RESOLUTIONS 2013 / 09

09: Today's offering appears to be very similar to yesterday's but it was actually rather different except that it is also an "inflatable" model. The difference arises from the two little feet underneath (and an other pair that are hidden underneath). They were rather difficult to fold, or maybe the instructions didn't make enough sense to me. I was sure I was making a mess, but to my surprise, the feet formed quite nicely in the end and, as you can see, the model sits up on its haunches. Nice. Sort of. I would have preferred more explicit final instructions at the feet-folding stage.

Today's Resolution is ... To Relax And Be Human Occasionally, By Breaking Some Of My Previous Resolutions! So I ate a slice of toast at breakfast along with an excellent spinach omelette. It was great and I felt unusually human by the end of it!

My link for the day is to a very good item in the New York Times, by Sohaila Abdulali. She writes
about surviving to live a happy and productive life, despite a brutal gang rape at the age of 17.

The author talks about the incident which -- had she been a very different person -- might have been described as the defining/scarring event of her life. I remember reading her account of the assault, many years ago, in MANUSHI, an Indian feminist magazine. The fact that she wrote it under her own name made it possible to connect that story with her update today, following accounts of the recent rape-murder incident in Delhi that has caught the attention of the world's media. At the time I read her earlier account, I was deeply impressed by her honest, uncluttered presentation of the incident. I always wondered what happened to her. It was very good to discover that she continues to be as she described herself in that article of 30-odd years ago, someone who refused to be defined by her encounter.

There can never be any prescriptions for how to respond to the derailments that occur in our personal lives, because each person's situation is unique. However, if choices are possible then, I think, Abdulali's experience shows that a supportive family, absolutely committed to helping the survivor rather than further punishing her with shame/guilt/fear, has to be the best possible approach.

RESOLUTIONS 2013 / 08

08. So ... here are the results of yesterday's and today's efforts -- two failed cranes and one semi-failed -- plus today's model, the BLOW UP BUNNY.

The semi-failed crane came SO close to being successful! But I was impatient. The front leg was perfect while the back leg just refused to fold back on itself in the right way. The real challenge was not the leg at all, but an earlier phase in the folding involving a five-way "sink fold". This is what caused the previous models to collapse in a mess of crumpled paper (there's one more, not featured here, that I simply had to throw away). So when I was finally able to get past that point and arrive at the leg-formation, I should have taken a break. I've noticed that it actually helps to think about the forms and the folds as they turn into recognizable shapes and to take breaks. The reason I could get past the sink-fold phase this morning, for instance, was that I'd had time to visualize what needed to be done after having messed up three squares of paper yesterday.

The choice of paper is important too: it's got to be crisp enough to crease accurately, but thin enough that the paper doesn't bunch solid as the layers increase. Origami paper is always the best, but the sheets I have with me are for very small models, whereas this crane does demand more paper (for novice-folders anyway). The semi-failed crane was made with wrapping paper from the Giftwrap For Artists series.

I plan to continue to work on the crane until I can produce a properly flapping model! But after that struggle, it was a great relief to make the simple little bunny.

My resolution for today is: to do one task around the house -- such as dusting my room -- that I really DON'T want to do. It doesn't have to be a big task, it doesn't have to take very long, so long as I do it. Today's is going to be clearing up my desk!!

RESOLUTIONS 2013 / 07

07: And here now is the infamous, never-seen-before FAILED CRANE! It was meant to be a FLAPPING CRANE, a fancier version of the familiar origami crane and the book's author, Robert J. Lang, warns the reader that it's a "somewhat difficult" model.

No kidding!

So I'll just have to try a bit harder and perhaps use a 10-inch square, like he suggests. It was quite amusing to produce a failure. It was going all right to begin with, but at one point, there was clearly a coloured patch in the instruction drawing that was NOT showing up on my model. A little while later, that same coloured patch appeared in the wrong location on my model and meanwhile the anticipated "five-point square" (yes, it can't REALLY be a square) that was supposed to develop in the middle, collapsed in a squishy mess. You can sort of see the mess, at the centre of the tangle of folds in the picture.

