Nano-logy 2 or Give Us This Day Our Daily Issue!

"To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple."

Arudhuti Roy

With the Rizwanur issue put on the back burner, the chatterati of Kolkata were starved of issues, when lo and behold, the very dependable Mamata Banerjee has lobbed one right in their court – Singur! They were dying to put their signature, with permanent ink markers, in support of a ‘cause’, stand up for something, be an activist and amply demonstrate, 'We think not, therefore we are!'
Sweet somethings in tank-tops and low-rise jeans on a signing spree at tech-town Sector V of Salt Lake, Kolkata , where every second address is a hangout joint, cheering for industry, pleading infact, ‘Plz didi, don’t stop development of West Bengal’!.

My my, so touching! You could have knocked me down with a feather! Are they for real? Translated, all it really means is Plz didi lay off, so that papa can buy me that ooooooh so cute canary yellow Nano real quick!
Mamata Banerjee’s modus operandi may be wrong and it is also true that her heart doesn’t exactly bleed for the peasants (it certainly bleeds more than the techies from Sector V though). But there is substance in her stance. Agricultural land, especially in a small and densely populated state like West Bengal should not be taken over by industry. It does not happen even in advanced industrial nations. Good agricultural land is always left alone because once lost, it cannot be recovered. Hoogly is not Chotanagpur. What was Jamshedpur before the Tatas? A god-forsaken place of laterite soil with no vegetation, leave alone agriculture. They could have picked such a place in W.Bengal - in West Midnapur, Purulia, Bankura or Birbhum. Why Hoogly? The district with perhaps the richest soil in the state? The answer is simple enough- the Tatas are planning to build a cheap car and it is only natural that they’ll pick a site with existing infrastructure, such as, proximity to highways, airports, railheads and ports, to keep the overheads low. Singur has all these. Reason enough to set up shop there.
Mr. Ratan Tata was complaining that the factory was water-logged for many months last year, derailing work. What did he expect? If paddy fields are walled in where does the water go? If water-logging bugs him he should have picked a dry and arid place. Unless the ground level inside the factory complex is raised this problem will come back repeatedly to haunt them. The Tatas want everything on a platter. Did they get everything on a platter when they went to build Jamshedpur?

PS: I have nothing against industry but please read Arundhuti Roy's qoute once more.

uday

Look,we are all poets!

Apparently a poet laureate was lurking inside the legal eagle Kapil Sibal! If you read the history of the Delhi sultanate or the Mughals you will see that most of the sultans and emperors had tried their hand at composing couplets and short poems in Persian or Urdu. Poetry came quite easily to these despots who were otherwise engaged in chopping off heads of brothers, fathers, step mothers and other enemies!(Which makes me wonder if they were not actually ghost written by the court poets who were then thrown off the ramparts!)
Mr.Sibal’s poetry is certainly not ghost written because even a ghost writer would not mix up doggerel with verse! Mr.Sibal, Stepehenian that he is, should know what a doggerel is, and should have the courtesy of refraining from passing off his doggerels as poetry. Sample this –
Inflation is
Bound to abate
With corrective steps
Sooner than late.
!!!!! By the same yardstick the guys who write the rhyming couplets that we see on trucks and buses are all poets! The guys at davp who compose the slogans for public awareness campaigns are also poets! Holy smoke, the Govt. of India is a constellation of unsung poets!
Ms Mamata Banerjee had also tried her hand at ‘English poetry’. Her stuff went like –
I fly fly fly
High, high, high.
Pretty basic imagery and selection of words! Can’t blame her, she’s like that only! Buddhadev Bhattacharya is a poet in his own right (sorry, no left here!). He could try quoting this poem, Oops, doggerel, by Poet Sibal to Ms.Banerjee( we in Bengal are not used to calling her that, but Mr.Ratan Tata, sauve gentleman that he is, has shown the way.) to ease the Singur impasse a bit.
Nano tubes
In nano pores
Nano tech
In nano stores
Nano thoughts
Of nano brains( hear, hear Mr.Sibal!)
A plethora of nano claims.
Nano metres,
nano miles
Nano cars
In nano style.

