"Y'know, I just realized that..."

Now Playing: Ratt – Round and Round

So there I was, minding my own business, when Rishi takes it upon himself to tag me. First the guy told me who died in OotP, then this? This means war, man. *shakes fist*

But then I thought, “If I had to learn stuff in 2006, why should my blog readers get off scott-free?” Thus, without further ado, 2006 in Epiphanies, Realizations and Lessons Learnt:

1. Having all four wisdom teeth removed really isn’t that big of a deal - Seriously. You know how people are all, “OMG, the agony!!! It was horrible!!! THE PAIN!!!” and then you get all freaked out, and you almost decide not to have the surgery done, but then it’s too late to cancel? It didn’t help that a passing acquaintance (really, I’d just met her) felt the need to share the story of her friend who went into hospital to have her cancer of the mouth operated on, but who died of a hospital-acquired infection. Also not helpful was the knowledge that some people are actually non-receptive to pain medications such as percocet. So the night before the operation, there I was, tossing and turning, imagining myself dying of a horrible infection (damn you, pseudomonas!) without the least painkiller-induced respite. Imagine, therefore, my surprise, when the whole thing went off well, and I hardly even needed any pain meds, just a few days spent recuperating at home with an icepack to the face.

2. I may not be a dog person, but I absolutely cannot stand to watch movies where bad things happen to them. It’s pathetic, really – I cried everytime I watched the trailer for Lassie! The movie itself would probably have me bawling in the aisles, sobbing about that poor dog.

3. There are some people with whom it is useless to argue. While I’d like to be able to take the easy route and say that most of these people are conservative / right-wing ideologues (Varsha Bhosle, Bill O’Reilly, Christie Blatchford), the truth is liberal / left-wing ideologues can be just as overzealous and screechy and blind to the possibility that there can be truth beyond their narrow ken.

4. I LOVE the angst. All my favourite TV shows serve it up in dollops. Grey’s Anatomy? Angsty. Supernatural? Hot AND Angsty. Battlestar Galactica? Subsists on Angst and Octagons. Veronica Mars? Noir with angst. Doctor Who? Long-running angst. My favourite movie of the year, The Prestige? Existentially angsty. Angst – the flavour of the future.

5. Doctor Who is the show that never ends. It only just struck me this year, and frankly, it’s rather off-putting. Who wants to watch a character who can just keep going and going and going (for atleast 3 more actors?) I mean, I know it’s a long-running show and a hugely successful formula, but don’t people want closure on the character?

6. I’m a Christmas Carol purist. I grew up listening to Jim Reeves & Andy Williams at Christmastime, and anyone else just sounds like an interloper to me. One notable exception is Josh Groban, whose rendition of O Holy Night is just melt-inducing. Here, have a listen.



And now I tag Hemlyn, Stephen, Beth and Maja for a bout of reminiscence. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

and because I am on such a Supernatural kick right now -

Everything I need to know I learnt from... Bollywood?!?

Now Playing: The Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane

'Twas a dark and stormy night afternoon when I heard fingernails tapping on my window. One Lockwoodesque freakout later, I realized that what I had heard was probably not the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw (for reasons geographical as well as sensible); but instead, as in the novel, simply the tapping of a tree branch against the glass pane.

Nevertheless, I was jumpy for the rest of the evening, and complained vociferously to my mother as we had our evening chai, "Argh! I'm still on edge!" To which Mum, disdainer of all things Bollywood replied, "Jo darr gaya, samjho marr gaya." (He who is afraid is as good as dead)

Three days later, I'm still laughing.

The Killing Box, or why Prison Break is made of awesome

Now Playing: Corinne Bailey Rae - Like a Star

Why I watch Prison Break -

• It's a conspiracy show. I cut my TV-teeth on The X-files, and so conspiracy shows always make me feel warm and fuzzy. (Unlike sitcoms, which fill me with feelings of dread and paranoia.)

• It keeps things moving along at a brisk pace. (Unlike Lost, which has spent the last two seasons giving us four seasons worth of backstory to go with half-a-season's worth of plot!)

• It has interesting, even compelling characters, who, while not always sympathetic, are fun to watch.
  