So! Onward. Today's resolution is ... okay, I have a list of resolutions and today's was going to be a more time-consuming one than I can manage, what with the Failed Crane in  my recent past. So today's is going to be: Send More Snail-mail! The idea is, I should aim to send at least one piece of mail BY POST to someone, every day. I have LOTS of post-cards, so that's what I plan to do. I've not done that yet but it's only 11 a.m. I have time.

RESOLUTIONS 2013 / 06

06: And that's my origami item for today, the Flapping Duck. Only a still photograph I'm afraid, because the truth is, my model refused to flap. I don't know why. Actually, I made a previous version of the same duck yesternight, and though it was a mess in several ways (the beak, the tail), it DID flap its wings very nicely. This one, in spite of its precisely folded tail, just won't flap. I will have to fold yet another one ... but not tonight, Josephine. I'm well aware that for the past two days, I've been posting my resolutions rather late in the day. If I'm to catch up then I'm going to have to confine my origami activities to one model a day, as resolved.

So TODAY's resolution is to write for TWO HOURS every day. If any of my publishers is reading this (heheh, I KNOW one of them will be ...) he/she will sigh with relief, because I won't include e-mail and posting to my blog in the two-hour minimum. I mean, two hours of work. I've already done one hour today, so there's only one to go. Right after the blog.

About keeping up with the resolutions so far, I'm not doing too badly: I've stayed away from the Web for the first two hours of every day; have posted to this blog; made new resolution; made a daily origami item; and not eaten any bread since the night of the 31st. Tonight, I have two more glasses of water to drink to complete my quota. So, not bad. Not especially great either because of course I chose easy resolutions! We'll see how long I can keep up.

Meanwhile, here's a link to a SALON article/interview about sexual violence against women with special reference to the recent brutal gang-rape in New Delhi, resulting in the death of the victim.

RESOLUTIONS 2013 / 05

05. Today's resolution is a simple one: to drink at least eight glasses of water a day. This is something that I've been working on for many years because I rarely ever feel thirsty. When I'm at home, I've got little systems in place to remind me to pour something or other down my throat but when I'm traveling those systems break down. So keeping track of glasses is helpful. Tea and coffee count towards the tally, but only if they're big mugs or tall glasses (of tea).

So far, I've been on track for my resolutions. Though ... uhh ... today I was kind of late posting evidence of my day's origami. That's because I had already tried it out yesterday and knew that I would have trouble completing this model with the result that I postponed doing it until after dinner!

An odd thing about origami. There are times when the diagram absolutely makes no sense the first time around and then a day later, the very same dots and dashes resolve themselves into folds that fall into place just the way they're supposed to. Anyway, today's Eagle worked out all right and, as you can see, it flaps quite efficiently. Doesn't look too much like an eagle though ...

RESOLUTIONS 2013 / 04

04: Today's resolution is that I will NOT surf the net until two hours after waking up. This may not sound like a particularly difficult resolution, but it sort of is. The reason I sound diffident is that even while recognizing that I may have an internet addiction, I don't like admitting it.

The fact is, I often reach for my iPad even before I've got out of bed. So it's a problem.

Sort of.

I mean, I believe if I can't maintain this resolution, then I will have to admit that it IS a problem. It's been four days so far and I've managed to keep to the schedule. So I'm telling myself that it isn't really a problem. That's where doing the origami comes in too -- it gives me something to do immediately after waking up, something that does not require turning on the computer.

Today's model is a variation on yesterday's butterfly and -- as may be obvious -- I managed to make a brief video of it. Then I attempted the next model, but it was a disaster. Hmmm. I will have to try harder tomorrow morning, I guess!

Anyway.

The other item I'd like to offer for today's amusement is DAVE BARRY'S Year In Review 2012 from the Washington Post. It's really very funny, especially considering that most of the events he refers to are and were pretty grim.

RESOLUTIONS 2013 /3

03. Today's resolution is to make one piece of origami every day for this month. If I manage to keep this resolution, I may continue it for another month. Or year or whatever. The resolution only covers this month however or else I will lose nerve and fail right away.

