Garden City Blechh !

Rated AAA

Bengaluru nee’ Bangalore is a triple-A rated city in my books.

Now before you "Kannadigas" & IT geeks start patting yourselves silly, that stands for Arthritis, Allergies & Asthma.

And if you folks who have just landed there from Jharkhand, gaping at the malls and all those restaurants with fancy-schmantzy names from “Amrika” like Ruby Tuesdays, Cafe’ Perk, Barista, Stars and Stripes (Sic!) , Manhattans, Olive Beach (huh?) , The Granite Pit Stop ( I swear this is true!), Tiffanys, Caesar’s, Paparazzi, Copacabana, Indi Joes’, Filling Station, American Corner (Yeesh!), The Village,and even the KFC’s the TGIF's and Mc Donalds. ....now where was I ? ... ahh yes if you folks have not caught any one of the triple- A’s yet – trust me you will.

Visiting Milind and Vidulas lovely home in Bangalore (I refuse to call it by its’ new name) those 5 days prompt the question: Can a city drive you insane?

I wake up next morning hoping there’s nothing to do, because I don’t want to get out of bed.
My ears itch, my throat hurts and my nose drips. I didn’t sleep last night because my room is next to the street.

3:00 a.m.: I heard several men screaming at each other.
In the vernacular it sounded like they were arguing about drugs and were going to cut each other. Then they started to smash something, beer bottles or car windows, Crash. Crash. Tinkle. I never ventured to find out. I curled into a foetal position and shut my eyes, humiliated at my cowardice.

4:00 a.m. : It was the turn of a pack of stray dogs the kind of snarling, barking, yapping and fighting that says there’s just the one female in heat among eight males.

9:00 a.m. : My head is pounding. Also there’s a giant bulldozer digging up the earth next door. Someone outside is using a buzzsaw, then a hammer, then a drill. The apartments are being constructed in the vain hope that someone will buy them. Nobody wants to buy apartments anymore. Gates and doors to apartment buildings have been wedged wide open. So far, only one family has been robbed.

I look at the Weather Channel on TV: Air quality bad; Humidity very high. Old People shouldn’t leave the house; Thus the headache. I take an antihistamine Avil25. I feel trapped like a rat.

The Bangalore Times says:-

......... murder in the city has soared to epidemic proportions. We are now to treat murderers as “diseased.” Will they have a new 12-step programme for Murderers Anonymous? “Hello, I’m Billa, and I’m a compulsive serial killer.”

........someone was mugged in Lal Bagh, another girl had a latte poured over her in Cubbon Park and her laptop & wallet stolen.

.......oil prices have skyrocketed so we may be going to have a terrible recession. “We are in a terrible recession already”, I say, “Only nobody’s talking about it.” (All my IT friends are losing their jobs. I find gloomy irony in the fact that those intensely market-researched companies, the ones geared toward certain age groups with certain lifestyles and disposable incomes, are like lemmings going over cliffs, whereas strange old raggedy dinosaurs like Hindustan Lever swell and prosper.)

The neighbourhood is going upscale, shopwise- no more shoemaker, no more butcher,- go to the mall. The corner of the street used to smell strongly of piss, right at the base of the electric power transformer. But the intense ammonia odour is creeping up the street.

Homeless men are congregating and sleeping with their heads in trash cans. Drug-dealers (I think) place old books, and pirated dvd’s for sale on the sidewalks. The pedestrians shift to the roads. Yesterday a beggar jumped out of a doorway and attacked me. There was this big brawny man in National Market clad only in a pink nightdress. Children and cows, innocence embodied, are brutalised everyday.

When I left Goa it was 30 degrees and sunny with some showers, Bangalore is 22 degrees. But I can’t breathe. My sinuses are throbbing to the mesmerising beat of one million exhaust pipes belching hideous bile-coloured faux-air.

I don’t drive in Bangalore, there are grizzly locals youth with gelled hair and ear rings whose eyes rake everyone driving on Bangalore roads. They look smug and cruel and like compulsive serial killers in training.


