freebird

I just learnt the news that Kishan Maharaj passed away on Sunday. Today is Wednesday the 8^th of April. His death was not front page news. Like IPL or inflation or the censure of our Members of Parliament. It figured nowhere in the news channels that I regularly surf, not even in the bottom scroll. It probably figured on Monday but not after that.

Kishan Maharaj was one of the greatest tabla exponents from India. The cliché ‘passing of an era’ can be applied to him without any hesitation to him.

During the years at Hindu Collge, Spic Macay (Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth) did a great service to the vagrant youth who passed time in smoky cafes fighting over diluted ideology or some girl. They made available to us the greatest musicians from the Indian classical pantheon.

Because of them I have watched Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain, Gangubai Hangal, L. Subramaniam, Ravi Shankar, Amjad Ali Khan, Bismilla Khan, Kishori Amonkar, Shobha Gurtu, Ajoy Chakraborty, and a host of other greats. It was all for free and the degree of intimacy made it all the more rewarding. You were at a distance of 10 feet from the artist! Not always but mostly. It was a lesson for any serious music or I might say life enthusiast.

I had heard a lot about Kishan Maharaj. Had also heard a few cassettes in which he featured. A blurry picture emerged of a man passionate about his music and uninhibited about expressing his emotions. As luck would have it, Maharaj ji was coming to play at St. Stephens that year. I think it was 1998. I was all eager to watch the maestro perform.

It is said that Hindu and Stephens share a road between them and nothing else. The auditorium of Stephens was full. The stage was set for Maharaj ji to come and perform. It was not a ‘Lec Dem’ or Lecture Demonstration in which the musicians play, sing and talk. It was billed as a concert.

In entered Maharaj ji. There was applause. He greeted us by folding hands and sat down. There was no tabla in sight. He was also chewing paan. He is from Banaras and people chew a lot of paan.

He boomed on the mike. His voice had a timber and quality that demands attention and silence when uttered. He began, in Hindi ‘I am not going to play today. Only talk. If you want to listen to my talk, please stay. Otherwise you know where the doors are.’

Nobody left although they were disappointed. We wanted him to play. He gave the reason. ‘I am just coming from … (some foreign place the name I forget) and at the airport I met a fan. He wanted something from me and I had nothing but my tabla. I could not refuse him and gave them away as a gift. And I play only the ones made in Banaras by this particular guy. So…’

He spoke as a friend. An elder friend who knows the affectations of youth; its impatience; ability to make mistakes; taken by fancy and sound and spectacle; youth still unable to form its opinion; a youth that doesn’t know the value of experience.

Maharaj ji began with the history of tabla and its journey. How from being an accessory it gained in prominence to become an instrument that took the centre-stage at various concerts. He could sing also and sang he did giving examples.

Panditji also spoke of the importance and over-importance of celebrities like Zakir Hussain. People who popularized the tabla but gave sole importance to the technique of playing fast so that the jugalbandi, (two musicians act as lead players, and a playful competition often ensues between the two performers) the most popular feature of a concert, hits the high notes.

He was critical of the emphasis on speed and laid emphasis on the slow build-up, the gestation, the slow simmer over the boil, the teasing journey to the climax.

He had many a paan during his talk of 2 hours. He made me see the culture and ethos of Benaras, the role of the mightly Ganga, he shared trivia about life on tour, the basics of tabla, its history, the art and technique of tabla. I saw a man completely in love with his craft and profession. A man who brooks no interference. A musician who doesn’t compromise. A critic who knows his criticism. A purist whose point of view made sense.

Maharaj ji without playing a single note made me his lifelong fan.

The sparrows are dying. The headline grabbed my attention. Things you took for granted some years back are now on the verge of extinction. The pigeon population has plummeted. The crows too are going down. Similarly the sparrow. Living in Bombay/Mumbai news about the life and death of another species doesn’t touch me. It hardly does when the representative is of my own kind. So the sparrow was left to its own fate.

