Tied together

YouTube as everyone knows is a wonderful new (relatively speaking) outlet for people who find creative expression in multimedia art. However one of my favourite videos on YouTube is a rather simple one which I stumbled upon while looking up for John Denver's "I am sorry".

Try searching for "ukulele - I'm Sorry (John Denver)" on the YouTube search, and it'll come up with a simple, bare-to-bones video. The camera focuses on a ukelele and the hands of the player (a guy in Yokohama) singing "I am sorry" and you can see the snow falling in the background through a window. What I am really fascinated by is the number of elements the video brings together with this one single creative exercise.

Consider this: The very much 'country' song seasoned with the bitter-sweet taste of nostalgia is written by a genius raised in the lap of the Colorado Rockies. It is being sung by a person who is cooped up at home during a snowstorm in Japan, and feels in exactly the kind of contemplative mood required to strum this sublime song. As the snow piles on, the delightful instrument that he cranks out his tune on is right out of Hawaii, each pluck endowed with the sunniness and the good cheer of the Pacific islands. To add to the mix, here I am, an Indian working in America, missing my home just a teeny-weeny bit and finding vague comfort in a song which is essentially sad but one that makes me happy simply because it reminds of times past spent listening to it.

It's a brand new year and I still am confounded by the levels of hatred and sadness that brew on our pretty little planet. Here's to the hope that this year, we'll move closer to seeing the common sense in accepting that we are all tied together in the most curious of ways.

Time squeeze

Another year wraps up for me and most of the world. For a measly number of 365 days, my year has seen quite a flurry of activities, each one intruding upon the next. However not all of them were value added activities which is my major grouse. In fact, most of the hours were swallowed by subsistence activities like work and sleep induced by working too hard. 

Hours that could have been spent writing, reading a book (criminal neglect on that count), watching a movie (did watch many, but still yearned for more), indulge in my footloose fantasies (again did indulge in so many of them nevertheless thirsted for more) or just laze around without having the sword of an pending highly uninteresting task poised over me. I can never really come to terms with how boring office life really is. The same old problems to be tended to by the same nauseating fixes ad infinitum. I don't say that I need a new kind of situation to crop up every day, but what irks me is the level of apathy with which I look at both the problems and their solution.

As it turns out, I waste a lot many hours daydreaming about travel and writing during my office hours. The end result is that I spend a lot more hours at work than I need to, which gives me less time to daydream and write after office which in turn sets up the daydreamer theme on my mind when I am at work. Talk about an especially vicious 'vicious circle'!

A practical solution to this seems to be squeeze in more time per time: add more seconds per minute, more minutes per hour and more hours per day. That'd put an end to Calvin's problem of "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want to!" for good. Waste time till I am bored of wasting time and want to get back to the aching monotony of work. Then again borrowing from the mouth of a 6 year old again "It's only work when someone makes you do it."

I can't foretell what 2009 has in store for me but I nurture a tiny hope that it'd be something exciting. Something like the childhood tales of being pushed into a secret garden of wonders with the walls sealing behind me and where the only way is to move forward, all senses tingling, right into the heart of the adventure.

In the garden of Eden

I admit that this post is grossly mistimed. At a time when I should be deep in reflection about the year gone by, it seems a little frivolous to talk about a mere cricket match. 

It was the 13th of May this year, when after a lifetime of watching cricket on the idiot box, did I get to watch my first live cricket match. It was an encounter between the down-and-out Kolkata Knight Riders and the newly resurgent Delhi Daredevils. My friend had arranged for some tickets at the last moment and we raced our motor-bikes like we had never before through thick rush hour traffic to get to our destination. The destination of course being the arena of arenas, the "big enough to require a map of its own" stadium of Eden Gardens. 

Fast as we were, the match was already four balls old by the time we had found our way to our seats. The home team of Kokata was batting first and the expectations ran high. Within the stadium resides a reverbating hum, an animal feeding off the excitement. It's the best quality surround sound you'll ever experience, primarily because you are surrounded in that primal sound. Ancient Rome and gladiatorial contests? Well, at least I knew what it sounded like. The stadium was only filled to 20-30% of its capacity. I couldn't imagine what it must be like when it is fully packed.

The experience of watching a match at the stadium is so unlike watching it on TV. On TV, I'd focus on the game: how the shot was played and how the bowler pitched the ball and all those minute details that the commentators' expert comments and instant replays allow you to luxuriate in. This was different. This asked for a level of involvement far beyond what was required in the confines of my home. Sure, I have jumped on sofas in joy and have given pillows a bloody nose out of frustation during the course of a match but to have a thousand other strangers join in the madness is a tremendously entertaining experience. Then there were the cheerleaders too but our seats in the stadium were ones that were devoid of any sort of entertainment except for the cricket on the field. Therefore my opinion on whether cheerleaders were good for cricket or bad remained unresolved thanks to the lack of first hand experience!