The main reason why I watch Prison Break, though, is Wentworth Miller, whose Michael Scofield is the linchpin of the show, and a total woobie to boot. Plus, he looks like this:


Dude's so pretty, they call him that on the show. Seriously. Him and Dominic Purcell (who plays his older brother, Lincoln Burrows) are pretty much the second-hottest TV brothers ever.*

So, you'll understand I thought the show was pretty good before this Monday's fall finale, "The Killing Box" aired - but then they went and just added big heaping portions of awesome, with Kellerman (Paul Adelstein) shooting his fellow Conspiracy stooge Mahone (William Fichtner) and offering his help to Michael and Lincoln in taking down the President, who's at the centre of the Conspiracy. See, Michael's uber-smart, but he's a puppy; Licoln's the proverbial all-brawns-not-all-that-much-brains - but Kellerman is smart, nonchalantly evil, and in the words of TwoP's Sobell, pretty much a magnificent bastard.

The Scofield-Burrows-Kellerman alliance, should it last longer than five minutes (given that Kellerman just tortured Dr Sara Tancredi, the object of Michael's affections, and that he murdered Lincoln's ex-wife and framed their son for the crime) promises to be a thing of absolute badassness. Too bad we'll have to wait until January 22nd to find out.

*The absolute hottest TV-brothers? Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Paladecki & Jensen Ackles, respectively, from Supernatural) -


See?

Vindicated (and it feels so good)

Call me Gloaty McGloatGloat, 'cause guess how Stephen LeDrew did in the 2006 Toronto Mayoral Election this past Monday? The Great Bowtie placed a distant third, with an underwhelming 8,078 votes, or just 1.38% of total votes.

*happy sigh*

Sometimes, just sometimes, things go the way they ought to.

Don (2006)

Now Playing: Don – Aaj ki Raat

When international criminal Don (Shah Rukh Khan) is captured by DCP DeSilva (Boman Irani), the latter decides to use a Don look-a-like, Vijay, to further his investigation into Don’s gang. Throw in a femme fatale or three (Priyanka Chopra, Isha Koppikar & Kareena Kapoor), a revenge-seeking father (Arjun Rampal) and more international criminals and you have a wonderfully convoluted update of the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan starrer.

At the outset, I have to admit I haven’t seen the first movie, so I wasn’t really saddled with expectations. I am however, an unabashed fan of Farhan Akhtar, because it was his Dil Chahta Hai, that raised the bar for Hindi movies in terms of production values and believable plots. Dil Chahta Hai was one of the first movies to eschew the traditional trappings of Bollywood cinema – no more palatial mansions with spiral staircases, garish clothing, backup dancers in coordinated clothing (except for a song that memorably spoofed movie-style through the decades)– and adopt a more simple style that was still unmistakably filmi. The plotline – the adventures and misadventures of three friends – was believable, the songs actually fit into the plot, and the production values were generally higher than most movies of the 80’s and 90’s. I mean, this was still a Bollywood movie – see Hero confront Heroine’s menacing and abusive Fiance! – but it was one that you didn’t feel slightly embarrassed about watching, unlike, say, Hum Aapke Hai Kaun (NB – I was only 10 when I saw that, and clearly not responsibly for my own opinions.) I even liked Lakshya, apart from Preity Zinta’s execrable hairstyle in the 2^nd half. To this day, I think that was one of Hrithik Roshan’s better acting turns, and I think it’s quite sad that two of his better acted movies (the other is Mission Kashmir) were commercial flops.

The one aspect of the 1978 movie I was familiar with was the music: ‘Yeh mera dil pyaar ka deewana’ is one of those quintessentially 70’s bollyfunk anthems, and ‘Khaike paan banaraswala’ is one of my favourite Kishore Kumar songs. Ever listened to the Black-Eyed Peas’ Don’t Phunk With My Heart? That funktastic opening riff is lifted directly off ‘Yeh mera dil.’ The new movie offers updated (read ‘remixed’) versions of these two songs, as well as a new version of ‘Main Hoon Don’ and two new songs, Aaj ki Raat & Mourya Re. Yeh mera dil doesn’t work so well with the new, fast beats, but Khaike paan is transformed into an incredibly danceable number. Of the remaining three songs, Aaj ki Raat is noteable both for being immensely catchy (it’s on loop on my mp3 player as I type this) and for evoking the 70s without being cheesy or kitschy.