Why origami? Because it's a great way to focus the mind. If you pay close attention to the diagrams and instructions, it's usually very easy to get a reasonably good result.

The book I'm following is one that I bought several years ago: ORIGAMI IN ACTION, Paper Toys That Fly, Flap, Gobble and Inflate! by Robert J. Lang (St. Martin's Griffin, New York). As its title suggests all the models are created with the capacity of flapping or twitching in some way. The reason I made three models today is that ... well, today's the THIRD! So at least for a few days, I'll have one new model a day. Of course, after a certain point in the book, the models become rather difficult and I may need to spend a longer time practicing simpler models for a while before I'll be able to make the Strumming Guitarist and the Fiddling Bassist (probably never. They're really tough).

I've always liked origami -- who doesn't, after all? -- but last year I watched a documentary on Netflix called BETWEEN THE FOLDS (by Vanessa Gould, Green Fuse Films) which showed truly breathtaking examples of origami. I mean, origami bordering on sorcery. I realize that ordinary mortals aren't ever likely to achieve that kind of mastery, but it re-ignited my latent fondness for the art.

There is something extremely satisfying about producing small, three-dimensional objects out of paper, using just one's fingers and a blade to cut the initial squares and sometimes rectangles required as raw material. In the past, I've rarely been able to remember how to make a model after having made it once, following the instructions. The only one I've been able to store in memory for many years is the so-called "water bomb", which is kind of cool, because it puffs open to form a cubic shape and can hold a small amount of water.

Anyhow, so one of my aims, currently, is to be able to recall the steps for making the simple models. I do really love to make things that can do something -- I mean, something more than just look like a crane or a flower -- so I'm already enjoying this book. All three models in the picture do indeed flap and if I were a little more organized, I could make a 5 second video to prove the point but ... my resolution only covers making the model! And posting a new resolution each day! And updating my blog!

So I'm done for the moment.

RESOLUTIONS 2013

02: For the whole of this year, I'd like to eat more consciously. It's no longer about losing weight or how I look but just about being more thoughtful about what I eat. For instance, I plan to keep one favourite food item off my plate for a month at a time. This month, it's going to be bread. Why? Because I eat bread like an addict -- it's not about taste or flavour or texture, it's just about shoveling processed wheat-grain down my gullet.

Now maybe this is just the way I am. If so, then a month of abstinence will mean a pleasurable wallow when I dive back into the bread bin. Or maybe, who knows, I will get to the end of the month and not feel I missed anything. Either way, it's a journey of Discovery! All from the confines of my own dining table.

***

Here are links to two articles I enjoyed today:

THE PEACE PILGRIM

and

PICKPOCKETING AS AN ARTFORM

The first is about an American woman who decided one day to walk for peace, carrying nothing but the clothes on her back and "— a pen, a comb, a toothbrush and a map. That's it. " Her name was Mildred Norman and I first heard about her many years ago, from a newspaper cutting a guest who came for dinner left in the house. I always wanted to know more about this oddly interesting story and here it was, at NPR's website.

The second is the fascinating story of Apollo Robbins, a pickpocket who appears to be supernaturally skilled. He steals for entertainment, not as livelihood. From the New Yorker.

HELLO 2013!

New beginnings.

A couple of resolutions to start things off: the first one -- i.e., the 0th Resolution -- is that I will post a fresh resolution every day for the first month of this year.

So here's the first:

01: I will update this blog every day of January 2013. After which ... well ... I'll see how it goes. The update might take any form -- a picture, a shared idea, a haiku -- whatever. But there'll be a fresh post every day for 31 days.

Amongst the things I'd like to post about is the movies I've been seeing. I have a NetFlix streaming account (augmented now and then by a one-DVD-at-a-time account too). Since I don't have a TV -- or else I would be a total video-zombie -- I feel it's acceptable for me to indulge my current primary addiction, i.e., movies. So I plan to write brief (sometimes not-so-brief) summaries and reactions to the entire list of those I saw in 2012. Once I've caught myself up, I'll keep going with the ones I hope to see this year, as I go along.

This is, in part, to avoid writing about Me, Myself & I and/or Family and Friends. I'm sure no-one wants to feel they're going to be blog-fodder whenever they say or do something funny/clever/ghastly in my presence.

