So, the rains are here. About time too. {cue: grin :D}

And I have a cold to boot. Which is not surprising, if you know the history I share with my barely functional respiratory system. Falling sick when you're alone has got to be the suckiest thing in the world. Yes, you grow used to it, but the suckiness stays.

Did I tell you that the rains are here? Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy {cue: more grinning :D :D}... everything is so wet and so f***in' green - it just kills you to look at it. Wait till it gets heavier. Just wait. I'm gonna stand outside my balcony and watch it pour. All day. Better still, I'll pull out a chair, sit with my feet on the railing and read a book. Who needs music?

The last two weeks, every single day, I've been like Calvin, except that I've been pleading for it to rain. And now it's here, and it's gonna be like this for a good two-three months. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy ... okay, okay, need to get a grip on myself.

In other news, this blog is the first result on Google if someone looks for Neruda's Ode to Bicycles. {Pats self on the back} No, I didn't have anything to do with it. Apparently people kept looking and kept coming here. And Google rewards quality, you see. Or at least, that's what I delude myself into thinking. {Before people start lining up to explain how Google's algorithm works, I'll be all snooty and say: I know}. The funny thing is that post doesn't have even a single comment on it. Bah.

Talking about poetry, read this book of poems called "Ultramarine" by Raymond Carver. Carver is a writer I'm beginning to like a lot. His poems are like short stories and don't quite fit the "notion" of a poem but I like them all the same. The intensity does waver a little here and there but it's a solid collection of poems. They are never about the writer or his craft, no showing off, no "ooooh! am i clever or what?", just moments snatched from a life and presented as is. It's interesting how he makes his poems work and how they leave that lingering bit of emotion in you even after you're done reading. Need to reread them again. One "cute" {ok, so I just used that word} poem from the collection:

An Afternoon

As he writes, without looking at the sea,
he feels the tip of his pen begin to tremble.
The tide is going out across the shingle.
But it isn't that. No,
it's because at that moment she chooses
to walk into the room without any clothes on.
Drowsy, not even sure where she is
for a moment. She waves the hair from her forehead.
Sits on the toilet with her eyes closed,
head down. Legs sprawled. He sees her
through the doorway. Maybe
she's remembering what happened that morning.
For after a time, she opens one eye and looks at him.
And sweetly smiles.

It's fascinating how he paints these "word pictures", as he calls them. Lots to like about the guy. In case you're new to Carver, you might want to read this.

Polished off this book called "The time traveler's wife" by Audrey Niffenegger over the weekend. A friend had recommended it a few years ago and I finally got around to picking it up at a book sale last Friday*. It's "an old-fashioned love story" between Henry, who time-travels because of a genetic condition, and Clare, who meets Henry for the first time when she's 6 and he's 36, and gets married to him when she's 22 and he's 30. Did that intrigue you? Then you should read the book.

It's a good, well-crafted book, although the craft does show here and there. The book is downright hilarious in some places {like when Clare asks Henry if he thinks they are having too much sex; like when Henry's librarian friends bet about why he keeps disappearing; like when the older Henry time-travels to teach the younger Henry how to pick locks and pick-pocket}, delightful in the way it carefully ties every knot, engaging, moving, and much much more, leaving you with a lump in the throat when you put it down finally. I really should put a review up but then it's so much work. Oh, gah!

Other books read during a surprisingly good month for book-reading: The Black Swan, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, Selected Poems - Wislawa Szymborska and The Essential Hemingway.

Life is good :)

Meanwhile, it's raining outside :D

* - In case you're in Mumbai and love books, you might want to check out Magna Book Gallery in Fort; they have a 30% off on some books and 20% off on most others. The sale's on till July 3rd, if I remember right. They don't have a lot of books, but you can snag a few bargains if you're looking for classics. I got a Fitzgerald for 80 bucks :D

PS: A quick hi to people whom I don't know and are "following" this blog - much flattered.

Confession

This is what they call "inspiration". Talk about about role models.

More Murakami.

PS: One is still on a break ...

This.

And this.

I never knew a search to better understand Bayes' Theorem could be so rewarding :-)

Ode to bicycles - Pablo Neruda

Another day, another favourite.

***

Ode to bicycles

I was walking
down
a sizzling road:
the sun popped like
a field of blazing maize,
the
earth
was hot,
an infinite circle
with an empty
blue sky overhead.

A few bicycles
passed
me by,
the only
insects
in
that dry
moment of summer,
silent,
swift,
translucent;
they
barely stirred
the air.

