What surprised me about 'Hugo'

Every time I chance to watch a realistic depiction of the world in the 20th century, I get a bit of a shock. This shouldn't really be the case, considering the fact that I was born a good eleven years before the century ended. Also, most of the books I have read - be it Enid Blyton, Wodehouse, Agatha Christie or more recently,  James Joyce and Salman Rushdie - have been set in the 20th century. And the world I read about in these books never seemed so vastly different from mine. True, there were no cell phones or computers but I too have lived a life without either of these gadgets and  that life is one I can easily identify with even today. Much as I can identify with the 20th century world portrayed in the books. There were cars then, there are cars now. The same goes for trains, buses, electricity, T-shirts, shorts, pianos, concerts, microphones, rabies vaccines and everything else that makes our time different from those dark, historical, medieval times where people used oil lamps, wore long robes and hewed their musical instruments from single pieces of wood.
Yet, when yesterday, I saw 'Hugo',  my initial reaction was : 'Ah! 19th century France'. And I wasn't the only one who thought so, she did too. Then, when within the film, talk of 'the cinema' began, I adjusted that reaction to 'Ah! Early 20th century France'. Soon 'the war' (which was clearly the First World War)  was talked about in the past tense; yet again I found myself pushing forward my consciousness of time, and then finally, my curiosity piqued considerably, out came the droid, straight to Wikipedia and I confirmed the actual year of the film's action: 1931! Which was a piddly fifty eight years before I was born into the world I have been repeatedly claiming familiarity with. Quite disturbing.

Has the world really changed beyond recognition since 1931 or is this the effect of Scorcese's superb use of 3D? To confirm it either way, I'm going to list three differences between the world of Hugo and the world of Andrew.

1. Gare Montparnasse Railway station : Since most of the film is set at the railway station, this is easily the most glaring difference. Pictures say it best :

                                                                                                       [Copyright Jean-Marie Hullot]

                                                                            vs

It's not just the fact that the trains in Hugo's world look like they are fresh out of James Watt's imagination, it's the entire station. Most of it is lighted by fire, the clocks  are possessed of quaintly elaborate winding mechanisms and in spite of what the station master had to say as regards the correct type of non poetic activity proper to it, a lot of people seem to come to the railway station only to socialize.This Master(plus his ugly dog)  is wholly responsible for handling security in the huge station. And his only security related activity  seems to be mopping up homeless children and sending them off to the orphanage. An almost inconceivable scenario in today's terrorist threatened world. 

2. Paris' streets : Having never been to Paris after birth, I cannot provide the most accurate account of its streets. I am, however, reasonably sure that they bear nothing but the barest-bones resemblance to the dark, dingy, cold bylanes portrayed in Hugo where the tallest building is three storeys high. And where the frequency of cars in what should have been a crowded area is so minuscule that a small boy can run amok without the slightest respect for objects that could make French toast of him. Not that small boys on the streets of Bombay are any different; that however, is another concern and will be dealt with in a later post about 'proles'.

3. People: There wasn't the most in depth examination of 'life' within the story of Hugo; most of the film is centred around two characters. There are, however, a few insights. One is children's rights - if France's could be like that, I dread to imagine the rest of the world.  Another is courtship; the station master actually got himself a wife by doing what he did - today he'd probably end up with a lawsuit. Yet another is the fact that people seemed to be less sophisticated and more easily pleased - however novel and pioneering George Melies' techniques may have  been, I don't see modern audiences being amused by the silly dances and disjointed sequences within his films. These days, if something is innovative, but stupid and pointless, it is generally declared so and scorned. Like Siri by Apple. 

It is safe to say two things : a) that macroscosmically, film well made portrays life  far better than any book can possibly hope to  and b) that the world has changed more in the last hundred years than  in the previous three hundred; indeed a middle aged man living in 1912 would be more at home in 1612 than in 2012. This may have something to do with the fact that a war, more devastating than the one mentioned in the film soon followed and changed the world forever. 

                                          

The West Indian Axis: Behind the scenes

The dubious antics of Tiger Woods and Shane Warne have long had me wondering if sportsmen have a different definition of the word 'commitment' from the rest of us. And now, just as my doubts were beginning to be put at bay, Chris Gayle comes out with this:
"I wish to advise that as of today, May 2nd, 2012, I have written to Somerset CC and advised them that I will not be honouring the commitment I made to them when I signed a contract with them for the 2012."

Lots of advising Chris, and thank you for that, but the 'not be honouring the commitment' part of the statement has me confounded. Doesn't a 'commitment', by its inherent nature, have to be honoured?  Andrew Strauss thinks so; as his rejection of a  6 million dollar IPL offer in favour of a county stint for Middlesex proves.