As an update of a 1970’s masala action picture, Don succeeds admirably – it’s stylish, fast-paced and very, very fun. The first hour serves as the setup, and is thus necessarily slower than the rest of the movie, which is pretty fast-paced, with twist after twist, with a final twist that had me squealing with delight. It seems to me that Don was a good candidate for a remake – it was a well-liked film, but not a classic (unlike Sholay, the remaking of which is absolute sacrilege) and from reading reviews, its clear the older movie could have done with better production values. Technically, the film passes muster, though I have one quibble with the costume designer: I don’t mind the much-maligned tie-inside-shirt approach, but did you have to put SRK in paisley? It made him look more Bombay Tapori and less International Crime Lord. Also, whoever gets to dress SRK in the rest of his filmi career? Can you ensure he’s always dressed the way he is in Aaj ki Raat? Even if it’s a period picture set in ancient India? *sigh*

Is SRK as good as the Big B? He's brilliant as Don, golf-ball-to-the-head good – and why has it been so long since he played a baddie? His performance as Vijay, however – specifically, the initial bits before the impersonation starts – unmistakeably brings Bachchan Sr to mind, so much so that watching SRK you can almost imagine that were Amitabh saying those lines. SRK may be able to play a bhaiyya, but AB is the real deal, a chora ganga kinarewala, and those lines just don’t sound right from SRK. The rest of the cast acquits themselves well – with Priyanka Chopra actually having something to do, and doing it well, and Arjun Rampal smouldering (need I say it? Hotly.) as a husband and father who’s lost his family. The standout, though, was Boman Irani – I remember turning to my brother at some point in the movie and whispering, “Man, Boman Irani is badass!” He’s usually been one of the high points of any movie he’s been in (see Munnabhai, MBBS, or Lage Raho Munnabhai, or Bluff Master, or Being Cyrus) but here, he’s pretty damn awesome. Watch the scene where DeSilva confronts Singhania in a men’s washroom. Not a word is spoken, but Boman Irani manages to convey first, “Recognize me?” then gloating, and then a cold satisfaction and assurance that his enemy has been taken care of. Like I said – Pretty Damn Awesome. The rest of the movie is not quite upto his level – but it’s still Pretty Damn Cool, and well worth a watch.

The Prestige: "Are You Watching Closely?"

Now Playing: Gomez - How We Operate

It’s best to watch The Prestige, Christopher Nolan’s latest, knowing as little of the plot as possible. Suffice it to say that the movie concerns two 19^th century magicians, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) whose friendship is quickly soured and twisted by tragedy. A game of one-upmanship ensues, with both Borden and Angier obsessively trying to improve their own tricks while sabotaging the other man.

The first half-hour of The Prestige is Christopher Nolan’s Pledge - the initial part of the magic trick where the magician shows you something supposedly ordinary – as he show us what seems to be nothing more than a vendetta film, with nice set-dressing and period props, but told in a entrancingly non-linear way, using nested flashbacks and multiple narrative threads. At one point in the movie, Borden is reading Angier’s diary, in which he documents his attempts at translating Borden’s diary, which is encoded in cipher, which goes on to describe the early acquaintance of the two men.

The Turn – where the ordinary object does something extraordinary – comes when Borden creates a trick called the Transported Man, where he walks into a closet and comes out of another, entirely separate closet several feet away. How he does what he does & how Angier tries to replicate The Transported Man serves as the narrative thrust that propels the movie into The Prestige – the payoff, where the astonished audience tries to figure out the trick, usually without success. Nolan’s a filmmaker, not a magician, so he does tell you the secret, revealing clues throughout the movie that add up inexorably until you gasp with revelation.

The Prestige is better than entertaining – it’s intriguing, with a twist so deliciously macabre it feels like Jonathan Creek – The Victorian Years. Neither Borden nor Angier are conventional heroes or villains – simply men obsessed with the art of illusion – and the movie succeeds because it pulls us into that obsession, because we want to know these men’s secrets just as much as they do. Bale and Jackman both do good work here, ably supported by a cast that includes the always awesome Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie. The cinematography and editing are impeccable – you don’t even realize what they’re hiding – or even that they’re hiding something - until the dénouement, when you’re stunned by the sheer audacity of it all.

