#India'sDaughter...? But Seriously, you gotta be kidding!

A lot of debate and shouting war is currently going on about Leslee Udlee's India's Daughter. I have watched it and I beg to differ in my own way. I do not care to explain.

Anyway, a lot of hashtags are trending all over the social media. Everybody who is anybody and think they're anointed to have an opinion is spewing forth their two naya paisa (why always cents?!) worth of thoughts on a BBC filmmaker's interview with a rapist.

While on this subject... let me digress a bit. There's a play called DOWN THE ROAD. We did a little teaser of this about three-four year's back at the Allaince Francaise, Chennai. It deals with similar subject. At that time it was just a teaser as part of three little teasers we put up on World Theater Day celebs. This year too, the next line of Masquerade is coming up with it, except with a different intent. Now this play can seriously connect with the issue of India's Daughters and Rapists (!). Keep watching these pages for info on the What Time and Where of the show. It's on 27 March, World Theater Day, in Chennai.

Let's get back on track:

Is it worth the public's precious life's time? (Sounds like bad syntax? Not really. Question of nuance.) Anyway. Why is the government so paranoid about our nation's image, which we lost the moment the rape in question happened? Why in the first place have we, in the name of 'free and fair trail' and a 'criminal justice system' that strives to uphold the concept of the true spirit of democracy, even harbour and put up the rapists in jail? (I really loved what the mob did in Dimapur, just for a moment, though I do not really advocate wild justice) Why do we even need to play up in front of the watching eyes of the world that pretends to protest, but turns a blind eye to Israel, Iran, Syria and the US of A for all the injustices they commit on a daily or even hourly basis, and do not even bat an eyelid to the cribbings of the UN and umpteen amnesties and human rights ngos? Why should we care about what the world really thinks? I sometimes think we do not ever need watchdogs from outside, we have enough mongrels and curs inside, who go by the name of political outfits (should I say misfits?), who all callously work with the single-minded devotion of appealing to the vote banks! And we are at this rate going to have to allocate a national annual budget for maintenance of deathrow convicts and life-sentence rapists under trail. We wasted enough on Afzal Guru, we wasted enough on Kasab, we wasted enough and keep wasting enough on a lot of idiots.

The point is: Is it the rapist's mind we are discussing or is it a deep-rooted sense of malaise which we are acknowledging by trying to wish it away under the proverbial carpet? As Rushdie would call it, 'the lucky star is done a bunk,' so let's sweep it under the carpet!

There was this idiotic-to-no-end debate (exorcism, if you want to call it otherwise) on NDTV the night when parallely Arnab Goswami was crooning his best about the unethical nature of some journos (not him ever, boy!). It featured Aparna Sen (for whom I sometimes have the highest regards). People - young and old - were yodelling their throats away about how since Draupadi's time to Nirbhaya's time our mindset has been sicklied o'er; how the machisimo or masculinity has warped the freedom of women and clothing; how whatnots and whatelsenots are the cornerstone of male chauvinistic bastion!

Poor ignorant me is sitting here rhetorically wondering: so what do we want to do about it? Every time someone comes along kicking muck up, we all get excited about theorising, debating, politicising, moralising, hypothetising, a-lot-more-ising, posturing... to kingdom come.  Like the mothership has opened its hatch and all the Red-jacketed Martians are whisking our thoughts away in a nano-second if we don't keep -ising non-stop. OK. The malaise is deep-rooted, yes. Let's accept it, let's face it. OK. We've accepted it. We've outted ourselves off the closet of chauvinism. Now what? Do we take the Truth and Reconciliation path to purge the guilts of the past? to wash away the chauvinistic sins of days bygone? we just ungarland the albotross off our necks? So we can start tomorrow anew and start thinking rapes won't or don't happen? that people won't have postergirls, however demystified of carnal thoughts? or women would stop dreaming of six pack ad-models and filmy heroes? See. There. Is. The. Rub.

See. The rub is in another closet. For too long, the body itself has been looked at as something to be not talked about except in the concept of muscular men (valour) and lovely ladies (glamour) in public context... or as a reproductive User Interface in the private context of marital coitus in darkened rooms. We do not attach the right importance to body. According to western frame of mind. The truth is, we're trying to apply western liberal notions to a different cultural context without being prepared to absolutely uncompromisingly be bodily. How many of these non-machisimo, non-chauvinistic, liberated, bra-burning, equal-opportunity minded men and women have completely, totally, absolutely exorcised their own sexual devils away? Can anyone ever approach bodies in a complete asexual manner? Has anyone ever done that? Between the white and the black, there are sooo many shades of grey that various minds get excited variously from the white end of purity to the black end of perversity. Every every culture in the world has these men. It is only relative. Who is to spell judgement upon whom? We are all subjective and conveniently so! Where do we begin? What do we want? What can we do? How far are we 'all' willing to go? Who is willing to lead this change all the way through? Where exactly will this end or do we want this to end?

We want to show the body. We want to glamourise, glorify, sensualise and eroticise the body - men's and women's - but we want to keep the badness suppressed? Can we? Could we? Are we sure we're not going to drool at Deepika or Hrithik when they flaunt their bodies? Metaphorically speaking. How is this different? Is it ok for someone to do things in their mind (like in 8mm in the court scene)? Oh... but we're not hurting anyone physically! (I hear you. I agree.) But again, the act is in the mind. In the psyche. In the collective consciousness of the world. Not just India or Brazil or Shanty Town or other (in the developed world's eyes) squalid places. The fact is, every single one of us are (for lack of other better word) 'perverse' in our thoughts. If not, why else do so many millions of copies of Fifty Shades of BDSM being sold? We are all perverse in our thoughts at one time or other. In each other's perspective. We only call ourselves civilised, we're still animals, 'social' or not. And in the jungle, there are herbivores, parasites and predators. So is it in society. So, who is going to bell the cat? What is the bell? What is it a metaphor for? Is it like the Emperor's invisible clothes? Is there anyone out there with a workable answer instead of a lot of cackles of protest? Answer, please!

ANSWER!

Until then, spare your voices. I am, as Kafka Sr. says in Alan Benett's Kafka's Dick, sick to my scrotum. By the way, why do we constantly keep encouraging these Britishers? We still have a strong colonial hangover, don't we? Why blame them barmies? Slumdogs that we are and Billionaires that they are! Pfffft!!

The Karate Kid - Mr. Miyagi is dead! Long Live Mr. Miyagi!!

I saw The 'new' Karate Kid - should we call it The Kung Fu Kid! - on Sunday last (20 June) and I should say it is 20 shades paler than the original. In spite of a more charismatic Jackie Chan... I found Mr. Han not a patch on Mr. Miyagi (who passed away early this year and in whose memory I spent an entire afternoon watching and rewatching all the three Karate Kid films).

That said, I shall say that Hollywood's attempt to sell China (how much kickback was got in the bargain, your surmise is as good as my guess!) to Americans is disgusting to say the least. Haven't we been through the Forbidden City, the streets of Beijing, the Shaolin Temple, the Kung Fu universities, the glitzy Kung Fu championships, the Great Wall of China? What we do get to see new is the new Americanised condominiums, people of China playing ping pong and violins and basketballs as well as old men sitting around the landscaped parks of Beijing streets that fail to hide China's poor attempts to reduce pollution levels and throwing Afro-Americans into the Beijing crucible. Jackie must have a huge proclivity or affliction towards his Afro-American counterparts - Will Smith, Chris Tucker... and now Will Smith Jr!

By throwing in Jaden Smith on to the streets of Beijing and showing him play basketball in the glorified ghettos of Beijing, if any subtle comparison is made to the streets of Harlem and Pittsburgh... I miss the point! After 2 hours of loud western music and blurring visuals of boys chasing each other through the narrow streets of Beijing, I came home with a headache. It stayed till about another 4 hours.

Though, all is not unwell in the state of The Karate Kid latest. Jaden Smith has worked his "those words relating to the body part that Mr. Han asks him to avoid speaking" and the learning is evident. The kid has a lot of spunk, gumption and attitude. That brings me to the point I want to convey - the new Karate Kid is all about spunk and attitude. And there is no subtlety whatsoever in this 'in yer face' exhibition of Hollywood's latest attempt to make moolah at the expense of the Oriental. I missed the quietness of Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi, the serenity of the Japanese backdrop, the sanctity of the Japanese home and family tradition, the greenness of the rural Japan, the heart of the Original, the human-side of the villain of the original and his side-kick foil to the American boy Daniel played by Ralph Machhio... and most of all... the SOUL that The Karate Kid (original) had. This new avatar is just two hours of entertainment. It doesn't stay with you or warm the proverbial cockles of your heart.

Mr. Miyagi is dead! Long Live Mr. Miyagi!!

The Angst and Anguish of an English-patient

We Indians know not the art of war neither information dissemination that the west has mastered through their media... nor for that matter the craft of propaganda that socialist states quite successfully undertake!

I was watching CCTV today and this thought arose in me. I thought this too would pass like a lot of thoughts that have struck me recently, gently nibbling at my sides like an acupressure foot-massage in a pond full of hordes of little fish, asking me to post a blog.

I had successfully resisted those. I had decided a while back, not to abuse the blogspace by posting frequently random thoughts about random things. I have stuck to it, with the vehemence of a leech on a skin... but no! This one would not pass! So I gave into it as it started gnawing at me like a restless rat on a tin roof over a dingy attic. Hence this post. A while back I had this post on my Facebook about why we don't need Slumdog Millionaire and how it is not a great movie and all those who praise its Oscar-worthiness are lickers of white backsides because this is the latest tool of exploitation of Mother India by the Colonials. A great many gen-xers of the school I teach at rose up in arms in a Sepoy Mutiny against this anti-British stance of mine. I stood like the steadfast tin soldier then, as I stand now. Search me! What I explain below is God's own truth as witnessed by me and heard by me.