I don't want to blog about current events either, except very occasionally.

There's so much comment out on the web these days. In the end, all that registers are the shrieks, the blasts, the maniacal laughter fading into the distance.

Whereas what interests me are slight things -- the smart pop of a well-placed full-stop, the soft sigh of an ellipsis -- I like slightness -- the passing second, the current breath, the leaf that falls unseen, without being memorialized on YouTube or made into a post-card. All the unremembered non-events that fill the mattress of my days, making it comfortable to lie on.

***

The last couple of months have been especially hectic. I got back to Newport in late October (the 21st is when I left India, according to my passport. It's amazing how easily I forget the dates of my journeys. At once.) with the plan of staying still for two months. But almost immediately, there was the momentous election, then Thanksgiving, then my sister Su travelled to India for a week, which meant that I stayed at her pretty new home in Randolph, MA (suburb of Boston) for the duration. Briefly, I had the idea that I wouldn't leave for India till the end of January. Then I changed my mind and chose to be in Delhi for the New Year, staying most likely for six weeks.

So ... here I am.

Arrived early on the 31st. The flight -- KLM: Boston-Amsterdam then Amsterdam-Delhi -- was practically enjoyable. A very rare event these days. I believe this is ENTIRELY because my seat allocation for the final leg of the trip was the best there is in Economy, i.e., the window seat in the exit row of a 747-300. Plus I managed to see three movies that I've been wanting to see, yet not enough to be willing to pay for them, either on screen or on DVD.

Three animation films: Tim Burton's FRANKENWEENIE, PARANORMAN and HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA. I would rank them FRANKEN, TRANS and PARA but the best animation was unquestionably Burton's since it was stop-motion as well as stylishly black-n-white. I mean ... can you imagine the nerve of doing stop-motion animation film in B/W?? Breathtaking. The story is cool too: Boy Loves Dog; Dog Dies; Boy Re-Animates Dog, Creating FrankenPet. Mayhem Ensues -- all the kids in town want to re-animate THEIR pets too.

Funny-weird and also just funny, but with a big helping of clever on the side. When the re-animated Sparky touches noses with his poodle dog-friend next-door, she (the poodle) is zzzzzzapped with electricity, transforming her bouffant of curls into the classic Bride of Frankenstein hairdo, with its streak of white on the side. Neato.

TRANS is about Count Dracula creating a monsters-only hotel so that monsters can vacation in peace without being pursued by cruel, pitch-fork-and-stake-and-fire wielding humans forever trying to kill them. Plot twist? He has a teenage daughter, Mavis who falls in love with a young human who accidentally enters the hotel in the midst of her 118th birthday celebrations. Adam Sandler is the voice of Dracula and he does a great job. All the creatures and monsters featured are funny/clever/manic too and though the plot is a bit clunky there are lots of good moments.

PARA is a slighter story all round -- Norman sees dead people and talks to them, causing his friends and family to treat him like a freak/nerd/geek. However, the town was cursed by a witch 300 years earlier and when the film begins, the curse is about to take effect once more. Norman has to save the town. He does so (oh come on! You knew he would). End of story, but the secondary characters were well-realized, especially the overweight fellow-geek kid and the school bully and all nine of the city's ancestor-ghouls, the councilmen who had originally condemned a young girl to be burned as a witch.

All three movies revolve around the theme of Being Different -- that's right, my favourite theme -- so it's not surprising that (a) I wanted to see the movies (b) I liked them.

CONGRATULATIONS, AMERICA!

SUKI for OBAMA 2012 /4

SUKI for OBAMA, 2012 /3

SUKI for OBAMA, 2012 /2

SUKI for OBAMA, 2012 /1

LOCKED OUT! Of my MacBookPro

One of the (many) negative ways in which movies condition us is to assume that all events, good or bad, will be heralded by some kind of audio cue. As a result, when one of us -- okay, let's just be brazen and say "I" -- when I sat down last week at my computer and began what I thought was going to be a simple exercise in changing the User on my machine, there was no Jaws-style jing-jang-jing-jang to warn me of impending DOOOOOOM ...