Nano-logy 1

Everyone has something to say about the Nano. I too want to join the cacophony! Please!

If the i-phone is lovingly, and cheekily, called the ‘Jesus’ phone, the Nano certainly deserves to be called the 'Jesus' car!
You have a problem with Jesus?

Okay we’ll settle for 'Hanuman' or the 'Ram' car! Little Nano has brought out the Che Guevara in us all.

Nano will not let you fence sit – even if you are on ‘dharna’ at Singur- you are either for it or…. (damn you!), against it.

Mr. Tata has cast a wondrous spell on us and we all seem to be smug in our dream that soon we’ll be zipping around town in our own little wunderkind automobile!

"Take that Maruti!"

" Take that Hyundai!"

"Take that Fiat, GM et all!" Peoples’ car is passé. Nano is a poor peoples’ car! Two and a half cars for the price of one. Two and a half litres of fuel for the price of one……? Oh oh , therein lies the pain in the wrong place my fellow dreamers! That’s where the carnival comes to a screeeeching stop!. Every time you drive the Nano into a petrol pump and have to fish out 500 bucks, that old, stinking, rich-poor divide will slam home!
I pity Buddhadev Bhattacharya, a dyed in the wool commie having to fight for the ultimate bourgeoise status symbol - a car!.

Caught between the radical left, the ultra chic left, the neo left, the mothballed left, the -left -of centre- left, the rightist left, the feeling-left-out-left(RSP, FB….etc) on the one flank and the spectre of Wont-Take-No-For-An-Answer- Mamata- Banerjee on the other, he decidedly looks lost. No wonder Buddha is not smilin' no more!.
If he fires a few bullets in the air, Aparna Sen, and her shades, will be out on Red Road with Rituporno Ghosh, shades precariously stuck on his shaved pate, and Pallav Kirtania and Sanoli Mitra also in tow, marching in protest. (I am told that the candle makers are already on overdrive and the candle lobby clamouring for a price revision- but I think it’s a rumour!) Ms Sen may even skip her birthday celebrations as she did after the Nandigram shooting (by policemen, that is, and not film makers). That’s what she said on TV with a straight face, anyway.
If he doesn’t fire bullets, or atleast the water cannons,(what a photo-op for the lensmen!) and the Tatas say ta ta or goodbye, if not outright f*** you, he and we the people of Bengal, will become the laughing stock of the country(if we are not already). Quo Vadis Bengal? What says Das Kapital? What says the adda brigade at 'Kaloda', or 'Khokonda', or 'Bechada's' tea stall?

Post E=mc2 ,Nano must surely be is the biggest brain-twister for us Bongs. Is it good, is it bad?(it is certainly not ugly!). It is decidedly bad for the environment( where are we going to park those cars?) and probably good for the economy. If we destroy the environment who do we build the economy for? Good question, don’t you think?
uday

Abhinav Tussi Great Ho!

This is the entire text of a letter I had sent to The Telegraph, Kolkata, on 13 Aug. Predictably, it wasn't published. No one loves a spoil-sport, especially when a nation of a billion people is busy basking in the glory of a 25 year old young man.

India is a-buzz with the wonderous achievment of Abhinav Bindra, without realising perhaps, that the country had little to do with it!
By the look of it, it was a brilliant individual effort backed by papa's considerable wealth. Rifle shooting is an elitist sports and even if India manages to produce gold-medal winners by the dozen in that particular sports, it will not make us a great sporting nation. An impoverished country like ours ( inspite of globalisation and Cognizant or Macdonald's opening shop all over) cannot afford to pump in the tax-payers money into grooming an individual, practising a rich-man's sports, to fulfill a nation's dreams. Such pursuits should be left to the affluent, with the govt. backing up only in sectors beyond the purview of individuals. The tax-payers money should be spent on grooming atheletes and team sportspersons. To put things in proper perspective, without taking anything away from Abhinav's truly great achievment, we as a nation, must realise that his is an 'individual' gold if there was one.

I now quote from Abhinav's interview published in The Telegraph on 21st. Aug.

" In terms of equipment, a very basic range(for one point) may not cost more than Rs.25 - 30 lakhs....Yes I've been very lucky to have been born into this family".