I reached Jamshedpur on the 24^th of April. I woke in the morning and stood on my feet when a whoosh greeted me. My hair whistled and almost scared me out of my sleep I jumped to avoid the intruder. It was a sparrow!

My house is quite a zoo, comprising of people and animals. We have pigeons and sparrows nests inside the house. Some years back, when we had a big guava tree and a curry leaf tree we had many more nests. A particular family of crows hated all of us kids no end, and might I add, with no reason. Many a time have they attacked us when we were playing badminton using our gate as the net. Now those trees have disappeared. The new trees are not strong because the soil inspite of replenishment doesn’t have the same nutrients.

So the birds have shifted indoors. Now these birds have lived with us for long. They know our time-table through and through. They know when we get up, what we eat and our time for bed. The sparrows and pigeons live peacefully. They don’t attack each other or fight over food that is offered generously by my old grandmother and my mother. They nibble some and carry some for their kids.

Sometimes I get the impression that my folks can speak to them. They scold them if they hover too close to the running fan or when they create a racquet for no apparent reason. The crows, pigeons and sparrows similarly seem to get angry if lunch is delayed, which means that their routine too gets shaky. Humans, they seem to sigh!

So I saw sparrows in my living room and in my dining room. Whizzing past me, reminding me of the good old days.

It’s an unqualified tragedy. Scarlette Johansson has gotten engaged. To a fellow actor, who else? What does this mean – will she be lost to the fantasies of all the other bachelors? That’s stupid of course. She is just sporting a rock. She is not yet married. And additionally she is still very very young. Miss Johansson is not a 40 something for the amour to die.

But not in India apparently. In Bollywood, any actress (note only actress; the female of the actor) who announces their engagement or worse still, marriage, suddenly loses her market value. By how much is debatable, but a loss is definitely on the cards.

Actresses are known to prolong their careers, dodge the perennial question, loose boyfriends in the process but keep the dreaded rock off their hands.

What about Aishwarya, you might say? She is married into the Big B family. She will get roles one way or the other. But there is a perceptible shift even in her choices. She has just refused a film in which she is supposed to play a woman who is confused between 2 men. She said how can she be, she is married now! Cannot Aishwarya differentiate between her screen roles and her personal life? Does she belong to an acting school that believes in interiorizing roles to such an extent that their reel and real life becomes confused and blurred? Does she walk this thin dangerous line? Rejecting scripts that demand so much of emotional investment that the poor girl just has to say yes to all the banal, ordinary and regular fare that she dances and cries to with so much gusto? Doesn’t seem so, but…

Madhuri, the Dhak Dhak girl who moved and never left the hearts of Indian cine-goers. Look at Mrs. Nene’s fate. All her moves in Aaja Nach Le were washed away. Sridevi is still waiting for her ideal re-launch pad. I don’t think she is ever going to make a com-back. Raveena, Zeenat. Nobody comes back in India. Not as a heroine.

If you are married to somebody else then? Even a superstar doesn’t help much. Look at Namrata Shirodkar who married a Telugu superstar or Amla who married Nagarjuna. Dimple married Rajesh K at the peak and yet.

‘Namak khatam ho gaya’ people say or the sex appeal has disappeared…at least dwindled. Why does marriage result in such a big turnaround? How does a sex goddess become an epitome of motherhood and saintliness overnight just because she has married? Just happens so in India.

Distributors, exhibitors, producers, casting agents and even fellow actors, they flash the know-it-all smile, with a tinge of sympathy which says ‘it is all OVER’. Why did she ever take the plunge?

But Scarlett has done it. Congratulations.

I watched Tashan a few days back. Since then some people have been waiting for my review of it. Not that people are dying to read it but general friendliness I guess. Also they want to save a few hundred bucks, I feel.

Anyways I was accompanied by very generous friends. 3 of them had already watched it and encouraged me through the week to watch it, so that they can accompany me. Strange, but I am grateful to them.