Workers and girls
were riding to their
factories,
giving
their eyes
to summer,
their heads to the sky,
sitting on the
hard
beetle backs
of the whirling
bicycles
that whirred
as they rode by
bridges, rosebushes, brambles
and midday.

I thought about evening when
the boys
wash up,
sing, eat, raise
a cup
of wine
in honor
of love
and life,
and waiting
at the door,
the bicycle,
stilled,
because
only moving
does it have a soul,
and fallen there
it isn't
a translucent insect
humming
through summer
but
a cold
skeleton
that will return to
life
only
when it's needed,
when it's light,
that is,
with
the
resurrection
of each day.

***

I tend to read a lot of Pablo Neruda simply because I locate his sensibility at the opposite end of the spectrum when compared with someone like Auden. Where Auden is flighty, form-perfect, obscure and intellectual, Neruda is rustic, free-flowing, grounded in reality and direct. It is precisely for this, this difference in perspective and approach to poetry, that I like Neruda. His poems inform my intelligence and mould my imagination in a totally different way than I'm used to.

Ode to bicycles is one of a collection from the 'Third book of odes' which includes, among others, another favourite called Ode to a Village Movie Theater.

Ode to bicycles starts with a few compact lines setting the scene up. I like how, in the first stanza, Neruda immediately creates an expansive feeling of oppressive afternoon heat so much so that you can almost feel yourself squinting your eyes. The usage of the verbs -- 'sizzling', 'popped' and 'blazing' -- is perfect simply because a) they suit their objects wonderfully: 'sizzling road', 'popping sun' and 'blazing maize', and b) these verbs are made to work a lot; they are physical verbs "that paint a definite picture" (see section 6). And they work well with "field", "infinite" and "empty" to create a visual effect of sun, sweat and a rolling countryside thrown open.

It is in this setting that Neruda introduces his posse of bicycles -- "insects" -- and within a few lines elevates them to a surreal status -- "silent ... translucent" -- ensuring that we'll never look at them the same way. I admire the placement and the use of the metaphor "insects" because it somehow captures the mechanical, oiled and creaky quality that a bicycle has, bringing it to life while keeping the proportions intact -- bicycles are insects on a scale measuring means of transport; small and unobtrusive. Metaphors can make or mar a poem and this is one which immediately raises the quality of the poem by a significant notch. I particularly like how Neruda maintains a) the narrative of him walking and the bicycles passing him by thus retaining the sense of time in the present, and b) that hot sensation ('dry' and 'summer') which conjures up images of muscles pedalling and battling friction. Moreover, the most important adjective, in my opinion, 'translucent', in addition to tying up well with "insects", brings the poem alive, instilling on paper an image of a bicycle glinting in the sun.

Having focussed his poetic camera finely in the first two stanzas, Neruda zooms out, adding other incidental elements to the picture -- workers, girls, factories and other vegetation. This seems to be important in maintaining that magnitude of space introduced in the first stanza, of a sweeping landscape where the eye can see till the horizon, unhindered in its vision. He also seems to say that these other elements are not quite as important as the object of description, the bicycle, which has now gained momentum and whirs as compared to barely stirring the air previously. Neruda also cleverly builds up that thirsty feeling, using "summer" and "midday" quite intelligently. One also gets a social sense of the bicycle -- that it belongs not to the rich, but to the poor, to the young and the physically fit, not to those suited to a pedantic form of life. Another thing to note is the "hard / beetle backs" which sustain the thread of the "insects" metaphor and also lend a quality of hardiness to the lives of those who cycle.

Tightly reined in so far, Neruda now lets go in the coda. He makes a few quick switches: from the reality around him into his imagination -- "I thought"; from the sweeping landscape to the confines of an imagined house/ common room (as hinted at by the door); from day to night. That carefully built up feeling of sun, thirst, sweat and grime is now rapidly quenched, extinguished, with words such as "evening", "wash" and "wine" which seem to instantly cool the poem down, descending it to the lower temperatures of the after-work hours. Neruda facilitates this by evoking "love" and "life" which slow the poem down after the marching motion of the first few stanzas. Having cooled down, Neruda again focusses back on the bicycle and closes exquisitely, knitting it with the "insect" metaphor, bringing it back to life in our eyes, even if it is to show that it is now lifeless, at least temporarily. He infuses a notion of sadness and abandonment -- the bicycles now "waiting / at the door" and then "fallen". The last few lines, in particular, are exemplary, especially "the bicycle, / stilled, / because / only moving / does it have a soul, / and fallen there / it isn't / a translucent insect / humming / through summer / but / a cold / skeleton". The rapid back-and-forth shifting of contrast is breathtaking: "stilled / moving / fallen / humming"; "soul / skeleton"; "summer / cold"; "insect" (alive and warm) / "skeleton" (cold and lifeless) -- a fabulous flourish at the finish.

