Monuments-R-Us

FatehpurSikri


This is where I was yesterday, with my sister S, niece D and new nephew-in-law D -- in fact he's in the frame, in white, near the left. The photograph is a first for moi, something I took with my New!Improved! phone, a very superior creature given to me as a gift by my OTHER niece, M. I'm a little afraid of the phone and try not to use it in a rude or inappropriate manner and have so far not made the effort to scrape pictures out of its memory and into my computer's memory. And it doesn't like sending things by MMS (have I set up a profile? Noooo). But yesterday, on a whim, I tried sending myself an image via Gmail. Voila! This is the result.

When I say it's a first for me, I mean that this is the first image from my phone that I've managed to get out of it and into the wider world. Of course, it took a whole minute to upload to Gmail, so I am not likely to send more out anytime soon. *sigh* The worst thing about superior gadgets is the feeling that they're smirking quietly in their shiny little black skins, knowing that they're getting the better of their clunky human owners.

KNOW-IT-ALL

... which is a book by a youngish man who took approx one year to read all the way through the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It's called The Know-It-All: One Man's HUMBLE QUEST to become the SMARTEST PERSON in the World by A.J. Jacob. 33,000 pages, 65,000 articles, 9,500 contributors, 24,000 images, a total of some 44 million words.

I hadn't heard about it before seeing it on the "Humour" (haha -- of course I actually mean HUMOR, right? coz I was in the US. But I am not yet ready to give up my birth-orthography) shelf in a Barnes & Noble near my sister's home in Pennsylvania. Maybe in Vestal, NY -- I forget. I was trying NOT to buy anything because books are the heaviest item in my luggage and I am determined to morph into a light-luggage traveller in my twilight years (I believe in announcing the twilight as early as possible so that I've got used to the idea well before I really need to). So one of my methods of NOT buying a book, is to find at least one small something to buy -- which may turn out to be a book -- so that I don't leave the store empty-handed and ALSO so that I don't fall for some gigantic Leviathan of a coffee-table tome just because the Book-Buying-Slot in my psyche has been left empty. If you know what I mean? I fill the pre-existing empty book-buying-space in my head quickly and with a small, light book, in order to lower the chances of finding something much heavier and more expensive to squeeze in there.

Okay. So having seen it, I also saw a CD-ROM offering to improve my memory. Hmmm! TOUGH CHOICE!! So I went with the memory CD (more of this later). But all the way home from B&N and for the rest of the week, I kept feeling I NEEDED to read that Know-It-All book. You see, like many millions of other bipedal mammals around the world, I too have hungered after that very quest, to read all the way through the Enc.Brit. My sisters and I, three of us, each have our personal set of the books. I got mine in the late '90s because a very dear friend had left me Rs 25,000 as a bequest when she died of cancer -- it was a completely unexpected windfall and rather than use it up on groceries and rent I wanted to staple the money down in some way that I would always cherish. I knew that she would have wholly approved because she had one of the brightest, liveliest minds amongst the friends I've had over the years, and believed passionately in the notion of knowledge as an end in itself.

On my way back through New York, I had a few hours to spare before meeting up with my friend Kristen at her apartment in Manhattan. I knew exactly where I would find a B&N. So I took in a movie, visited another store at which I bought gifts for my niece and her new husband, then went into the B&N on 18th St and 5th (World's Largest Book Store -- and apparently the original B&N), sailed up to the information counter and explained that I wanted a book whose name and author I didn't know (I hadn't begun my Memory Expansion course yet!) -- but I DID know what it was about. To his credit, he didn't blink or even look mildly surprised, but listened courteously as I said "... by someone who read all the way through the Britannica ..." and bing! -- "Yes," he said, "I know that book -- upstairs, in the Humour section -- " Then he looked it up on his computer and I had the name and title.

The front cover sports a recommendation from Jon Stewart: "... is a hilarious book and quite an impressive achievement. I've always said, why doesn't someone put out a less complete version of the encylopedia? Well done, A.J." And you know what? For once I can say I agree with that recommendation. It's a pleasant, friendly and cruising-speed sort of read and at the end of it, you know a thing or two that you maybe didn't at the beginning. Naturally, it helps that I love having my own edition of the Enc.Brit., that I enjoy using it and that I have believed for a long time that it is a brilliant way keep knowledge captive in the house in a form that will continue to work even when the power fails and the internet is down and the laptop's batteries are dead. But the EB eulogy-dimension aside, it's also just a warm and human story.

Alongside the gentle reeling out of facts, the author throws out a couple of hooks to keep us reading. One is his and his wife's quest to conceive a child and the other is his desire to show that there are SOME practical applications to being an EB reader: i.e., appearing on game shows. Well, not just any game show but Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? And also Jeopardy -- but he disqualifies himself from Jep because he had interviewed the show's host prior to applying to appear on the show, not realizing that would be enough to invalidate his eligibility.

As it happens, I'm a WWTBAM fan. I've never watched it on TV, but it's one of the things I do on long-haul flights -- I play obsessively on the in-flight entertainment system. So far, after eight or nine such flights I have only ONCE made it to the top prize (it's the British edition of the quiz so many of the questions are UK based). I never know any of the wretched sports and local trivia questions and anyway, who am I kidding? My general knowledge is so abysmal that the other day, I sent a package to a friend in Coimbatore, and was shocked that it took 10 days to reach him. The reason? I believed C'tore was in KERALA, not TAMIL NADU!!! Aaaargh. So ... yes, it took its time getting there. And yes, I have a great deal of Swiss Cheese in my mental larder.

But I like to play nevertheless. So for me, this book had that bated-breath quality that I know so well from my in-flight activities -- and no, of COURSE I'm not going to tell you what happens! They do succeed in having a child, BTW. That's on the back cover so I'm not giving away any suspense here and besides, in my world, well ... reproduction is just not a red-button issue, right?

