Fifty. And Counting.

Mambakkam is a sleepy hamlet two hundred kilometers south of Chennai, smack in the heart of what was once the Pallava Empire. The five-hundred strong settlement is an Indian village straight out of a Bharatiraja movie- the idyllic picture complete with a large pond adorned with lilies of an enchanting shade of cream. Our own bungalow was a pleasant yellow- the only concrete structure in the vicinity apart from the Pillayar Kovil to be allowed the luxury of paint. The house was in a mesmerizing state of ruin, perennially sporting a captivating fragrance that was a fusion of agarbattis, moss and cow-dung.

My favourite part of the house was an unusually long verandah, no wider than a couple of metres. The walls on both sides were lined by portraits and photo-frames from over the ages haphazardly nailed on the bluish-white walls- a picture of Grandma’s wedding ceremony and another of her father's graduation stood cheek by jowl. There was a haunting feeling, a sense of defying death, perhaps, about those fifty-odd black-and-white images that never quite left me.

I have always found photography fascinating. It is strange how it only takes a piece of paper and some fancy equipment to freeze a moment in time, sealed from the drills of age and death that we mortals are put through. Summer after summer, I'd catch Granny spending hours looking up, misty-eyed, at the frames and smiling at the unseeing eyes; taking her own sweet jaunts down memory lane. Occasionally, I'd even spot a tear or two. Having seventy years of your life stare down at you from a wall can be a daunting experience, I suppose.

True to its coastal location, the rains haunt Mambakkam with a numbing regularity. Yet, strangely enough, the village is caught unawares every single time, welcoming each spurt as if it were the first. Nothing could have prepared the hamlet for the cyclone that struck it late last year, though. I always thought the telephone poles the Government installed all over the village in the late 90's were an anachronism- the only eyesores in an otherwise perfectly medieval setting. The poles did little to improve their standing in my eyes when one of them was uprooted by the cyclone and landed right in the middle of my ancestral home, taking with it the verandah and the images and stories it withheld.

Much to my own disbelief, it has been fifty posts since I first decided to encroach on a few megabytes of webspace (two posts were subsequently deleted, if you're wondering why the numbers on the right don't add up). As clichéd as it might sound, the last forty-nine posts have all, to varying degrees, been steps on that long journey to self-discovery. I have often been asked why I wrote- not always out of exasperation, I must add. A few even ventured explanations of their own; the Bulk's 'Glory-Blogger' theory undoubtedly the most popular of the lot. I, for one, believe the asnwer lay somewhere in that verandah. I have always felt an inexplicable sense of warmth while wallowing in nostalgia- that huge void inside slips into oblivion, for a few wonderful moments. I think my posts have all, in one way or another, been patchy attempts to recreate my beloved verandah. Some day, I will look back at all this. And smile.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBB

Impossible, Adolf Dassler (and the innumerable celebrities endorsing his products) would have me believe, is nothing. Day in and day out, hitherto unconquered peaks are scaled, and new ones are discovered which, in time, will meet the same fate. At another level, everyone around us seems to be on a perennial mission to shatter every existing notion or opinion related to them, however remotely so. In the twelve hours that preceded (and inspired) this post, The Bulk had fewer naans than me, the Bihari Potter lost his temper, I stumbled upon a Nirvana song that actually made sense (it was 'Sliver', for those of you who care), and, in the biggest shock of them all, the iPot said something intelligent (just for the record, he said that I was a genius). Miracles, it seems, shall never cease. The ‘impossible’ seems to have a habit of failing to live up to its name.

‘Once bitten, twice sorry’ is one of the more popular of the dime-a-dozen fancy kibitzes you dish out to any freshie willing to endure your free advice out of fear or, on the odd occasion, genuine interest. Practising it, tough, is a different ball game altogether- one I'm particularly lousy at. Ten years ago, I watched Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and swore never to watch another Bollywood movie ever in my life again. Trust me, those were the twenty happiest days of my life. The oath was broken, and a couple of hours later, my hope that Bollywood might, at least by accident, come up with something decent met the same fate. Mast, Hello Brother, Karan Arjun, Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, K3G, Om Shanti Om and a dozen other movies have all been followed by fugacious vows to the same effect. In spite of the aforementioned bilge, somehow, time and again I muster the courage to attempt to endure more of the zilch that comes out of our tinsel-town. Yesterday, another entry was made to the long list above- Race.

I had to watch Pulp Fiction thrice to grasp what Quentin Tarantino was trying to tell me. It was the same with ‘The Butterfly Effect.’ But after understanding the underlying message, you are left with a feeling that it was worth all the effort. Race, presumably, is Bollywood’s answer to Pulp Fiction. Minus the satisfaction of course. Fpr one thing, the film has more twists than dialogues. Bipasha Basu, we’re initially told, is Akshay(e?) Khanna’s love interest. Five minutes later, she is shown coochie-cooing with Saif. Twenty minutes later, she sings a duet with Akshay. Couple this with the fact that there are six lead characters in the movie and you’ll understand why, at the end of the movie, I could barely spell my own name right.