One misgiving I do have with the poem is regarding the line-breaks. There appears to be no logic to them. Maybe it's got something to do with the translation, but they make me one very unhappy reader.

The O word and Goosebumps

Song - Jalsa (Remix).

Movie - Chennai 600028.

At least in two places, once in the second minute and once in the third minute, you can distinctly hear a voice chastely uttering the O word.

Postmodernism - 1, Censor Board - 0.

***

Saturday and I finally got around to watching this earache of a movie. But no this isn't about the movie.

A few of us were at Santham, settled in, when a slide comes on saying "Please stand for the national anthem". The audience stands up; the Bharat Bala video comes on (I hadn't seen this before). I start mouthing the words, more out of an attempt to see if I remember them than anything. Bhimsen Joshi, Balamuralikrishna, the Mangeshkar sisters ... one by one, a line each, all clad in pristine white.

And then, just when I was wondering when Rahman would come on, he appears to conclude, singing 'Jaya he' in that boyish voice of his.

The way he lets that first 'Jaya he' hang, the earnestness of his patriotism ... goosebumps. Totally*. Especially if you're standing in the dark with all your senses tuned to the screen.

* - Found the link while I was bloghopping; forgot from where.

Rahman Mornings

One of the things I've learnt to carefully bypass is any "Raja-Rahman" debate I'm confronted with. I guess it's primarily because I'm not comfortable with my music know-how to even qualify to adopt a position and also because I believe one need not take a stance always. Another reason could be the fact that I enjoy both of them, albeit for different reasons.

I listen to Rahman mostly during the mornings, when I'm up and running for work, when I need to reaffirm my faith in the world and its ways. You know, just to tell yourself that "Yes, this place is going to the dogs but hey, it's a new day and you never know what's gonna happen". Ilayaraja (IR from now on) is reserved for the night when I need to lull myself to sleep -- his songs have this pleasant way of soothing frayed nerves and bringing the night quickly to an end.

It's not like one can't listen to IR in the morning or Rahman at night. It's just that my preference seems to be that way. Any inspiration I can milk out of IR's music in the morning seems insipid, jejune and foolhardy and not the cautious optimism that Rahman espouses (I do agree that the lyrics play a part too, but still ... ). On the other hand, Rahman is too angsty to listen to just before you fall asleep, whereas IR is just about perfect.

Anyway, here's a list of five Rahman numbers I enjoy listening to almost every morning -

1. Nila Kaigiradhu, Indra, 1995 -- I prefer the Harini version to the Hariharan one. My "Wake-up playlist" has this on number one. Ideal ambience would be to stand on the terrace and watch the sun rise while Harini's voice pierces the ears, rubs the sleep off your eyes and gently welcomes you into the day. Favourite line - indha vaazhkaiyae seedhanam adhil jeevanae thaeyudhae ...
2. Vellai Pookkal, Kannathil Muthamittal, 2002 -- Rahman as a singer is very under-rated. I agree he kills a few songs with that nasal voice of his (that's more the exception than the rule) but the depth of feeling he manages to summon makes each and every song that he's sung very special. This one is number two on my list. A sort of personal prayer to start the day off. "Hope is a good thing" (Shawshank Redemption anybody?). Favourite line - koadi keertanamum kavi koartha vaarthaiygalum thuLi kaNNer poal arththam tharumo ...
3. Endrendrum Punnagai, Alaipayuthey, 2000 - The dude song, as I like to call it. The undercurrent of youthful masculinity -- and it's not just the rap -- is so enthralling I would be very surprised if any member of the female species has a soft corner for this song for reasons other than Madhavan. I like to loop it sometimes, especially when I'm walking to work, because there's this mall abounding with women that I need to go past to get to office, and the song suits the situation to a T. Always brings a grin to my face. It was an anthem of sorts in college but then Camus came along and changed all that.
4. Margazhi Poove, May Maadham, 1994 - Very sophisticated lyrics. And as feminine as it gets. I used to skip this song as one of those "suppressed-woman-gone-mad" when I bought the cassette, but then Rahman is nothing if not insistent and the song grows on you. Moreover, Shobha's voice is so contrary to the kind of effect that the song aims at, it ends up complimenting the music and the mood. And yes, December mornings have never been the same again. Favourite line(s) - aezhai manam kaanum inbam naan kaanavillai ...
5. Anbendra Mazhaiyilae, Minsara Kanavu, 1997 - A rare evangelical song, and Anuradha Sriram's full-throated yet tender rendition melts you away. It is difficult to come to terms with the song ideologically but the promise that it holds of a saviour is too tempting, so I eventually give in and end up listening to the song a few times continuously. Favourite line - Like the entire song, but if I were to pick, then it will have to be: poarkonda boomiyil pookkaadu kaanavae pugazhmaindhan thoanrinaanae / ... / nootraandu iravinai nodiyoadu poakkidum oliyaagath thoanrinaanae / irumbaana nenjilum eerangal kasiyavae iraibaalan thoanrinaanae ...