It was playing at Chandan. Everybody in Mumbai knows about Chandan. A mammoth single-screen theater with close to 1300 seats per show. If it runs at Chandan we know it’s a hit. Simple.

I was told that the film was not doing good at the window. It has a stellar cast. The twosome of Saif – Kareena, Akshay and Anil Kapoor. Nowadays you either love or hate the Yash Raj banner and their kind of films.

The grime, angst and violence of papa Yash has been replaced with the aesthetic of an India shining. Papa Yash also liked white chiffon, which has been updated with you-name-it yuppie Brands of a shrinking world. There stories are of a successful India or of an emerging India. India of the small town or village with dreams in their eyes. A Kanpur here or an Indore there. Lovable rascals from small town India whom you can laugh at initially and then laugh with is the new Yash Raj formula. Banti aur Babli being the zenith.

Coming back to Tashan. Tashan means ‘attitude’. Tashan’s one line is ‘attitude’. It is also the sacred ‘one line’ of the film. The one line that runs through and through the script, from beginning to end, through the 3 Acts. Therein lies the rub.

A film about attitude still has to have a story. Here is the story. 3 people each in love with the other, have to cheat each other to survive. Interesting! Very gripping in fact. Could have been fodder for great cinema. But doesn’t happen in this case.

Tashan doesn’t work because – it is not a story of lost and found love (Akshay and Kareena).

It doesn’t work because it is not even a buddy movie (Akshay and Saif) in the mould of Main Khiladi Tu Anari. Saif in Tashan is reduced to a side-kick.

It is not a revenge drama (Kareena’s story).

It doesn’t work because it is not even a ménage a trios (Saif falls for Kareena; Kareena cheats Saif; Kareena wants to cheat Akshay; Akshay falls for Kareena; Kareena realizes her love for Akshay; Saif realizes that Akshay and Kareena are old, childhood lovers).

Why does this happen? We as audiences in the dark are always sympathetic to people, in this case, heroes and heroines, in love. But not in this case. Is Tashan projecting a world view where there are no morals, only self-interest. Yes. We cannot deny that the world we currently inhabit is ruthless. Is it a nihilist film? Obviously not. Because the film makers don’t know what nihilism is!

The realization of love in a selfish world is a great moment in the sacred dark of the cinema hall. Akshay Kumar, in fact, moves us, briefly, in the boat scene, because, he makes us see his humanity, his weakness. It never happens again.

That is the fatal flaw of Tashan. Attitude has to have an audience. And Tashan has none. Because Tashan’s attitude is borne out of the film maker’s conviction that ‘attitude is all’. It has no reigns, no dynamics, no parameters, other than the Yash Raj paradigm of glitz, glamour, oomph, pyrotechnics and loudness.

Growing up, we believed in heroes and villains. Even the cardboard kind with their ‘addas’ and molls. In Tashan the over the top is defined as ‘attitude’. It is so over the top that it becomes spoofy. You don’t believe in any of them. Not the heroes or the villains. Till the end the audience might be fooled that all of them, including Anil Kapoor are on the same side or playing a stupid game to fool us - the stupid audience.

Mr. Acharya had previously written the two immensely successful Dhooms. Films that have no semblance of a plot, movement etc. Star driven vehicles that work because of no particular reason.

Well there are reasons – Aishwarya in a bikini, Bipasha in a bikini and the two of them in a semi-naked state in the rest of the film. Not to forget the males – Hrithik and Bachchan. Then there is action, which is good by Indian standards and bad internationally and the ever-present songs. These hits don’t stay with you. It is not even like Jab We Met, which still makes you smile, laugh or cry honestly.

In one way Yash Raj has perfected the art of the emotionless Blockbuster, just like Hollywood. No memories after the exit and popcorn.

Tashan might not even be a success. Time to evaluate the stable’s weaknesses. Time to step down from the pedestal. Time to realize that small and subtle can have attitude also. Time to realize that attitude doesn’t need to be rammed down. If it’s real, it will stick.