Since yesterday, the CCTV has been televising CCTV 2009 National English Speaking Competition. It must have been already a long-drawn process typical of any National level competition, which must have started at germane levels, at Colleges where hordes of people participate at the intra-college and -University level challenges and have arrived where they are.

23 participants are being pitted against 3 challengers and judged by a 9-member Jury about the English speaking quotient of each of them. THREE of them - after a three-day ordeal (the last day being tomorrow - 14th Nov, 2009) - would go through to a Grand finals. What is the competition about? Speaking English. What is the message it holds for us? A lot actually. At the moment we pride ourselves with our BPOs and Call Centres being the cash crops of our country's foreign revenue harvesting. Soon, this would vanish if what I witnessed was true.

A quiet little revolution has taken place. A lot of Chinese are starting to speak English. With an accent that would be much much more acceptable among the Western countries who want to transact with Asia - India or China or Japan or South Korea! With an accent that the English native speakers as well as the European english speaking businessmen would be comfortable. Add to it, the Chinese spoken English grammar may turn out a zillion times better because most Chinese go to language schools where English is taught by native English speakers. The grammar as well as the accent and the command is bound to be better in comparison to ours.

We had earlier in the recent past seen or read how the Chinese were being coached in English to serve the visitors during the Beijing Olympics. Further additions to this point: by its sheer volume and numbers, we all know China is bigger in population than India; in terms of the percentage of youth population, China is equal if not higher than India, if Indian statisticians and demographers are to be believed when they say that in 2020 or whenever India would have the highest youth population in the world!

The projection is: in three to five years time, when these college and university attending youth of China pass out and graduate to the world of business, China will have more English speakers in the world than even United States, which is the single largest English speaking nation and contains the most number of English speakers in the world. What will happen to our BPOs and Call Centers? How much of Green Bills would migrate home then?

I remember the times when I was in the IT sector, working as an in-house translator first, then as in-house full-time language consultant for German, then after as a free-lance consultant, when at the best of times a translator could spin more than a lakh of rupees in a week's time. That was the height of the IT boom when Indian IT industry was preferred in the West due mainly to our ability to do transactions not just in English, but good English. Even the European market - inspite of the lingual-cultural barriers and difficulties would come to our doorstep as a preferred business partner than China - though both our labour charges were cheap equally - simply because of our English abilities. The way school education is headed these days when, leave alone the students, teachers cannot communicate properly in English shows how badly communication suffers.

Communication is not just about content, it is more. It is the art of speaking a language, the art of structuring thoughts in a language through which the thoughts are presented, the art of having command over a language and presenting it in an effective manner. The Chinese are starting to master it, we are losing it - much like Arunachal Pradesh. The Pakistanis are (according to some of my young friends who have debated at the international levels, where the Pakistanis have a longer and stronger traditional and respected presence) mastering it and we are losing it - much like Kashmir!

What do we do? We are having internal skirmishes over haves and havenots. We breed petty politics and politicians and deliberately keep the population illiterate. We cannot say China is fully literate or totally prosperous; nor that it lacks corruption or internal political hassles; but... what they do not do is shoot movies that show our badness or our slums or our past glories alone! what they do not do is sell our souls to foreigners - who once ruled us - who shoot our undesired side and pitch it at Oscars. How many films or documentaries are made about the other side of China. All of us have the other side, but do we have to project that to claim material glory?

We have this biggest joke called Prasar Bharathi - they are celebrating 50 years of existence, the first 20 years of which it never reached the masses. When it is now reaching the masses, we know its quality. Supposedly, Doordarshan is beamed in 30 different languages, but look at its digital quality. Look at the packaging of programs. As an avid watcher, I can vouch for the heterogeneity of Doordarshan's content. Its content variety far outstrips any 10 of the private cable and satellite channels put together. Sadly, though, DD lacks in quality packaging. The latter these days is very important. It is just not what you give, but how it is given!

I am unaware of the following fact. Like the BBC or DW-TV or TV5 or ABC or VOA, do we have any television network that is beamed primarly targetting the countries we should be targetting and packaging a politically correct picture of India? Please let me know. I am as Adam as before the toad did its job!

Coming back... it becomes doubly our duty to take up communication seriously. It is quadruply important that the current tweens and teens and gen-x learn communication tools properly and master the common language of the world so that we do not lose out on progress. After all, speech is the one unique ability that humans possess; having been subject to 400-odd years of English-rule, we cannot afford to squander that advantage because our northerly and Dravidian politicians do not want to make the effort to learn Angrezi. Crazy, isn't it? Of course, when we reach out to our own masses, let us speak their language, both in spirit and letter, but we have to push ourselves to extremes to polish our communication. After all, true challenge lies in going beyond the basics and mastering the aesthetics. Would we? Do we have the grit to rise above our self-excavated rubble?

A small winding up info. There is this international competition for schools called World schools Debating Championships (hereafter WSDC) that is held annually in some city of the world or other, where teams representing countries, with participant-representatives drawn from schools of the respective countries, brandishing their Debating abilities and debating in English over a range of topics that bother the world at large on areas social, political, cultural, economic and artistic. As a curtain raiser to that, they have a mini-WSDC, which is a sort of whetstone for aspirant teams, novices and debutants to the field. This year it was held recently in October-November, as a prelude to the forthcoming WSDC at Doha, Qatar in February 2010.

Know what? China would be a debutant at Qatar2010. They participated in the mini-WSDC and wound up 4th in a field of 10 teams that contained some of the strongest debating teams in English such as New Zealand, US or Chile! As a rejoinder, after what I saw on CCTV... this is a strong foreboding. If you care to, and you receive this channel I am referring to, follow the CCTV English Speaking Competition if you happen to chance upon it.

JAI HIND!

The RIGHT side of SAFFRON and the LEFT side of RED

Everything, it seems, is a question of hysteria, conversion and expediency. Does it naturally follow we are talking India: be it Cricket, Culture, Politics, Religion, Entertainment! The mandate - I thought long and hard - is not in favour of UPA or Congress or against BJP as people are led to think. The mandate is in favour of the ability of any person who is projected as an icon and possessing the ability to sway people's emotion than intellect. Example: Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Bannerjee... the list is long but not endless, because there are also failed icons and cheats. The example of former being L.K.Advani and the latter being P.Chidambaram. 22 Recounts? They recounted until the counting minds and hands tired and gave up, knowing Chidu's will to retain the constituency is stronger than the will of the others to gain. Power Play is the game of those who are afraid of losing, not hate losing. Look at what happened in the Sivaganga constituency. I am sure there is a scenario that transpired yesterday in Sivaganga that is similar to what happened in Florida in the year Cousin Bush recounted and won. So... 

In the middle of all this, the LEFT finds itself in a mess. Lalu issues a statement obviously repenting the wisdom of non-pre-poll alliance. Expelled speaker Somnath Chatterjee conveniently blaming Prakash Karat. UPA believing that they are more secular than others and hence they won! BJP claiming that there was oil all over the body but not on the mustache enough for dirt to stick on it: "Oh! But look at the seven states where we have done well!" 

The sum total of inability to convert the figures to form government is higher in ineptitude than the parts that constitute a whole new political dharma, dear Jaitley. It seems more than anyone else, the Fourth Estate, especially the TV News channels seem more bent on using the fall of BJP and the LEFT to their TRP best by vilifying the former and mourning the latter as though they finally moved Lenin from Dzherzinsky Square to the inner precincts of some seedy museum. Axes continue to fall through the press on figure heads who deem themselves culpably responsible for the fall of their bastions. In this context, I think, Mr. Advani must be either the most qualified drama person or the most naive politician. He says he wants to quit. He reminds me of the Soccer team managers who are either axed or take moral responsibility and quit because their side lost. Is he so naive to believe that he could have made the party's march to Parliament happen were others not to be there? He did realise years back that he was not as charismatic as Atal-ji. Barely had he said he wants to own moral responsibiity and quit, the idiomatic lip-service that he should not quit rose inside the party; but in just over three hours it died at the same speed it rose with and now they are already clamouring among themselves, WHO NEXT - You or me? 

The trouble with all those who are magnetic enough but not charismatic is that they lack that extra moderation. Atal-ji never did anything that was politically flamboyant. Manmohan never has either. Sonia doesn't too. The ability of a leader in India to retain the mass hysteria to their side, today, comprises of a certain quality to be in the middle and yet not get emotional. In some cases the lack of emotions or intelligence can also be helpful, which leads us to the burial of Left. 

More than anything else that happened in Elections 2009, it is not the so-called end of Advani that will be remembered, but people's faith in democracy and the eradication of superstitious belief that socialism can exist in India in the garb of communism.

Communism calls itself a rational and social way out of religious beliefs that generate superstitions and lack of thinking as well as gives rise to capitalistic inequality. Accepted, the commies have their right to whatever they want to think. After all, we believe in Freedom of Speech and Thought. Have people forgotten the old axiom that anything that is an "ism" is not very different from religion! They also seem to have not taken notice of the fact that since the liberalisation era India has been inexorably catapulting and inevitably spiralling downwards towards the nadir of a free market economy that would lead its Dow Jones and Hang Seng listings ultimately towards its own little share in the global meltdown of economy when it would happen. We may today say proudly that India was not as affected as other and developed nations. The lesser the share the less the damage, but... it did, didn't it not? 

