YOU CAN SIN

I am extremely jealous of Shiv Khera. It takes a special talent to make millions by advising people not to take drugs, not watch the idiot box for long periods, work hard, study well etc. He just missed adding that we should wash our teeth when we get up in the mornings and eat when hungry. That's ok Shiv, you can add it in the next edition. Kheras'que maxims motivated me to come out with my own book "You Can Sin". This is a semi-biographical motivational book to help you Sin in the Indian context. This book is aimed at the social and economic upper sections. Not that lower sections don't need to know how to sin. Just that they won't buy the book anyway, so why waste time writing for them. I can instead waste time writing for the bourgeois and the bourgeois can waste time reading it. Mutualism, they call such behaviour. So here are some excerpts from this book.

"The easiest way to Sin in India is to claim that you are irreligious. Not secular mind you, for then others would know that you are a hypocrite, though they will understand, because they are hypocrites too. But if you care to admit that you don't bother about the Maker and his creed, then you have most definitely opened your account."

".......idea is to make noises only about caste inequality and not class inequality. If you think that there is something fundamentally unfair in both Salman Khan and tea kadai Ponnusamy being granted a bail for the amount of 50000 rupees for driving over a bunch of workers sleeping on the platform, then you can notch a mark in your Sin sheet. You can add a few more over here by objecting to the fact that law is so egalitarian that it gives freedom to Sarala to hire a good lawyer for appearing on her behalf in the Sarala vs The State case for soliciting customers near Pattinapakkam Bus stand. She only has to find some way to pay the lawyer's fees. Justice will take its own course after that."

"One area where I personally have constantly Sinned is education. By refusing to be an engineer, I assured myself a few hundred points in my Sin sheet. Had I chosen arts ahead of science then I could have assured myself another 100 points. I was once caught by my relatives while (hold your breath) writing poetry. That boosted my score by atleast fity points. Further by choosing to not make any efforts to go to US to further my knowledge of Physics, I ensured an absolute score fest. "

"..........telling your friendly neighbourhood non-sinner that progress in India means we try to replace senseless tradition with even more incorrigible fashion. She will give you a disdainful you-conservatives-are-like-this-only look and you would know that you have notched a few valuable points on the sheet."

"It might surprise you, but a very large section of educated youth and professionals believe that talking Tamil in Chennai, Kannada in Banagalore, and Telugu in Hyderabad is a Sin. So if your runs are not coming from anywhere, just say "nanri" when you get down after getting a lift on the IT highway in Chennai. The fellow would probably ask for pardon from the Great Lord for giving a lift to a langauge Fascist before going to sleep.............. "

"As a citizen you may be concerned with the growing student unrest on some very important issues like whether they should be allowed to wear collared T-shirts to college. If you ask them the logic behind fighting big time for their rights on such serious issues while obediently following the dress code in the software companies they join soon after college.....er.....well what should I say..... for this you get the pleasure of being simulatenously denounced a chauvinist, fascist and a communist by students and media alike."

"If you claim that advertisements often are just glorified cheating, you will be baptised a Sinner by Free Marketeers. They will then proceed to give you a lecture on the importance of advertisements, the freedom to choose, the right to know, the duty to fart and other assorted rhetoric. If you disagree with Free market rhetoric and point out how the most industrialised nations have always depended upon state subsidies to become what they are, you will be deemed an irredeemably indoctrinated Sinner. Congratulations on reaching the Centurion Sinners Club in one stroke."

"......we are dealing with the Indian context, there is one area of public thought which even the most incompetent sinner can use to build up his box of Sins. Comment on the rationality behind students not finding the concept of management seats (reservation for the rich) in Engineering and Medical colleges unfair and detrimental to the nation, even while they are engaged in crying that caste based reservation is bad for the country."



I have not committed all the Sins pointed out here. But I do have a feeling of camaraderie for people who commit such Sins. Long ago a Patti called me a Pashandi for not following the supposed rules and practices of the caste I was born into. I must thank the Patti for being honest and speaking out her mind, for there have been others who have just thought the same, but have not said it aloud. Thanks to all these people I have managed to accumulate an unusally large number of Sins. Now it is just a matter of time before the guys down in the Sin Land give me a permanent resort to stay when I am there.

The King and I

It would be hard to find someone more unfortunate than Brian Lara in world cricket. There was a point of time in the late 90's, when he used to be blamed for every single West Indian defeat. What could be more unfortunate than the fact that in addition to scoring most runs in tests, he also has played in most lost causes. He was also a victim of an unusually large number of poor decisions(for eg 3 times in 6 innings in Australia in 2005). And to add salt to wound, the run out at Kensington Oval on Saturday.