I have been traveling a lot. Bus, Train (ac and non-ac), Plane…I have been liberal with all modes. A fortnight back I had to reach Kalahasti. My parents are convinced that I and also the family are under some influence and the only way to rectify this would be to visit the Rahu-Ketu temple at Kalahasti, which is 60 kms from Tirupati.

Tirupati is one of the holiest shrines in India and the richest. People go there, give their hair as an offering to the Lord. That hair is exported to other countries also…to make wigs. The ‘ladoos’ of Tirupati are famous. People can eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Another think very famous about Tirupati are the serpentine queues. If you have still not visited the place you have missed a grand logistical exercise, considering the traffic it falls prey to every day.

Like all other signs of peoplekind have evolved, so has the darshan ritual at Tirupati. There is the ‘dharma darshan’. This is free of cost and takes the most number of hours. Anything from 6 to 16 or 18 hours or heavy-traffic days. Then there are various ‘special darshans’. People with more money to spend buy these, get a less crowded route till a distance and then the line merges with the general ‘dharma dharshan’ line. Saves some hours for the impatient devotee.

Then there are various other ‘sevas’ for the Lord that you can buy. And miracle of miracles…as the ‘seva’ denomination increases so does your darshan time decreases.

Anyways I had to go to Kalahasti. For that I had to reach Tirupati. So, I tool a flight to Chennai. Took a pre-paid Ambassador cab to Koyambedu. Through out the journey I noticed two things – the driver who was driving very fast and the fact that even in traffic stalemate, most of the riders were patient and silent. A lesson for the horrible Mumbai drivers.

Koyambedu or CMBT is a huge complex that houses thousands of buses to every imaginable destination in the South of India. It is, I felt, man stadiums rolled into one. A sea of humanity is what you see everywhere. There are bus platforms and all kinds of buses…regular State Transport and privately owned.

Before the onset of the journey I was in a bind as to how to travel. Should I be partial to comfort or to experience? There apparently is no connection but there is. The more comfortable you are the lesser the scope for genuine, earthy, honest experiences. The world is different behind a tinted glass.

Once I reached Koyambedu at around 8 P.M, I looked for a Coffee Shop. Not a coffee day or barista, but the regular ‘filter coffee’ stall. I bought an 8 rupee coupon and got a glassful. Shame on you Barista and CCD, I ejaculated immediately. This was coffee to wake up your sense, calm them and excite them all at the same time.

I went to the road transport bureau and asked for an AC bus, was said there were none or very late and so I bought a ticket to Tirupati for 61 rupees.

Now there are 2 Tirupati’s. One is the town at the foothills of the mountain and the second is the mountain on which the Lord resides. I got the last seat on the last row, a window seat number 44.

There was the smell of sweat all over. The bus was to begin its journey at 9 P.M. The seats were honestly not bad but that was the end of all things sensible. Once the bus left the city it was a crazy ride. Many a time I was convinced that we had met with an accident or about to meet with one. This driver could be an F1 participant I thought. At around 12, just about to hit my stop, you hit the ghats. The road there is not in the best of shape. Most of the people around me had slept off. The few remaining one were either in wakeful-sleep or were used to a feeling I call ‘death-in-waiting’. At breakneck speed, my man drive through the ghats and no science of sleep could have assailed me at this juncture!

Finally I reached my destination and I got off with a sigh of relief. Going up to the main temple town with this driver at the wheel!!

I had visited Tirupati last some 8 years back. Even at 1 in the night I could figure out that things have changed drastically. I reached the Lodge where my sister was staying with her family, knocked and awoke the wrong family, who cursed me, before finding my way.

Next morning was the journey to Kalahasti. It was hot at 8 in the morning. After an hour’s drive we reached the temple town, saved our slippers at an offering shop and began our prayer-journey. Stand in line, wait and follow the diktat’s of the priest. My sister has 2 daughters. Nimeshita is the elder and Niharika is the younger. They are terrific terrorists, especially the younger. They had already stood in various queues including the Balaji on the hill and were quite fed up of all this God business. They played as long as they could and then felt tired and pissed off. Why should we wait, they asked? We had no answers.