We do live among a generation that believes in everything being material and everything is there to be questioned. More suicides and more harassments and more ills than positives. The other day I had an argument with someone about how there are more unhappy people in the current generation than ever. He said that statistically there are more happy people. It also statistically means that the population has increased several fold over a period faster than rabbits fornicate and profligate and populate! When the number of happy people increase, the number of unhappy people also increase by that same logic that where there are more people being born there are also more people dying, if you go by number theory; and where number theory comes into play, capitalism sooner than latter overhauls any other belief because it becomes the Right of the Might and not the Might of the Righteous. 

This is where Communism and Communist parties got it wrong. They thought that they had the UPA by its proverbial balls during their last reign. The Left blackmailed UPA with its one-point agenda of "NO to Nuke Deal" if it is from US! The UPA strongly proved them wrong. 

It looked, from the LEFT angle, only for a while. After all, the elections were round the corner and there's enough sluice gates that could be damaged across the country. Then again, the LEFT has not delivered to the people what the capitalists have not either. I strongly think the one single favour the Indian voters did to themselves in this election is that they threw the Left; but are they finally and totally out or just bloody and broken, not yet battered and defeated? The coming days would prove that. 

One thing is certain: Life is not that bad on the RIGHT SIDE OF SAFFRON as they still are the only other national party and they do have the best single majority this side of Congress and hence shall continue their seat-warming on the bridesmaid side. They have been the best Opposition party in the history of our 60 plus year old democracy and we need them in the opposition. If they are good enough to do positive developmental contribution economically and politically in their respective areas, there is no reason why they cannot have a better cheer next time around. Their statement that they are willing to be a constructive opposition seems earnest for the moment... unlike THE LEFT SIDE OF RED who are already sliming their heads together as to how they can dismantle their Third Front and go Back to associating themselves with a secular governement in the face of a fundamental opposition. To give a little twist to the Giorgio Moroder song of the distant past in what could become an NDA post-poll song of woe, "YOU ARE LEFT, SHE's RIGHT, I AM WRONG".

Digging into my favourites....

I wasn't really intending to do this. But, my daughter set it off. In my previous post I had confessed to going moist-eyed - to put it mildly - after watching Taare Zameen Par. This post has been prompted by hearing that wonderful voice of Shankar Mahadevan in the title song. While the world is going ga-ga over Shaan's Bum Bum Bole, I think the title song takes the cake. So soulful. I guess it has to do with the movie itself. Very soulful. And I have met or spoken to hundreds literally now. Not one has not confessed to unabashedly going "lump-in-the-throat" to "cried-on-every-frame" at some level or other. While I was on that, I mulled over the other "made me moist-eyed" movies. And surprise surprise... some among them were teacher related movies. It has nothing to do with the fact that I am one. But take a look at the list of my favs in that genre: Dead Poets Society must rate on the top of the heap; i.e. until Taare came along! Then the movie of Poitier's based on Brathwaite's apocryphal (to me) novel - To Sir With Love. What a masterpiece creation that novel is! The movie was in my opinion so true to original. Of course, alongside ranks its Bollywood kin Sir featuring Naseeruddin Shah. I remember the day vividly - it was not too often I went for Hindi movies then. But this was one of them. Back in the 80s? I remember seeing it in VeeCumCee Emerald that used to be part of the proud edifice called Safire Complex - never mind the "what later became sleaze joint" popular VeeCumCee (which later virtually became the We Cum, See! joint for quickies and prostitution!) Blue Diamond. There have been several fantastic english movies that have boarded the Blue Diamond bus. But... when you hit the bottom, it gets really bottomer.... Anyway, before I get nostalgic and start contemplating a hubristic eulogy to Safire Complex on which stands weed growth and rubble on Mount Road now, let me cut it off! But...

The following are my education or children related favs: Taare Zameen Par, Dead Poets' Society, To Sir With Love, Sir (surprisingly Kamal's remake "Nammavar" doesn't kick me at all!), the Promethean Pink Floyd video Another Brick in the Wall and lastly but not in that order, Pearl Jam's JEREMY!

Now while we are on movie trip, let me also put down my Top Ten Tamil Comedies. I am not meme-ing anyone on this or anything else. But you can respond with your own Top-10s! Welcome. Here goes:

1) Kaadhalikka Neramillai

2) Ninaivil Nindraval

3) Anbee Vaa

4) Uttaravindri Ulle Vaa

5) Ullaththai Alli Thaa

6) Michael Madana Kamaraajan

7) Singaaravelan

8) Magaraasan & Kaadhalaa Kadhalaa

9) Pancha Thantiram

10) Thenali

I guess I do some kind of compensatory justice to my not including Nammavar in my list earlier. 5 (6) out of 10 (11) in the list you would see are Kamal movies. Well, goes without saying, with his sense of timing and eye for comic nuances, obviously Kamal comedies are off the rack better than anyone else's this side of Sridhar's movies. I am sure, top of 7 out of 10 people's all time tamil comedy list would contain #1 - Kaadalikka Neramillai. Of course there are other movies of yore which are so special for their comic moments - Thiruvilayaadal, Ooty Varai Uravu, several Chandrababu and Nagesh as well as NSK movies, Thillaana Mohanaambal... even the much later Ramarajan's Karagaatakaaran (inspired obviously and modelled on Thillaaana - similar to Sangamam. Three other movies I would like to add to my list, if I had a Top-12 would be Sabaash Meena, Kalyaanam Panniyum Brahmachari & Sabaabathi (bringing up the Baker's Dozen). One may also mention stuff like Aan Paavam and Nethi Adi by Pandiya Rajan and Indru Poi Naalai Vaa by Bhagyaraaj, but they wouldn't somehow get into my Top-10 for reasons I can't explain!

Anyway... so much for Tamil movie nostalgia. I shall stop here. The rest is laughter!

DUS KAHAANIYAAN - an Indian Decalogues?

Seven Visionary Directors. Ten Spectacular Stories. One Cinematic Journey... so goes the tagline of this cinema production. That perhaps is what best qualifies this venture for this is no one single story movie or one thematically united episodic movie. No doubt, it is an impressive attempt in the Indian movie firmament, when run on the mill movies dominate with their old wine in new bottle formats. But, but...

What they did not tell you about DUS is this: the twist in the tale is the tail... and... it has probably one of the best line-up of actors since "LOC - Kargil". Nevertheless, it sadly fails to interest you. No aspersions on the actors or the quality of acting. When you have Shabana Azmi, Naseerudin Shah, Nana Patekar, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpai and Sanjay Dutt for acting as well as Mandira Bedi, Neha Dhupia, Dia Mirza etc to sizzle the screen... and several other impressive names and then some more, you expect a buffet of pyrotechnics and thespian thrills; but...!

It doesn't matter how good your players are, if the playing field is bad, you can't put up a good total on the board. DUS, thus, looks like the best batting line-up in the world - the Indian cricket team - that fails to deliver at the crunch. The title is the most impressive part of this Sanjay Gupta - Sanjay Dutt cohort. The 10 short films remind one of perhaps the greatest film-making attempt under a single title - The Decalogues of Krystof Kieslowski, the great Polish director; but there ends the parallel. Rambling, boring, cliched, predictable fare this one is.

Let me give you a sample. You go and judge for yourself. Or the other alternative is this, you can wait for Moserbaer or someone to bring out a 28 buck vcd or 34 buck dvd, buy a copy and see. There's no hurry here. After all, 10 stories in two sitting, if you count the interval after the first 5 tales, is a bit too much. Not every one is used to the film chamber or film association screening of two, three films in the same sitting. Or you can even borrow it from someone else who wants to add it to their collector's chest simply because it is allegedly different from other Indian films (if you discount the fact that Satyajit Ray has done it decades back!) So... let me get to the content of DUS.

We start with MATRIMONY - the first of the short flick. The flick starts very impressively. The camera does interesting things. Stays where it is or cuts and cuts back without ambiguity between Mandira Bedi's lips and her husband's glass of mango juice. He leaves, she smiles, they coo to each other sweet nothings... and then she leaves. Cut. Ms Mandira in the back seat of car, voice over: "I am Pooja Sarin, the bored and lonely wife of a multinational's vice-president". Overlooking the bad use of possessive pronoun, my mind starts thinking. A-ha! If I just replace Ms Bedi with Ms Sherawat (not much of a difference actually!), and accept neither Arbaaz nor Sudanshu Pandey are equals for Emraan Hashmi in the bilabial department, I think there is a Murder or other hot semi-porn flicks of its ilk. Only... I wonder and am piqued, how can they make a semi-porn flick that you can watch uncensored the next time you travel in a Lufthansa flight, in just 12 minutes. My fears get allayed. Soon Pooja Sarin is finished making love to her army-boy lover Adi (that's how! you skip the vital parts and like a bikini just show the bare minimum to excite the viewer!!) and he breaks the bow with a customary twang: the boy is going to the border, not before he has gifted her a nice necklace. Hey... wait a minute. Yeah, you got it figured. It's D-A-H-L, Roald Dahl all over. Yeah yeah yeah. No new year's gift for figuring it out. And do you need me to continue the story?