(See the Trailer)

Stopgap Measure

I'm caught in the throes of blogger ennui.

Oh, woe.

On the positive side, I have found something that'll help you bide the time till a more substantive post arrives. Ladies and Gents - 'Kya Surat Hai' by the Bombay Vikings, a song that I found irresistibly funny when it first came out in 1999 or thereabouts.

A-hiking we went (and now my feet hurt)

My Dad and I went hiking Sunday afternoon, starting out at Edwards Gardens (at Leslie and Lawrence) and finishing at St Clair Station: here's some of what we saw en route.

Immediate Environs

From My Backyard
Beware Kids Playing Street Hockey

Neighbour's Frontyard

"Them colors sure are purdy, huh?"

Potentially Diabetic (But Not At All Camera-Shy) Squirrel

What to do when you have a craving for Chinese food at 3 am

The other day I was talking to a friend on msn, and weirdly enough, we were discussing friendship, and I said: “...that's the whole point of a friend: they stand by your side, they support/defend you...”

Then I watched Lage Raho Munnabhai (Keep at it, Munnabhai) and I realized that I was just so wrong. Friendship is about more than just caring and support; true friendship means kidnapping a Chinese cook from a hotel when your friend has a hankering for Chinese food.

See, Munna (Sanjay Dutt), a local goon, is apologizing to his best friend/ lieutenant, Circuit (Arshad Warsi), for hitting him: “I have to apologize to you. I haven’t slept half the night; all these old memories were whirling in my head. Remember when I was shot in the belly? I couldn’t sleep, and I told you I missed mother? You put my head on your lap and sang me lullabies. And then I raised my hand to you? ... Remember that time I told you I wanted to eat Chinese food at 3 am? You went and kidnapped the Chinese cook from that 5 star hotel. (pause) What delicious Hakka noodles those were, no?”

None of my friends have ever offered to kidnap a chinese cook when I want Chinese. Nooo, they insist on going to a restaurant and paying for the food.

*sulk*

Jokes aside, Lage Raho Munnabhai is one of the funniest and most heartfelt movies to come out of Bollywood in the past few years. Rang de Basanti had the message, but not the humour, and Sanjay Dutt’s befuddled Munna is eminently more relatable than Aamir Khan’s angry DJ. It has the same basic message as Anupam Kher’s Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara – ie, that it is more important to keep Gandhian values in our hearts than to erect statues and memorials – but unlike the latter movie, LRM is neither a lecture nor a guilt-trip. MGKNM, while wonderfully acted, had an undeniably moral-science-lesson feel to it. LRM, on the other hand, has characters whose very fallibility endears them to us. When Munna is slapped once, he turns the other cheek, because Bapu said so. But when the other cheek is slapped, he dishooms the slapper, because, after all, Gandhiji never said what to do when both cheeks were slapped, right? As Munna might have put it: apun tere ko bolta hai ki ye ekdum mast picture hai.

Plus LRM has this guy in a cameo role. There was much screaming chez Sharon when he showed up. (Screencaps by Maja, who will henceforth be referred to as the BEST. SCREENCAPPER. EVER.)

PS - If you do watch it, or have already watched it, and Hindi is not a language with which you’re that familiar, I’m wondering whether the subtitles do a good job of differentiating between Munna and Circuit’s tapori-speak and every one else’s standard Bombay Hindi. I’m just curious if they caught that distinction, because a lot of the funny came from that.

The politician's guide to idiocy

Gay Perry: Look up idiot in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?
Harry Lockhart: A picture of me?
Gay Perry: No! The definition of idiot. Which you fucking are!

Quote from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), courtesy of IMDb

Toronto lawyer Stephen Ledrew, who served as president of the federal Liberal Party of Canada from 1998 to 2003, was the last high-profile candidate to announce his decision to run for mayor. Ledrew is an idiot.

No, seriously.

