Bringing Out the Worst in Me

My Outlook magazine’s cover screamed, ‘Top 20 Hindi Songs of all time’. They also gave away a free CD containing the Top 10 too! I looked at the previous issue of India Today and it had Best Colleges cover. It is the season of colleges, schools and songs that are the best. This fever is seen across both general and business magazines/publications and at times spreads to other media (read, NDTV 24X7) too! Some time back this TV channel had a poll to decide the best song of the year (2005, and ‘Kajra re’ won hands down).

India Today published its ‘well-researched’ annual list of Top 10 Colleges across various educational streams (engineering, medicine, law, etc. The special issue that enlists the top 10 management institutes should be in the offing sometime later this year)!

Having gotten bored with just seeing the top 10 at the level of education, the media has gone ahead and invented and inundated us with the TOP 10 lists. Now, we have Top 10 designers of the country, Top 10 songs on TV channels (or is it top 20?), Top 10 dating ideas, Top 10 states in performance/development and the like. Then again we have 10 top exercises to give you ‘that 6-pack abs or the perfect ass’ or whatever you want (take your pick)! The lists are endless. After so many lists, we should have some more too.

What kind of new lists would I want to see? The 10 Worst movies I have ever seen to begin with. 10 Worst ever Actors/Actresses. 10 Worst politicians living (leave the dead alone; they’re already suffering in their graves for missing out on all the fun)! 10 biggest sycophants. Of course, 10 worst ideas too! And, may be 100 worst songs ever (just in Hindi alone; you can make a 100 list for each of the languages that we have songs in. May be Marathi will score a 1000 list in this though)!

Here is the beginning of such lists!

The Ten Worst Movies I have seen
1. Titanic – A Hindi sob story on a much grander scale; the entire world sucked up to it! The box-office sank by the sheer weight of collections. Oscars went tipsy too!
2. Karan Arjun – The magnum o-pus of Rakesh Roshan on reincarnation with the two Khans. Tedium, delirium and bunkum!
3. Sir – Mukesh Bhatt’s ode to the teacher. Sir-dard to the viewers!
4. Yaadein – The movie that proved that Subhash Ghai’s lost it FOR GOOD (not that he ever had it though)!
5. Mrityudaata – a tantalising title for AB’s comeback vehicle. Fans and critics rushed in alike to watch. Sure Amitabh was a killer and audience died a hundred deaths in three hours!
6. Jumping Jack and the remake factory from the South – the names of the movies would be endless (those that I have watched include hits like Patal Bhairavi and Tohfa). It resurrected Jeetendra’s career and destroyed creativity in Hindi cinema for a decade!
7. Hum Saath Saath Hain – Cloyingly sweet, pleasingly regressive (pleasing to the Hindutva brigade), it seemed a movie on adult education in English with its song going, ‘A B C D E …’ teaching the entire alphabet!
8. Gadar – Sunny roared non-stop to the background (ear-piercing) wails of banshee Amisha Patel (she should easily get an entry into the Hollywood House of Horrors) and the audience approved all that with repeat visits! Hindu-Muslim harmony be damned. Ditto sensibility!
9. Independence Day – American jingoism at its nadir in this mega(lomaniac) movie. Seemed like the movie drew its inspiration from Tom Clancy and replaced USSR/China with an equally huge spaceship (and as brainless) from outer space!
10.Mars Attacks! – Eccentric Tim Burton proved that he couldn’t simply think straight! Sheer torture in the name of a spoof! Was also an eye-opener on the intelligence of the see-it-to-believe-it cast that agreed to die in the movie!

It would be fun to share/exchange such ‘pet hate’ lists with friends! A good way to spend a nice evening over a cuppa or a chilled beer?

Note: This post had been languishing on my PC for months now. I just thought I’d anyway post it (though not very happy with it). More Top 10 lists have appeared since then but I’ve not made any attempt to mention them. Too many and I have lost count!

Of Winds and Chimes

Much against my wishes, reluctantly I made the trip to Delhi in the last week of July. The trip ate into Hema’s visit to Bhutan. My efforts to stay back didn’t fruition. I had to go. It was a conference on the training needs.

On the conference day I reached our guest house. As I was making my entry into the guest register, I noticed that Mayank Bisht too was attending the conference (as I learnt he too was posted in the Border Roads set up at Chandigarh). I immediately recollected having read in passing that he had authored a book (on a website of Indian Officers’ Community or something like that).

I didn’t know Mayank well. We’d met a couple of times at different locations and at the most had exchanged pleasantries. Apart from the fact that he was married to his batchmate (Mini Srivastava, a very sweet lady) and he was my junior by a few years I didn’t know anything about him. When I saw that piece of news that he’d a book to his credit, I had felt pangs of envy. I also assumed without giving much thought that it might be related to a subject he’d studied (I later learnt I was wrong and also my envious emotions were replaced with pride on his achievement on getting his work published).