Along the way the author enrolls with MENSA and tells us that he gets in because of his SAT scores, but when he sits for the regular test anyway, he flunks (doesn't lose his membership however). This too resonates with me: in the very distant past -- like when I was twelve -- my school discovered that I had a high IQ and made a minor fuss over me (it was forbidden to reveal scores in those days so I have no idea). But that was 44 years ago and now my IQ is below tree-shrew-level. So I could enjoy this about the book too: recognizing in someone else that weirdly embarrassing desire for validation. The endearing thing about this account is that it could so easily have been radioactive with ego but instead is only mildly self-congratulatory. I don't know whether he was trying especially hard or not, but I found his account modest in a believable, non-phony way.

I enjoyed the tid-bits of data he shared -- Neat's Foot Oil is made from the hooves of cattle; Descartes had an obsession with cross-eyed women, and yes, the Fibonacci series continues to be a very cool thing to think about. I also noted tiny anomalies -- the god Kama is an "angel"?? No way. I should look it up in my edition of the EB to see whether it's in the book or in Jacob's interpretation of what the book says. Most of all, I enjoyed the slow coasting through that sea of information, felt glad to known now that it was worth doing and also relieved to feel no special urge to do it, now that I had sampled its pleasures through this book.

And now to turn to the Memory Expansion CD ... you know what? It was (a) a gyp because it's much too breezy and truncated to be of any real worth and (b) I've taken way too long over this book-report and (c) I'm still working my way through the exercises. I'll get back with a complete report once I can tell you whether or not I can remember my telephone number and the locations of Indian cities.

Paul Theroux's A DEAD HAND

An aside: I am back in Delhirium. Arrived Sunday night, after a pleasant 10-day trip. Jet Airways gets a major thumbs up from me -- the service is friendly, courteous and efficient. I must confess -- and it pains me much to say this -- slender, young and attractive cabin crew really do appear to make a difference to the overall ease-of-experience. It pains me coz I would like to think that a person's appearance makes no difference to how they perform; but based on several years' worth of flying experience, it is hard not to conclude that men and women who look neat, tight and fresh-minted actually work more efficiently. I don't know which comes first -- the efficiency or the appearance? -- but the combination really does seem to make a difference to the quality of a passenger's experience. Maybe this is just years of advertising finally taking its toll on my objectivity? But since many airlines have consigned the pencil-thin virginal seductress standard to the dustbin of history, it is now a rare pleasure to look up and think "How ... sweet!"

OKAY. And so to A DEAD HAND. I am at a slight disadvantage because I no longer have my copy with me. So if I make mistakes, sorry. (WARNING: I'm not especially trying to make this spoiler-free, so if you haven't read the book, you may want to do that first. Or not. I don't mind having the suspense removed from a book before I read it -- sort of like handling a venomous snake without its fangs makes it possible to enjoy the snake)(but then again, some would say, why bother?)(you'll have to decide for yourself what you'd prefer)

My basic take on the book is that it's clever, highly manipulative and cynical AND ALSO disarmingly humble and reflective -- I sense for the first time (with Theroux), the author telling us, "Look, I'm aging, I'm starting to see the end of my road, I've seen practically every place in the world that's worth seeing, I've done my time in many variations on the Third, the Fifth, the Tenth World and now I'm tired of playing games with truth: I returned to India recently and this is what I saw, this is what I felt, this is what I think and if you don't like me for it, if you believe I'm a shallow, scheming white supremacist in Friendly Tourist clothing -- well, I don't give a f**k."

The story kept my interest even though I found the female lead, the American woman called Merrill Unger, unconvincing from page one. But this is one of the astonishing features of Theroux's fiction -- he can use utterly plastic, make-believe elements alongside observations that are so tight-focused, so precisely, even cruelly, observed, that it doesn't matter in the end. Or -- well: that's what I felt having read only two pieces of fiction, ELEPHANTA SUITE and now this novel. Both books have been set in India, so perhaps in both cases it is easier for me to separate the plastic from the pukka. I didn't care that the woman was such a throwback to a Rider Haggard Femme Fatale or that the protagonist was such an extreme sap. It didn't bother me that the two secondary characters, Parvati and Raj (? one of those generic Indian male names starting with "R") are such cardboard cut-outs. I can't even explain why none of this matters -- I know it should -- but maybe it's because I see his story-telling as only a clothes-horse he uses as a support for the observations he has collected along the way.

So none of the plot elements really matter: the cheesy American woman with her magic hands and her blood-stained sari-hem, the unconvincing son, the post-colonial Doctor at the Police Station and the murder itself, the pathetic little victim and the limp-wristed ploy used to bring the author into the picture. Really, looked at from the distance of two weeks, the story is pure hokum. Indian Jones' Temple of Doom was more credible.

But we all know that there really ARE manual labourers all over the country, seething, sweating vast hordes of them, whose lives are considered to be of very little vlaue. There really are animal sacrifices at Kali temples. There really are hundreds of child prostitutes, child labourers, child destitutes. If I've never heard before that extreme manual labour can result in the fingerprints being worn away, or that the sacrifices are quite as nauseatingly bloody as in this book or that little girls are sold in an open field lit only by the light from smoking braziers well, that's just my ignorance. My unawareness of something doesn't mean that it can't be true.

I could go on like this, but actually I'm less interested in revealing the plot or evaluating the book -- as far as I'm concerned, it was a rewarding read and I would recommend it strongly -- than in something that gnawed at me all the way through, something that had nothing to do with Theroux or the book. It is this: why is it so unlikely that an Indian author would write such a book?

