Whose Common Wealth?

There are a dozen and a half reasons out there for which hate is piled up on CWG2010. I have my problems that go beyond beauracratic corruption. My reason is a simpler one. Whose Common wealth is being spent on the games? Is it unpatriotic to raise such a question; for I really don't feel like spending a budget that has been overshot at least a dozen times on a city that does not need the specific event to put it on the map. This is my problem; why Delhi. Why Always DELHI; when the games could have been some other Indian city's ticket to the international map?

Let us consider something; the very first Asian Games was conducted in 1951 in India to massage the egos of some national figures who wanted to claim international status when the economy of the nation was nowhere in the zone of hosting such an event. However, Delhi was India's biggest city then and if any city could pull it off, it was the capital city. Then like father like daughter; in 1982, we hosted another Asian games and it was not the post-liberalization India which would have had money pumped in from India Inc, but an India where the Games are state sponsored. So yet again, the decision to Delhi does not seem like a decision where there were many options. We pulled through that one. But in 2010, for the CWG, why does a place which claims to be a WORLDCLASS CITY, needs be the destination, yet again? Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai were on the historical and political map for a long time and with the advent of IT, Bengalooru and Hyderabad have made it to the big league. However, the CWG could have been just the right opportunity to elevate a second tier city, like Lucknow, Ahmedavad, Nagpur, Cochin, Madurai, Vishakapatinam, Cuttak, Jaipur and the list goes on. Does this sound like an unrealistic idea? Let us consider International precedents. CWG was conducted thrice in Australia and each time, it was in a different city, viz, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne. England had the CWG twice, in London and Manchester. The only nation which had the games twice in the same place was a one-city country, New Zealand. But with India's size and population, is it not a crime to return to the same city for an event of such a scale? This mentality comes from a miscomprehension of Atithi Devo Bhava [Thankyou Sangeetha]; as the only concern is promoting a desirable view of the nation in a microcosm called Delhi while everything is swept under a blindspot. I this what a major sports meet is all about?

Sports is the highest form of human interaction for it lacks no compulsion except for the one of the excellence of self. You know that you are getting better everytime you engage in sports. That is why it is considered to be the ultimate mode of dialogue; when two kids from completely different linguistic, cultural, socio-economic backgrounds push about a ball - progress is made. However when an event becomes about political muscle flexing and corporate swindling, sports loses lustre like a paper flower. Sports does not get better when money is spent in bigger buildings. Automatically, more medals will not start flowing when there are more swimming pools and shooting ranges. Sports and sportspeople have always succeeded despite the odds and sometimes because of it. How many true sportspeople will get to use the facilities once the Games are over? Probably the same number of sportspeople who used the facilities after the Asian Games 1982. Let us keep concentrating the COMMON's wealth to one city which has no other merit except being the capital city. Let us silence voices as unpatriotic that raise questions the order of things. Let us have a a great Games @ Delhi.

Oh that's why!

I am back from a ten day vacation just before the week of my exams with my family to the beautiful (mostly) hill-station-ridden Himachal Pradesh. Apart from the regular tourist haunts like Simla (horrible place - feels like an overloaded slice of a city crammed into a mountainous region; more on this later) and Manali (which is just a Mall road with a tourist offices to go to "higher" places), we also visited Dharamsala (or to be more specific, McLeodgunj). One thing that struck me about McLeod was the volume of foreigners in the town. Of course, you are thinking as you are reading, Saravanan, it is a tourist spot! Foreigners do come as tourists, see? Yes, I get what you are saying. However, I am not talking about, it-is-a-crowded-tourist-spot kind of foreigner density but like oh-my-freaking-god-we-are-strangers-in-this-white-infested-town kind of foreigner density. I sound racist here because almost all foreigners there were really white. Eastern Europe, America, Western Europe, old, young, suspect, dignified - they came in all shapes and sizes; but the common denominator was that they were all white. It might be a fact interesting to someone who is interested in such things; but not me, I am here to talk about a different kind of foreigner density.

While going from McLeod to Manali, we met a bunch of travellers from Europe on the coach. With a seating of just 9 people, interaction between passengers were cordial in that 10 hour trip.

There were some obvious, almost rhetorical if not for the faith of the asker, questions;
(from my incredulous mother to a very British and ageing home-maker); You are travelling without your husband and children?
(from a bewildered chai-wala to me about one of my co-passengers); How can he speak such good Hindi?

There were also the polite questions which lead to some really interesting facts;
(from my unsuspecting mother) How long have are you in India?
Mikhail says; We have been here just five months. (Indians in the coach stunned) We have no time, to see many places. (Indians stop understanding; a vacation beyond TWO WEEKS!)

I hate answering questions. Unless I am in the right frame of mind, I even hate talking. So I dreaded the polite question that would be directed to me. Waited for it to get over, that I may go back to the book I was reading.
What do you do in Calcutta?

I am pursuing my Masters.
Which subject?
Literature. English.
(Its the Israeli woman's turn to be relieved) Oh? That is why your English is so much better than ours. (A round of laughter all around)

Was it a laughter of relief or pride? Both. From different parts of the coach.

That is when I was acutely aware of the difference between the people in the coach. In that sentence and the stress on that word, there was an underlying principle in action. A simple and ancient one called syllogism. Let me give an example how it works.

Fact 1: All cats die. Fact 2: Socrates died. Therefore, Socrates must be a cat.

Let me rephrase this in context.
Fact 1: English Literature students know the language better than others. Fact 2: Saravanan is such an aforementioned student. Therefore, Saravanan knows the language, etc etc.

Does not seem harmful, does it? Maybe it is just as innocent as it appears. The logic ACTUALLY looks sound. Wait, it must be so. I perhaps am being too paranoid. Seriously. She is a good-natured, hardworking, mother of three in her mid-50s. She cannot have spoken what she did with malice.

