Time to withdraw

I clearly sense all is not right with the world. It was at times like this that mystics and hermits and sages throughout the ages simply withdrew from the world and sought refuge, clarity of thought and peace of being in the desert or mountains, away from all form of societal order that existed at the time.
I’m not a great one for the outdoors, so unless the desert or the mountain has 24-hour air-conditioning and room service, it’s going to be difficult for me.
The modern sage (or wannabe one) must withdraw then within the space he has.

Pro-choice, anti-abortion

At the point a person is about to commit murder, God has the power to stop him. God does not, instead, allowing the person the free will to choose, whether to kill or not.
This is a key part of the basic understanding of God for Christians.
Which got me thinking, God is pro-choice. We know, at least I do, that God is anti-murder. So, is it possible, using God as a template to be pro-choice, but anti-abortion?
I think so.
Bare-wreck Oh!Bummer’s move to free aid to NGOs involved with abortion is the context for this thought.

Too perfect

It doesn’t get much more perfect than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Good looking beyond average, full-time parents, fiercely private about their kids, involved in humanitarian work and both find time to act in films and win Oscar nominations.
I don’t blame Pitt for dumping Jennifer Anniston. It must have felt like living in a constant rerun of series seven of Friends.
Generally, Hollywood marriages don’t seem to last. But these guys here seem to have the real thing going. Of course, I thought that about Madonna and Guy Ritchie too, and now see what has happened to them.

Dress sense

There’s formal work dressing and then there is overdoing the work dressing more than a wee bit.
In Dubai, especially the women, come dressed to work trying their best to look as sexy as is possible. And believe me, they pull out all the stops. In India, the professional attire scenario is different. I doubt I will ever see knee-high boots and a silk jacket hiding a low-cut blouse in corporate India. Not that I’m complaining, or being a prude, but it leaves me wondering, what do they wear to the disco, or an evening formal do?

Facebooked

I find myself being poked into submission, backed up against the wall, scribbles and all. Against the very fabric of my being, I am forced to operate my Facebook account.
God knows, I have poked more people than is good for me and my scribbling I do here. Yet, it’s a strange demograph that is forcing me to Facebook. A bunch of close friends who are all over the age of 40. These guys are clearly not of the online age and should be anti-online-socialising, like me. Yet, they seem inexplicably drawn to the concept. Dragging me with them.

French kissed Down Under

You might miss it, given all the Slumdog-Obama hypermania. But, a nation that adjectivised the kiss for erotic eternity, has three of its men in round four of the Australian Open Tennis Championship.
I remember guys like Henri Leconte and Yannick Noah existing to provide the pretty-boy quotient and quarter-final fodder for the aces in the 1980s.
Since then, the closest France have come to being taken seriously in the men’s game is in the form of Amelie Mauresmo.
Look out now for Jo-Wilifred Tsonga, Gilles Simon and Gaels Monfils. These Frenchies are ripped and ready to rip.

Where are you when shit happens

As a journalist and self-appointed commentator on, and prophet for, humanity, being “there” when epoch-defining events happen is a must. Yet strangely, I seem to miss out on them. When 9/11 happened, it was my day off at work. When Babri Masjid happened I was on holiday in Goa. Now, when the USA’s first Black President is sworn in, I am away from the newsroom (and from TV) because of a death in the family.
I soothe the frayed edges of my journalistic instinct with the hope that detachment will offer me the chance of a different perspective. Sigh!

Death, confusion

And just like that, I find myself in Pune. This time death brought me home. In fact, this is the first death I have experienced where the person in question was truly close to me. The first funeral where the burial of the person, and the vacuum thereafter, was truly tangible.
Only clichés swim around in my mind right now. That’s because they are all true, I guess. I tried to pinpoint the moment someone’s death sinks in – the call that comes to inform, the moments after, the grave being filled…
Death does this for sure – it confuses everything.

I remember when...