Thank you Abhinav for being so candid! You are a nice guy and no wonder you finished first!

uday

Look Who's Calling!

This is no time to take or make a call on your mobile Mr. Rathore! The silver winner at the Athens Games was given the unique honour of carrying the national flag at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games and this is how he messed it up. And to think that he belongs to the army! According the the Constitution the first duty of a citizen of this country is to show respect for the national flag and the national anthem. I am surprised that no one pulled him up for his faux pas. Perhaps a medal starved country like ours is destined to give in to the whims and boorishness of its medal winners? In India the individual has always been bigger than the nation. The player has been bigger than the team. Would Mr.Rathore pause for a moment and wonder where he would have landed by now if the country concerned was China or USA or Britain or Japan or Israel?
uday

2B or not 2B

I found this little gem in my son's poetry book.

Said Hamlet to Ophelia
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?

The poem is by Spike Milligan.I asked my son if this was part of his syllabus and he quite predictably said "No". Well, atleast it has found a place in the book. That is something. Normally Milton, Keats and Wordsworth are stuffed down our childrens' very reluctant throats!

Rift Valley

All those clamouring for a permanent shrine at Amarnath should be stopped in their tracks post haste. Are they dumb, stupid, ignoramuses or what? Not only will it create an irreparable socio-religious rift in the valley - as if there aren't enough all ready- but also result in an unforseen and complete ecological disaster.

The Amarnath shrine has a certain mystiq about it precisely because of the unpredictability regarding the formation of the ice shiva lingam. It is nature's gift to the believers and should be left as such. The inacessability also adds to the aura. If soon we have Toyotas and Mahindras roaring up to the cave itself the idea of making a pilgrinmage through hardship and uncertainty will be lost. I have a feeling that someone is trying to do a Vaishnodevi to Amarnath. Vaishnodevi is a designer goddess, stage-managed and marketed to perfection with a twist in the tale that one doesn't have to shell out mullah as 'puja' a la Tirupathi or Jaggannath of Puri. Big deal that!

It is time,..... we are very late in fact, to raise the sane vioices. Appeasement of the vote-banks at the cost of individuals and society at large , should be done away with. The greater good should be held supreme. If there is one issue today that calls for a strict no- compromises- stance, it is this. How long are we going to pay for the machiavalian practices of the indian politicians who are always playing one community against another to achieve their very petty goals?

Living with a Blog!

My blog has been around for a couple of weeks now and my wife Suchandra hasn't had the time to go through it. So I just asked her if she was planning to do it soon and this was her reply -" Who wants to read a blog when you live with it!" Touche Madam! Apparently, I am my blog and my blog is me. That's cyber-age existentialism for you.

'Sir'cus and Black Magic!

There are 2 film-makers in Bollywood who are constantly referred to as 'Sir' by the wannabes. Sanjay Bhansali(can’t for the life of me call a guy Leela!) and Mani Ratnam. Why? Do they insist on being addressed as Sir? ‘Mani Saar’ and ‘Sanjay Saar’!.
Sanjay Bhansali did everything to make his ‘Black’ look and feel like a phoren film. He cleverly left out the song and dance routine conning the educated ( are they really?) middle-class into believing that Sanjay Saar has made a serious movie! That film was one big opera. That is his forte, borne out by the fact that ‘Padmavati’ the opera he has directed is doing quite well. All his films are operatic extravaganzas. That is why he is constantly referred to, by the polite set, as the director with a ‘different’ vision. It is the difference between cinema and opera. Shekhar Kapoor had once ( when he was booted out of Bollywood, I guess) famously described Hindi movies as ‘nautankis’ and Mr. Bachhan as the greatest nautank. He hit the nail bang on the head! Mr. Bhansali’s nautankis are misinterpreted by most as touching and moving cinema. Anil Grover, who used to write for Sunday magazine and The Telegraph, went so far as to claim that Black was good enough to compete in the main section and not just as a Foreign Language Film at the Oscars! Really, we Indians get so carried away by our little achievements!
To continue about that much-awarded film( the charade just went on and on and on, with Mr.Bhansali, chewing gum firmly in cheek, picking up every award imaginable and thanking his mother and sister, but no one from the film fraternity, for his great success.) , Dhritiman Chatterjee did all he could to look like a big actor. But he forgot that he was in a movie and not on stage. The explanation for his bizarre histrionics can be found in the fact that he has been making his mark on the English drama stage in Chennai for quite sometime now. He is an accomplished stage actor – and it showed. Ayesha, the little girl was quite good but a bit over the top. The script was written for Rani Mukherjee (did someone say, or is it my imagination, that she is God’s gift to Hindi cinema? Well, I think that person is right) and she did justice to it. Poor Mr.Bachhan had to play second fiddle throughout, but finally he had his revenge when his wig stole the show! I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Could you? If you close your eyes, I am sure, the vision will come back to haunt you even today. The general consensus was that he over-acted. But you see, he was in a Sanjay Bhansali film and when you are in a Sanjay Bhansali film you don’t just act but you over-act. Period. In all this din everyone missed the fact that the two really outstanding performances came from Shernaz Patel and Nandana Sen. They deserved to be talked about and handed over atleast 10% of the awards that Mr.Bhansali cornered.
Bye for now,
Uday