After a heavy and very tasty (I over ate) meal, we made our journey back to the foothills. This time again it was a state bus, a good one. This one had a female conductor. She was courteous, pleasant and did her job efficiently. I also saw women auto-drivers in Tirupati who were riding the bigger Autos (Garud I think they are called) that are popular nowadays.

My job was done. Now was the darshan of Balaji on the hill. I was not keen on waiting for 14 hours or so for the ‘dharma darshan’. I could not buy the sevas because they are sold months in advance. The next day was the beginning of a weekend and all the technology available there (yes, they give you bands on your wrists with time on it) could only guarantee a very late darshan.

So, I asked for forgiveness and told of my decision to come back without the darshan. My parents were worried for a bit. On my return I decided to take a train to Chennai. The tickets are again for Rs 61 and it takes almost an hour and a half less than the bus. Again an auto from Chennai Central to Meenambakam. I had to wait for almost 6 hours for my flight.

I bought a book. Read a short story and then the IPL began. It was the 2^nd day. Sitting next to me was a gentlewoman of 55 +. She was with a troupe of tourists from Bangalore, who were on their way back from Sri Lanka. She shared her experiences with me. She was also a cricket enthusiast who was a wee bit confused with all the team names and who was playing. So was I.

Finally the plane to Mumbai came and off I flew. Back to home.

It is a HIT. The fours, the sixes, the claps, the eyeballs. It is a resounding success. Mr. Lalit Modi and team are laughing all the way to the banks. All doubts, speculation about the economic feasibility of the T20 league in India have been put to rest in the inaugural 2 matches. 2 hundreds in the first 2 matches. Hundreds in 50 balls! Scores of 240 in 20 overs!

What does this mean? One thing for sure – cricket has been changed forever.

It is the biggest thing to have happened since 1 day cricket. Just as the nay-sayers of that era became practitioners and devotees of the 50 over format, the critiques of T20 will be victims of the party in the coming 3 days months and years.

Millions are riding on it. And billions will be earned in the future! Foes who sledged yesterday are your locker – room mates of today! Your national team – mate of today is your arch enemy of tomorrow!

Ponting in the same team as Harbhajan is a possibility! What does this mean to traditional rivalries? Will the next time India visit Australia, bonhomie will be the staple much to everybody’s dislike? Will we suddenly regret by the dilution of the so called ‘sporting – hate’ of yore? Nah, not possible.

But one thing is for sure – there is a chance of understanding better each other’s cultural mores and differences. You can still dislike but it will be based on more understanding and less on assumptions.

Will this also lead to the end of the 1 day or 50 over format, with more and more games of the T20 kind? Too early but that day is not far when the 50 over format; its rhythm, pace, build-up, pacing, slogging etc will be lauded for possessing a purity that the T20, the populist upstart, has allegedly corrupted. Similar to the complaints our fathers had, against the 1 dayers.

The pure bludgeoning spirit of the T20 will please many. It is the season of 3 hours of highlights. Every ball promises a sixer, a four or a wicket. More bang for the same shrinking buck. More risks for the plebian spectator to walk the tight-rope and lose or win – at the same time feeling patriotic about the hometown or city. One’s national obsessions will now be shifted to the local and regional.

Another inevitable result will be the birth of more local talent. For so long at the mercy of talent scouts playing the card of regionalism, the uncelebrated, waiting - in – the - wings player will get a chance to display his skills. And become a hero.

Cricket has had a re-birth. Probably a badly needed one, and in time, struggling as it was after the match – fixing allegations some 10 years back. An entire generation of cricket fanatics had suddenly cut the umbilical cord. The adrenaline of the T20 format might me the rush that can bring them back.

Till cricket gets even more shorter.