I was schooled in the art of housekeeping – call it urban husbandry actually. Going to the market, butcher, post-office, all require a certain ‘nous’ in a small city; especially if this is to be accomplished on a specific budget with no compromise on quality.
Now I find I can pretty much conduct my entire life via the internet. Though essential shopping online is nothing new, it has only recently entered the realm of my existence and therefore, bought into play the nostalgia of cycling around Poona getting home jobs done.
Online for convenience, but real time for experience.

Football, guys

I waited till the Manchester United versus Chelsea game finished hoping to be sublimely inspired by classic football or impressive tactics.
Instead, I am pretty disgusted by the most talented and most highly paid sportsmen on the planet acting like a bunch of cry-babies, in the hope of getting an extra yard or free-kick.
Man Utd won and that should be the Premiership title done, but it was really sad to see such a bad example being set. I understand when shenanigans are the side-show, but for large parts of the game it was the main menu. Really sad.

Slumdog Millionaire

The plot of Slumdog Millionaire is a classic 1980’s Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan-Shashi Kapoor, bhai- bhai scenario.
The use of Kaun Banega Crorepati as the setting updates the other Bollywood story-cliché the script employs – rags to riches (love, et al).
So why is it an Oscar contender? And why did it impress me so? Danny Boyle.
The director does a superb job of telling a preposterously unlikely tale in the most convincing manner. I don’t know if it’s a phirang-fixation, but see the flick and you’ll see what I mean.
Conceptually, Vikas Swarup’s book Q&A deserves the plaudits.

City that's made

In CP Surendran’s (editor, Times of India, Pune,) preface to his book Iron Harvest (now a bit old, but just read by me), he refers to Pune as – ‘a city on the make’.
I always claim injunction against such patronizing descriptions of my hometown. So I set about thinking whether Pune was in fact on the make, or, was it made? Mumbai, for example, is never on the make, because it’s always on the take.
It’s a matter of perspective. Money-wise, perhaps, Pune lags. In every other aspect though, it’s pretty much made. If only Pune realized that.

And all that jazz

A jazz festival took place in Pune and one of my buddies sent me the dirt. It took me back to my heady days as a music hack, when the late Homi Bhathena managed to put Pune on the Jazz Yatra itinerary and treat us to a sampling of pure jazz from across the world. Dubai where I reside also has a jazz fest, but it’s not so much jazz as music, as it is about using the word jazz to brand the gig. So next month James Blunt, John Legend and Spyrogyra will perform. See what I mean.

How deep is your love

John Travolta is one of my idols. For years as a teen I practiced to dance like him in SNF, and even nowadays, when my liver is properly lubricated (strange that connection between liver and legs) I can break out into an angst-driven jig to the Bee Gees.
So when Travolta’s son died, I felt pretty depressed, almost cried.
So now two days later, I notice that:
a)My idols do affect me a lot and maybe I should look closely at how subliminally they have influenced my life
b)No parent should ever have to bury his/her child

At the oche

I entered the New Year, sports-wise, at the oche (the line behind which you throw darts from) of all places. The World Darts Championship finals are on tonight and paying a fortune for Cable TV here, meant that I could watch the tourney ‘live’ through the X’mas season.
It took me back years, because, one of my graduation subjects was darts (snooker was the major). My degree says psychology (English being the major), but truth is, I spent a lot of my college years at a pub on East Street in Pune throwing darts. I’m no Phil Taylor, though.

Here's to what really matters

My great hope for 2009 is with the world – and all we’ve been told to work hard to achieve – in shambles, what really should matter will be given a chance, again.
This is with special reference to the media, the disseminators of popular wisdom. The ‘How to get rich’ columns will hopefully be replaced with ‘how to keep your cash (honestly)’ and the Dear Janes will be replaced with the Sensible Samanthas.
Even personally, I will look less like a nutter on permanent moral rebound as I open the door of my life to what really matters.