This isn't meant to be a real question because I don't think anyone is detached enough to answer it honestly; it's something to chew over and to find several half-answers to. For instance, it's very likely that an Indian author inclined in this direction would simply not find a publisher. After all, the story is mundane and many of its characters are tissue-thin. Theroux gets away with it because he has the luxury of being a highly successful author whose publishers will indulge him and whose readers will buy his books even if they don't think they're going to like each particular one. He has proven many times over that his ability to observe people and cultures is ironic and eccentric but also bitterly true. Some part of his attraction is that he bites, he stings, he cuts to the bone. But he seems to be equally unsparing with himself.

Then again, I have to ask myself whether my lurking and hard-to-suppress fellow-citizen-bias would make it hard -- impossible? -- for me to accept some of the weaker bits of this novel if they appeared in a book by an Indian? There's an echo here of a complaint voiced in the context of the Jaipur lit-fest, of the term "bhasha language poetry"; is this truly something to feel irritated by or is it just a label that we wouldn't even notice the inappropriateness of, if it took place in the context of someone else's culture? I can't decide.

Which leads me to wonder out loud whether we (i.e. Indians) EVER really allow one another to make scathing observations about the Motherland/our families/our religions without either (a) balancing the criticism with such a thick coating of sugar that the critique becomes irrelevant or (b) ostracizing/belittling/ignoring the offending writer until he/she is forced to give up writing altogether?

These are all questions that I don't have answers for, but I thought were worth raising.

Resolutions UPDATE; Travel; AVATAR (the movie)

RESOLUTIONS

Well, here we are sailing past the first fortnight of the year and it seemed a good time to review how my resolutions are doing: not bad, but not great. The main thing is that I HAVE stopped playing Mahjongg Solitaire*. I am almost up-to-date with my diary and I've certainly been plugging away at my book projects. But I'm still traveling in short gasps, and several of them and I've been avoiding the careful-bill-stashing altogether. (*About the Solitaire, I must admit it wasn't a smooth transition: I spent the whole of the year's first week playing games at the LUMOSITY site instead! My justification was, of course, that my brain's power was being significantly boosted, as evidenced by the sharp angle at which all the scores were rising. But at the end of the week my free membership came to an end. I had to choose whether or not to crawl my way out of the swamp of moronism all the way up to Einsteinhood for the mere pittance of $5 a month. And I decided to take my chances with moronism. Since then, NO GAMES)
TRAVEL

Thursday night, I pulled up stakes and flew to NYC on Jet Airways. It was a close call, getting to the airport on time because the Season Finale of Boston Legal was being aired and I was determined not to miss it. So instead of leaving the house at ll.30, we left at 12.00, which was the time I should have already been at the airport, checking in. I kept calling the Jet Airways Fog Delay number, hoping against hope that the flight WOULD be delayed -- in which case I could watch the season finale in peace -- but oh no, of course THAT never happens, right? Just like the watched pot that never boils, a flight is never delayed if you WANT it to be delayed. Anyway, I watched finale and arrived half an hour late at the airport and it didn't matter much at all. We boarded at the correct time only to wait an hour on the runway. Still, we DID take off (rather than be delayed for nine hours which is what routinely happens during Fog Season) and that was a relief. I had a great seat -- an aisle seat in the front of my section, excellent leg room. I give Jet Airways service high marks -- next only to Virgin Atlantic, in my experience. On Continental the hostesses behave like wardens in an asylum for retarded war criminals ("... please remain seated until we allow you to move around and oh by the way there will only be two meals served on board for the full duration of your 16-hour nonstop to Newark and if you can't shut up and watch your movies quietly, we'll sedate you and flush you down the toilet.")and on Air India, the flight crew all behave like contented tabby-cats, waddling about in their saris and dispensing greasy meals with a homespun cheeriness inappropriate to hurtling through the upper atmosphere at 500 KPH.

However in Brussels, where there was a halt and change of aircraft, our flight arrived one hour late and that, combined with the one and a half hour hold up on account of enhanced security for all flights to the US meant that I caught my onward flight with seconds to spare. AAAAARGH. I absolutely detest having to run for anything, but the prospect of missing the flight (to be stuck in Europe without a Schengen visa would certainly have qualified as junior membership in Hell) had me sprinting the last five hundred yards. It didn't help that the man behind me in the queue insisted on repeating over and over, in Hindi, "These people are all COWARDS -- cowards, cowards, cowards --" ("yeh sab darpoke hain, darpoke, darpoke") meaning, Americans in particular and all westerners in general, were foolish to be afraid of a few innocent travelers arriving from the Third World. I can't be sure that I was the last passenger to board my flight, but it seemed to me they sealed the hatch minutes after I got to my seat. PHEW. Major panic stations there.

Other than that, it's been a great trip so far. Was collected at JFK by friends, had a very pleasant evening with them and the next morning was really grateful that they dropped me all the way to the Port Authority Bus Station from Long Island -- it's a 20 minute journey by car, but about an hour and a half by commuter train and subway. Caught the 10 a.m. bus to Binghamton and my sister collected me from there, at one o'clock. And then we sailed off to see AVATAR in glowing 3D ... but before I move on to my next topic, i.e., the movie, I must mention the outstanding dinner we had at home, Sunday night : lobster-stuffed steaks with baked potato. Unbelievably tender and delicious meat, outstanding dressing on the potatoes, everything cooked to perfection. My sister is a genius cook aside from all her other accomplishments, and that's final.

AVATAR
What can I say? I enjoyed the movie, in spite of myself. I was convinced I would find it unbearably soft-centred and sentimental -- and even though I wouldn't howl to the moon about it or anything, I have to admit it had moments of stunning beauty; and the mushy bits were not so deadly saccharine as to drown out the good bits (I didn't like the TITANIC, for instance, because of the utterly improbable-for-that-era romance). I knew I would not be especially wowed by the scenic sights coz I've already been wowed by MYST and I was certain this would be a MYST-like environment. And it was -- but the N'avi were beautifully realized, perhaps the smoothest transition from live-action to CGI that the world has seen so far (well, in mass-distribution media, anyway). So that was fun to watch. The romance was irritating, of course, but inevitable and thank goodness, not over-emphasized. And there was always Sigourney Weaver to link back to, every time we returned to the human dimension. The story was never going to be of much consequence, so heavily larded with guilt as it was bound to be, but within its constraints (i.e., the constraints of History and Reality) it did manage a generous portion of dignity.