The first time I saw him play, he was stumped of the bowling of Narendra Hirwani in the WSC in Australia 1991-92. Looking back at his subsequent mastery of spin bowling of all forms it is hard to believe that he was stumped once upon a time. But at that point Sydney 1993 was still a year away. Half of my senior school life went in fighting on behalf of Lara in the eternal Lara vs Tendulkar fight. I have sat through all his great knocks against the Aussies. My favourite is of course the magical 153 at Kensington Oval, rated the second best knock in Tests. That Mcgrath had to resort to bowling wide of the stumps to prevent him from playing said it all. The fan that I then was, my email id had (still has) the Lara number (375) to it. (Though it should rightfully be 400 now). But then as I matured, I also began to recognise the other not so good side of Lara. Not good as in not good for West Indies cricket.Too big a super star in a team game, he was. I don't blame him for that though. Often he has been criticised for being mercurial. But that is a feature of all geniuses. Illayaraja has his classics, but then he also has his super lows. Try listening to some of his music for a few 1980 Pandiarajan movies. But then given the right situation and frame of mind, that man could make you float on cloud nine. Lara was like that. He was not a Steve Waugh to work on his batting or captaincy. He led by inspiration. But then the thing with trying to lead by deeds and inspiration is that one also has to be an extreme team man. On field Lara was always a team man. Off the field not always so. That returns us to the point of being a lone super star in an average team.

I am sad that Lara has retired. He has been one of my 6 favourite entertainers. But then there is always a time to retire. I am glad that he got out while he was still on top as a batsman. The square drive that could precisely split the point and the backward point was still in place. So were the cheeky sweep and the delicate laaaate cut as he showed in Chepauk. And the most glorious of them all, the dancing down the pitch to hoick the ball anywhere that he chose between widish long on and deep extra cover.

I was then (as I am still now) an ardent follower of Windies cricket. A thankless task it has been for the last 10 years. But then "ithu... kathal". And for the sake of Windies cricket I am looking forward to the post Lara era. There won't be any more super stars from the tiny islands. Just a bunch of talented individuals. Unlike most readers of CaribbeanCricket.com, I think Windies will do better (provided they also solve their Board and payment issues) from now. With the possible exception of Chris Gayle, Windies cricket has been over the last few years all about Lara. This has been inspite of Lara's own efforts to project others. In his last 100 ODI's atleast he has always batted down the order giving a chance for the younger guys to bat. With the exception of Gayle and Sarwan, others have not made good use of this opportunity. The media and critics were still focussing on Lara. Now with his retirement, hopefully the others would come out and perform. And with no numero uno amongst their midst, hopefully they will play better as a team just like the Kiwis.

Thank you Brian. You have entertained us all like no other. You have been a living example on how to maintain one's quality even when others around are losing theirs. You leave behind a rich memories. Thank you once again. But now as Holding points out, we will look to the future.

Dasavatharam flicked from Swahili?

An interesting article and debate this on PFC.Actually a wholly more interesting thing is the question of plagiarism. What is plagiarism? When does an inspiration become plagiarism? I guess this is one accusation that has been the bane of artists since time immemorial. Even with improved technology and more accessibility to art forms world over, the fact remains that any serious artist or thinker or for that matter a scientist is often influenced subconsciously/consciously by things around him. Michael Crichton claims to have been influenced by Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World when he wrote Jurrasic Park. Congo was inspired from King Solomon Mines and so on. But Congo and JP retain a seperate identity, because of the quintessential Crichton persepective that they provide.

So are the seemingly arbitrary accusations of plagiarism, an attempt at celebrity knocking? Or are these genuine accusations? Or are these an attempt to attract attention made by failed artists or artists who have not got what they deserved? After all when makers of meaningful cinema like Balchanadar, Bala, Mani or Kamal are accused of plagiarism, the accuser gets a chance to be associated with stories/movies which have some semblence of quality about them. No such accusations are made about Ajith or Vijay or Rajini movies. Such is the quality of their movies that no sensible person wants to have credit for the storlyline. (Eeeksss...Why would one want to be the story writer of Tirupacchi or Alwar). On the other hand with such big money and fame involved, no one would be above flicking a thing or two from around. So one can't just throw out offhand such accusations.

Kannadasan used an unique way to shut up people crying fowl. Kannadasan faced accusations of plagiarism from a couple of tamil writers early in his movie making career. But then soon he found a very viable method to put an end to these accusations. The titles of all his movies thereafter included a line like this.."adapted from the novel 'Chadramathi' by Ashutosh Mukherjee' or 'adapted from the Begali novel "Akaansha" by Anirban Bandhopadhyay'. And as expected no one took the trouble to find whether such a novel really did exist or not.