So yes. I got locked out of my computer. I thought I was changing the User, but instead it turned out I was stepping off the gangplank of my familiar Universe and straight into the Ocean of Otherness that awaits those who mess around with their log-in codes in an ignorant and witless manner.

One of the downsides -- perhaps the only one? -- of owning a Mac is that it confers upon the User a confidence in its perfection such that we forget the Blue Screen Of Death and other nightmares associated with the Other System. It has a welcome screen into which the User enters her name and password. Misspelling either of these results in the little onscreen rectangle giving itself a three-second brrrrrr, a tiny death-rattle jiggle to inform you that you've messed up.

Having created a new log-in name, I logged out of my familiar ID and then ... you know what's going to happen, right? ... I tried to log back in, the welcome screen went into its death-rattle mode and NEVER CAME OUT OF IT.

This is where it would have helped to have the scary music. Lacking it, I just sat there, very calm, very composed and told myself it was nothing. Just a CAPS LOCK issue. Just a misspelt log-in name. Just a misspelt password issue. But after running through the usual series of maneuvers, turning off, turning on, turning of and on, making coffee, turning on and off and on and off, I realized eventually that this time I was really and truly locked out. Six years worth of saved work, dozens of half-written stories, plus one very-close-to-being-finished book had all, potentially, vanished into oblivion.

I am a very calm person. Let me explain why this is not really a good thing. It means not merely that I don't get frantic and hysterical when things go wrong but that I dislike feeling upset to such a degree that I simply refuse to react at all, regardless of what's happening. The worse the situation, the less panicked I get. With the result that, during (say) an all-out Martian attack, instead of leaping up to fly suicide missions deep into the heart of the mothership, I would become dreamy with detachment, completely unable to respond to the threat. 'Who needs the Earth?' I would say. 'We're headed towards eco-disaster anyway.'

This is pretty much what happened last week. While being too becalmed to tie my own shoe-laces, I and my house partner E went on-line, found web-forums at which dozens of users moaned about this exact same (or anyway, very similar-sounding) situation. We read up the instructions and spent much of the day following the moves described by various web pundits. The result was: death-rattle, death-rattle, death-rattle.

By evening, I was looking up the price of a new machine. 'I'll get a MacBook Air,' I told myself. 'That will cure me of any residual sorrows related to losing access to pretty much three-quarters of my conscious mind.'

I'm not going to describe the entire two-day ordeal of getting back in -- YES, that happened --  because it's boring to read the thoughts of someone who can no longer think. The main purpose behind writing this account is to heap praises upon the Apple Care tech team in Bangalore (the City Now Known As Bengaluru). E called them on the morning of the second day and spent about ten hours, working through three different people and dozens of interrupted phone calls (the cellphone service broke down in mid-instruction) before magically returning my computer to its own true desktop, sans death-rattle. Everything was back to normal, as if the entire experience had been a simple nightmare after all.

Two people in particular, Catherine (don't know if this is the correct spelling) and Deepak Kumar Singh talked E through the process of interrupting the MacBook's start-up in order to locate the "black screen" where the codes reside. Once there, E had to pick his way carefully through the neat rows of letters and numbers, lines, colons, slashes, commas, full-stops and all the other paraphernalia that is the supporting superstructure to this virtual world that so many of us take for granted and changed the System Log-in password. All over the phone, via verbal instructions.

Basically, there were two options: to get behind the barriers set up on the machine, download the user-content to an external disk, then erase the memory and start afresh OR to change the password. This second option was of course far superior but involved following instructions for inputing data very precisely. E was a superhero and did that, but Deepak Singh was even more of a superhero, for being able to do the whole thing remotely, without access to our screen.

The moral of this story is: Call Apple Care in Bangalore. They really know their stuff.

And also: whenever possible, run out and buy a MacBook Air.