However, there's another piece of fiction that has been tweaking my brain -- more engaging by far than AVATAR -- and that is Paul Theroux's A DEAD HAND. It was what I read on the flight out of Delhi, with the result that my arrival in NYC was distinctly Theroux-flavoured. I really enjoyed it and plan to devote my next bulletin here to it -- aside from being too sleepy to continue this blog-item right now, I want to dedicate a whole post to the book, rather than a mere section.

FIVE BOOKS

It was kind of fun responding to MAIL TODAY's "WHAT BOOK" question: Which five books have most influenced me? I was given 50 words of explanation per book. My response is HERE. Of course, five is just an arbitrary number! I would have preferred something like ten. Like I said, though, it was fun: this is not the same question as "Favourite Book" -- it's about which one's left a long footprint. I was surprised to remember Have Spacesuit Will Travel ...


IN CASE the whole article doesn't load at the site, here's the full text of what I sent them:

THE TITLES:
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll
Have Spacesuit Will Travel – Robert A. Heinlein
The Gormenghast Trilogy – Mervyn Peake
Gödel, Escher, Bach – Douglas R. Hofstadter
MYST – Robyn & Rand Miller

Each book marked a turning point in my understanding of reality; each one showed me different rules for managing the most weightless and outlandish of situations.

In Alice, which I read when I was six, the flowers talk and a caterpillar smokes a hookah. But Alice remains both rational and scrupulously polite. In Spacesuit, the ordinary becomes surreal: liquid spilled in zero-gravity turns into floating globules and the simple act of drinking coffee from a cup becomes an unlikely miracle. I read it when I was 12 and it undoubtedly shaped my life-long fascination with science as well as science-fiction.

I read Gormenghast in my early twenties. Physical reality in the book is conventional but the social dimension is utterly warped: we enter a castle as it celebrates the birth of its 700th Earl. The author was a brilliant illustrator, playwright and poet with an impish sense of humour. His trilogy is a wonderful reflection of all his talents.

In GEB, Hofstadter paints a picture of human intelligence using music, mathematics and art. His book is highly sophisticated, while never losing sight of his essential thesis: that at the heart of intelligence is a rogue thread of paradox and wit. As for MYST: yes, it's "just a game". But it became a type of electronic hallucination that I entered in late 1996 and never quite exited. I am forever clicking on white rabbits, looking through glass and finding cookies labelled "Eat Me": forever hopeful, curious and ready for a snack.

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Ms Malcontent Sez ... 2010 #02

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Ms Malcontent Sez ... 2010

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[I got tired of waiting to upload the panels one day at a time! Here it is, whole and in the correct sequence]


AND ALSO: Here's a review of DELHI NOIR in The Hindu Literary Review, Sunday 3rd Jan, 2010.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

RESOLUTIONS:

* At the top of my list: Stop playing MAHJONGG SOLITAIRE. I probably spend an hour of every day with this wretched thing. It's true that it "clears the decks" effectively -- but it's too time-heavy. I'll just have to find another way to clear my mental decks.

* In terms of work, I've got two picture books and one novel on my desk. I wish I was the sort of writer who could post daily progress reports. But that would freak me out so much I'm not going to even begin thinking about it. My typical work day begins at 9.30, when I wake up and 3.30 a.m. when I crawl into bed (it's 2 a.m. right now). In between, there's an endless struggle between dabbing at the key-board -- a few paragraphs -- and everything else: meals, cups of tea or hot-water-and-apple-juice (this is my current tipple of choice), chats on the phone with my sister/my mother/friends, solitaire, naps, TV. It's disgusting. I listen to other people say they work for 18 hours at a stretch and already I feel tired. I've also got paintings on the agenda and maybe a show. Or two.

* Fewer trips, longer stays. This resolution is going to be very difficult to keep. Especially as I'm starting the year with a shorty-short expedition -- just one week long. But I need to stop that.

* Stash my bills in an orderly way; currently there's one big padded envelope into which every bill gets stuffed and since I can never face opening the envelope the pile just grows bigger and more unmanageable until one weekend I spend the entire 48 hours struggling to make sense of the whole thing. If I would only stash them neatly to BEGIN with, there would never be that wasted 48 hours -- which I could otherwise spend napping or drinking hot water. *sigh*

* Post Ms Malcontent regularly. Like maybe every Sunday? That would be SO cool. I see that as a direct result of not playing solitaire any more. Maybe I'll get HER to play! Ha. That'll be fun.

* Keep a diary once more. For most of 2009, I failed to do this little thing that I've pretty much done most years, particularly since the late nineties. Everything depends on having the Right Diary in which to keep the record. It's especially important to get the Right Diary BEFORE the year begins. Which is currently the case: I have TWO diaries, actually, both very attractive. One is the WelcomGroup diary with contemporary art and the other is a spiral bound diary containing the wonderful drawings of the American artist CHARLEY HARPER. His Golden Book of Biology was something that grabbed my attention when I was 8 years old and never let go: I think my interest in both biology AND illustration was hugely augmented by his work! He died a couple of years ago, but his work has suddenly become highly accessible. My sister Su keeps me well supplied. Recently she gave me the Charley Harper MEMORY GAME set (you know, the game in which pairs of cards are placed face down and you take turns to expose them in pairs? Also called CONCENTRATION or PELMANISM) and I played endless rounds of the game with my niecelet in Madras. Outstanding.


LINK:
This isn't a resolution but a link to TULIKA's blog, where I wrote a short piece for them, about putting together the I AM DIFFERENT book.