Nevertheless, Darren Sammy's reaction to the contract breach was nothing short of ambiguous, and we  like our precision. We caught up with him and demanded a justification of his lack of enthusiasm towards the forthcoming return of the prodigal IPL prodigy.
 "Of course I'll justify it" said the amiable Sammy. "I regularly justify matters far more fundamental than that".
(Note to the reader : He means his place in the side)
"Winning games (single-handed, on talent alone) is something Gayle has become used to since leaving the West Indies team a year ago. This is the antithesis of the Hilaire-Gibson-Sammy vision for the team.
 "This team works hard a a unit, loses as a unit and introspects as a unit. We always decide to do better next time, but most importantly, we reaffirm our commitment to staying within our limitations. This is often difficult  (here Sammy's eyes began to flash) - it involves sacrificing one's dreams of bending a ball like Waqar and embracing one's role as a stock bowler. It involves staying focused on doing what one does best : bowling 120kph straight deliveries."
We were somewhat confused by the last statement, so we've set it down as is, and invite debate upon it.

However, Sammy's view isn't shared by all West Indian cricket lovers. A reporter got hold of Tony Cozier and asked the grand old historian what he thought of the new 'disciplined' approach  of Team Sammy. Here's what transpired :

Tony :  Ottis Gibson and Ernest Hillaire are trying to change the way cricket is played in the Carribean. The uninhibited Carribean style which has, for years churned out great talents, the likes of Malcolm Marhsall, Michael Holding, Sir Vivian Richards, Brian Lara ..... "

Reporter : So you don't think any of the current West Indians have the potential to emulate the feats of these former greats ? How about Narine? " ..

T:  Dinanath Ramnarine's contribution to Carribean cricket has been questionable. But cricket, played in the good old days when West Indies dominated world cricket had names like Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Everton Weekes .. "

R: "What about Darren Bravo? General opinion in the Carribean is that he is a fitting replacement for the Prince himself .. "

T: Opinion in the Carribean is as fickle as  the standard of domestic cricket is low. Most of these fans  have not even seen the truly great West Indians play. Players  of the calibre of Desmond Haynes, Alvin Kalichharan, Sir Frank Worrell, Sir George Headley...

(The rest of Tony's interview consisted of a monologue of proper nouns. It lasted five minutes and most of it can be retrieved by querying statsguru for dead West Indian players of the 60s and 70s)

To round off our set of interviews, we chose Coach Controversial and asked him his goals for the England Test seires. His was of the opinion  that  slow is the right way to go as long as the West Indies are improving.  "We aim to lose the  test series  2-0, assuming one match gets rained off" said Gibson, . "However, we intend to take heart from the manner in which we lose. This will be the difference between us and teams from the last fifteen years."
"Our goal is to last four days in the matches we lose. Bowling wise, we intend to address our problem of keeping numbers 8,9,1,0 and 11 to less than 200. Batting wise, our goal is to pass 300 at least once. If we can achieve this, we will have progressed well since the Australia series. I'm confident the boys will step up and give the fans something to cheer about. "

That's a lot of goals, coach. A real taskmaster is our Ottis. At this rate, the West Indies will be storming into the top six by the end of this decade.

Talking (Rant One).

Browsing through facebook yesterday, I came upon a lovely picture :

It cast me right back into the days of St Stanislaus. I could very well picture the same expression on the face of the man who made the post: Karan Sinroja . And I also remember the number of times we had teachers tearing their hair, throwing chalk pieces, dishing out slaps, making boys slap themselves and a whole host of other things teachers in boys schools regularly do when confronted with this vicious activity in which young minds will insist on participating - talking.
I particularly remember two instances when my mother (whom I never enjoyed seeing around my school because, well, apart from a few Rushils and Thomases, the school presence of a mother is extremely embarrassing to the young male mind) was summoned to the school to be encouraged to chastise me for this terrible habit of mine. Time one was in the third standard when my class teacher was Angela, a young teacher who called my mother 'Fleur' . "Fleur" , said Teacher Angela "I don't know what to do, he's talking so much" , while my mum looked disapprovingly at me. "I've made him put his finger on his lip, I even gave him a slap in front of the class, but he refuses to not talk!!" And my mother continued to disapprovingly shake her head; I think she even tried to fake an angry expression.

While writing this a thought occurred to me - in these ridiculous days it is very possible that Teacher Angela would be hauled up by the state for  subjugation of the will (placing my mouth under finger arrest), torture (slap) and if I were in the United States of Americanism , trauma (public slap) . Nevertheless those were more sensible times and Teacher Angela was politely informed by my mother that she'd get my father to speak to me.