Well, for unwhetted viewers of populist bollywood movies, these shorts would come as whiffs of fresh breath. Each tale has the O'Henry twists in the tail. But the bottom line is... the pattern gets to you. The tail is too sun-burnt to look healthy. Movie after movie after movie of repetitions about marital discord and flings and betrayals in an urban scenario, as though the bourgeoisie and the emerging nouveau riche urban middle and upper middle class have only a metaphorical middle finger in their minds - whether it is in the back of the Mercedes or the backroom of a CEO's office or in between brunches and lunches! Mr. Sanjay Gupta must give a little more credibility to the urban livers and lovers, even if he shows only Mumbai-ites. Now the last straw... as though he and his other directors and 10+ story writers and 6 or 7 music directors as well as screenplay writers have no faith in the thespians of the movie, they push the children of bollywood's lesser gods in the first half. And what have we. Besides Manoj Bajpai and an older Amrita Singh, all the big names are kept in the back pack. Or the back pack contains inferior stories and had to be beefed up with bigger performers?

Now then! Coming to the object of my post: the movie bears no parallel to any work of art, leave alone The Decalogues by Kieslowski. There is no grace nor seeking Grace here like in the case of the Kieslowskian protagonists. Of course, both the TENs (DUS and Decalogues) have a lot of focus on female protagonists and both the lot try and grapple with human existence, but those of DUS grapple with stupid and unnecessarily glamorised sordidities of urban existence. Their daily lives have cultural myths and urban legends deflating their seeking something elusive, no doubt. Nevertheless, these concerns are absolutely trivial and would not even appeal to the majority of the urban Indians, not remotely in a broader context. Their concerns are several other things.

Only Bollywood can come up with a sold-by-the-soul belief that urban Indians have different concerns from non-urban Indians. Slickness in movie-making need not make one believe that it can happen only with slick decors, suave settings as well as suitings, silky locales and interiors aided by stylish lighting and svelte cars as well as clevage-popping heroines. Slickness is in the planning of frames and editing to aid a strong narrative. Film-making is no different from other forms of story-telling. And the telling is what is important. Not necessaril the how. There are better themes and issues to shoot flicks on. What a waste of meters and kilometers of film rolls, when there are so many struggling artists carrying dreams to emerge as mainstream directors and storytellers.

Having said that... there are three flicks that are the saving grace of this TEN TALES: Pooranmashi, Gubbar and Zahir. And the attempt to give the Jimmy Shergill starrer High on the Highway a touch of Natural Born Killers, though laughable is tenuously laudable.

Crusade, Spiritual Counseling and being Born Again

Ruminations - 2

Am I I? Or who am I? What is my identity? Is Identity a requisite? Does identity matter? Why then are there so many questions on identity in the first part of any application form? One thing is certain. This is a short paragraph, relatively speaking.

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Ruminations - 1

This is India. I mean, we are supposed to be Indians, from the country founded and raised originally on the banks of Sindh River and spread to occupy the sub-continent. May by the use of that word "occupy" is significant. May be not. I am not commenting. All is conjecture. Then again, Sindh, Inde, India, Hind all point to one thing: this is Hindu country. At least, twas! And yet, when I look around, what do I see. Three out of ten neighbours in every neighbourhood is likely to be a non-Hindu. Frequently there is bound to be a Muslim in this list and two out of every seven can be born-again Christians or within 500 meters there is bound to be an Islamic, if not, definitely a Christian worship place, a Fancy Goods Store or a Departmental or Provision store of the local variety run by a Muslim or Christian; to add to it, in certain localities, there may even be a Dhabba and some Tibetian or North-east student community presence indicating Sikh and/or Buddhist ilk. Yet, we are shouting about Hindu and anti-Hindu sentiments; and yet further, Hinduism is termed as a trampling religion that is non-secular. Parties are being accused of being fundamental and Hindu right-wing. The Prime Minister of this country is a Sikh. The person who ramrods the President and Prima Minsiter is a Christian. More unequivocally put, comes from the proximity of Vatican. The erst-while President was a Muslim gentleman. The current incumbent is a champion of underpriveleged; by which is meant the Dah-lits. Aren't they all? And yet this is called Hindu country and being Hindu has come to mean anti-secular... because, secularism aims at vernicht-ing that so-called Hindu identity in order to bring about a certain state of multi-religious, multi-sectarian society so that people are kept divided along religious, casteist, sectarian and yes, sexarian. I refuse to call it sexist, for often, again and unabashedly, in a very partisan and polarised way, that is equated to chauvinism, as though one can't be a female sexist. You see, you can't even say feminist as the antonym of chauvinist, like you can't call Christianity or Islam or Zorastrianism the antonym of Hinduism. Now of course, Sikhism or Buddhism are excluded conveniently because they are really the elite and ignorable minority. The antonym of Hinduism is the priveleged domain of Da-lits these days, like sexism equals chauvinism and feminism is a redemtive word for rallying for a noble cause. For: anything originally allegedly suppressed or underpriveleged or opportunity-denied has come to become elite, positive, inclusive, and hence minority. Very confusing? Imagine my confusion and visualise the lines of chaos running on my visage early in the morning (if you consider 6.30 a.m early enough!) when I pick my customary The Hindu and shake the inevitable supplementary sections and daily appendages of ink on sundry newsprint to shake off the trojans and backdoors that come stuffed like lettuce in a burger. What befalls? A handfull of 70gsm Christian literature falls out! Well, I always thought these sundry lettuce stuffings only take the form of fliers for furnitures and mosquito nettings and Reliance Fresh. But no! Conversion attempts begin at 4 a.m in the morning when they get lettuced into newspapers and fall out of the bread of commode-reading habit around 7 p.m at the latest. And yet this is Hindu country. And yet Da-lits are rallying for more and more minority status. And yet a Sikh is a Prime Minister of this country. You see, this is Congress country. Every party that can threaten their stay at top would be non-secularised, every society that can undermine their peaceful non-co-existence will be campaigned un-democratic or non-socialist friendly. The commies are the exception,being a law unto themselves. As useless and un-country-friendly. The commies don't know what they want. They neither can become majority, nor can reach consensus within themselves, or can successfully divide the bread between the monkeys. And yet, they rule the people who rule the man who rules the country. So who rules the country, what country are we in, what are our guiding principles, what is our religious or secular, democratic or fundamental status? Are we being secularised or vaticanised? Are we being made minority or majority? Is minority the majority or majority the minority? Are we being subverted or converted? Do people who talk of revolution or taking over of India by the military as the only purgative, laxative, whatever-ative realise it is not even working in the proverbial "hatti" called Pakistan, India itself being the Kabab of the sub-continental spread (after all, Pak-stan was a Pak-stance of Jinnah from pre-partition India). Is it better to be isolated from the main-land sub-continent, courtesy waters of Indian Ocean, like Sri Lanka? Is this blog about religion, politics or our country? Do we even have a single identity? Is it even possible to think of a physically undivided India since we are mentally so divided? Would anyone have the sanity to take the double-barrel and blow the heads of the dynastic party that rules this country who is in turn ruled by a 'woman' who is rank-outsider even in her country of origin? Would it really be the panacea for the common good of the people of this country if the figure-heads are wiped out? Or do we need to overhaul the nomenclatures of the political offices? Why are we even made aware of these differences? While we are going over this, hundreds of infants are dying, girls are being raped, boys are being kidnapped, women are being raped on the highways of Delhi, Noida or Gurgaon in the backseats of cars and SUVs. We remain indifferent because the 24 hour newschannels have benumbed our sensibilities to horrors by packaging them for their own TRPs. Gone are the days when newspapers use to carry news. There are only olds, thanks to live newschannels. Good news are no more news. Bollywood and ramps are the only celebrative affairs worth beaming as good news, else all news is blood, gore, or al-gore or bush. Only one thing is certain. This is a very very very long paragraph.

Ruminations on a Review: The cultural politics involving Flame of the Forest

I had not intended to indulge in the cultural politics of the FLAME for obvious reasons. But now that it had been - quite deliberately, if I may hazard to say - touched upon, we must analyse the consequences or the spinoffs of the same in the light of the recent review of the play in The Hindu. And decide for ourselves is it welcome? The work is welcome; but if there was a culturally subversive politics hiding in there, should we take the scythe and harvest the Count Vlads of Sabha Culture - meaning the "rashikas" - away from our theatre? Truly, this write-up belongs to the dedicated sections of Friday Supplement where the arohanams and adavus are discussed. But no!

Look at this little example from the review: "Flame of the Forest... has introduced the Tamil theatre tradition in English. The tradition harks back to the Natya Shastra of Bharatha ...where dnace and music were integral features." And read the last para: "As a new genre in English theatre, it could very well widen the circle of audience in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere." First, English theatre has its own musical form. An extension: Chennai has its fair share of musical and dance theatre in English, even if it is random. Second, it is not the introduction of Tamil theatre tradition in English. Has been done before. Third, is this the writer's first time watching English theatre in Chennai? Fourth, there really is no English theatre in Tamil Nadu elsewhere but Chennai. Fifth, I dread at such a possibility of widened circles. Questions arise in my mind...

The questions that arise are:
- Should an audience have a foreknowledge of the history behind the work on attending a play?
- Should one know the basics of theatre or the functional grammar of a performance one is watching?
- Or is it just enough if they remember the watching etiquettes?
- How valid is an artist in thrusting his/her choices, preferences, foibles and whims and fancies on his/her audience deliberately? Does it not amount to evangelism?
- What must a review do?

Having asked these questions, my mind surfaces with the first salvo. The review in question - or if they want, for argument's sake, to keep their conscience clear - the writing on THEATRE column is the most singularly patronising piece of embracing a dangerous cultural politics I have come across in theatre in recent times. It shows the writer well-read, learned in the arts (probably) that she's talking about. It also shows the writer as a nostalgist for all practical purposes. This is a very dangerous sign of things to come. It is in this light my questions above have been raised. Let's see them one by one.