HAPPY MERRY

NEWS PHOTOGRAPHS 2009

NEWS PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE

Go look at them, but keep your hands folded firmly over your heart or else it is liable to be wrenched right out.

I have two questions for visitors here: (a) tell me if you agree with me when I say that the handful of images which have been hidden and are accompanied by a too-disturbing warning (followed by "click here to view") are no less disturbing than the vast majority of the rest. Collectively, they present our species with excellent reasons to SEEK OUT extinction (b) What is your estimate of the percentage of people who DO click to view the hidden ones? Mine is 100% -- i.e. I think 100% percent of those who make the effort to see the pix, see 'em all.

Oh! And a final question: which of these searing images strikes you as being beyond-all-belief shocking? My choice, made with no deliberation (I mean, I haven't gone back and looked through the whole lot multiple times) is number 28.

I AM DIFFERENT! Review in Saffron Tree

This review of I AM DIFFERENT! appeared at the SAFFRON TREE site. I am very pleased that someone's noticed the book. TULIKA editors reported seeing potential buyers put the book down after one glance because "Oh! It's not in English!" It certainly seemed as if our decision to use 16 different Indian scripts -- with pronounciation guide -- had been a mistake, even though it's very clear that the scripts are additional value, not the only text.

Anyway, according to the comments at Saffron Tree there are at least a few readers who not only got the point and but also enjoyed muddling along with the unfamiliar words and shapes of other languages, while working through the (very simple) puzzles.

Remembering Bhopal

Please visit REMEMBER BHOPAL to leave your thoughts, your comments, your reminiscences of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The 25th anniversary of the world's worst industrial disaster starts on the night of the 3rd and continues for 72 hours.

THE GRAPHIC CONNECTION

This article appeared in the Times of India's CREST edition, Saturday 14th (i.e., on Children's Day): More Power To Pictures. I thought I'd post it here for two reasons -- one, it increases the life of an article by, ummmm, a few minutes and two, because I'm going to be in conversation with one of the artists mentioned in the piece, David B., author of EPILEPTIC.

The event is scheduled for December 11th, at the IHC, New Delhi, courtesy the French Information Centre as part of their BONJOUR INDIA FESTIVAL. Clicking the link will take you to the BIF site. My event includes two other well-known graphic novelists, Sarnath Banerjee (CORRIDOR) and Nicolas Wild (KABOUL DISCO).

ANIMUSIC

Many of you may have already received e-mail forwards with either this video or variations on the theme. Well of course the "amazing instrument" is NOT real, but in case you want to visit the site to get information about the DVD and the developers of the video -- and see other videos -- here's the link to ANIMUSIC.

How To Put On A Bra -- Commando Style

Need I mention that I got this from the Incomparable AA?

WHERE DO UNDELETED CHARACTERS GO?

Got this from the Excellent Anvar Alikhan, who either spends far too much time sorting through the vast piles of garbage out there on the Net in order to send his friends only the choicest and most succulent of tidbits OR he never sleeps. Either way, I worry for him ... but am also very grateful.

According to my research this list is originally sourced to: Joel Garreau (garreau@well.com), as reported in his Cybersurfing column in the Washington Post


Where Do Deleted Characters Go?


QUESTION: Where do the characters go when I use my backspace or delete them on my computer?

ANSWER: The characters go to different places, depending on whom you ask:

The Catholic Church's approach to characters: The nice characters go to Heaven, where they are bathed in the light of happiness. The naughty characters are punished for their sins. Naughty characters are those involved in the creation of naughty words, such as "breast," "sex" and "contraception."

The Buddhist explanation: If a character has lived rightly, and its karma is good, then after it has been deleted it will be reincarnated as a different, higher character. Those funny characters above the numbers on your keyboard will become numbers, numbers will become letters, and lower-case letters will become upper-case.

The 20th-century bitter cynical nihilist explanation: Who cares? It doesn't really matter if they're on the page, deleted, undeleted, underlined, etc. It's all the same.

The Mac user's explanation: All the characters written on a PC and then deleted go to straight to PC hell. If you're using a PC, you can probably see the deleted characters, because you're in PC hell also.

Stephen King's explanation: Every time you hit the (Del) key you unleash a tiny monster inside the cursor, who tears the poor unsuspecting characters to shreds, drinks their blood, then eats them, bones and all. Hah, hah, hah!

Dave Barry's explanation: The deleted characters are shipped to Battle Creek, Michigan, where they're made into Pop-Tart filling; this explains why Pop-Tarts are so flammable, while cheap imitations are not flammable. I'm not making this up.

IBM's explanation: The characters are not real. They exist only on the screen when they are needed, as concepts, so to delete them is merely to de-conceptualize them. Get a life.

PETA's (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) explanation: You've been DELETING them??? Can't you hear them SCREAMING??? Why don't you go CLUB some BABY SEALS while wearing a MINK, you pig!!!!

Sing It!

For all those of us who yearn to be song-writers but can neither sing nor have friends who sing, here's a web-site that has something to offer: an audio-patchwork of words that have already been sung by other songsters, stitched into a song composed by YOU! Here's the website: Let Them Sing For You. It's really EASY. But in case you're feeling shy, here's a ready-made "song" for you to input:

You don't need a verse
A tune or a song --
It won't take a moment,
You'll see I'm not wrong!
Just enter your words
And click on the arrow --
Then tell me about it
Today or tomorrow!

--no, wait! I've experimented a bit and realize now that less is more (always!) -- i.e., less sense = more amusement.

