The Sense of An Ending...a review of this year's Booker Prize winner..

My 77-year old father, a diabetic, gets up in the middle of the night to go to the loo, as is the case for most diabetics. There, in the middle of the night, a memory of what he did or said 50 years back strikes him, and he feels the pangs of remorse. A remorse so painful that he finds it difficult to go back to sleep. A remorse for which no atonement is possible, for the person towards whom he feels it is dead.
Guilt and remorse is the subject of Julian Barnes' " The Sense of an Ending", and it would be difficult to find a subject more relevant and immediate, because every decent human being has, sometime or the other, felt them.
The slim, 150-page novel is an interesting read, but nowhere reaches the brilliance of an Ian McEwan's "Enduring Love" or Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day", or Golding's "Lord of the Flies", all of them equally compact novels.
Barnes' poses interesting question for those of us who keep looking back at the past: Is what happened in the past really the same as our memories of our past? And what happens, when, by some miracle, you come across a document which shows that you acted much worse than you now remember doing? Is it possible to expatiate for your sins ? Does your expatiation make a difference to the object of your remorse ?
Unfortunately, despite raising these profound questions, Barnes remains unable to solve them. Till today, the final plot is incomprehensible to me. One of the reviewers has commented that one has to look at the novel, from the view point of the last-twist-in-the-end stories, pioneered by Saki, that brilliant short-story writer. Well, all I can say, that Saki's twist in the end is atleast comprehensible..
Anyhow, the book has a lot of quotable quotes, like this one: "History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation"...which, if, applied to the Indian context, has historians who are certain that Akbar was secular, since those who were wiped at Chittor have left no memories, and the documentation at hand does not tell us much about Akbar's motives for massacring 50,000 inhabitants, including women and children, in cold blood.
My father? This book is not for him, since his eyesight is so poor that he cannot read, and the object of his remorse, unlike the protagonist's ex-girlfriend, is dead and gone, three decades back.For him will be the remorse, like acid, biting deeply into his soul, making him sadder and sadder till he is liberated by Death...

Death of Dev Anand..

Guess when someone dies, we Indians are so civil that we only say good things about him.
So was the case when Dev Anand died.
Yes, the songs were great.
Yes, the magic was fantastic.
Yes, he had a very positive attitude to work.
And, was he handsome.
Now, since no-one else seems to be saying anything else except eulogise him (the TV stories on him were shallow, mere packages of his interviews and those lilting songs by Rafi put together), I suppose it shall fall to me to say some harsh things.
Poor chap, he did not know how to age gracefully.
Till the last day, the wig stayed in place (the wig was too large for his shrunken face), the zany military style jackets in bright colours continued, and so did the mufflers, even in summer.
And he loved the limelight so much that he absolutely had to be the central character in every film, even the romantic lead in them, even when there were younger actors around, people like Aamir Khan. In "Awwal Number", he cast a newly-risen Aamir Khan as a cameo, while he was the main lead, at 70!!
So he became a ludicrous figure, a figure to be ridiculed.
He did not grow as an actor, say like the way Sean Connery or Clint Eastwood did (one has to just watch "Million-dollar Baby"- a repudiation of all violence, directed and acted by Clint) and ended up doing films which very mediocre, and which bombed without a trace at the box-office.
He could have retired gracefully, like Shammi Kapoor, and accepted the physicality of aging: the baldness, the greyness, again like Shammi kapoor, but he chose to go the MGR way : MGR hid the bags under his eyes with dark glasses, and his loss of hair with a astonishing Fez hat in the humid heat of Chennai.
But for all that, i confess, i, too, am a fan of the magic his songs created.
I remember a childhoold spent in front of a neighour's black and white TV, watching him in Chitrahaar and Sunday Doordarshan films, wanting badly to be like him.
If only Indian news TV had an intelligent obituary, and had a panel discussion, dissecting the magic that Dev Anand created, with Kishore, Rafi, Suraiya, Sadhna and many others...
If he lies in state here, in Delhi, I would bunk office to stand in queue, to pay my homage to the ultimate romantic hero....

A star-struck society..