An interesting biography of Rahman is here -- a tad too long but fabulous collection of anecdotes and quotes.

"... and I've been working like a dog."

Work + Half-a-dozen books and the accompanying guilty conscience + Music constantly shuffling its feet in the background + A little travel + A couple of choices eating me away + Genetic laziness* = Zero blogging.

"When you've seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists” -- Someone I've been meaning to read for a long time and finally
got around to. Strongly recommended (if I may).

And somebody actually ran a search for this. I'm sure there's a message lying hidden somewhere but I'm not able to put my finger on it.

Be back soon.

* - Blame the genes for everything bad and praise yourself for everything good.

Kal-El, Son of Jor-El

I think superheroes are socialist propaganda in disguise (All that red in the costumes always made me suspicious). Not only are most of them disgustingly nationalistic (Captain America, for crying out loud), they charge no fee for their services. Come on, a cheque now and then wouldn't hurt, would it? Besides, why do they have to adopt alter-egos to earn a living? Disclose your identity, bask in the mindless adulation that is bound to follow, copyright your insignia, your costume and everything else that's got to do with you, start selling memorabilia and rake in the moolah while you go about saving the world. Nobody's going to bother. Unless, unless and until you, the superhero, are a commie. And think about how everything Superman stands for goes against the concept of democracy, federalism and capitalism. All that power concentrated in one place. Hah! So much for the moon mission. If you take comicbook heroes as the metric, the Russians won the cold war hands down. I was over the moon with this brainwave until I got suspicious about my own thought processes. Google gave me this which is as comprehensive a conspiracy theory as any. And while you're at it, check the date on that. Am I behind the times or what? Oh well, never mind.

Of course, if I had the chance to be Superman ...

1. Dear Mr. President, The attachment contains the invoice for all services rendered for the month of February. 798732 lives saved at a special price of $1 each ...
2. What do you mean I'm late?
3. What do you mean I can't get a driving license?
4. No Lois, no, don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking ... I turned off the x-ray vision, I swear, you've got to believe me.
5. Stop saying that everytime, you morons. Can't you tell I'm not a bird or a plane? Idiots. All of you.
6. Now, which one of you rascals stole my underwear? I'm gonna count upto three ...
7. What's a guy got to do to get a drink over here? Save some lives?
8. Listen Lex, I'm telling you for the last time -- get a wig, okay? Forget Kryptonite, that glare is killing me already.
9. Don't get wise on me now. I know what Bruce gets paid for his ads.
10. If it's my movie, why the hell can't I act in it? Besides, I do my own stunts.
11. Hi, you've reached Superman. If your emergency can wait a couple of weeks, please leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you after my vacation. However, if your life is on the line, dial 911 now. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Filler - 1