Try these lyrics to see what I mean:

sing body sing song
hot sexy bread sing
body beat music long
just rock beat now now now

25th October, Delhirium

I've been away from the blog for so long I feel like a visitor! I dropped in now and then, just to remind myself it was there but I just did NOT feel like posting any updates. Maybe coz I was also writing bulletins to post to my Mom as well as making weak little attempts to do a bit of writing on the side? Maybe coz I was distracted by the amusements in the house I was staying in -- including a pair of very talkative Austrailian Zebra Finches? Maybe coz I spent a good half of my stay leaping on and off subways, buses and finally a train (back from Vermont)? Whatever. It was a hectic trip, but fun and I got a lot done, but have very little evidence to show for it! This little kitty was perhaps the only creature who got recorded on my camera, and she belongs to my Vermont family. I am SO fed up with my camera -- though I feel instantly disloyal writing this. Poor little thing! It does its best ... but I bought it at a moment in technology when cameras had just become self-aware but were not yet energy-efficient. So even though it takes acceptable photographs with the minimum of effort/thought on my part, it chews up batteries like a barracuda. I can never take more than about 30 pix in quick succession without being shown the "dying battery" icon and if, god forbid, the flash goes off at any time, well then pop goes the battery two pictures later. MOST FRUSTRATING. I try to remind myself of the days when the problem was running out of film or putting the film in backwards or of misjudging filmspeed -- but to no avail. It is STILL very annoying not to be able to use the camera spontaneously. gnngngngngnnnnggngggn, as Obelix might say.

Anyhow. I got back one week ago, last Saturday night, but was immediately felled by a monster cold. I mean, it had been threatening to break over my head the whole of my final week in NYC, but only really let itself go once I was back in Delhi. I didn't have a fever, so I wasn't worrying about H1N1 but omigod the FLOODS in my nose were like having twin rivers at high tide just pouring continuously. And a sensation like a saw-mill in my throat. Coupled with a desire to just burrow into my bed and DIE.

Which is pretty much what I did ALL WEEK. I have literally not stepped outside my house ever since returning -- I mean, yesterday evening I stepped into the little community park outside my front door and that was the first time I had worn outdoor shoes since removing them after the flight.

Speaking of which: it was one of those Continental Nonstops, filled to overflowing. I was scared to look out the windows in case I saw a few passengers clinging to the wings. Really. But I had planned well in advance, and had booked myself an aisle seat. My neighbour, however, was less fortunate. He seemed a very nice person, he was SO uncomplaining -- a tall, very polite and soft-spoken Afghan, he had been waiting to board a flight for two nights and this was his best bet. I even offered to give up my aisle seat in view of his discomfort but he was too polite to accept my offer. Half-way through the journey he got up and lay down in the space between the central bulkhead and the seat-backs of the middle section -- lucky for him, there was a lull in crew activity so no-one contested his use of that space. Poor man! 16 hours of being curled up like a shrimp. Yow.

Rubber Cement Advertisement & Cute Child-Wit

Who would have thought that an advertisement for RUBBER CEMENT could pack so much meaning, potential political unrest and delicious mischief into an ad for sticky stuff? ONLY THE FRENCH! Go click. Sent to me by my excellent friend Anvar Alikhan.

And just in case you need something to help you wind down after having watched that ad, here's an amusement sent to me by my e-buddy Chuck:

Why do we love children? Because of these examples... 1) NUDITY I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the back seat, 'Mom, that lady isn't wearing a seat belt!' 2) OPINIONS On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, 'The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents ' 3) TELL IT LIKE THEY SEE IT A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. 'Mommy can't come to the phone to talk to you right now. She's hitting the bottle.' 4) MORE NUDITY A little boy got lost at the YMCA and he found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, 'What's the matter, haven't you ever seen a little boy before?' 5) POLICE # 1 While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was interrupted by a little girl about 6 years old. Looking up and down at my uniform, she asked, 'Are you a cop? ‘Yes,' I answered and continued writing the report. ‘My mother said that if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?' 'Yes, that's right,' I told her.. 'Well, then,' she said as she extended her foot toward me, 'would you please tie my shoe?' 6) POLICE # 2 It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me. 'Is that a dog you got back there?' he asked. 'It sure is,' I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, 'What'd he do?' 7) THE ELDERLY While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my 4-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. The various appliances of old age unfailingly intrigued her, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, ‘The tooth fairy will never believe this!' 8) DRESSING UP A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, 'Daddy, you shouldn't wear that suit.' 'And why not, darling?' 'You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.' 9) REGARDING DEATH While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: 'Glory be unto the Father, and unto the Son, and into the hole he goes.' (I want that line used at my funeral!) 10) SCHOOL A little girl had just finished her first week of school. 'I'm just wasting my time, ' she said to her mother. 'I can't read, I can't write, and they won't let me talk!'

ISLAND COUPLES JOKE

This joke was sent to me by my cousin Prabha who lives in Italy. She prefaced the joke with a suggestion that an Indian scenario was sorely needed. I've posted my offering at the end of the list but hope that some of you might be inspired to work on your own variations!

On a chain of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of South Pacific, the following people are stranded:
Two Italian men and one Italian woman.
Two French men and one French woman.
Two German men and one German woman.
Two Greek men and one Greek woman.
Two British men and one British woman.
Two Romanian men and one Romanian woman.
Two Japanese men and one Japanese woman.
Two Chinese men and one Chinese woman.
Two Irish men and one Irish woman.
Two American men and one American woman.

and

Two Indian men and one Indian woman.



One month later, on these absolutely stunning deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred:

One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.

The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a ménage a trois.

The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.

The two Greek men are sleeping together and the Greek woman is cooking and cleaning for them.

The two British men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the British woman.

The two Romanian men took one look at the Romanian woman and started swimming to another island.

The two Japanese men have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.

The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy, restaurant, and laundry, and have gotten the woman pregnant in order to supply more employees for their stores.

The two Irish men have divided the island into north and south and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets somewhat foggy after a few pints of coconut whisky. However, they're satisfied because the British aren't having any fun.