Fast forward three years and my class teacher is one Teacher Neeta who entertained notions of one Darryl D'souza following in the footsteps of Anu Malik as chief composer of the Bollywood film of questionable quality. This Darryl, however, has one composition of merit to his name; I remember it like it were my very own admonition-of-the-discourteous-while-studying-Maharashtra-Board's-'Value-Education'. Here are the lyrics:

"Dirty clothes and uncombed hair
Make people say, 'He's so uncourteous!'
But clean clothes and combed hair
Make people say, 'He's so courteous!'
And that is why we say
'A clean and tidy person
Always finds success' "

For the music notes, you will have to contact me in person because I am too lazy to score them and upload them. Nevertheless, while Darryl's melodic line began to lose it's way at 'And that is why we say .. ' , up until then it was of sterling quality and I have a good mind to petition Philip Glass to write a minimalist composition entitled 'Variations on a theme by Darryl D'souza' . Remind me about that in case I forget.

Teacher Neeta, however, was shabbily disappointed by this piece of music. Like a raucous critic, she sent Darryl's composition straight back to the bench on the front row from whence it came. She then petitioned yours truly to 'teach him no ... to write proper song' . What did I do? Involved mummy of course, who plagiarised a popular hymn (and personal favourite of my then principal) "Oh Give Thanks To The Lord For He Is Good" and modified the lyrics with the help of a few of her friends which satisfied Teacher Neeta's lofty tastes most completely.

Anyway, I have rambled considerably, but the point I was making is that Teacher Neeta, after services rendered and brownie points with principal earned was in no mood to show gratitude towards yours truly. Oh, no. She met my mother on the school stairs (and there was my mother, just waiting to be met I tell you) , shrugged her shoulders, thrust out her eyes and exclaimed "HOW MUCH HE'S TALKING!" with the last word taking on an unusual sort of inflection which a particular brand of teacher at my school was very familiar with.
And again I was thrown reproachful looks at, TV watching was threatened, and all the usual results of such a situation descended. All because I engaged in that one activity : Talking .
                                                                                                       [To be continued ........]

Our National Language

A quiet man of  dignified  disposition can tolerate the occasional lack of enthusiasm towards his vocal exercises by friends and baby cousins. It, however, hurts him to the core, when each attempt he makes at a particular activity is greeted by loud peals of merriment, people delightedly gripping the back of their ears and and rudely uttering 'What, What?'. I refer of course to the language of North India, often wrongly called our national language and my perfectly sincere attempts to flawlessly render it. It seems to me that there is some sort of conspiracy among regular speakers  to make yours truly most uncomfortable when he attempts to blend in and speak this language.
I will narrate a couple of incidents to demonstrate my problem.

Incident One:
I am in college and have just scrambled into our under capacity lift with a bunch of my classmates. The only fellow who is not my classmate is the shady looking lift man who is smelling of urine. He opens his mouth and utters "Kaunsaa mala" . I reply with dignity "Chauthaa mala" which is indeed perfectly right for our classroom is on the fourth floor. Imagine my shock when my classmates begin to laugh like silly schoolgirls, one of them even collapsing to the floor. The unimpressed lift-man aggressively repeats his question and and my sprawled out classmate replies "Chaar malaa, bhaiyya" in what I consider to be an uncouth tone of voice. Yet the ill smelling lift man instantly lifts his grubby finger and punches that '4' button and we are on our way. My attempts to obtain an explanation from my fickle minded classmates are in vain. They merely look at each other repeating the words I uttered in unnecessarily European accents and burst into laughter again.

Incident Two:
I have been dragged kicking and screaming by Sanya to watch a Bollywood film. The film surprises me; it is suspenseful and exciting. The next day, in office, I  inform my workmates of my pleasant experience; I decide to surprise them by speaking the language itself. I begin at lunch; they listen with  foolish smiles. As my narrative advances their smiles appear to be growing wider and more foolish.  Eventually, I reach a point where I am quoting someone, so I begin, "वह बोला..... "

And the unrestrained expression of mirth begins. One particular chap, by the name of Rabi, is so delighted  that for the rest of the meal (spanning the period of a half hour) he looks periodically at my face at bursts into snorts of laughter. And is my face contorted into  ludicrous clown expressions? Is it reciting verses from Russell Peter? Is it magically transformed into Rowan Atkinson's face? Oh no. It is the same staid solemn face of Andrew, periodically shoving some Vistaar vegetable into the oral orifice. The only connection I could make is that my  two worded incomplete quote was somehow very very funny. And I'm at a loss to understand why.

When automen fail to understand my directions, it is because of a misunderstanding  on a level more fundamental  than language.  A fork in the road is approaching, I indicate my desire to turn right by saying 'right' , I repeat it after a few metres and just before the turning, I again repeat it. Yet when the turning comes, he turns round and roars "kahaa -- left???" ..Don't tell me that it's my language which is at fault here.