I met up with friends as usual after work. We talk small talk. What do friends talk after a long friendship? There are long periods of silences sometimes. And nobody feels awkward. The tv sometimes plays in the background. Other times, we have music for company. There is also wine. Red preferably. Most of us also have quit smoking, which is commendable.

Anyways, this post is not about friends or friendship. It is what one of my friends said in the midst of all the talk. He said that he is increasingly disliking the country; its people. Some years back it would have elicited a vehement reaction from me. My father used to continuously criticize India when I was a child.

He liked Europe and its precision, order and professionalism. My streak of patriotism was largely reactionary – to oppose his constant dislike of India. If he was not so vocal, probably I would have contributed to the brain drain. That notion anyways is old. The world has shrunk. Have money, will get visa. But even in the early 90’s my world was not as open as it is now.

I think we were discussing honking; that perennial problem. How rude, insensitive, foolish and thoughtless. How can the educated, the chic, the literate, the illiterate all be so partial to the horn when all vital signs on a given stretch of road unilaterally mean 1 thing – immobility? Was I as conscious of this fact when I used to travel less? Yes. Will I be as cautious of it when I have my personal car with good insulation and all? Yes, because it hurts.

But horns cannot make us hate one’s country. That’s extreme, we all agreed.

Something was niggling? What?

Everywhere you look, people are spitting. Is spitting the reason?

People bumping against you? Problem of space probably, we argued.

People want to throw us out of Bombay?

Police corruption best exemplified by the Scarlette murder in Goa?

Missing organs from Scarlette’s body?

Censorship?

Bollywood copying films ad - nauseum and justifying it?

Indian politics?

Our propensity to dirty first and then destroy public property?

Perpetually stupid Pop music that talks only of love?

Our obsession with castes?

Our obsession with color?

Our suspicion of a person who doesn’t speak the same language?

Who doesn’t wear the same kind of dress?

Police abusing common folk?

Our pride in our languages, regions, customs, traditions but not in common decency?

Our obeisance to dynasties?

Lack of idols?

Do people of 30+ have idols? They have stupid. They have.

Do these things matter? Should we be blind and move on. Happy at double digit growth and T20 matches and Bollywood at Madame Tussauds and burgeoning Television and celebrity gossip?

Has age finally caught up with us? Are we old now, out of sync with the young India? What does the young India want? What did we as youngster’s want? Cricket and more of cricket.

We also wanted The Doors. We wanted a repeat of Woodstock. We wanted the hippy to be back. We wanted Nirvana and grunge.

Now we listen to electronica and minimal. We dance to club numbers (in private though). That’s how things change and we don’t even know. We want perpetual euphoria and no sadness. We want victory at all costs.

Victory at all costs.

Jump the lane, the line, the queue, push, trip but move on.

Yes, this is what the new country wants. The new country doesn’t want the old country. The old country of cows and power-cuts. The new doesn’t want the slow to hamper their rush. The city doesn’t want the town and the town doesn’t want the village. The village hates itself. It moves to the city and the city hates the bumpkin. The slow creature from the dust-bowl. And the slow creature learns to honk, to push, to trip.

Still they will not like each other. Both know what they have lost and can’t reclaim unlike the sea or river. Both can’t go back. And they move on. They have to join the nation in motion. Or they will be lost, forgotten and trampled.

And I will become a hateful poor aristocrat. Full circle. Everybody hates the other.

India is a Molotov cocktail.

I read in school history books about the 4 main castes and the other castes and sub-castes. The 16 (now 20) official languages and the 2000 other un-recognized ones. India was, as Mr. Basham described ‘The Wonder that was India’. I grew up in Jamshedpur. It is a cosmopolitan city. My earliest memory of growing up was the scary 1979 riots. Smoke all over the city, curfew and armed gangsters roaming the streets. There was no sikh persecution though when Indira Gandhi died in 1984, although people were scared. Binny, a friend cut his hair, to be on the safe side.

Then came 1989. Reservations. A dreaded word. Growing up, the first time I realized its impact and importance was during the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report by then Prime Minister V.P. Singh, and the consequent agitation. Rajiv Goswami became an overnight hero.