The two American men are contemplating suicide because the American woman complains relentlessly about her body, what the sun is doing to her skin, how sand and palm trees make her look fat, the true nature of feminism, how she can do anything they can do, the necessity of fulfillment, the equal division of household chores, how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do, and how her relationship with her mother is the root cause of all her problems, and why didn't they bring a damn cell phone so they could call 911 and get them all rescued off this forsaken deserted island in the middle of freaking nowhere so she can get her nails done and go shopping.

and

All three Indians have died in the hope that they will be reincarnated as the French ménage a trois.

New Book! New BlogPost! New Title Pic!

... and also, NEW YORK. Coz that's where I am. I got here on Friday, early morning and gave the Weather Gods their chance to rain down upon the city at the PRECISE MOMENT that I was approaching my friend's address in Manhattan. The reason I know for sure that it was not any random shower is that the rain, which had been threatening to fall since the time my flight landed at 5 a.m. Newark (YES! The very airport at which a Certain Bollywood SuperNovaStar suffered an encounter with the authorities!), began to pour out in buckets two hours later within yards of my destination ...

Okay. Aside from this, all is well and I will soon start blogging my events here. But till then, here's a link to the NEW BOOK, i.e., the one I was working on all through the early months of this year,
WHERE'S THAT CAT?

Enjoy.

Ms Malcontent Sez ... #21

Museum-01

Museum-02
Museum-03
Museum-04
Museum-05

Museum-06
Museum-07
Museum-08
Museum-09
Museum-10

New LINX

Just a few new links (look at the column on the right). Bizarre Fountains
is, as its name suggests a collection of oddities involving water and public spaces. I was going to pull up one of them to feature here but then decided against -- it's a little girl version of the famous Belgian "Mannikin Pis". It's charming in its way but then again ... I dunno. I've always considered Mannikin Pis vaguely annoying, since it celebrates an activity that is all too common on Indian streets but Jeanneke Pis (as the girlie version is called) appears to be a "so there!" statement. The collection of fountains is part of a web-site called VILLAGE OF JOY which has many kinds of oddities. The HOME page currently features a rather nasti-shock image, so if you're in a home situation, open with caution.


SEA SALT WITH FOOD is a foodies' paradise -- the BBC's Click Online programme talked about it, and though I've not attempted any of the items listed at the site, everything sounds delish. That's as much cooking as I can actually do (i.e., read about it), but I thought I'd pass on the link to those of you who have a more hands-on approach.

OMEGLE is an odd little site -- something between a one-night-stand and a chat-room: there's no sign-up, nothing. You go there, click and text-chat with TOTAL STRANGERS. That's it. No strings attached, no bells, no whistles and also no pix, no audio, no names. You click, you type and you (mostly) disconnect. The "Strangers" (that's the closest you get to an ID) are 300% male in hunting parties of one, looking for some hotness. If you don't admit to being female (whether or not you are! Heheh), they disconnect as fast as it takes for their neurons to process the information. The best fun is to say "Hi", own up to being female -- then say you're 56 (which is what I am). You can practically see the other party jump out of his little silver-finish tracksuit! Haha. Amusant.

[NOTE ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH: I call it Sunlight Through A Venetian Blind -- taken in my niece's warm and always welcoming apartment in Boston]

Interesting Site!

It's called ODOSKETCH, you take a few moments to sign in and you're ready to sketch!! I don't know whether this link will work but here's the sketch I made five minutes ago, using nothing more than my finger and the trackpad on my laptop -- WINDOW GIRL and believe me, quite aside from the fact that it's EASY, it's also strangely enjoyable. Sort of like painting or drawing in a dream. Most beguiling! Go try ...

First City "PHOTOONS"

I created these "photoons" as I call them, for First City Magazine, for their "Delhi My Muse, Aug 2009' issue. They had asked various citizens for our reactions to the city and this was mine -- i.e., I associate Delhirium with its monuments and of course, like many of its 14 million residents I cannot resist the urge to deface them in some way. Fortunately my way doesn't leave any lasting damage to their ancient (well the Salt March Statue's not ancient but ... whatever) surfaces.

Back from the Wilds

It's been ten days since my last post but I feel as if a couple of months have passed ...

Quick Overview:
JULY
22nd: departure for Bombay -- SAW ECLIPSE (partial) FROM THE AIRCRAFT!! Wanted to stand up and scream "Look! Look! We can see the eclipse!" -- but immediately thought better of it, not wanting to be responsible for the simultaneously blinding of half the passengers on the flight, as they would all then have turned and stared, which is exactly what one must NOT do. Still. Spent the rest of the flight feeling violently thrilled, all to myself. In Bom, was whisked away to a delightful boutique hotel just behind the Taj, GORDON HOUSE. Was excellently looked after by event management group SEVENTY. Loved my room. Tried to do nothing, but failed and instead called a dear friend, Caveh Munshi, and had a wonderful tea as his guest at the United Services Club at the southern tip of Colaba. It was sprinkling with rain and the waves were gray and grimy but I was awash with memories of all the many, many hours spent with friends just a hop-skip-jump further along the very same sea-front, at the TIFR all those years ago, in the early eighties.