1. You know what's the best part about this whole globalization thing?* It shifts the focus from earning a living to actually living. People have the wherewithal to try and answer questions other than those associated with basic existence. And that can be bad as well. Because knowing what you should be doing, and can actually be doing, but not doing does little for the self-esteem. I know very little about History, but I would imagine that a correlation might exist between significant economic progress and cultural revision (both with individuals and societies).
2. This is simply brilliant. All I need to do is to start writing.
3. Recently I got into an argument about taste. My opinion is that a person's taste evolves, and just because something (which is actually good) does not appeal to one's taste, it doesn't mean it's not good. It just means one is not at a stage where one can appreciate it. This is a very dicey argument to make because you then risk being labelled a culture snob. However, the point I wished to make is that art merely serves to sensitize the soul and elevate one's sensibility, and that as one's taste evolves, one is able to appreciate the best in art. More importantly, I was trying to convey that taste in art, like taste in anything, has both an objective as well as a subjective side. The subjective evaluation is a reflection of oneself, rather than the art piece itself. So, when people say something is not good because they didn't like it, it says something about them rather than what they are talking about. The objective evaluation, on the other hand, is what informs about the art itself. And as one's taste evolves, the objective and the subjective tend to merge. Like I read elsewhere, a good critic's subjectivity is his objectivity. So, why am I saying this? Because I just read someone else say the same. And I have to say, I agree.
4. The right brain-left brain fallacy and the myth of prodigy (found this link on S Anand's wonderful website).
5. Of late, I've had a need to upgrade my Mathematics knowledge, which means refreshing my basics and learning advanced concepts. As a result I have to admit (and I never thought I would say this), Mathematics is beautiful, and I'm beginning to suspect it might just be the mother of everything, just like what my teachers told me. There, now you can see what I meant by taste. This realization, I realize, is a significant one. Throughout life, one's personality tends to evolve (just like taste and everything else). But sometimes it is not possible to be conscious of this evolution. However, now and then something remarkable pops up and you know what you've become compared to what you thought you were. That said, I like what I'm becoming :P
   
6. What are the keys to being successful? (By successful I mean doing what you want to do in the best way possible; no connotations of fame or popularity) Just direction, discipline and motivation. I have the direction and the motivation now. Just need to be disciplined. But then that's easier said than done.

* - Of course, I'm being tongue-in-cheek.

Heh

I just had the greatest insight of all time a few days ago.

Damn ... all those days of browsing through blogs with my body positioned strategically so that nobody could see the monitor, constantly expanding my peripheral vision to check if anybody was checking me, minimizing and Alt+F4-ing every time someone sneaked up on me ... Damn. I didn't know.

I didn't know that people think you're 'reading' when you're actually blog-browsing. Think of it. There's (mostly) no advertisement on the page, which means you're not putting that credit card of yours to good use. No HTML crying out 'Inbox', which means you're not checking email every 5 minutes. No scantily clad women leaping out of the screen, which means you're not doing anything you're not supposed to be doing. You don't have headphones plugged into your ears, neither is there a video streaming on screen. There's just text, text and more text. Of course, they think I'm 'reading'. They think *snicker* they think you're updating your knowledge (yeah right), reading stuff from multicoloured websites (A colleague actually asked me, "What's with that black coloured website you keep reading?").

Damn. Well, better late than never.

So what do I do with my newly found knowledge? I play it up, of course -

1. So I'm reading about how a friend finds religion and God fascinating. I notice this guy peeping at my screen from his desk. I lean back from the monitor, make sure he gets a good look at the screen. At this distance, he can only see a lot of blue, green and yellow, and of course, dense text. He goes back to work. I should ideally cut my scene here. But I don't. I lean back into the chair, do something intellectual (like scratching my head), look away into the distance, make intellectual noises (like 'Hmmmmm' and clucking my tongue), open my notebook, look at the screen, and write today's date in a page already filled with a lot of dates, and get back to my 'reading'. This way everyone within hearing distance knows I'm engaging in something productive.
2. So I'm a little sad that another friend will not be updating his blog for the next three weeks. And I spy my teammate typing code furiously, and glancing at me now and then. I look at her and say, "You know it says here MATLAB has an auto-code feature which is as good as hand-coding ... it could put you ... I mean ... us ... out of work". She looks at me, and gets back to work as if nothing happened. And then says, "Send me the link." Argh! Oh well, I do know there's a link somewhere. I just have to find it. Meanwhile, teammate is suitably impressed about my 'reading'.
3. So I was reading how it's not just me who's jobless enough to talk about curd rice on the internet. I look at the time. 3 'o' clock. I open my mailbox, navigate to the newsletters folder, open a latest one, pick a link making sure it has the words "embedded" or "automotive", send out an email to all my teammates with the link saying "makes for interesting reading". And I resume pondering about how jobless people are to talk about curd rice on the internet. The next day, I get replies saying, "Fabulous link! Thanks for sharing :)". I'm wicked, I know.
   

So there, feel free to use these tips at work. They work for me. No money-back guarantees though.

Of course, the network administrator sees everything.

PS: Sometimes, I suspect the only reason why I don't get fired is a little similar to this.

Lost sole

Go read! Catch you guys at the premiere, I have a movie to manufac...err..make.

PS: Spare me the lecture about being PC. It's a blog, for God's sake.

Not those two, please, nooooooooo...

Now what can I say about this? Sheesh!

And yes, Gault?

Another way to send me to an early grave.