As luck would have it we two were seated together and we had enough time to talk.
“I learn that you’ve written a book?” I enquired.
“Oh Sir, how did you know? Who told you?” Mayank asked with surprise.
“I saw it on the website of Indian Officers’ Community. I don’t know the title or the subject as the site wouldn’t load fast”.
“Sir it’s a novel. It’s called, ‘Of Winds and Chimes’”.
“Ah! What’s it about?”
“As the tagline says, it’s about the making and the un-making of a civil servant”.
“Interesting. I would like to read it. Who’s published it and where would I get a copy of it?”
“Sir it’s been published by one of the lesser-known publishers. If you want to read it I’ll lend a copy of mine”.
“That’d be good”.

Over conversation I also told about my blog to Mayank and promised that I’d write a review of the book on my blog (he in turn promised to read the blog). Immediately once I returned from Delhi. However it didn’t happen till now. I’m trying to now keep up the promise I made.
Of Winds and Chimes is a novel (though I’m privy to the information I wouldn’t divulge if it’s semi-autobiographical) of an IAS aspirant. IAS and not Civil Services in general. It traces the days of Sasanka from the time he chooses to become an IAS Officer to the early days of his selection and training into an allied service. It also harks back to his past (childhood and college days) in ‘flashback’ style and dwells on the influences on his life, how he comes about choosing IAS as his career goal, his preparation, the pains of failure, the pleasures of success, surreptitious sex, growing up among other things.

The book reminded me of my own dream of writing a book on my experience of making it into the civil service. The idea of writing this book might have come to Mayank from English, August though the story and the treatment are different. And, the protagonist in English, August IS an IAS Officer already.

The title of the book, ‘Of Winds and Chimes’ is beautiful and the tagline is enticing. The picture on the cover of the novel (a young boy under the blue sky) captivates the essence of the novel. Mayank also has a wonderful hold on language. There are minor glitches of grammar and repetitive use of certain words (favourites of the author I guess). Mayank definitely has a story to tell, a story that surely would strike a chord among millions of IAS/Civil Services officers and aspirants this country has. There are many experiences that a lot of young men (and women) might relate to in this book. That Mayank has written and published this book shows his immense confidence in his literary abilities (I learn that he’s a poet to boot and Mayank himself says that he’s more comfortable in writing poetry) and that he’s found a publisher is evidence to the book’s readability (as no publisher would want to bring out a book that he might consider ‘reader unworthy’).

Another plus is the protagonist isn’t flawless. He is sketched with all the frailties that makes one a human being. The faults you find in Sasanka are those you could even identify with or lay claim as your own. He comes across alternately as brash, confused, endearing, defeated, directionless and detached. There are no descriptions of his character. You discover him through the flow of events in the narration. Despite his disdain for the fairer sex he also is taught the lesson of life by one of them! Impressive is the word!

However, the novel doesn’t seem complete. Except for Sasanka’s, the other characters aren’t fleshed out. There are too many of them flitting in and out – faceless and formless. Particularly so for all the characters of the opposite sex. One gets the feeling of reading about a bevy of butterflies in a beautiful garden. No more to them. I don’t know if it’s supposed to reflect the disdain of the author for women or if he’s a misogynist (a strong comment this is though)! The novel surely would’ve had more force and a better form had the characters been described and made integral to the story. Of course the author might differ on this (that’s what happened during our brief discussion about the novel but then I hadn’t yet finished reading it completely). And, the protagonist’s unwillingness to ‘go the whole hog’ when it comes to sex is unconvincing and prudish/archaic.

Again, while Mayank describes the process of the making of the civil servant completely the unmaking process is incomplete. The story he relates is not finished. He ends the proceedings abruptly and the finish seems imposed. One is left with a slightly vacant feeling as the book is through – like the look in his mother’s eyes! I really wish he had written a longer version, with well-fleshed supporting cast and a more acceptable unmaking process than finish it in a huff! The book comes with a bonus of one of Mayank’s poems. And that’s a wow!

For a first-time writing effort, Mayank surely deserves kudos. If he betters his usage of language, learns how to integrate conversations into the narration and gives no more raw deals to his non-central characters sure one can expect better works from him in future. All the best!

The Quintessential Critic!

I needed a makeover. At least on the blog. The first thing that struck me as odd was the title of the blog. I wanted the title to reflect a part of me at least, if not my complete personality. So, the new header, ‘The Quintessential Critic’.

Having an opinion – a strong one at that (it might change with time though), getting into a debate, questioning and analysing anything that arouses my interest – from mundane to the profound – are some traits that make me, me. And, the number of things that tickle my interest are many. Hence I thought this header would suit me fine. As I notice the posts on my blog, the thread that links many of these posts is my critical observations (they could be self-critical or critical of other people or issues). I wouldn’t yet call my thoughts as ‘insight’. It sure is insight to me despite them not being either original or new.

The change of header also was warranted as I’ve chosen now to post a few reviews of things that I read, watch or listen – trying to make my blog reflect me and my views as much as possible.

There might be a makeover again as I mellow down and as I begin to understand and accept diverse views/theories about a subject. What would I call myself then? Interesting and will ponder over this for the next few days.