Someone phones Vidula “Come to this very important interview in Brigade Road and you’ll soon be sitting in Amrika and you’ll make more money than you ever dreamed possible in your wildest dreams.” She was sitting smug in front of her stove making Bisi Bela Bhath. She says, “Okay I’ll come," and drives through the noxious fumes for it seems weeks and gets to Brigade Road and they say “Well it’s so nice to meet you, what do you think about starting out for Milwaukee this Sunday?” And because she can’t breathe anyway she says,"That sounds great” and they say “Fabulous, well, we know someone who knows someone who we think has a project with Madhukar, and as soon as we firm this up we’ll get you over there and soon after you’ll make truckloads of money, and buy a BMW, and your grandchildren will be able to become full-time heroin addicts – love the salwar you’re wearing , goodbye.”

It’s 7:00 p.m. I’m staying in bed till my bus leaves for Goa.

IPL& The Royal Challengers - The Road Ahead

Drink up lads ! There's always Tomorrow !

I decided to go check out the Bangalore Royal Challengers on Monday, to see how they look for next years’ IPL T20. This is important, because the Challengers represent Karnataka’s manhood, and this debut season we had the same community testosterone level as the audience for the President of Indias’ Speech to Brazils’ Parliament. The Challengers lost 10 games and won only 4, just ahead of Hyderabads’ Deccan Chargers.

FAQ’s
There were no papparazzi on hand when I went out to the Challengers camp on Monday, but I did get to watch some players in action. My overall impression of them is that they are quite large, for humans. The largest one I personally saw was Jaques Kallis, their No. 1 foreign pick, who is huge.

Q. How huge is he?
A. He must constantly brush away large birds trying to build nests on him.

So there's a lot of pressure on them to not suck so much next year. But the rumblings from the rumour mill has been troubling, especially the feud between Charu Sharma and the Kingfisher.
Sharma was, of course, the Challenger’s CEO. He's also considering a career in show business, since he has the kind of chiseled WWF-style looks, big muscles and receding hairline that many women find attractive.

The Kingfisher is Vijay Mallya, who got his nickname from the fact that he breathes through gills while drinking beer, and can weigh up to 800 kilos. He is the Challenger’s Chairman cum Owner of T20 Operations, which means he runs the team from a secret underground bunker furnished entirely with beer bottle caps. The KF is a gruff, old-school racketeer. He is very hard-nosed.

Q. How hard-nosed is he?
A. He makes Dawood Ibrahim look like Wendell Rodricks.

ON PRIORITISING
The KF reportedly was unhappy about the fact that Sharma competed this season on Boogie Woogie, where he finished second to hair stylist Sylvie. This in itself shows you how far the Challengers have fallen. There is no way that, say, Fraser Castellino would have let that happen. He would have found a way to beat Sylvie, maybe with an ''accidental'' knee to the goolies while dancing to Disco Deewane. Those Rajasthan Royals just knew how to win.

But getting back to the Fisher-Sharma battle: It got even more feisty when Sharma, during a break from dancing, visited the Challenger’s training camp only to find that he was sacked by the Fisher. The KF later emerged from his bunker to claim that there was no sacking, that in fact he didn't even know Charu was in the room because he (the Fisher) was busy with choosing swimsuit models for his Royal Challenge calendar. I am not making any of this up. I heard the Sharma-Fisher-Sacking -vs.-Swimsuit Model story being hotly debated for two solid days on Doordarshan. This is what Challenger fans have been reduced to.

CHALLENGES AHEAD
So I would say the 2008 Challengers’ biggest strength, as a team, is their serve. Their biggest weakness, from what I saw, is gravitational pull. They were serving because they were playing in the Kingfisher Annual Charity Tennis tournament at Bangalore Tennis Club, which is a classy place, as you can tell by the ''C'' in ``Club.''
Before the tournament began I got a chance to size up Rahul Dravid, who's Captaining the team. This has turned out a weak spot for the Challengers, who had proposed many people as Captain, including at one point Sylvie.