Not only does the man owe Revenue Canada $364,140 in unpaid taxes, he’s actually proud of it. You see, Mr Ledrew, fine upstanding citizen that he is, says that he needed to put his children through private school rather than pay his taxes. In his own words, as quoted in the Toronto Star: “I owe taxes. The taxpayer can wait. My children can not. I was proud of my choices, my priorities. I'd do it again. Any father knows his children are the most important thing." (emphasis mine)

As John Barber in the Globe and Mail put it: “Has any would-be politician ever said anything stupider than that?” Public schools close because of lack of funding, a lack caused in part by twits like LeDrew, who don’t pay taxes and don’t care about the public system because their darling little angels attend exclusive private schools. Not only is he an unrepentant criminal, he’s publicly indicated his recidivistic intent – and now the man has the gall to run for public office?

*head explodes*

Like I said, LeDrew is an idiot. Don’t encourage him. On November 13^th, don’t vote LeDrew.

Not Getting Sexyback

The first time I heard this track, I had no clue who was singing. There’s something familiar, I thought, but damned if I know what that is. Halfway through the second time I heard it, something clicked. That… that’s not Justin Timberlake, is it? Since when has he sounded like a girl?

I like the song. It gets under your skin, drags you out of your chair and has you shimmying and dancing on the spot. Here’s the question, though: why is it that Paris Hilton’s first album is universally condemned as being over-produced, when her braying gets modulated down to singing – while here, Timberlake’s admittedly higher register gets bumped into a whole different sex, and no one says anything?

Ben Rayner on Paris Hilton in the Toronto Star, Aug 27th 2006: "Of course Paris sounds decent. The girl has more money than all of our gods combined and about equal "pull," at least in those rarefied celebrity circles where "pull" is considered next to godliness.

If the first 15 runs at the thing had turned out something that gave listeners brain aneurysms and wiped out migratory bird flocks, the cash would have kept flowing until the evil was sufficiently contained for mass distribution at Wal-Mart. The music industry needs customers; it's not gonna kill them outright."

Timberlake, on the other hand, made the cover of Rolling Stone in September.

Huh? I'm so confused.

PS - The fact that I’m - in a sense - defending Paris Hilton actually makes me dislike the song more than I would've under normal circumstances.

From halfway down that slippery slope

I think I might be developing an addiction to classical music.

Stop laughing! It’s not funny, damnit! Okay, fine – maybe just a little.

Let me be more specific – I think I’m growing just a bit too fond of live classical music. See, the TSO has this program called TSoundCheck through which those classical fans between the ages of 18 and 29 can get cheap tickets to certain TSO programs. I don’t think it’s too often that a venerable institution like the TSO shares a selling strategy with your average drug dealer – but it’s the same principle, pretty much: first given them a taste for cheap ($12 a pop!), then – once they’re hooked – jack up the prices (anywhere from $35-$140!) and they’ll pay through the nose to get their nose ear candy.

And what can I say? I’ve always wanted to pretend to be an aesthete.

Thursday, they did Beethoven’s 2^nd and 6^th symphony, along with Mahler’s Rückert Lieder; and oh, how I loved it. It’s especially odd, as I have something of a tin ear for classical music: especially on CD, it all starts to meld into an aural blob of crazed violin bowing to me. Live, though, it comes alive, with people playing in unison, in opposition to synthesize sounds that you can almost feel on your skin. I had no idea music could actually be tactile before; the first time, I couldn’t stop smiling goofily because I had no idea music could feel like that.

I console myself with the thought that there are worse things to be addicted to.

It helps too that the performances aren’t note-perfect. On Thursday, Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s vocals on the Lieder were overshadowed by a too-exuberant orchestra, and perhaps the less sophisticated among us would be better able to appreciate Ruckert’s poetry if the text and a translation were provided with the programme, as was done for the Mozart@250 festival. Nevertheless, if you’re in the GTA area, and you’re between 18 and 29, TSoundCheck is very well worth a try.

Great. Now I’m a pusher.

Vent(i) for me, thanks

Edmund Blackadder:  This is turning into a really rotten evening.

Amy Hardwood:  Yes, well you better make the most of it, because it's your
last.And it's a pity, because it's usually against my principles to shoot dumb
animals.

Blackadder: Except squirrels?

Amy:  Yes! Bastards! I hate them with their long tails and their stupid 
twitchy noses. 

From Blackadder the Third, episode 5, “Amy and Amiability”

(Personally, I find squirrels adorable, but there's no accounting for tastes. )

We all – yes, even you in the back with the fedora and handlebar moustache – have things we can't stand. Things that annoy us, enrage us, – and why? Childhood accidents? Deeply-seated neuroses? Does it matter? I have a whole list.