23rd: Vodafone/Crossword Book Awards event, good fun. Met Basharat Peer at Gordon House, and also Nayantara Sehgal, who was the chief guest. At the event, my sister G was present and also Caveh. The fiction prize went to AMITAV GHOSH for Sea of Poppies and to NEEL MUKHERJEE for Past Continuous. Non-fiction to BASHARAT PEER for Curfewed Night. Translation to IRA PANDE's translation of MANOHAR SHYAM JOSHI's T'ta Professor. Was delighted to meet Usha K.R., last year's fiction prize winner, who with Mukund Padmanabhan (no relation!!) was one of the three jury members for the fiction prize this year. Was also delighted to meet Nilroy -- who was the compere for the event -- and Zigzackly at the dinner. Nayantara Sehgal joined G and Caveh and me at our table for dinner, which was very pleasant and a bit nostalgic: G had been a little girl in Paris when my parents were posted there (before I was born) and remembered meeting NS in her youth, when she and her sister Chandralekha were the reigning beauties of their era

24th: left Gordon House, had a very pleasant morning and lunch with my friend T on Warden Rd, returning to my cousin S's lovely home in Cumballa Hill for the evening and night-spend. G and V (nephew) come over for dinner and a very convivial evening is enjoyed by all, even though my cousin, a busy paediatrician has had malaria all week. She is absolutely amazing. AND she has time to be an avid and passionate reader, with a group of friends whom she meets for a monthly book-club -- now ten years old and still very lively

25th: night-spend with my friends G & J in north Bom, culminating in an extremely lively party at night, complete with tons of food and great guests, including my friend A, who lives in an apartment building literally two minutes away.

26th: lunch with A at his house and departure for Madras, with my sister G. Glad to be home with my Mom, niece, niecelet and (alas) demented hound S, who had spent all four days of G's absence pining/starving/vengeance-peeing wherever possible

27th: meeting with Tulika to hand over the original artworks of WHERE'S THAT CAT? In the evening, niece leaves for short stay in Surat; I start work on the final image in a five-page "essay" for the Indian edition of Chicken Soup for the Soul -- it's called CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE INDIAN SPIRITUAL SOUL, published by Westland and edited by VEENA SESHADRI. I've been using my tiny little drawing tablet and mostly on the mini-laptop, so that it's been a bit of an ordeal at the purely eye-strain level. But it seems to be working out, and in Madras, I am able to do some of the finishing up on G's laptop, which has a much bigger screen. But the tablet only works with the li'l fella so the last few frames still had to be fiddled with on that miniature screen

28th: attend the Madras launch of Githa Hariharan's "Fugitive Histories". The evening is almost flooded out by a sudden downpour but the conference room at the Taj Coromandel is nevertheless packed to the rafters and Githa reading goes very well, followed by an interview with Ranvir. After the launch, a few friends and I go to dinner at Ranvir and Nandi Shah's wonderful home -- it's structured like a live-in museum cum art gallery, but is amazingly user-friendly and comfortable too. Great fun. Dinner is a five-course bhel-puri extravaganza and all of us stuff ourselves to the gills

29th: finally finish the Chicken Soup piece. Struggle to post it, net not cooperating, succeed only late at night.

30th: return to Tulika to wrestle with the artwork -- fixing small glitches, deciding on the title page -- there's still a number of little things to do. Great delight to catch a glimpse of the text and titles in eight other languages -- Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. Chicken Soup piece is accepted, a great relief for me. Return to work on short story for ... never mind! Bad juju to discuss unfinished work

31st: immediately begin working on NEXT book for Tulika. Just preliminary ideas and sketches. Meanwhile, alongside everything else, there are chats with Mum over meals and in the evenings, just around the time I normally call her (8.30 pm, every evening on the phone) when I am NOT in Mad, chats with G all through the day, chats with niecelet whenever time permits. Frequent furtive visits to the French Loaf bakery and chocolaterie down the road. In the middle of the night, I lie awake listening to the koels, babble-screaming in their musical way -- I have NO idea why they make such a racket at dead of night -- they break out at regular intervals, even at three and four a.m. What goes on? Avian politics.

August
1st: back to Tulika to do the title-banner artwork. Tea at Amethyst with G and niecelet. The heavens open while we are there, sitting at one of the tables set in the garden. While the rest of us run indoors, G stands in the open saying, "Oh it's just a little drizzle!" -- even as the rain barrels down with increased force until she is forced to sprint to the verandah where the rest of us are taking shelter. We grab a table at one of the ringside seats and have a good old tuck in, while the thunder booms overhead and the niecelet gives in to a momentary panic about maybe having to spend the night "under this table" -- an idea suggested to her by her cruelly unsympathetic grandmother (G!).

2nd: visit to a young cousin's very charming apartment. Otherwise, day spent lazing a little -- haven't actually done much of that so far. Go to airport with G to collect niece returning from Surat, accompanied by niecelet dressed in green dragon costume, complete with spikes and tail. A few people noticed, the rest behaved as if it were completely normal for a four-year-old to be attired thus. Other children in particular paid close attention, as if unsure whether to be wild with envy or withering with contempt. Mostly, their eyeballs are just trailing on the floor with sheer surprise

3rd: back to Tulika for a final visit, this time laden with cookies. Delighted to wrap the project completely. Chicken Soup is also complete now and needs only to be posted. But the in-house computers -- ALL THREE -- are not quite up to the task. I decide to return to Del for the wrap up. Still working on short story.

4th: discovered that my ticket was for the 3rd. Eek. Decide not to tell anyone, but just go ahead and buy a ticket for the same flight, same afternoon, same airline (Kingfisher). Am astonished to find that it costs less than the Jet Airways Bom/Mad fare -- really, it is beyond bizarre, judge for yourselves: Rs 5000+ for Bom/Mad, and Rs 3000+ for Mad/Del. Does it make sense? Nope. *shrug* Whatever! I buy the ticket, print it out on the upstairs computer, say goodbye to G, niece and niecelet who leave in the afternoon for a night-spend at Fisherman's Cove, where there's a weekday half-price package deal in place and then wish my Mom goodbye before leaving for the airport myself, at 3 pm, via Madras's excellent cab-hire service, FastTrack (their number is: 044-24732020). Arrive in Del at 8.30 pm, get into a pre-paid cab and am stuck in traffic for almost two hours -- i.e., just half an hour short of the flying time from Mad -- in a gigantic traffic jam that extends almost right up to Friends Colony

4th (night): grateful to be home, YOW! Continue working on short story ...

And so it goes.