Then it struck me harder.

She does NOT speak with malice. It is a given for her. It is a fact and an undeniable axiom to her. Now the syllogism comes back to me. Not in what was spoken but in what was omitted.

Fact 1: The only way an Indian, who has not even seen the Continent in real life, can speak English with some authority is by having studied it over a significant period of time. Fact 2: Saravanan is one such aforementioned person. Therefore, This is the ONLY LOGICAL CASE where he should be able to speak in such comfort this alien tongue.

For a moment, I raged against myself. I did not speak another word to any of the Others in the coach. The journey ended but not my anger. How dare she think that I am a natural inferior who cannot speak the language of the white man better than her? It took me a few days for the blanket of anger evaporate. It struck me then; WHY IN HELL WAS I MAKING ENGLISH-LANGUAGE-SPEAKING, THE QUALIFIER FOR SUPERIORITY?!??!

Then it all came back to me. Of course she is right in assuming that a person is not comfortable in a NON-native tongue. Some are linguists/experts who have spent countless years dedicated to their pursuit of knowledge in a different tongue. But the general crowd did not. If people learned English in countries like Israel, it is only to get along in countries where their own tongue was useless. They barely made sentences. Their scholars of the language were in big Universities. The smirk I had on my face when I thought, oh, every child at 15 years of age in a city-school in India can speak better English than you; vanished. It turned to shame. Why was it that such a thought gave me so much pride? What was the big fucking deal about speaking English anyway? Now her syllogism which had once appeared foolish and narrow-minded, now felt like a golden nugget of wisdom. It became clearer to me. This time, the dignity came unforced.

Fact1: No sensible person would give such importance to an alien tongue as to have mastered it if there was not some special interest attached to it. Fact2: MA in English qualifies such a special interest. Therefore, Saravanan's language is such and such.

I was happy that this time, when I removed my name from the preliminary facts, a humbler path led me to a more fulfilling answer. I was happy.

But then I realized that I was writing all this in English.

Nothing had changed.

There was not much I can do. After having invested heavily in this area for a large part of my life, I cannot walk away from what I have gathered. So, the cause is a tragedy. Nothing can happen.

But wait; there is hope.

I decided, that I will continue writing in English. Except. I shall write in 'e'nglish.

And that is how the "capital"ism in english ended.

Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani (2009)

Yes. I actually watched this movie in a theatre. No. I am not gonna say how abysmally uninspired or shoddy the work was. Believe it or not, I liked this film. This was the first all out entertainer which I have seen in a movie screen after M.Kumaran Son of Mahalakshmi. Not that all the other movies that I watched in the meanwhile sucked, au contraire, all of them were viewed for a reason. Oh, its a serious drama. Oh, its got Michael Jackson/Johnny Depp/Bruce Willis/Kamal Hassan so on n so forth. Though each of them turned out to be great movies, I went to those movies expecting them to be good. Not so much APKGK. I did not have expectations. In fact, I expected it to be bad. I could predict the story line within few scenes into the story line and the fact that it had borrowed generously from many tamil movies [Kaadhala Kaadhala, Azhagai Irukirai Bayamai Irukiradhu, Aethiri and some Pandyarajan's movies as well], should have contributed to my hating the movie. But interestingly, I enjoyed.

You wanna know why?!! Because I am not a SNOB like you think me to be. Aha! Don't go defensive, saying, no no Saravanan, I did not think so. If you did not, you would not have joined the chorus when I said, wanna know why?? Its in your mind I tell you. I can read you like the morning's paper. Silence! I kill you! [Ach(phlem)med voice]. Seriously, I can enjoy the typical commercial movie as much as the next man and have no intellectual qualms about it. It might be the most literal manipulation of the idea "slapstick" but I am cool with that. Given that a Harlequinade was actually a LITERAL slapstick, they even have history by their side. So what DO I have problems with?

The Pretenders. No matter how great your technology is, if you are gonna make a movie to show how many good foriegn language films you have seen, sorry, I am not interested. That's why Kaminey pissed me off. It was technically sound and the script screamed SMART all over. But there was a general tone of condescension towards the audience, as if, look, I can be better than what I am but I will not be because YOU [the audience] are not smart enough to understand it. oFF.. tat.z the most off putting thing you can see in a screen. If you ask them why, the commercial viability is an excuse. However, they will not be open about it. Its a hypocritical way of saying, I want your money, but that still doesnt change the fact that I think YOU to be stupid... When will the so called new blood moviemakers get their heads outta their asses? You tell me.

DO NOT GET ME WRONG!!! I LIKE SMART MOVIES. I dig every minute of a Dev D and I think it is as good as any of the world cinema it is set against. Its strength, as Kamal says, in it being authentic/ethnic. The more ethnic you get, the more global you become. What I AM against, is seeing a rip off collaged from Tarantino films. So, ya, at the end of the day, I am here to give a quick review of APKGK.

Here.z the lowdown. It was good. Not always funny. But mostly ya. Good comic timing, unexpectedly from Katrina Kaif. Sallu bhai lights up the screen for those two precious minutes he is on the screen. Ranbir shows great potential. The exaggerations are demanded from the milieu of the story itself, and therefore quite forgivable. Acting is overall engaging. Technically, AWESOME visuals. great cinematography marries the beautiful sets near Ooty. Editing is tight and entertaining. Songs are hummable. The Sufi number is good and visually breathtaking... Unfortunately, they don't go well together. SO! Rajkumar Santhoshi gets a thumbs up. We send him home with congratulations, hoping that he doesnt put everything on the wire next time around, hoping that good acting will save the day and makes sure that he gets a really GOOD script before he starts having fun making the movie.