In my previous post on the play, I had consiously avoided discussing the story in its context as it has no more relevance to us than Mr. Bean watching a horror movie, which only tries to entertain us. Assuming I would not have known the history of Tamilnadu and had gone to watch the play, I feel it still is irrelevant. Why should I know who Mahendra Pallava was, who Sivagami was? There is no rule of the thumb I should read the original. It is not Bible. Even if it is, why should one read it? It is the same argument put forward by entertainment critics at loggerheads with literary critics and historians. In order to watch Electra why should I need to know Agamemnon was killed, in advance? Or should I necessarily Wiki myself on the Google how Hamlet Sr. was killed to watch Hamlet? Is a pre-knowledge essential? And if so, to watch extent? To what end? Is it to show, "listen folks and juntaa who are here to watch this play, I know the work better than you do, so am qualified to write about it, if not discuss it to clanking bangles and wine-glasses at a private party"? Or to put the seen performance in the true light saying "I know the background, so I know what am writing about and hence I can truly properly explain to an uninformed audience"? So, to pay tribute in an unabashedly nostalgic way is limpetty and harking back to something from the past, which is to say, something is lacking today.

What was yesterday cannot be today, but in the fashion cycle it may come round the Ferris Wheel of culture tomorrow. But to say that someone is bringing something from somewhere to elsewhere it is not present is to not question whether it is valid for the elsewhere or not! Why is it important? Without that can English theatre not exist? This nostalgisation of theatre is a new derivation in Chennai. At least among the critical aficianados. I do not want to discuss when it started. Then we may have to go into a lot more muck than we are now. And if all linens are proven dirty as charged, there won't be any left but the naked truth. Though that may lie in the middle, it definitely won't be the middle path. We may all have to take up cudgels and start slam-dunking each other goriously (I would have said gorily, but can't resist the hidden sham-glory!)

Artists have sought to consioucly eradicate theatre of its elitism in the English theatre circles, bringing the levels even. At a time when what is needed is to awaken interest among the theatre-goers in a non-political but genuinely experimental way so that audience get involved in the factual possibility of creations, we are starting to either resort to the creation of dumb, mindless farces and comedies like fast-food (and hence the creation of a 'Fast-food Theatre') or create culturally grammatical classical theatre with a lot of nostalgia for the dance and music and costume, which we need only on dance stages or music sabhas. The former can be excused, but not the latter in the opinion of, I am sure, the more politically conscious left-inclined theatre artists.

We must facilitate the watching of theatre for simple minds, which is the audience that would readily pay without any other agendas but to see theatre than being seen. If we need to create better working environment in terms of finances to facilitate better productions, without having to resort to mileage-sucking corporates and private organisations, we need to learn to generate finances through gates and that is possible only by simplifying theatre without forsaking the aesthetics. After all, art is all about bringing aesthetic quality to our lives. And we have to start dealing with real issues (which actually FLAME does, but is conveniently forgotten by theatre watchers) than superfluous and incidental paraphernalia. If the demands on audience grows, forcing them to equip themselves with preknowledge or challenge them in unrequired ways, we would only get audiences who are educated. And the ratio of educated money to illiterate money is very thin, as we know. Also, it polarises those who would like to come to English theatre, seemingly from an un-english theatre background. Make no mistake, even if the theatre work doesn't underscore this fact, the write-ups do. After all, the write-ups reach the household whereas the audience go to the theatre and you know which has more reach and hold!

It is not long before there's going to be a street-fight. You may laugh now, probably. You never know, in this country. Did we ever envision a Reservation Politics? One day the class and racial prejudice problem that has emasculated itself as casteist politics in our society is going to extend itself to the theatre. In fact, this is what has polarised Tamil theatre for decades. Even the Sabhas aren't doing well and that is no secret. And highlighting such politics hidden in the play by talking about the so-called (for lack of better phrase) Kalakshetra elements, we are only treading into unwanted territories. Let's talk about dance and music without involving certain signifiers.

Also, by cross-pollinating theatre thus, we are eliminating the simple joy of watching and forcing a certain section of audience out of theatre, and bringing those undesired, so-called cultured rasikas that cannot discuss or bother about anything "real" life into halls. A lot of these people have no concern for reality and live in a comfortable world of travelling by four wheels, drink Malt Whiskey and discuss Kalki or Christie in oh-so-fashionable ways. They can only skim the surface of society because the stench of the sub-surface is anathema to their very upbringing and ancestry. And this review is so feel-good that it glorifies the periphery aspects of the theatre work, whereas there are many more redeeming and noteworthy features to FLAME. The writing is so form-centric.

Theatre is not all about putting things nicely. Theatre is not a place for interior decoration. Theatre is a place, at the bottom, to discuss issues, however much a work may not do it openly. In fact, the beauty of theatre lies in sub-textualising the issues and the duty of criticism is to bring it to the surface. FLAME is from a writer who translated Kanya Dhaan and we know what the latter work is all about. There must have been non-apolitical reasons for any writer to create or translate a work. The writer of FLAME must surely have had such strong reasons for translating Tendulkar's work, and that is something the review in question just about barely touches upon. Such writer belongs to such audience, perhaps.

This is the truth, note this: a lot of them don't even know a menu button from call-end button. And they all carry fashionable Nokias and Motorolas in their handbags and speak sabha vocabulary of Tamil in a very accented English tone. These are the audiences the artists of late-80s thru the 90s had consiously tried to distance from theatre unless they came to accept artists of any plumage with an open mind, the only criterion being the strength of the production. Would they be seen in a show by any or every company, irrespective of the branding or who's who of the show?

Furthermore, the current patronising review, by referring to TKS brothers, only tries to revoke the dormant T-rex eggs of elitist culture. But then, the TKS plays from my hear-know from my parents and grandparents did seem to have popular elements as well!

Personally my anguish is not against the play in question. Every artist has the right to creation. Every performance artist has the right to bring on stage what they like. And as long as it is for creative purposes, it is welcome. It adds to embellish and punctuate the growing annals of culture, tradition and history. For we are very clear, without tradition and history, culture cannot be enriching or rewarding. But when this starts getting eulogised by critics who are supposed to be at the vanguard of writing and giving the truth and nothing but the whole truth about the work as is where is, it is unwelcome and subversive and counter-productive.

Take this statement: "Gowri extends her grandpa's story with a convincing sequel...." How much more subjective and personalised can a writing get? Is this what a reviewer must do? How much ever one masks the writing in the name of THEATRE or something that doesn't quite say REVIEW, it is an after-performance piece and hence an opinion, a view-point, etc etc.

When one writes in a personal space for discussive readership it is a different matter. One is entitled to one's opinion and so is a reader; and we can start exchange of opinions, views, get argumentative, debate, conflict, contradict etc etc, which at least leads to exchange of ideas. But when it goes up on a public space which people pay to read, you are corrupting possible minds that just read and lap it up. These could be the young children of these "rashikas". Probably the formers' minds are still naive and uninfluenced. Let them choose their entertainment form. Don't give opportunity to these rashika-parents to evangelise their children's choices. Or at least stop playing your part in shaping their choices. What else are we artists there for? You do your job, we will do ours.

Except for the penultimate para which just states something very unconvincingly something superfluously unseemly about the play, read the writing and let me know if there is anything boldly unpatronising about this!

Please by all means use music, dance, etc etc in theatre. This is the quintessence of theatre. It is such a fantastic multimedia confluence to tell stories in ever so interesting fashions. But do not make it elite and take it out of the reach of people who have been coming to it all these years. It would not be right to say, were one to say, we are 'attracting' audience to theatre through the opulence and richness on stage. And please don't quote Bharatha and his Natya Shastra and sully his name. That's like saying "Tom Jones" or "Tristram Shandy" was the first work of meta-fiction!!! First let us sustain the existing (whatever) masses, then talk of bringing new classes in.

Honestly, the day I visited, all I could see were blonde and brunette heads ethnically dressed... or side-parted and clean-shaven, and if not abroad educated, at least proudly possessing one person of the family in Wisconsin or Strathclyde or wherever types, who had their phones on and were half the time caught with their 'palms itching to make love to each other in the name of clapping' between scenes. And they did not even know whether their act of wanting to clap is right or not. See their hypocrisy? Their upbringing tells them it is untimely to clap and disturb the actor. But their instincts tell them that the scene either deserved to be clapped genuinely or their upbringing has taught them that one needs to clap to show their polite approval of what they saw... and hence thus be recognised as being present in the audience. A lot of insecurity is the sub-text of this dubious and sneaky act. Whereas a genuine watcher would have expressed his/her enjoyment uninhibitedly. These are the people who go to watch Yehudi Menuin when he comes to Music Academy and clap at all the odd-ball moments.

Take it from me, we are going to witness the Second Coming of the Discerning Elitists to Chennai's English Theatre: the moneyed class that do not mind throwing 500 bucks to get a pit seat proudly in Museum Theatre. You remember what pit meant in a Shakespearean context? These are only refined aficianados of the pit. I think we are unfortunately sinking in the quagmire of Fast-food theatre while the hand that reaches out is Nostalgic-Heritage Theatre. The makers are not at fault. They are being encouraged by those who are smart enough to realise business-opportunities. Somebody is driving the market subtly. Wake up artists!

Love and War in the Time of Call-Era

Non-Disclaimer: This is an opinion post and not a review. However, it is not devoid of review-elements!

I saw the play Flame of the Forest produced by JustUs Repertory in association with The Madras Players, written and directed by Gowri Ramnarayan and acted, in most parts, by people whose features I could not delineate and would have failed to recognise had I not known their faces from previous exposure to the cultural legions of Chennai. So much for mood lighting. In fact I left with the feeling that the play would as well have worked better - given a certain decent tautness of the script that surfaced on and off to remind you that a play can transcend the production if well written - with just a few parcans for general lighting.