I attended the Ad-Asia Conference in Delhi on Tuesday, and I was surprised to find that the inaugural was by Shah Rukh Khan, along with Ambika Soni.
Suprised because, well, if Ad-asia had invited whoever had publicized Ra-One I would have understood the point; inviting SRK seemed as stupid to me as it would be if Aishwarya Rai was invited to speak at the Gynaecologist Annual Conference just because she is going to have a baby.
Well, I planned to miss the inaugural (no way i would be caught dead listening to a politican and a bollywood hero, and receiving gyan from them)..

Despite my best efforts, i landed up towards the end of the inaugural, and watched the tamasha from a side room: the main room was totally jampacked, and they were showing it on the CC TV.

Shah Rukh, not knowing anything much to speak about, just kept poking fun at himself, and kept the audience in splits. He then said, guys, the biggest job in India is keeping the Shah Rukh Khan brand going, and then again wandered off into his jokes. Finally, he started to dance to his chamak challo number, in desperation. Even that, he could not manage, as the music kept stopping. By now, he was drenched in sweat (imagine me going to CERN in geneva and giving a lecture on Plasma physics), and mercifully the inaugural ended.

I wondered why we are so star-struck that, to a sober professional thing such as Ad Asia, we need to bring in a bollywood star. Would the Americans bring in Al Pacino to inaugurate the Harvard Law School Seminar on Law-making in the twenty-first century? Or is it to give "value" to those who
shelled out 40,000 bucks for the three-day event?

Guess if they really, really, want to do things seriously, they need to get the right people, have multiple sessions on in smaller, different rooms,and think more in terms of solid value than be star-struck fans...

Jagjit singh kahan chale gaye..

A couple of days back, I went to Siri Fort Auditorium, to attend a tribute by Ghulam Ali for Jagjit Singh. Almost immediately I regretted it..
The guards kept the mostly elderly audience waiting outside on the street in a long queue for an hour, and then let them all in a rush, through a narrow entrance. As people kept patiently waiting, various "VIPs" and interlopers were let in through another gate.
Finally when people went in, they found another queue, this time to enter the auditorium. Not surprisingly, tempers went up, and the mood of an evening of ghazals was spoiled.
When the "tribute" started, it started not with Ghulam Ali, but with some unknown singer, who proceeded to bore the pants off the audience till he was almost booed off the stage by the audience.
Finally Ghulam Ali made an entrance, some two hours after 6.30 pm, and all the VIPs made a beeline to the stage, to "pay" their floral and aural tributes to jagjit singh. They droned on and on, and one busybody in a black suit actually went up to the stage three times to offer flowers to a portrait of jagjit singh. This busybody (apparently CEO or something of the company which was "sponsoring" the evening) then launched into a lengthy narration about some incident with Jagjit Singh, till finally the audience started slow-clapping to show its annoyance.
Finally Ghulam Ali began, and though he sang beautifully, he sang classical ghazals, not the "filmi" ghazals which i was expecting, in a evening billed as a tribute to Jagjit Singh.
So, regretfully, I withdrew, reflecting that the evening would have been spent more fruitfully listening to Talat Mehmood on the You Tube...I guess that though Classical ghazals may be more Ghulam Ali's ouevre, if he wants a younger audience, as he seemed keen to have, then he would have to sing less obscure ones first...

Paid News, or the sad mechanics of money

Thanks to producer Umesh Aggarwal's persistent invitation,last wednesday found me at the IIC, to watch a documentary directed by him, titled "Paid News". The hall was packed, and after the film was shown, there was a lively debate. The film was interesting, though it cannot be shown on any channel or any theater, because it bluntly named individuals, such as Burkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, and therefore is subject to defamation laws.
However, what struck me was the panel discussion, which had the Chairperson of Prasar Bharti, Mrinal Pande, pontificating on the ills which ail the private channels and newspapers, while being entirely silent about how the government is gagging Prasar Bharati from doing a honest and fair reporting of stories in AIR and DD News. To add to this, a few gasbags had tagged along from Doordarshan, who heaped even more abuse on private media, while being entirely unashamed of how they had blacked out Anna Hazare.
Even more curiouser, was that the Director did not say a single word about his own film, even when invited to do so, while Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, who emerges as the Knight In Shining Armour in the film, seated himself in the back of the audience, and refused to say a single word.
Were they scared? Or simply self-effacing individuals? Nope.
They and their film had boxed itself into a position where they were the accusers, the judge, and also the jury...so, basically, they were hiding behind the panel, not really wanting to reply to the audience....

Missing out on the sunlight, and hugging the shadows?

