is better lookin' also. And so, let's 'age gracefully' here.
Not sounding death knells yet, but an entire generation will grow up thinking Justin Timberlake is it. He's Michael Jackson. I mean, they probably won't SAY that. They'll call him Justin, or Justin Timberlake, or JT, or whatever else, but you know what I mean.
He tries hard to sound like MJ, and even pulls it off in places
(What Goes Around on Future Sex/Love Sounds, is freakish!). Now, he can't really moonwalk and so comes up with moves that are at best, decently close. And so, he's gonna pull it off. Most definitely probably.

Madonna, now THAT'S another story. Since she pretty much INVENTED reinvention...

W*O*R*D*S*

Words are everything, some would say.
Ask an aspiring writer, a novelist, doing the rounds of publishers. Words are everything. Difficult to come. Almost impossible to grasp, sometimes. And freely flowing, some other blessed times. when there's divine intervention.

Words are nothing, some would say. Potentially meaningless. Easy speak. Still more cloaks and masks to face the world, your friends, your lovers. easy cop-outs, as and when needed. Convenient access into someone's mind, someone's heart, an intrusion into a sacred space. As if they could ever mean anything. Sorry. Thank you. Fuck me. Fuck you. Isn't that nice?

Words aren't all that important, some tell me. They're on the fence, the borderline, and any other mother-of-all proverbs I'm missing. They could be one thing, and they could seem something else, words. Benign. Unimportant. They could stand arrested in translation, unable to shape-shift and transform into another language, so obivously inferior. Hazaaron khwaishein aisi. And leave it at that.

Just for how they sound, make you roll your tongue, and yank something right outta the inner recesses of your mind, I borrow them. And am grateful for their existence. Even have favourites.
Under the I's, I find:
Intrepid
Intimate
Ironic

These just a few off the list, words. Don't they simply MEAN what they SAY?