So maybe Kamal should announce that Dasavatharam is actually an adaptation of the Swahili oral rendition called "Ten lives of a vagabond in sub Saharan Africa" by Ntkeli Mbwanga. That should shut them up.

A criticial enquiry into the elementary problem of fluid ejection dynamics.

At the end of every third hour or so, Sai and I used to walk upto what he called the "Pissa Corner", to empty our bladders, desperately trying to not breathe while there. (Mate..why do you think just because it was IIT, toilets had to have water....hmmm??). That one could shit also at the "Pissa Corner" (if one could stand the stench for a longer time) is one technicality that we chose to ignore. "Pissa Corner" it remained and shall remain forever, amen.

BNB's reference to an urgent mission set me on a historic endeavour to find why we folks don't refer to the stuff by its name. After all calling "moocha", "moocha" shouldn't be a crime. Now the first question that I raise in this enquiry is, "Who was that siru viral krishna rao who first used his kutty viral to indicate that he was on his way to the gentlemen's room." Let me preempt the several hundred "peters" waiting to point out the lack of that particular room in ancient India. Relax my dear "peters of india", we will call it the gentlemen's 'puthar'.

The fluid in concern has the "Thou shall not be named" character associated with it. So one finds "ungaLala aathirathaiyum adakka mudiyathu,......................." like lines in movies, that leave the unnamed one, to be imagined by the viewer. Why is it that we feel the need not to say that we are on the way to, if i am allowed nounifying a verb, pass the piss. What do we find objectionable in referring to an action, which if we fail to do even once for a whole day, can kill us. So much for the risks of not passing it outside, Morarji Desai actually used to pass it inside, and hence lived to a ripe age of 100. But thankfully one does not always have to consume the yellow fluid to be safe. Actually even letting it out would serve just the purpose. If you don't trust me, you could have asked Yuri Gagarin, were he alive. If you think he came back alive from space because the Soviet engineers had made an engineering marvel in Vostok 1, I can only click my tongue and wonder at your ignorance. Care to know what brought him back safely? Well, he had actually emptied his bladder on the back tyre of the jeep which carried him to the launch pad, before taking off. That was why Yuri was able to return safely back to earth. If you find that ridiculous, tell it to the numerous cosmonauts who follow this life saving practise before embarking on their missions . I even heard that ISRO is planning to include this in its checklist for“Steps to go to moon”. Now you know what the first Indian on moon did, minutes before take off.

From faith to philosophy. Have you ever forcefully held in the stuff, your brains ordering your bladders to not release the fluid because you were caught on the wrong bus which just did not stop at any bye-pass tea kadai. How did it feel when you finally released the load at the end of the ordeal. A friend of mine, has a wonderful word for this particular feeling. Paramanandam, he calls it. He hath not spoken a truer word since. One may grin and bear Vijay movies, one may sit through a T.R master class with minimum discomfort, but sitting for a few hours with one's bladders desperately trying to eject the fluid while the brain is busy sending SOS's to the bladder muscles to hold it in, would be enough to bring a tremor to even Napolean's face.

Actually it is these little things that brings life to a stand still, perplexing one like nothing else. And it is always these little things which puts life into perspective and forcing on us some much needed humility. That is why most perusu's say, "konjam addaki vaasi kanna".

The social attitude towards the whole issue is best captured in this memorable line from a Tamil movie, translated by adiyen. "There are many temples in our cities, but have you ever seen a man running up to you urgently in need of a temple, desperately searching for a place to practise his faith ". Sticking with the practise of not referring to the thing, I will omit the other half of the dialogue, leaving it to the reader's imagination. It is the manisfestation of this attitude towards passing the piss, that one sees on the well wetted outer walls of many an use and pay public toilet.

Mahabharata relates the story of one Brahman who goes about this task standing. The poor man suffers for this folly in his next birth(or some such thing). Whether one suffers in the next birth or not, one might suffer in this birth. The standing posture I guess probably does not produce enough pressure or some such thing. At any rate, the fact that men suffer from more cases of stone in the urinary tract can be attributed to the fact that they stand and deliver. Now having passed on this crucial piece of information/misinformation as the case may be, my article escapes the fate of not being even 1 piss'a worth.

PS: I am planning to get this detailed review, published in the Journal of Pissical Sciences. Wish me good luck.

Spotted

A title of a paper on my guide's desk...........

Activation of micrological group III, metabotropic Glutamate Receptors Protects Neurons against microglial neurotoxicity.

Ennamo sollureega'nu theriyudhu..ana enna'nu theriyala.............

Quote of the day

I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy, I was deprived. Then they told me deprived was a bad image, I was underprivileged. Then they told me underprivileged was overused, I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I sure have a great vocabulary.

--- Jules Feiffer B.1929