Coming back to the match which I watched, the home team batted disastrously to set a very low target. It seemed like my first match at the Eden Gardens was not destined to end happily. The Delhi Daredevils team were sure to trounce the already demoralised Kolkata team, and it was only a matter of time. Well, someone forgot to tell Shoaib Akhtar.

Under the lights, as the Rawalpindi Express stretched his super strong limbs, the crowds around the stadium took up the chant of "Shoaib!... Shoaib!" Shoaib was returning to cricket after nearly a year of injuries. No one could even remember the last time he had bowled well in a match. There was only blind faith on the part of the Calcutta fans. They nurtured a tremendously immature hope that the zip would come back to his arms all of a sudden, that their voices would be the magic boost to a player who had long lost his fiery reputation.

Before bowling the first ball, Shoaib looked to the crowds and clapped his arms over his head to get the people behind him. Like everyone else in the audience, I joined in the chant even though highly cynical of how big a help our shouts would be. The first delivery as it turned out was a real ripper and within a couple of deliveries Virender Sehwag was sent walking back to the pavilion. We, the crowd were going berserk and Shoaib was recharging himself on our enthusiasm. The balls came deadly and fast. All that was seen of the strong Delhi batting line-up was a procession of scared, fidgety batsmen who seemed to be glad to give up their wickets and get out of the line of fire. The home team pulled it's act together following Shoaib's lead and finished the job with clinical efficiency. A most unexpected victory for Calcutta was the result and so was a sore throat for me and my friends from all the shouting and shrieking. We couldn't have been happier if we had played the match ourselves.

It must feel awesome to know when you take your place in the middle under the lights that millions of people whom you'll never meet in your life are rooting for you. To know that you have the ability to grant that one wish that is on the top of their mind right then,  over and above the pressing needs of daily life. The responsibility that comes tagging along with it may be a cumbersome burden to bear but to be endowed with the capacity of fulfilling such a task has to be an extraordinary feeling. It leaves me with only one silly question for the Almighty: Oh God, why didn't you make me a sports star?

Is it Christmas already?

In the blink of an eye, it's already the 3rd Christmas since I've plunged into the painful business of living off money made by myself. For the last 2 Christmases, both of them spent in Calcutta, I had managed to get myself to a church for midnight mass. I am hardly a religious person, but it just seemed like a fun thing to do - hang around and actually see masses of people on Calcutta streets at 12 in the night, a rare sight. Back in 2006, it was in the cavernous hall of St. James church that I managed to find a seat in. The 180 year old church looked grand in the light of all the candles, the only source of light used for that special night. 2007 Christmas Eve was spent at on the baclony of St. Peter's cathedral which was huge and unfortunately highly impersonal too. The hall was so large that the pastor seemed to speaking from across the sea and the hymns sounded like someone playing overused cassettes from a music system below. I'd make it a point to leave before the rest of the attendees began the whole "Merry Christmas" circus in between them. It seemed to me that this socializing on such an extensive basis puts paid to all the feelings of peace and calm that the service itself might have initiated. 

Ironically this year when I am in a country where Christmas is actually the big thing to celebrate, I am grounded at home. Taunton is a small town so I never had too many expectations about Christmas from it. Still it does have many houses done up prettily with the lights, reindeers and St. Nicks along with the snow from last weekend's storm making for a picturesque white Christmas. New York is where the Christmas glitz really is, they say and that's where I was supposed to be right now! But my plans for New York got nixed at the last moment. I am yet to decide that was due to my bad (read non-existent) planning or just my bad 'karma'.

Honest cop movies

When it comes to movies, I really have a difficult time trying to pick my favourite movie of all time. I find that every movie that I like is in such a different genre that it is highly unfair to compare them to each other. I try not to fall into the "Declared a movie classic therefore a great movie" trap but then there are a lot of movie classics that I do like. I am an unapologetic fan of the big budget Hollywood blockbuster as well and really have no compunctions about admitting that. I love "Jurassic Park" as much I love "Million Dollar Baby", and would easily watch "The Matrix" and "Terminator 2 : Judgement Day" as many times I'd watch "Apocalypse Now". In fact, I'd go to the lengths of saying that I had enjoyed watching "Dumb and Dumber" as much as I had enjoyed "The Godfather 2", though their recipe for entertainment was completely different. Choosing one single name out of the lot is an impossible task for me. 