Now to the author: my first exposure to Gowri Ramnarayan was in 1997 when I 'also' figured in a local production of Vijay Tendulkar's KANYA DHAN, translated into English by her (which incidentally was performed by a travelling Mumbai group on the same day as the FLAME in a near-by venue). And my recent closer acquaintance to Gowri Ramnarayan started in 2005 through her Dark Horse and an acting stint in her second oeuvre Rural Phantasy. My admiration for her as a translator and writer is high. The essence of translated and/or adapted work of art is that it must not mess with the quintessence of the original. She seems to be a master craftsman at that.

I have not read nor can I claim to read Kanya Dhan because I can not Marathi; but, having read both Kanayazhiyin Kanavu (which became Rural Phantasy) and Sivagaamiyin Sabatham - Sivagaami's Vow - (which has now inspired the Flame of the Forest), as well as my share of acquaintance with one Prof. Neelakanta Sastri's works, I can earnestly acknowledge her honesty and dignity as a translator and history-oriented writer. Now here is the truth: among her four stage works that I know of, only one is original. FLAME. Even her Dark Horse is largely made up of Arun Kolatkar's original writings, around which and the poet's personality and life itself the play revolves. So I would like to see a totally original conception and creation from Gowri Ramnarayan before I would involve myself in the analytical vocation of a literary critic that I was trained 8 years for through my Ph.D period. Nevertheless, I would still do it gingerly because I am not qualified to critique a work that involves areas of music and dance I don't know the grammar of!

About the productions: Gowri's conceptual vision as an artistic director is coupled with the dramaturg in her. As a result what one gets - if one gets to meet her and hear from her about her show before the show hits the public eye, that is - is a very rich visceral image stretching grandiosely over two hours of performance time in our mind's eye, where she makes you visualise the resplendent colours of the scheme, not to mention the entire texture and the hardness or softness of the light. I still remember her explaining the last tableaux of Dark Horse, with the golden halo behind the Arunachaleswara posture that Drithiman goes into! But somehow for some reason I have often found T.S.Eliot true: "Between the idea/And the reality/Between the motion/And the act/Falls the Shadow... Between the conception/And the creation/Between the emotion/And the response/Falls the Shadow."

In a sense this is very true of most artistic directors (those I would call artistic since there are a lot of hacks who masquerade as either artists or directors in Chennai) because of the kind of circuit we work in. It has not to do with the paucity of talents or raw materials or designers who can envision the director's mind. It simply has to do with our inability to push the boundaries of creativity in a compromise to hit the stage as scheduled so that our fear of 'the longer you soak, the soggier it gets' gets allayed. I do not see the point. A finer thing would be to not set a production target date. Work on the paper and at rehearsals till you reach the stage where it can be shared with the first public, meaning your designers, then set a target date and start run throughs or tweak throughs. Of course, for that you need patient artists or at least actors, who understand the creative process and plod on. For the rest, there are bedroom farces and leave-your-brain-in-the-freezers 90 minute entertainers where you can keep your cellular phones on!

Coming back... I have personally listened to Gowri explaining the visuals in Dark Horse and with the then given resources I could not even produce 10% of her colourful vision on stage when I helped technical assist one of the runs in Chennai. Then, Rural Phantasy too... I remember her elucidations of what she had envisioned. I hope she got what she wanted. I really can't comment on it since I was an accessory fixture to the sets and lights on stage during the performance. Hope I didn't disturb her vision, standing out as an odd-piece of jigzaw that refused to paste itself properly. And now FLAME: I have heard from her once about the production plan. It sounded great. Probably as a result of that descriptive session, the show disappointed me.

FLAME is a play I would like to draw parallels with Via Dolorosa by David Hare, Sticks and Bones (to a limited extent) by David Rabe as well as his best screenplay film Casualties of War (starring MJ Fox and Sean Penn), Andorra of Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Romulus the Great and some others. The reason. It talks about war and the senselessness of the same in a society bereft of any values. The play much reminded me of Duerrenmatt's Romulus the Great and its final scene where Romulus, the last Roman Emperor (according to the play) and Odoaker, the invading Teuton meet after the plot has managed to create a greater anticipation for the better part of the 2 and half hour story. When they finally meet, we realise how both actually hate war. Astounding work Romulus is. Similarly FLAME in the scene where Pulikesin and Mahendra Varman meet. Of course there is only one side here lighting the candle, while the vile jackal under the skin of cow that Pulikesin is, he promptly and expectantly backstabs the Pallava king. Mahendra Varman is an artist trapped in a Kshatriya body (much like Arjuna in Mahabharat) and he pays the price for not behaving the Warrior he was. It is a humane work, FLAME is, much needed in these times of (misguided) Love and War in the Time of Call-Era.

However, much as I liked the play, I doubt how many would have appreciated it as a read. For its part, the script is not without its little faults; the pace for example. As a work of writing, the action decides a certain tempo for the plot to develop, in the case of any playscript. Since it is not always possible to create a frenetic tempo just to engage the nails to the teeth at the print level, the director has to find a way to balance this slowness when the work goes on performance, especially in a climate where grey means boredom and miscomprehension of slowness for lack of tempo. Perhaps this is then one area where the production failed. Especially given the fact that the playwright and the director are one and the same. Often the sag in tempo was glaring. It could be due to several factors. Nevertheless, in a work that is polemical, the production must close the gap between the page and the stage. Agreed that it was the opening night; still... one expects the work to open in good shape. The opening night word could make or mar a production and that has happened in the past everywhere. The fade-ins and -outs and cross-fades added to the woes. A simple rule of thumb of lighting for theatre is that before or even as the actor reaches the space of action, the light must find him/her. The light almost always came after the actor started speaking, leading one to conjecture the technicians perhaps did not get to attend or have the comfort of enough run throughs. This further abetted the problem of concentration. It made listening to the dialogues difficult. I mean, there was a lot of discourse and subtext in the story.

The point further is: the play is a treatise play. And the problem is: most Chennai audience have no aesthetics for such plays. You provide them comedies, they appreciate. So you could imagine my chagrin when I was more concerned about the cellphone ringtones I kept hearing because the performance failed to grip the audience who had turned up 1) because they have heard or read Kalki's work, 2) to hear and watch some good Carnatic music and Bharatnatyam Dance (that have become the draw in Gowri's shows) or perhaps because 3) Priyadarshini GOvind was dancing (similar to T M Krishna singing in RP earlier). One of the three or all. In any case, so you reap as you sow! And how do you expect an audience that is used to Sabha dramas or Kutchery listening and Dance watching to suddenly behave in a way one would expect an ideal theatre-goer to behave. It is high time we used mobile jammers in the auditorium. In the end, I felt cheated and deprived of what could have been an exhilarating experience given the potential for production. Now, I cannot even claim to do a proper review of the show because it was a very harrassed watch. FLAME is a nice literary work like RP as well as Dark Horse. We are perhaps not yet ready to be treated to theatre productions of these plays. But, brave then is Gowri who keeps walking Via the metaphorical Dolorosa everytime she creates her Iyal-Isai-Nataka creations.

Having said this about the production, I still do not hate everything about the production (psst! psst!), except that it is the misfortune of earnest theatre practitioners of Chennai to be caught or stuck with an audience that is in an eternal cycle of elitist and socialite warp. No one wants to watch a play with total attention. No artist can expect to spellbind all the audience all the time, but audience must realise that they have an equal responsibility to put an effort to make the show happen. Even where it may not bother the actors on stage, it does to your friendly neighbour. One of these days the "sssshssss!" are gonna turn "quiet or quit". Then the friend in the next seat may turn the fiend that pokes your ribsides! On the other hand, if we really do push the stakes on the audience by transferring the weight to them by giving intense scripts with emotionally draining and challenging and risky performances, we really can salvage some genuine audience. For the rest, the word is QUIT. Or go watch farces. But are we ready to lose those few hundred or thousand bucks in the bargain? I guess so! Not that anyone's salary or income in Chennai comes solely out of theatre as of now.

By the way, I visited the performance on the premier night, on 29th June 2007, the Friday.

Doubts re-surface...

Hello... anyone out there? Hey-loooooo.... anyone who can clarify this Dalit identity issue about which one of my recent posts talk???

In the meanwhile, there have been two occurences that further muddle my search.

1) I saw a footage in one of the 24-hour News Channel showing a mass conversion of 2000 Dalits to Buddhism in Mumbai

2) In today's The Hindu, there is a news item about how the Dalits are planning to protest by forcing their way into the Draupadi Amman Temple near Salem, to which they have been denied entry by the caste Hindus for the past years.

My researches on the web haven't yielded the result I seek. Could someone out there clarify my confusion. Who is a Dalit? Or what constitutes a Dalit Identity?

Thanks and much obliged.

Community Theatre: or why I like to keep off big-budget mainstream theatre!

Ever since the arrest of Mr. Chandramohan, an artist from MSU Baroda on May 9th, there have been hue and cries, and waves of protests, bandhs, signature campaigns across India from across the artists' community.

In Chennai too, on May 14th, a few artists gathered at Lalit Kala Akademi (on Greams Road) around 4 p.m to raise slogans and protest as well as to do a signature campaign. Only visual artists as well as some regional theatre artists, besides the omni-present press photographers, were present.