I just finished reading the much acclaimed "Last Man in Tower" by Arvind Adiga.
The book is about an old man, who refuses to sell  his flat in a "co-operative Housing Society" in Bombay, to a builder, while all the others in the building want to sell and cash out. The builder is giving each owner 250 percent of the market value of the flat, and because of the stubborn old man, the others are in danger of missing out on the bonanza. Relations deteriorate, and the residents start making life hell for the old man, to pressurise him to sell out. He is betrayed and shunned by everybody, including his own son.
Like William Golding's "Lord of the flies", the book is a study of human nature can be corrupted by power, and money.
It is grim, gloomy book, and as a morality lesson, it's a great read.
However, luckily, real life is not as bad as the book makes out, in a co-operative housing society.
I have been going to visit my grandmother in one such typical Housing Society in Mulund in Bombay since 1977. I have stayed there for months at a time as a schoolboy, during my holidays, and at one time, every single one of the 16 owners in the building was known to me.
The children who were there in 1977 grew up, got married, and moved out. Many of the boys married girls from neighbouring buildings, after romancing them for years. Over the years, retirement and death, have taken their toll: very few of the original members of the society are left, and those who purchased the flats have sold it to the next buyer, who in turn has sold it to the next buyer...
Basically, except for a golden period of around 20 years, from 1977 to 1997, the building, as such did not have a feeling of a "community".  For  twenty years there was this feeling, people cared about each other's children, rejoiced at each other's happiness, attended the marriages in each other's families, and ofcourse, gossiped. Each flat knew the familiar milestones of prosperity of the other flat: when the TV came, when the phone came, when the refrigerator was purchased...
There used be a diwali party, a christmas party, and a new year party, all based on contributions, with bhelpuri, sandwiches, and lemonade.
It was an incredibly satisfying feeling of community, and that is precisely not what is captured in Arvind Adiga's book.
He is concentrating on what can happen if there is a trigger which leads to the breakdown of community relations, and the residents gang up against one of themselves due to greed.
In other words, in his eagerness to narrate an allegory, he forgets the main story: the institution called the Co-perative Housing Society, and how it improved the sociological milieu of middle-class Bombay, and how many of us still feel nostalgic and long for the "mohalla" feel of the Society.
Poor Adiga, he has missed out on the sunlight, and is feeding off the shadows...

The hope of the future...

I was in India Gate last night, at the Rally to celebrate Anna's "victory", and it was electrifying.
As I waded in through dancing youngsters, and fullfledged steel bands, and swishing tricolours, and candle-light wielding aunties, I was happy to see that almost the entire crowd was under 25. I seemed to be one of the few people with grey in my hair...
It is a good experience taking part in an agitation for improving and reforming things, and it is a character forming trait.
It was also astonishing to see youth crying out frienziedly slogans praising a 74 year old man,Anna Hazare, and not Rahul Gandhi or any of the other "youth" icons. It shows to what extent these people have become discredited in the eyes of the young.
Though I went to the Victory Rally, I do not believe the victory has been achieved.
I will believe in victory when I actually see the politicians and the IAS actually putting themselves under a Lokpal who can investigate their crimes and punish them for it. Between fobbing off an old man with a scrap of paper, and actually passing a tough law are light years of dodging and deception.
I believe Anna finally gave in, because he did not, in the end, have the guts to carry out his threat to fast unto death if a bill was not passed by the thirtieth of august.
I have seen the same Lok Sabha pass a Constitution Amendment bill for ensuring reservation in promotions in a flat two days, and I believe that the politicos got away, dodging the enormous pressure, by trotting out lame excuses.
I remember Ajit Jogi, as Congress spokesman, once telling us journalists in an off the record briefing that, the Seshan Experience had taught them to never empower and insulate a bureacrat to such an extent that he could  turn rogue, and endanger the very politicians who had elevated him.
Well, guess this House would never repeat that mistake. It would take us years to vote out these thieves and bring honest people who will bring a genuine Lok Pal bill, which could make a difference.
But tonight, I believe it would eventually happen, given the anger and enthusiasm of the youth.
PS:Even as other channels were doing live programming all day about the agitation, Doordarshan News was tonight discussing PM's forthcoming visit to Bangladesh. Guess apart from cretinous anchors, timid editors, and castrated senior officials, the experts who come in to their studios need to have their heads examined....