But if I were to choose just one genre of movies that I've found myself totally hooked to, it'd be the "honest cop versus the corrupt system" movies. Some would joke that it is really entertaining because these are the only stories which are 100% fiction. I find myself extremely involved with the internal as well as external conflicts of the protagonist of any such movie. "Training Day", "LA Confidential", "The Departed", "American Gangster" and all similar cop dramas have their lead actors weather the most cruel twists of fate for standing by their principles. These stories rarely have happy endings, mostly ending in a zone of grey which never preach the importance of honesty, instead tell of the anguish of being men of their word. These are really strong men, I think to myself at the end of every such movie after I've watched it for the 10th time, with a mixture of pity and respect. Strong enough to understand that the path of righteousness is by no means a guarantee to a happy end, and that being conscientious is an end by itself.

Bit players

As I explore my options of going to Canada for New Year's Eve, I assume nothing about the country. All I know about the country is that it has a bright red maple leaf on its flag! Canada belongs to an entire group of developed nations like the Scandinavian countries and others in Western Europe which appear to take special pains to stay out of the news. None of them come to mind first when we think of the so-called "first world" countries. All we pay attention is what is happening in the USA, Russia, the UK, China or France and these should be enough if we were to think of the countries of consequence. There are times when I feel that these are probably the good guys who take care of their own development and do not go poking their noses around to spread 'democracy and freedom' and for all such nefarious motives. At other times, I try to comprehend how they manage to keep their wheels of efficiency turning without even causing a ripple in the muddy waters of international politics.

Take Switzerland for example. Swiss banks, Swiss watches and Roger Federer are probably the most famous symbols of this country. Sure, millions of tourists go up the Swiss Alps and marvel at their beauty but this is a country that sat out of two World Wars while the world around them was going to pieces. How can they afford to be so uninvolved? Their neighbour Germany on the other hand tried to take over the world not once but twice, besides doing an awesome job of making the best cars in the world. Now that's a country with presence, Germany: active, prosperous and forever stamped on the world's consciousness for good reasons as well as bad. 

Or take Finland for that matter. Now there's a joke that Finnish boys grow up playing only two games. If they live in towns they take up track racing and if they live in villages, they while their time away by rally racing. We know that they manufacture F1 drivers and World Rally Championship winners on an hourly basis, and that it is the home of India's favourite cell phone company, the super user friendly Nokia. But for a country that once was home to the marauding Viking tribes, they are a tad too quiet now.

So on and forth for a number of countries that we know are going forward in their quiet, super-efficient humming ways. They represent the real unknown to me. For all other countries, there are certain stereotypical images of their lifestyle and people borrowed right out of pop culture which I can summon at an instant's notice. Now pop culture is hardly the most authentic source, but at least it's a starting point. I am sure each of these reticent countries has a vibrant history which is as interesting as their more well known brethren. But the real problem is that these bit players on the world map are doing a very bad job of promoting themselves. Or is it because they have had the better sense not to?

Abandoned

I have had to travel extensively on the massive network of the Indian Railways. Indeed every summer vacation in my school days meant a long haul for my family across the width of India. The soothing rocking of the train was a companion for at least 36 hours. That was if the train reached Calcutta on schedule which it never did. We'd pass numerous signal houses adjacent to the tracks: a couple of them on either side of each of the stations (tiny as well as major) that lay in between. Most of them were insignificant places for our high-and-mighty "express" train which didn't have no time to stop. Even the town of Bharuch where I spent my childhood in did not warrant more than a two minute stop before our train, the only train from our parts to Calcutta, the Ahmedabad-Howrah express rushed on to bigger and more important places.

The smaller stations all had even tinier signal houses where the only signal I had ever seen was green as our train rushed past gathering up her skirts. I often thought that no trains would ever stop there because there never seemed to be anybody on the platforms. And in some places, even the signal houses did not deserve a crew of their own. The station-master would stand on the platform itself, a lonely figure with the green signal in his hands as the train rushed by. It was around these stations that the signal houses lay decrepit, overgrown with weeds and the word "ABANDONED" scrawled across them in paint to avoid the possibility of any mischief mongers guiding the train on their own signals. The exact spelling of abandoned was apparently a challenge for many of these doom-sayer painters, and it would range from "OBANDENED" to "EBANDOND".

Come to think of it, there is no scarier word in the English language than abandoned. The word is pervaded with more futility and despair than any other. Abandoned children, abandoned dreams, abandoned efforts: pair it with anything to suck the life-force out of it. These abandoned cabins all must have a story to tell, very sad ones at that. Of how prosperity gradually turned her back to the town that they once upon a time announced the arrival of or worse still briefly flirted with them before leaving them skeletons of her unkept promises.