The english theatre community of Chennai was busy as usual with its whatever existence, preparing for a busy forthcoming season full of comedies. Need I say we are as far from reality as Pluto from Sun. And briefly a glimpse of the vandalising scene from my last year's production of Gautam Raja's WOOD appeared in front of my eyes. I felt proud. How truly inspiringly visionary can art be! How insightful was Gautam's play, even if it was called cliche!! But, at that moment, I also felt a little twang and a tinge of irritation in me. I felt, for once, so disenchanted, disenfranchised and alienated from most of the manufacturers of english theatre in Chennai, of whom I have been a part the last 15 years!!!

It set me thinking.What does the word community mean to people involved in theatre? Is there a community theatre in Chennai? What is or must a community theatre like or do?

Asking a question such as this is to ask what a nation is or must do. At the foundation of a society is the community. It is the bringing together of individuals from various walks and professions of life. A profession, in turn, need not necessarily be always with monetary objective. A priest at a place of worship is an example. A priest is a service personnel who does not expect monetary or material reimbursement. When the fabric or web of society in a particular place is represented by a cross-section of professional congregation, we call it a society. And the best representation of each particular profession come together to make the founding fathers of a town, village, etc. Thus is a community formed. or so we are informed through history.

This community essentially needs entertainment. At times, beyond entertainment, the entertainers also become the moral voice of the people, reminding them when they go off the righteous track. Thus, theatre becomes the voice of the community. And this has been seen time and again throughout Indian, European as well as even American theatre communities.

Now if we take Chennai as our immediate and monumental example, we neither have community nor such a theatre. If you think I am being sweeping in my statement, remember, I am talking Chennai's english theatre. For there is no righteousness left nor moral guardians amid the fast exploding bourgeoisie BPOs of Chennai (since there is no morality there consequently need be neither guardians, in a city were DOKs and F&Gs and Dollar Shops have become symbols of culture).

As a result, all we have left of theatre here is entertainment. Rather, those who practise theatre mostly believe only in entertaining theatre. This belief that we are the decision-makers of what the public want is wrong. We must not drive the market in the wrong direction for our own personal ends. IT IS NOT REALLY A DOG-EAT-DOG-Survival world out there. Well, at least, dogs are not greedy. Anyway, we must, as practitioners and responsible decision-makers observe what needs to be done to keep the society on the right track.

Needless to say, we cannot change the society, as Brecht believed, by portraying the wrongs on stage. But theatre needs to voice out opinions. This is what happens in every part of the world where theatre is said to be alive. This is what WOOD is all about. This is what Theatre Nisha's recent show of SATHE was about. And this is what even Dummies' VISHWAROOPAM is all about. Holding more than a mirror to the society as it were!

Theatre as a voice of community may be marginal compared to the so-called mainstream theatre that receives more attention, attract bigger sponsorships and subsequently has the muscle to pull more audiences. But again as some C.S Neville (or is it C.A?) said in his treatise "Democracy and the Individual", it is actually all about the Might of the Right over the Right of the Might. Quantity or majority need not always be right. This is where the need for smaller theatre companies or what are called community theatres become important. This is also where works such as an Anna Weiss, Oleanna, Final Solutions, Sathe, Thus Spake Shoorpanakha, The Zoo Story, etc matter. They are not irrelevant to the consumptive public because they are art or they speak in a language different from what the entertainment-seeking juntaa understand.

The argument that these plays simply do not or cannot speak to numbers or satisfy sponsors' need for footfalls make them untenable or ill-required is stupid and corrosive in the long run for the existence of theatre itself. While mass entertainment 'speaks' offhand and shows an escapist illusion that their audience can consume alongside their Coke and Popcorn, in the same breath, without having to carry the hangover, these plays 'address' issues that are apparently irrelevant to a materialist consumerist society. These works are born out of a deeper need.

Artists who produce these works do so out of a deeply felt need to voice out rather than for money or fame or passion to perform in front of people. There is no exhibitionist narcissism of the number-theory booting mainstream commercial theatre here. This is perhaps why they are small. They believe that somehow the rot that is setting in the mindset of a McSociety can still be stemmed. If entire Chennai had only Spencers and Reliance Freshes or Cineplexes and Multiplexes, the city would get boring. The smaller neighborhood shops have their own charm and reason for existence.

What must be applauded of these theatrical oevures is their ability time and again to come up to the public viewing for less than the price of a cinema ticket at multiplexes and Mayajaals. Since their recipient audiences are equally smaller in draw, they are produced in smaller, comparatively lesser appealing theatre houses, knowing fully well they would not in Eight out of Ten cases break the red barrier vis-a-vis finance. However, they continue to break fresh grounds. And we would see in the future, that these minimalist but well-planned theatres would grow in numbers, especially among the youth. Of course, some youth subvert even that. There are weeds in every field of crop. But...

In Youth lies idealism, vision and energy. In youth does one discard the fear of the unknown. Whether out of curiosity, impulse, impetuosity or visionary zealotry, youth is what takes risk. These theatres are all about taking risks, not only financial, but also in several other ways. Hopefully, the Chennai youth would get out of the current malaise and veer towards a theatre that shows its disenchantment with bedroom farces and conservative trends; that fights against non-dynamic, safer form of theatre that does not provoke the audience into uneasy thoughts.

There does seem to be a mushrooming of newer groups. This is either due to a feeling of rejection by existing companies or disenchantment with lack of real opportunities, or even because of a certain need to be 'one's own'. Whatever the reason, the basis is that the founders often have their own ideas. Where there is idea, there is hope. Hence one expects and hopes that there is a certain hidden belief in the hearts of these young and idealistic theatre wannabes that theatre has an innate power to change, if not transform. After hope comes prayer.

We who believe in smaller and community efforts just have to pray these newer groups do not fall prey to the need to fill houses. Once one falls into the clutches of the need to have audiences to fill their seats, one ends up doing exactly what those who pay, patronise or sponsor want. Already a few such have been lost, am afraid, for good!

Enga Area : Subversion, subterfuge and substitution in Democratic Art

Domaru...Dapsaa...Dhommai....Kumaaru....Kokki Kumaaru !!

Hey Padicha Naaye Kitta Varathey
Enga Area Ulla Varaathey !!
Pudupettai, Kasimodu, Ennoru, Vyasarpaadi Enga Area
Anna Nagar, KK Nagar, T Nagar, Boat Club-u Unga Area
Padicha Naaye Kitta Varathey
Enga Area Ulla Varaathey !!

Vaada Poda Vella tholu
Naanga Ellam Karuppu
Beachukkilla Adip-p-potta parappu
Padikkira Ponnallam unnathaan Paakum
Enga Area ponnu maatum Ennath-thaan paakum

Thabaal Potti Trouser oola potta pasanga
Thanni Vandi Laari kitta sanda podum Ponnunga
Dhinam Dhinam Kudichittu Malaierum Perisu
Thenavetta Karavaetti Kattivarum Ravusu
Kadalila Veyilia Uppeduppom Naanga

Thayir Saadham Saapida Uppu Kekkiringa
Kaalarai pakkathile vaazharom Naanga
Paada katti pinam pona mookka pothureenga

A/C Potta Bathroomil Enna Varum Ponga
Thandavaalam Kitta Othunguvom Naanga
Nethu Vecha Meenkozhambu Kaathula Pesum
Malli Poovum Inga Pootha Meen Vaasam Veesum !!

Oru Naal povar
Oru Naal varuvar

Enga Area Ulla Varaadhe
Ulla Pugundhu kadalile odarom naanga
Thoppaikku kadalile odureenga
Kaasu panam saerthu vachu
Kanja thaanam yaenga?
Puttu kittal panaththaal enna pannuveenga?
Enga Area ulla varaadhe

I saw a video of this song recently on one of the music channels. And I thought.... subversion in art has plummetted to new depths and nadirs of application.

Subversion in art is such a beautiful tool.

The trend in democratic media such as Bolly- and Kollywood is disturbing to say the least. In the case of Bollywood the amount of skin that is left unexposed is only as itsy bitsy as the area that the water particles poured as a poor excuse for rain has left undrenched. That is to say, nothing much. Probably some of Bollywood movies are just nano-millimeters away from being termed soft-porn. Well, when item dancers and sex symbols of current times don't mind doing tease acts live on New Year and Special Party stages, you can't expect the reel to be left behind. And that is nothing to me. I don't care. But Tamil cinema, I am disturbed, has lost all subtlety.

I still am one of those firm believers that Tamil Cinema has on and off managed to interest people in a more redeeming way. But the glorification of violence and perpetration of communal hatred and clan-nification of movies is not good as a trend. Instead of those times when we would watch prototypes and stereotypes being boo-ed from a section of society or community, now we have movies that you can actually classify as regional and hence in most cases caste centric.

Critics of repute who follow and study movies and sociological, folk-lore as well as demographic and culture-study trends may say am an illiterate. But as an audience who pays to watch movies, I am entitled to my sentiments. I know it sounds ridiculous to show two flowers kissing or a bee sucking out of a flower to use as innuendos instead of braving a censor-scissoring. But that was done out of necessity in those days. So we have lost the need to define necessity and made most luxuries necessities in real life. And the reel life is but a mirror of real, say most assertive directors who want to pass the buck of blame back when pointed finger at for showing something too blatantly.

Subtlety is in underplaying to a greater effect. Openness is required only when subtlety is to be lost upon a viewer. But in a pervasively reactionary society where you run across an autorickshaw driver who is so clearly karmic enough to assert that what Rajani Kanth does in Baatcha or Kamal Haasan did in Indian or Arjun in Gentleman... is only good for entertainment, you do accept the fatal Tamil dictum "Aettu Suraikkai Kootukku Udhavaadhu" (You can't cook a pictorial representation of any gourd!). But again, if that is so, nothing is going to be achieved by showing things openly to impress upon dullard or sophisticates (on either end of the spectrum), why waste? Art is all about aesthetics.