Why did I start off with all that gibberish on the ‘impossible’, you ask? Race, too, achieved something incredible. It made me (and there’s no way I can understate the emphasis on the ‘me’) hate a movie that had both Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy in it. Before dismissing this post as another of my nonsensical, inebriated dawdles, look closer, dear reader. By narrating two seemingly irrelevant anecdotes and linking (or at least trying to) them with an absurd, virtually non-existent connection, (the genius that I am) I have made you realize exactly how you would feel after watching Race. Did someone say a picture was worth a thousand words?

P.S: Don’t pay much attention to the title. I’ve been working on TeChase a tad too long.
P.P.S: For the lesser-informed of my readers, TeChase was an online quiz that had questions ranging from the lame (Decipher, ‘River IIIIIOOOIIOOOOIOOOO’.) to the ultra-lame (Connect almonds and the phrase, ‘I love EVERY SONG you SING’).
P.P.P.S: Just for the record, I finished first.
P.P.P.P.S: Modesty is my middle name.

Pee(,)TeeVee

The darkest hour is just before dawn, it is said. After the draconian head of academics was dealt with (at least temporarily) the winter holidays are here and things have finally brightened up, and how! Nothing, it seems, can go wrong. A phone call to any of my batch-mates enquiring my GPA for the semester that passed is all it will take to dampen my spirits, but why bother? College begins in about two weeks’ time, and at least until then, I want to remain in Lady Luck’s good books (or at least believe that I still am).

I went to Seef to watch ‘I am Legend’ the other day. For those of you who have never set foot on the ‘Island of Pearls’, Seef is the Middle East's answer to PVR, iMax and even Broadway. I was on my way to get my bag of pop-corn, when I couldn't help but notice one particular girl in the queue. She had a face you couldn't take your eyes off, (or, to quote The Reptile, a 10 pointer) like those on the cover of a Mills & Boon novel. Okay, bad example, but anyway, it makes my point. Just when I decided that she was out of my league and resolved to focus on my pop-corn instead, she walked right up to me. 'Hi Abhishek! How have you been?' she asked, leaving me cursing my memory, or rather the lack of it. How could I have forgotten someone so stunning? 'Now that Lady Luck has presented me with an opportunity, I shall not screw up. ' I decided. 'I shall come up with a reply so humorous and charming that she'll remember it for the rest of her life.' Humour has never been much of a problem. It's being charming that always has- more so for me than for anyone else.

'Very well, thank you' I replied, still unsure whether enamour was spelt with a 'u' or not. 'By the way, who are you?' Oh my God! I had done it again. Even by my standards, that was curt. She will now remember me as the rudest person alive, and rightly so too, I thought. 'I'm fine too,’ she replied. ‘Why didn't you call me up before you left for India?' She had misheard me! Talk about luck!

Everything seems to be going right. Despite putting up a mediocre performance United beat the Kops in their own den. Though I didn’t follow it too keenly, the Chennai Superstars, I heard, have won the inaugural ICL. What’s more, Liverpool have lost three games in a row, Chelski lost this weekend and John Terry is injured! I just hope the fairytale run continues.

As far as ‘I am Legend’ goes, it was quite good, though the CGI left a lot to be desired. The producers claim that they have spent a 100 mn $ on the movie. I seriously don't know where all that money has gone. In the opening scene, Will Smith is shown chasing a pack of 'deer'. I say 'deer', because those were the lousiest looking deer in the history of world, never mind Hollywood, cinema. Even stuffed toys would have looked more realistic! Otherwise, the movie was quite good thanks to a stellar performance from Will Smith (yeah, he can act too) and does full justice to the novel. Talking of screen adaptations of novels, 'The Kite Runner' is quite good too, though the pace is sluggish and I fell asleep twice. That has been the highlight of this winter-break. I have watched over half a dozen movies and, to varying degrees, they have all been brilliant.

While 'Stardust' is certainly one of the best fantasy movies ever, 'The Golden Compass' isn't too bad either. There haven't been too many good movies in Hollywood after the classic 'Return of the King', but Russell Crowe has set that record straight with two all-time great performances back to back in 'The American Gangster' and '3.10 to Yuma'. After the nightmare, ‘A Good Year’ and a couple of slack years, things are looking up for Crowe too. Hmmm... I don't seem to be the only one with whom Lady Luck is pleased.

P.S: To those of you haven't noticed, there is a new widget on the column to the right.
P.P.S: I have way too much free time too.
P.P.S: The title is intended as a reference to, and only to, my daily activities. Any allusions to a particular specimen of Cannis familiaris are purely coincidental.
P.P.P.S: I wonder if Gandalf would have a problem with my open plagiarism of his trademark ‘post-post scripts’.