Dravid is a professional, and he managed to remain poised in one of the most stressful situations a cricketer can face, namely, being interviewed at close range by extremely outgoing SET MAX TV personality and movie star Lekha.
Lekha was broadcasting from the hotel lobby (or, as they say at the Club, "the lounge") and I would conservatively estimate that by 10 a.m. she had consumed 72 cups of coffee. She began the interview with cricket questions, then switched tack, asking if Dravid had any children. Dravid said yes, he just had a son, at which point Lekha said: “So are you married?”
Dravid looked concerned -- you'd be concerned, too, if a movie star was tempting you in a sultry voice asking you if you were married -- but I thought he handled the situation well, assuring Lekha that he was happily married to a woman.
''You can't beat that home-grown girl!'' declared Lekha, shortly before Dravid fled to the safety of the cricket field.

IN CONCLUSION
So that's my in-house report on the Bangalore Royal Challengers. They have size, but although they serve well, their backhand is poor, although this could be offset by their ability to withstand the siren call of Goan Beaches unlike the Rajasthan Royals.

The big question is whether the Sharma and the Kingfisher will sit down, discuss their differences, kiss and make up, and if so, whether the Fisher will hear what either one of them is saying.

I predict that it's going to be an exciting and rewarding season for Challenger fans next year at the 2009 IPL, at least until it starts. Cheers !

Of Cakes and Kurtas

Many Unhappy Reruns

I had a birthday last month. And I know what everyone was thinking: “Ho hum, do we have to get him a present just to listen to the same corny jokes this year?”

They really should have considered the question: “Does he want another nice kurta?”
Didn’t they notice that I never wear kurtas in spite of the fact that I’m a retiree? I own 25 kurtas and I only ever wore only two of them, tucked into my pants because I’m vertically- challenged (short) and, if I wear them normally like Amitabh Bachchan I could get arrested for impersonating a Catholic priest. And I changed only when the other one developed a food-stain that wouldn’t go away. Did they honestly believe that I was thinking : “Darn, I wish I had another kurta so that I can’t wear it”?

Well of course not. I thought...
... aaah, never mind what I thought. Most of the time nobody really knows what I’m thinking, including, Me. But trust me; I did not want a kurta.

In my entire life, I have met only two persons who were genuinely interested in kurtas. Both of these persons were in the kurta industry.

''But,'' everyone thought, ‘‘When we gave him a kurta last year, he was overjoyed!''
Of course I was. Like all hoteliers, I have learned to simulate zealous appreciation for gifts that I have absolutely no use for.

That's why I always responded so positively when they gave me -- and I hope they no longer do this, although I understand it still happens, even in 21st-century IT enabled, casual-Fridays India – a tie, hand- painted with an ethnic design. Although Nadia keeps nagging me to wear one, preferably with a matching jacket so she can see how ridiculous I really look.
''Oh! Thank you!'' I would gush. ''A beautifully painted tie to wrap around my neck, strikingly similar to the numerous other nooses crumpled together at the bottom of my clothes hamper!

I am so good at faking appreciation that I was able, years ago, to pretend great joy in receiving pens. This was back in the hoary days of pen-gifting, which mercifully came to an end after the horrible Y2K tragedy in Meerut wherein a 64-year-old school teacher’s house collapsed under the weight of the estimated 50,000 unused pens and unopened bottles of ink that she had stored in her loft.

''OK,'' you are saying, 'then what SHOULD I get for you? If I ask you what you want, you always say, 'I don’t need anything.' ''
That's because I know that if I told you what I rrreeeeeaaahllly, really want, you wouldn't give it to me.

For example, let's take garments. The nicest surprise of all for me would be if you handed me a box, and I unwrapped it, and there, inside, sitting in their pristine clear plastic pouches, were 6 new boxer shorts, allowing me finally to throw away my present Y-fronts (or use them as dusters without telling anybody) because they have reached the stage where they are 10 percent underwear and 90 percent holes. I will miss them but they seem to have lost some of their capacity for containment, if you get my drift.
But rightfully by now they should be buried in the same landfill somewhere, along with my unused kurtas like my “Osibisa” T-shirt, which I bought and wore at their 1979 gig during which I stood on my seat and sang 'Sunshine Day', and danced to the "Gong Gong song.'' (Yes! I did this!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXajaZermHw –( Yes Nadia they WERE from Seattle, you're right as usual.) Somebody threw the shirt away two years ago (without asking me) because it had a bunch of stains, which happened to have great sentimental value, because ...
... OK, never mind about the stains. The point is that you cannot give me these things on my birthday. But you know what you CAN give me? You can give me what I always tell you I want: Nothing. I mean it. (Well maybe a Honda Civic )