I was in school then. My response to it was conditioned by the responses that surrounded me. I come from what people derogatorily call the ‘Brahman’ community.

Yes, my thread ceremony is done, although I don’t carry it on my body. Anyways, I didn’t know the intricacies of the agitation. All I could gather was that lesser opportunities will be available to the more affluent. More opportunities for the historically disadvantaged. I was also made to feel threatened by the entire movement.

People told me about the inherent politics of it all. All politics was corrupt and therefore this too. How have things changed since those violent days of 1989. There should be equality people said. How can you have qualified work force when people with suspect skills are okayed because of their caste affiliations or economic disadvantages?

I went to college, Delhi University and met both the groups; professors who supported the implementation and people opposed it. I had by then, no problem with the issue of reservation. Why? Because I thought I could get a job because I was skilled. In what, I, didn’t know, but I was sure that I could fend for myself.

1989 and 2008 – 20 years. India is a different place. Is it different for all of us or only for a minority? I would go with ‘minority’. The rich, the affluent, the successful and privileged are at a natural advantage. Other’s are in misery.

Tribal’s are being attacked. Their land is being forcibly snatched in the name of development. States that don’t want SEZ’s are being forced by the Center to say yes. Regional parties like MNS want 80% of reservations to people who have Maharashtra domicile. Farmers are being forced to adopt genetic crops and the rate of farmer’s suicides in India is alarming. The divide between the northern and southern states is increasing. More crimes are being committed against women than ever before. The female to male ratio is plummeting especially in the richer states.

There has been the assertion of Dalit rights. Other castes and sub-castes also waste no time vocalizing their status – so that they can avail of economic and other benefits guaranteed by the constitution. More and more these are turning out to be violent. Atrocities on the weaker and minority sections also follow a pattern.

In the midst of all this the Supreme Court gave its historic April 10^th judgement.

“In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the legislation providing 27% quota for other backward castes (OBCs) in centrally funded educational institutions, including IITs and IIMs.”

The contentious ‘creamy layer’ the economically well-off from the OBC’s will be out of its ambit however. An additional rider in that these will be reviewed every 5 years.

It has obviously angered some and made many happy.

It is the perennial Indian problem. More candidates for the same number of Seats. There is a solution to this also. Increase the number of seats by the percentage of quota – 27% and if candidates from the reserved category fail to fill up the 27% then make the creamy layer from the OBC’s fill those seats rather than making them available to the general. Some bad blood will be created on this point.

This judgement also is not valid and binding on private, unaided institutions. That’s a huge percentage. How to make them fall under the purview is another big question mark?

In the midst of all of this India is facing a food crisis. In fact, the entire world, according to the IMF, although I suspect the IMF of being an American stooge.

So as usual we are at the cusp. We are an eager, ambitious, talented and corrupt nation trying to attain heights of glory. One section dreaming on empty stomachs; the other wasting on excess; the other comfortable in corruption; some blasé; some snatching; some impatience; some honest; some daring and some talented.

And as usual we are divided. Everybody is divisive.

The same emotions targeted by by BJP during the 1989 elections – the emaciated Hindu consciousness because of Mughal and Imperial oppression (largely Mughal because the English were too far away) is sometimes used by some of the supporters of reservations. There is danger of reverse discrimination and consequent recourse to the same emotions by these professional extremists who can violently polarize people along caste lines. This situation is completely avoidable.

What the policy makers should evolve is a consensus on the parameters that make somebody avail of these benefits. They can be from the forward or backward caste. It is time we accept that the rich does not automatically mean the ‘forward castes’. It is time to see that oppressors can belong to any caste. To not condone violence, discrimination and hate no matter where they are coming from.

There are only 2 castes in the entire world – the rich and the poor and the twain shall never meet.

It is to be noted these literal definitions…Backward, OBC etc although convenient, are still labels and stop people from making an identity outside of these labels. Psychologically I am still being identified by my caste. Always. India and Indians are still party to the caste system, no matter how good their intentions of eradicating them.