Mani- Mithun- Mallika

Mani Ratnam is one film maker I used to think highly of…..till I watched ‘Guru’. Mani Ratnam’s ‘Nayakan’ finds a place in Time magazine’s list of All Time Great Movies ( a sort of 100 movies to see before you die!). But I believe that has something to do with ‘their’ quota system! “Throw in some Asian movies or they’ll crib.” The 21st century belongs to Asia after all. ( Who ever said that doesn’t care much for the 21st. century! This vast continent works on bribes!).

But….but, Mani Ratnam is good. His ‘Yuva’, although it bombed at the box-office (the dumb brigade strikes!), and heavily borrowed from Innarittu’s brilliant Amores Peros, is good cinema. By our desi standards, mind you. Excellent performances, taut script, top-notch direction, competent cinematography and memorable music. But Guru? Atrocious story line, amateurish art direction (horrid sets), lousy make-up, and acting. Abhishek goes back to where he belongs – between the bottom and the lower middle rung! Aishwrya does precious little with her histrionic skills, as if she had any. Mithunda stands out. But then he always stands out. Vidya Balan and Madhavan gel well. (a fact that the Airtel TV spots are exploiting to the hilt. They should give royalty to Mani Ratnam).

Mithun Chakraborty is the greatest tragic figure in the history of Indian cinema. He has the abilities to give a run for their money to anyone in the industry, starting from the Big B down to the small Z (whoever that may be...Zayed Khan, perhaps?). He had everything going for him, acting skill wise, and he threw it all away because he was anonymous and poor and desperately wanted fame and fortune. He succeeded, as he should have being highly intelligent and hard working, but in the process Indian cinema lost a great actor. No one will put him in the same bracket as Balraj Sahani, Sanjeev Kumar, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri or Anupam Kher. But believe you me that is where he belongs. Among the very best. He’s on over-drive now, trying to make up for lost opportunities. But I think he has missed the bus, although directors keep saying that his best is yet to come. If they mean it they should do something about it.

Talking about ‘Guru’ it’s difficult to give Mallika Sherawat a miss. Her ‘Maiya Maiya’ item number is, to put it very very mildly, simply mind-blowing. Now, that girl has what it takes! Oodles of oomph! Sounds horrible, but this alliterative expression does complete justice to her. A touch of semi-rustic, small town Indian sensuality (vulgarity?) that is the main-stay of our popular erotic literature and art is best epitomised in this lanky and lithe woman! No two ways about it. No one comes even a distant second. Preity Zinta, Aishwarya….? Com’n, give me a break! Baby dolls all! They are too plasticky, too un-real, soul-less and anorexic. Priyanka Chopra is doing good and has the correct balance of vulnerability and sang-froid, classic Indian good looks, sexy smile, thick lips, but then she is less feminine than Mallika. So Mallika rules! I think we should all be thankful to Mallika for working so hard to satiate our lust, our drooling and leching. She has dedicated herself to the lecherous ogling Indian male and with telling effect. Thank you kind girl!
Bye for now,
Uday