Mind you, when it suits people to appreciate my language, they understand just fine. Not so long ago, I was accosted by criminals with an interest in smartphones. I asked them their names, what they did for a living, where they were from and concluded with  a sound lecture on morality. Unfortunately, just as I was driving my point home, Sanya Kedar chose to phone me and the sight of my shiny,  new(and now vibrating) Samsung Wave 2 was too much for them. They snatched it, the ghastly chaps, and I haven't heard of them since. But I can assure you, if you happen to be bandying your smartphone about at 10:30 pm on a dark deserted Turner Road, you may meet Ajay and co just like I did. If you do, stop them and ask them if they remember me. They will reply in the affirmative. And there, there will be your proof that I speak this language just fine.

Eliminate Vegetarianism

A most interesting concept was introduced to me some time during my first year of engineering. It, was, of course, not remotely related to engineering; closer, in fact to the nobler line of catering. It was the concept of classification and discrimination between humans on the basis of the food they ate. More Indianly, it was the distinction between those that subsisted wholly on a diet of herbs and grass and those that did not. Vegetarian vs Non-vegetarian.

As a schoolmate of mine  eloquently put not so long ago, up until then, most of us had eaten, in a word, 'food' . We were aware of a distinction between plants and animals, but it did not matter so much in matters of food; most of us ate what was daily put in front of us (I was among the fortunate few who had a mother regularly dishing out gourmet delights) and the thought stopped at whether or not we enjoyed what we ate. Some food was more interesting than others - mutton for instance, being far more appetising than brinjal. We also knew that most foodstuffs tasty were going to cause problems in later life and all foodstuffs tasteless were going to guarantee a fruitful and productive oldhood. We lived in a bubble; an innocent utopia in which food differed only in taste and effect and their zoological v botanical origins were merely superficial differences.

Imagine my shock then, when the second question of the first girl I spoke to in class was "Are you a non-veg?" . The shock didn't register immediately for I was somewhat aware of the sinister concept of the vegetarian; my father had caught hold of me that morning by both shoulders and said these bursting-with-gravity words "Son, you are entering a new life. You will experience much and learn much more. One word of advice from your father : Watch out for vegetarians. Hitherto existing merely in the form of isolated Vivek Thackers and Phoebe Buffets, you may now encounter them by the score. See that you hold your head up high be not afraid to eat your meat".

With these inferential words ringing back in my ears I mumbled some sort of reply to the girl and tried to exit. It was lunch time and I had my sandwich of bread and bird to munch . After putting as much distance as  possible between the girl and my b-and-b, munching soundly for a few minutes and musing on the grave face of my father, a resolution began to form in my mind. "Damn the woman" , said I, "I shall uphold my honour". And so, I marched right across the room into the very centre of a group of shifty looking boys whose cynosure had now become the girl with the unconventional greeting. My entry had  immediate effect. The girl gave a little scream and pointed at my half eaten sandwich. Two of the boys stood bolt upright and hitched their pants up to their solarplexa. One of them began to cough rabidly, the other one, by way of remedy, gripped his nose and began thumping him on the back.  Eventually there were retching noises, sprints down corridors and projectiles of puke in and around Indian toilets. Rather rummy, thought I.

However, that was my first day. I subsequently spent four years in that place and have now realised the true nature of this malady called Vegetarianism. It infects as much as forty per cent of the country; an additional twenty per cent profess to not be vegetarian but in reality consume, apart from herbs and grass, only the semi-vegetables, chicken and fish.  Indeed, consumption of anything more meaty than semi-vegetables will instantly get you classified as a bad boy. Many such meat-eating bad boys revel in the fact that they are pork/beef eaters; they parade around with smug expressions on their face and talk incessantly about the 'non-veg' they are going to consume. Similar to the breathless excitement accompanying a gang of silly fourteen-year-olds on their first surreptitious journey to the local bar. All rather, at odds with what was clearly a very irregular ideology that I'd been brought up with - that of food being food and nothing more.

I wonder why people make such a song and dance about sexism and racism when a far worse evil threatens to burn the very fabric of our nation. One can't point at someone and say "BOY!" without being accused of racism and told to shut up. That, even if you are pointing at a girl and saying it. Yet, these dreadful vegetarians are allowed to pull grotesque faces, run away, shake their heads, hold their nose and in some cases even prevent you from buying a flat near them, should you be a fearsome "Non-Veg" . I think it's time we stood up for our rights, fellow meat-lovers. I am not proposing anything Hitleresque (I'm a nice boy and also genocide is illegal) ,but we must do everything in our power to eliminate their ideological plague. Steps will be outlined in further posts.