For me, the quintessential birthday would be one in which I didn't even realize that it WAS the 20th of May, (my birthday, you retard! D UH!) because nobody was making me express joy over presents I never want, or read greeting cards filled with lame verse (''You don’t look a day over 40, but your flirting is perverted not naughty ; and, “Just hope it’s from the shrimps you ate, but most likely it’s your prostate'').

There would be none of this on the perfect birthday. There would be just me, wearing my oldest surviving underwear, free of pressure, maybe just sitting in front of the TV, watching the IPL matches.

There would be no conversation, other than my periodical observations on cricket like: What’s with Krish Shrikanth commenting about “ the wicket not coming onto the bat” ? that’s like an oenophile saying “ this wine is soft on the nose”. As far as I’m concerned: “the BALL should come onto the bat” and “wine should be smooth on the PALATE”.

Looks like cricket may be developing its’ own “Hall of Fame for Pretentious Phrases” like those of Oenology. That apart these cricketers today can carry a crowd across the Indian sub-continent the way “Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi” never could. So next year that’s how you can give me the perfect birthday.

Of course, that's not all. You can also make a reservation for the latest blockbuster Hindi movie and at the end of the day, you dress up, go out, have a nice dinner, during which you propose a toast to yours truly. Who will be back home, in front of the TV, happily asleep in my ancient underwear. That would be UTOPIA.

But you're going to get me a kurta.

Deconstructing IPL

Once upon another time in India

So Lekha has been hanging out with Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla.

They were at this major party last week. It went for the whole night right into the "I-wanna-go-wee-wee" hours, with people and drinks everywhere. The Khan and Juhi were great. They’d won a match. In fact, over the course of the evening they’d won the IPL Trophy, but there were legal problems with some dark-skinned cheer leaders refusing to use the Fair & Lovely makeup cream.

Actually, the Trophy wasn't theirs. And it wasn't a real party. The ice cubes in the drinks were made of plastic. It was a scene for the movie Lagaan ka Baap, which is being filmed partly in the Andaman Islands

Lagaan ka Baap is, of course, NOT based on the film Lagaan by Ashutosh Gowarikar, a prop boy, who wrote a script about his grandfather, who, when filing his income tax returns in triplicate in British India and claiming a rebate by playing cricket, wrote in three dialects. For the record Lagaan did not win an Oscar, but till date it has grossed billions of dollars, and has become a major commercial empire, comparable to the Government of Goa, but with more employees.

I mean, sure, the IPL is also about three languages , Hindi, English and Australian and,although not nominated for an Oscar has made the BCCI richer by Rs.350 Crore; is looking to achieve posterity by being offered as a course study in B-schools - an elective in sports management no less!

Set in the present day scenario Lagaan ka Baap will strike a deep resonant chord with cricket lovers everywhere by making two fundamental points:
• It’s all about the money, and in case you forget this, remember....
• It’s RRRRRREEAAAHLLY ALL about the money !

But underneath it all, cricket fans are loyal, loving creatures with hearts of gold. They understand that unlike the movie the IPL in fact has a slightly different thrust:
• It’s all about the money but.......
• It has to be made in the shortest possible time, by appealing to the widest number of cricket obsessed fans with the intelligence of algae.

Anyway, Lekha was hanging with Shah Rukh and Juhi because she had volunteered to be an anchor person in a scene being shot on a field in the Andamans. There were maybe 200 extras -- some from the friendly neighborhood and Jarawa tribes, assorted Naval Admirals others who had responded to an ad on Set Max. Their job was to pretend that they were guests at a surprise 34th birthday party being thrown for Sachin Tendulkar (played by Shah Rukh) by his wife, Anjali (played by Juhi).