ENGLISH VINGLISH, directed by Gauri Shinde

For perhaps the first time EVER, I have seen a Hindi commercial film that I enjoyed. It stars Sridevi as Mrs Shashi Godbole, an "ordinary" housewife living in Pune, who goes to New York to help her sister plan the sister's daughter's wedding. The catch? Shashi speaks Hindi and is extremely uncomfortable/awkward when attempting to speak in English. Nevertheless, her husband Satish, played by Adil Hussain (a stage actor, I'm told) insists that she travel alone to the US, three weeks in advance of himself and their two young children, Sagar and Sapna. Once in NYC, she finds her way to an English speed-learning class and painstakingly builds a new voice for herself.

I admit to being biased against commercial Hindi cinema. For me to like a soppy family-values film like this one was like a carnivore eating raw zucchinis with a happy smile on its face. Even now, several days later, I continue to think about my enjoyment of the film with surprise. Mind you: I would not watch it again. It's a one-viewing movie with a uni-dimensional pay-off. The single most riveting feature of the film was its star and also, in some ways, its greatest flaw. Sridevi's presence was dazzling, but I mean this in the way of a deer caught in the headlights of a hunter's jeep on a moonless night. I couldn't look away from her for even a second. 

While most of the supporting cast were flesh-and-blood characters, Sri-D was like the CGI element in a live-action film. Her waxy-fair skin, unmoving eyebrows, Bambi eyes and gorgeous saris were all so blemish-free as to be completely unreal. But she lent a quality of absolute conviction to her role. I would for instance be shocked to discover that the actress wasn't herself someone who believed 1000% in the values that her character upholds in the film, i.e., that of considering her family and "Indian Culture" as the gods of her heart's religion. She came through as the ideal of Indian Womanhood that all our mothers would like their daughters to uphold, even though we all know it's unattainable.

The mystery for me was that she managed to hold my attention nevertheless. I didn't want to like her, but I DID. Was it because of the golden laddoos that she made and sold as a successful home-enterprise and the fact that she had a passion that really did go beyond family? The hurt feelings she wasn't afraid to show when her husband described her as "… born to make laddoos!"? The reality of India's cruel Hindi-English divide even within that impregnable fortress, the Indian Family, where Shashi's ten year old daughter feels free to express absolute contempt for her mother? The brave struggle she (Shashi) puts up when bullied by the cashier at a New York café to make those ghastly choices about latte/cappuccino/small/medium/whatever/whatever when any sentient being can see that a simple human connection would solve the log-jam?

Well, it was all these things and more. It was a good script and a thoughtful idea. The familiar struggles of a new arrival to the US are rendered in a sympathetic and recognizable manner but the local residents are not flattened into caricatures either. They, as well as all the other secondary characters, behave fairly naturally and with conviction. 

The "Indian Culture" in this film is what we see in Indian TV commercials -- smoothly self-confident in its assertions about one-ness, authenticity and modernity. It presents a curious pan-Indian ethos, with a Punjabi-style wedding and the Maharashtrian Godboles speaking the same kind of Hindi as the idli-loving Ramamurthy of the language class. There's a moment when the French chef and love-interest (wholly vegan, not-even-a-cheek-kiss) Laurent from the language class tells Shashi that Italy and France are distinct and separate interpretations of "European" culture. The fact that we're watching a film that makes exactly the same kind of mash-up regarding "Indian" culture suggests to me that the decision to do so was conscious. Ramamurthy is given a mumble-line about (this is not an exact quote) "… we're all Indians after all, so of course we must speak Hindi" is another clue.

So yes, this is not the same India in which khap panchayats behead young lovers, where ever more girl-children are destroyed at birth each decade, where farmers commit suicide unnoticed and unmourned by the Government. It's that Other Country where joyous citizens cavort together under a soaring tricolor, their skins bleached white, their underarms pristine, their vaginas tight-as-virgins*, their kitchens Italian and their cars German but … oh, all right! It's a commercial film. Its aims are uncomplicated and the reason it succeeds is that the editing is crisp, the script is tight and the supporting characters are clearly realized.