Or do they or we actually want to remove these barriers? Are they not convenient devices to separate people so that loyalty can be cultivated and nurtured by playing arbiter/mediator? After all Us and Them is handy for the I.

Kudos to Mr. Ram Sampath. He took the Roshans to court. Didn’t buckle down and accept a 2 lakh, then 25 lakh compensation and won 2 crore as damages, after the courts threatened them with a non-release of their film Krazzy 4.

Plagiarism and Bollywood have almost become synonymous. Everybody is blasé about it. Be it scripts, screenplays, shots everything is inspired by something else. Mahesh Bhatt, the high – priest of articulate, intelligent obfuscation sings paeans to the human instinct to copy and not give credit. ‘What is original?’ is the extremely rhetorical question that he asks at the drop of hat or an accusation, as the case might be.

Didn’t Ramesh Sippy lift some scenes from Once Upon a Time in the West, the Sergio Leone classic? As if that justifies anything. Well, didn’t Mody support rioters in Gujrat? Is that an argument?

So from the very intellectual to the completely commercial, everybody subscribes to the neighbourhood DVD newsletter for updates and inspiration. So did the Roshan’s. And who is this Sampath champak, they would have chuckled? The songs work. The sales are good and Copyright? What is Copyright?

It is the right to copy, many have concluded.

Will Krazzy 4 set any examples? Is the judgment a red letter day in the annals of copyright vis a vis Bollywood? Will producers, directors and composers will be more circumspect when lifting a tune, story or an entire film? That’s still an open question but a lesson it is definitely.

It should inspire more people to approach the courts when their hard creative work is appropriated without any consent or regard. In this battle between the big and the small, this time round David has won over Goliath.

Will this lead to more original ideas in content and form? Not yet. Don’t be silly. We will copy the tried and the tested and the beaten. Nothing original ever.

They said it was a No Honking Day. The papers and the tv that is. Amitabh Bachchan was pointing to a No Honking sticker. Enough to galvanize an entire sleeping population, which seems to be taking Viagra for sex, and then press horns after being rejected by their partners. Yes, it’s a serious issue here. Here means Bombay or Mumbai. Mumbai is very horny.

People in cars are safe. The better the car, the better the insulation, the better the proofing, the better the ears. My ears used to ring heavily some years back. That was also because of me being generally weak I think. Now that I am strong, my ears still ring. It is because of these damned horns. Period.

Long ago I read in the Reader’s Digest. I forget in which category but it said ‘the person riding in front of you is always on a sight-seeing expedition and the person behind you always feels as if in an F1 competition’. It’s true.

In no other aspect of life is lack or absence of foresight better revealed than on the killing roads of Mumbai. There is nothing called the Lane. There is nothing called the Stop Line. There is nothing known as the Bus Lane.

Everybody honks because the other is honking. It’s an atavistic instinct it seems. I will be thought of as weak if I don’t honk. They honk when they get free roads and honk of course when there is a red light. Of what use is the horn when the Red light is speaking to you. Why pressurize? But I am an old man at 30 closing my ears at different junctions.

Everyday I invariably tell the auto I am in to not honk. Only to be stared back in hatred. Drive, they ask back in silence. Drive in this mess you elite bastard with weak ears, they seem to ask me. I ask them if they don’t hate all this honking? They smile back. Occupational hazard…why take it so seriously! The world honks and so do I. So will you, once you take the wheel.

Do people even know the kind of peace that will prevail over this mass of land once the horns go quite, if not completely silent? The levels of stress that will evaporate. The reduction in medical bills. The easy, deep sleep at night. The lack of road rage. Wives and husbands calm, relaxed. No abuse. Probably you can hear the birds chirping from their nests.

Give it a try. Or have Indians, so used to reading the discontinuous words Horn O.K Please behind Tata vehicles, begun to interpret it as a phrase - the meaning and essence and purpose of all travel?