The movie set, a literal hive of activity, equipment and cables everywhere and a battery of film crew wearing T-shirts, shorts, mini skirts, utility belts, and pom-poms, striding around doing technical things with lights, cameras, monitors, make- up and props, which included a number of stunt birthday cakes, and a tube of toothpaste. In charge of all this was Chairman Lalit Modi, ( motto: I’m not making money from IPL) a smart and funny man who lives in khaki pants and whose credits include ESPN as well as episodes of BCCI.

Now here’s the set up with a film crew:
At the top of the heap are leading actors or superstars, then the director, cameramen, and prop and light boys, then the support actors, the caterers, security and transporters. And at the bottom comes the producer. In fact the producer is not even considered part of the film crew, except sometimes to pose with the extras when they get herded around as part of the scenery. “All right, scenery, when actor arrives, everybody clap!”

Extras do a lot of work. Sometimes they stand-in for the actor, sometimes they stand-in for the cake. Then they get to be part of the scenery during the rehearsals, and again when the filming is on. Then there are the retakes of the scene over and over and over again, because something is always going wrong. They stand around for long hours. And they do this because they are paid with wads of high-denomination notes of respectable currencies.

I am, of course, joking. For a week’s labour -- and it can be a long week,18 hours a day, including nights and Sundays – an extra gets paid Rs.1000.00, or what one of the extras, Pappu Sinha of Jhumri Talaya, described as ``Ek batli nakli scotch vasool.''

So it's not the money. It's the chance to be in a movie and to be around movie stars, in a house, which had been decorated with balloons, streamers, and a sign that said ''HAPPY 34TH BIRTHDAY SACHINJI.'', handed drinks with plastic ice cubes, then positioned under the curved stairway in the hall around the piano.

In this scene, Juhi (as Anjali) carries the cake into the room while everyone sings "Happy Bird-day" to Shah Rukh (as Sachin) who is wearing a dinner jacket and shades. ''Anjali'' sets the cake down in front of 'Sachin'' and he blows out the candles. Then Sachin feeds a slice of the cake to Anjali, walks to the piano and pretends to play it while she makes moon eyes at him and lip-syncs a love song that clearly sounds like Ila Arun or Usha Utthap or maybe both in tandem. The whole scene is maybe 5 minutes long in the movie but takes 12 hours to shoot.

They rehearse it a few hundred times with professional stand-ins standing in for the stars, and an extra standing in for the cake (aah! that’s where the toothpaste “icing” came in handy.) Then out into the hall comes Juhi Chawla and Shah Rukh Khan!

No doubt you want to know if Juhi Chawla is beautiful. Yes Sir, she is. Although it’s true and I want all you other beautiful women to note, that I encouraged Lekha to be in the IPL solely so I could maybe meet her and have the following intelligent conversation:-

LEKHA: Baba, I'd like you to meet Juhi.
JUHI (shaking my hand): Nice to meet you!
ME: Glmphk..
LEKHA: He's in love with you.
JUHI: Aww, that’s so sweet.
ME: Glmphk.
But before this relationship can flower any further, I’m sure it will be time to do another birthday-cake scene.

Lekha had to do one last scene. In this one, they all stood around the piano and pretended to be old friends. The thing was, at that point it felt as though the whole cast and crew had been together for roughly as long as prisoners serving a life sentence, so in a weird way it actually did feel a little like a party.

If this scene stays in the movie -- it's scheduled for release on Diwali -- you might see Lekha. She’s the anchor in the puce skirt, interviewing Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla about their future plans for the Kolkata Knightriders. This was her big scene, and in all modesty, I believe that she delivered a nuanced, yet powerful -- even commanding -- performance. Especially considering that all you see is the back of her head.

What are these two superstars really like? Lekha says, based on the hours she spent pretending to party with them, that they are very nice. They chatted and joked with the extras, and they were always gracious and polite. This can't be easy when you're surrounded by people who are pretending to be cool, but whose brains are clearly shrieking, ``Ohmigod I am standing RIGHT NEXT TO SHAH RUKH KHAN AND JUHI CHAWLA!''