Also, some movies tend to delight in deliberately taunting the feelings of certain sections of people when it is not really warranted. Are directors and producers becoming bigots instead of underlining the social ills in a bid to bring about social alleviation, unlike their forbears of direction and production of yesteryears? Are they trying to actually buoy the vote banks of some pretenders and contenders to the MLA and MP thrones of future who base their politics on communal grounds? And why this unnecessary vilification and conscious glorification of caste and class while the actual attempt must be to try and make films that show ways to erase these boundaries. Instead, in the name of realism and voicing of the victim's viewpoint and that unique Indian word Yadhaartha or Yadhaartham or common-place normal realistic, why offput people's sensibilities. If we keep talking and showing the hunter and the hunted swapping places, the cycle would only continue.

One such example is the song reproduced above. The song, the video as well as the movie - in the name of realism and naturalism - has an effect of overkill. Instead, what not could have been achieved through Subversion. But probably we are witnessing examples of our times where there are no niceties and the city itself has been mofussilised. Abuse of environment, Blaring horns of Share Vans, Share Autos, Yellow-number plated tourist and BPO-dedicated vans and cars that carry a verbiage that says "If such and such a vehicle is found for rash driving, call...", which has no use whatsoever! I think Chennai deserves a huge land-slide or earthquake to clean up the city such as what Hiroshima and other such places underwent. It means that you and I may have to die in the process. But the land-lubbing and -grabbing would stop. The consumerist blow-jobbing of Mammon would stop. The crowds would decrease. Pollution would abate. Rebuilding would engender a new and hopefully responsible community consciousness. This division of Us and Them, Mine and Yours, Areas and Domains, Castes and Classes would vanish. But... am not just a dreamer, rather an idealist. A few of the breed left who believes in drawing lines of contentment. An anamoly... a sore-spot in the map of materialist nouveau riche i-kill-you-before-you-kill-me-first generation. Hmmmph!

Of Coffee, Cafés and Culture

Well, as Keats would have loved to Ode, ‘Tis the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’! Not exactly mellow fruits! But definitely a bit of mist instead of dew on the grass on these early Marghazhi mornings would be romantic! And of course…. This is the season of music and coffee and culture. So I decided to pull this one up – I wrote this about three years ago for a local daily. I have touched it up to belong to this day and time. It’s about the inevitable coffee.

When you get to spell out the ABC’s of culture and the happening cities, C is for Chennai; definitely so without ambiguity now that Calcutta has become Kolkatta. Although considered by many aboard Planet India to be C for Conservative, C for Chennai and even C during December for Cutchery Season (Music Festival)… on the positive side C for Coffee and C for Chennai come up as well. And that is something the rest of India has to give it to Chennai, even if grudgingly. Somehow Culture, Coffee and Chennai have always been intertwined together.

I had this friend of mine from Mumbai, back a few years ago when I was in Germany, referring to my German friends who were going to travel down to Chennai with me… that I should take them to India Coffee House if they wanted to drive in, sit around like they do back in the West in the pubs and coffee houses. I was surprised. India Coffee House? We sure have our share of Murudi’s and Hari Nivases and other Udupi Bhavans famous for their coffee after Idli, Vadai and Pongals, to sign off, be it a morning breakfast or evening tiffin. We even had our share - between the late 70s to late 80s – of Irani Tea Shops ruling the roost and scoring over the famous South Indian Coffee and almost replacing the coffee drinking habit of Chennaiites. But India Coffee?

Being born and growing up as part of a generation that is always at the crossroads of cultural changes in the ever-bourgeoning social climate of India, I had heard about the practices of the 50s-60s generation of youths bringing their discussion times at coffee houses and Woodlands… May be my Mumbai friend, being a decade older than me knew it! I searched. And I came up a little to know of this so-called India Coffee House. Rather of this culture, not of this House.

I knew of all those vintage landmarks that once existed to give Chennai that unique personality: cinema theatres such as Globe, Ashok, New Elphinstone, Minerva, Paragon (and have seen the metamorphosing of some of them such as Melody) and have seen the shutting down or falling into bad times of those old favourites of ours such as the Casino, Pilot, Safire complex, Anand complex, Chitra, Rajkumari, not to mention the long list of those North Madras cinema halls that have vanished to give place to hi-rise commercial or residential complexes thanks to real-estate mania; I remember the time when Chellarams and Kuralagam used to be the watchwords in clothing merchandise; when Shanti Vihar and Rita Ice-cream factory were equally synonymous with Mylapore as much as Kapaaleeswarar Temple and Kamadhenu & Kabali (the Gemini-twins of Mylai’s cinema halls).

However, India Coffee House? Unless any ol’ timer responds to this article with the history of one such place, I am stumped. All that I know is this: there is one at the left hand corner of Burkit Road merging with Usman Road, opposite the T.Nagar Bus Terminus. But am sure that is not the one. If that is, well, it has fallen in bad times now.

That was yesterday, as the popular song goes. All you had to do a couple of years back was to just stroll by G.N. Chetty Road: you had both the Qwikys T.Nagar and the Café Coffee Day. Not too far away, at what has come to be known as IC (Ispahani Centre) another Coffee Day. Right next door at the Ebony, a Qwikys Island. Now of course neither Ebony nor those two GNC Road joints exist. But to show that the power center of Coffee Houses has shifted, we have KNK (Khader Nawaz Khan Road) housing the Barista and Mocha (that bordello-feel red building); and within a kilometer, in the road off Peters Road, the independent and unique Café Moca of the Amethyst. Driving down Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai (Cathedral Road for ol’ timers!), opposite Stella Maris College, Coffee? has another little location besides the one at Adyar; then another 200 meters or so we have Café Nescafe. Drive another kilometer and half down TTK Road (again, Mowbrays Road for Madrasis!), you have another Qwikys Island at Lifestyle! Just take a qwik - sorry, quick - turn through Eldams Road and hit G.N.Chetty Road back, you have come a full circle of about 3 kms radius and you have experienced more caffeine down your streams than ever in the history of Chennai.

Not enough… drive down to Besant Nagar. A little range war is shaping up. Café Coffee Day, in what I divine to be a-la Starbucks model, are already up with two outlets on both sides of Bessie Barista… and are apparently planning a huge outlet right next to Barista… to lynch, dry-gulch, what you may the competition. I presume it is the building coming up next to the Sri Krishna (or is it Ananda Bhavan?) overlooking the Bessie Beach, across Cozee corner. And the other Coffee Days at Indira Nagar or Cenotaph Road aren’t too far either. But none of these can take the cake come December. The beehive of activity among Chennai-ites would be Music Academy, Narada Gana Sabha, MFAC, R.R. Sabha and other little havens of Classical Music and Dance. I know of a bagful of rasikas who not necessarily always land up at these sabhas to listen to Cutcheries… but to let their palate loose on the canteens run by Sakthis, Arusuvais and others…

What is this phenomenon? Chennai, Culture, Coffee… and now Cafés seem inevitably woven into the lives of Chennaiites and nostalgic Madrasis! In more ways than one, tracing the coffee roots of Chennai to its Tamil culture would not be wrong. The current in-term Coffee Pub is not far off target from the term they use back in Tanjavur for hotels – Coffee Clubs! And who can forget the mother of ‘em South Indian degree coffees all – The Kumbakonam or Thanjavur Degree Coffee. Now, one place people this side of Mylapore stretching towards Adyar go to today, to get their Kumbakonam degree coffee is the Sangeetha in Raja Annamalai Puram (known to young ones as RAP). And who can forget the coffee of Rayar’s Café of Cutchery Road, Mylapore.

Rightly so, given the conservative tag that has stuck to this city, Coffee seems to be the panacea and the redeeming equivalent of outgoing Chennaiites that Beer and Pubs are to Bangaloreans. Now in a way, Chennai’s fascination for Coffee has come in the form of Cafés to help the citizens shake their conservative, homeward bound label. Talk about our belief in rebirth and reincarnation.

May be some coffee outlets do not report as enthusiastic a crowd inflow at their outlets. But each of them – from the Qwikys of Sterling Road (Q I as it is known) through the Barista of KNK Road in Nungambakkam and Coffee Day of IC to the Coffee? and CCDs of Adyar, the outlets all have their customers, regular clients, loyalists, hangabouts and time-killers!

Inhabiting a Coffee House is not only a semi-fashion statement, but also an essential get-away for some from the younger generation. There is so much more to Cafés and Coffee Pubs of Chennai than just a Qjam or sound machine or a book corner or groups of youths. A whole horde of information could be gleaned and gathered. One could, upon haunting these pubs, develop a whole new network of business cards or friendships. One could even fine one’s life-partner, as I have good observed reasons to believe. The Coffee Pubs are Chennai’s equivalent of the book bazaars of the ancient Cordoba in Spain. The Coffee Pubs are also fast becoming haunts of some of Chennai’s musicians, artists, DJs, television stars and sportspersons. They are becoming quite ubiquitous and happening places… making them a far cry today from the hangout of raucous teens and young adults of a year or so back. And quite a lot of coffee is being consumed too.

Say Cheers to Coffee!!! And let’s not forget that haven of Coffee and Culture talk of yesteryears… it still rocks and is my fav place when I need to meet someone or kill time before an engagement in the vicinity – DRIVE IN WOODLANDS. May be not the best coffee, but a place Queen Anne of the 17th century Coffee Houses of England-fame would be proud of. I am starting to feel the itch for beans in my throat. Let me vamos.