I especially liked the Adil Hussain character because he seemed so comfortable in his skin as the insensitive-yet-loving-husband. It certainly helped that he was satisfyingly DARK -- I am so utterly sick of the universally milk-white complexions of TV-Indians that just to see someone who looked as if he had not spent his entire life in pursuit of albinism was a relief. I was impressed by the extreme scorn Sapna displays towards her mother, utterly blind to her parent's goddess-like beauty and other accomplishments. Even the little boy Sagar, a made-for-Amul-ads awwwww-generator, performed with flawless precision. The entire audience at Bombay's venerable Regal Cinema swooned at his every lisped syllable. 

And speaking of Regal: it was totally thrilling to actually go up to a regular booking-window and just buy a ticket. You know? Just like that. From a non-cyborg human who smiled when I looked surprised at how easy it all was. I felt I had time-traveled to college days and desperate moments at the Advance Booking counter, hoping against hope that the late-night show would not be sold out. And at the time of the show, the crowd that jammed the pavement was like commuters flooding out of Churchgate at rush-hour -- a calm-faced, slogan-free riot of perfumed and well-coifed Bombay-wallahs storming their way into upper stalls. Amazing. 

*If you don't believe me, go to this link.

CAST LIST:
English Vinglish, directed by Gauri Shinde

• Sridevi as Shashi Godbole
• Priya Anand as Radha
• Mehdi Nebbou as Laurent
• Adil Hussain as Satish
• Sujata Kumar
• Cory Hibbs as David Fischer
• Rajeev Ravindranathan as P Ramamurthy
• Sumeet Vyas as Salman Khan
• Ruth Aguilar as Eva
• Damian Thomson as Udumbke
• Maria Romano as Yu Son
• Neelu Sodhi as Meera
• Ross Nathan as Kevin
• Maria Pendolino as Jennifer
• Sulabha Deshpande as Mrs. Godbole
• Shivansh Kotia as Sagar
• for some reason, no credentials for Sapna.

God Awful Poetry Fortnight ...

Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Below is my entry to Peter Griffin's Godawful Poetry Fortnight (go to the link above for more information)

There's something odd about this item, aside from being a stunning example of atrocious "poetry". If anyone succeeds in guessing what it is, I'll send them a set of my Women of the World cards. (HINT: it has nothing to do with words/content)

A CONVERSATION IN IDLENESS

A stream of iridescent soap bubbles

Spewing forth from a beer-mug

In a reflected technicolor phantasm

Of reflected light

From the brilliant solar nova

Exploding second by second

Over a writhing reeling splurge

Of corrupt homo sapiens.

Silverfish scintillating feebly,

In cool green waters

Splitting atoms with infinite precision.

A frothing cauldron of boisterous joeys.

A goblet of cynic mouth-wash

A crystalline crucible of death

Filaments of steel floating in a coalfield

Finding no night in shining armour

Flakes of purple snow

Filtering through the leaves of banana trees

Making the bananas freeze simultaneously

into fossilized fruit

A crescendo of dancing cockroaches

Pirouetting in glorious sympathy

to swelling tones

A vale of tears in a a valley of sunshine

Dripping with solid jelly

and crumbs of sandalwood cake.

Frosted heat standing rigidly at attention

Attending the melancholy mustard 

Of daily drudgery.

Galaxies of silk worms

Spinning with patient endurance

Reams of time-patterned silk

Clothing ethereal naiads

Worshipped by patent nymphomaniacs,

gasping at ecstatic visions

of pure grotesquities.

Queer musk-rats

Gnawing at decomposed humus

Rotting in the farmer's field.

Frustrating globules of fat

Glinting under a sunlamp

Enriched by infra-red rays

Discharging ultra-violet

And sodium bi-carbonate.

Mausoleums of tomes

Mouldering in vast encampments

Of all-conquering book-worms.

Floating in a bowl of incandescent whipped-cream

Eating a pink banana sitting on a blue strawberry

Looking at the bears fly by

At the velocity of light.

Star gazing on a cloudy night

Daydreaming in the wilderness

Lotus-eating on a wet pancake

Meatballs drenched in spaghetti sauce

Steeped in Marmalade

Castles of excelsior

Floating in the golden sunset

Of yet another day in the life.

-- by Manjula Padmanabhan

Women of the World photo card ... #4

Women of the World photo card ... #3

Women of the World photo card ... #2