I can't stand mushrooms. Oh, no, mushrooms in food are lovely – and the sight of mushrooms in grocery stores does not raise my blood pressure. However, when I see mushrooms growing in situ in my backyard, that I cannot bear. Consider if you will, a green lawn, with roses on the side; and then consider the lawn with little mushroom pop-pop-popping all over it. It's like acne, and what has my poor backyard done to deserve acne? It doesn't subsist on a diet of junk food, it gets enough water, and then it gets attacked by these... fungi? The first time it happened, I seethed, I simmered, I fumed – and then I went out and kicked the mushrooms all over the place. Of course, that made it worse, but I did feel a whole lot better (for a while.)

I'm picky about spelling. Not in general – I've corrected essays filled with typos, and felt nothing more than a mild sense of pity for the poor benighted soul who thought Austen was spelt Osten – but there are a few words I cannot bear to see misspelt. For example, when people misspell the English proper name Michael as Micheal, I see red. I mean, c'mon, “Micheal?” It LOOKS wrong, for crying out loud! As an aside – I'm a visual speller. My spelling depends on the word looking right to me. I usually have to write out words like caribbean out a few times before I get it right – carribbean? carribean? caribean? - which means I'd probably suck at things like spelling bees, which depend on having to sound out words. Anyway, “Micheal” just looks wrong, to me. I'd be really interested to know if anyone else gets this, or even spells visually. Let me also just point out that the Irish and Scottish variants of Michael are Mícheál and Mìcheal respectively, according to wwww.behindthename.com, which don't bug me, because, hello, different languages. But when someone mispells an obviously english name, as in, “I used to be a Micheal Jackson fan” - that bugs me. Also annoying is the spelling “Conner” for Connor - though I think this might be simply because C-O-N-N-O-R has a beatiful symmetry that's lost in C-O-N-N-E-R.

The name whose misspelling most annoys me, however, is my own. If we'd kept all the Christmas cards we've received over the years, here are some of the variants you'd see: Sharin, Sharen, Sherin, Sheren, Sheron, Sherrin – I'd go on, but this red haze is beginning to make typing problematic. Spelling errors are understandable when it's a card from an acquaintance of your father's who's maybe heard your name from a mutual friend, and as such is guessing at the spelling. But still, Sharon's a fairly popular name, and you'd figure people would know how it's spelt, right? Wrong. I once had a classmate say, “ You don't pronounce it Sharown, right? More like Sharen? So why not spell it that way?” Because that's the wrong spelling, idiot! If you can learn to pronounce “knight” as 'night' and not 'k-niggit', you can do me the courtesy of pronouncing my name correctly too!

People like Varsha Bhosle, who think that Indianness is the same as Hinduness have my undying contempt. Of course, Hinduism is a huge part of Indian culture – that's undeniable. But why deny the Indianness of religious minorities? Imagine being introduced to someone only to have them say, “Sharon? That's not an Indian name is it?” Well, if you mean to conflate Indianness with Hinduness, then no, it's not Indian. But given that there have been Christians, including my own lot, in India for nearly 2000 years, I don't think the whole “You're not Indian” argument holds much water.

*deep breath* Ah, much better. No more repressing for me – venting is good for the soul.

Geekness Confirmed! Woo!

Pure Geek 43 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 47% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek. It's not that you're a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don't really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren't quite mainstream. Perhaps it's anime, perhaps it's computers, perhaps it's bottlecaps, perhaps it's all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don't quite consider yourself "of that crowd." Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal. Which, you are.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on nerdiness You scored higher than 99% on geekosity You scored higher than 99% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Insane, y'know, in that camera-friendly way

I don't know what this means, or even if it's meant to mean anything, but damn if it didn't crack me up -

PSA: Followup

Now Playing: Chantal Kreviazuk – All I can do (is love you to pieces)

As an addendum to my previous post, I'd like to note that the concept of the Nice Indian Boy/Girl (hitherto to be referred to as NIB/G) is one that could only really take root in a diaspora setting. If you live in India, you're surrounded by 1 billion other Indians, so what's the point of describing the apple of your eye as a NIB/G? A Nice Indian Boy or Girl as opposed to what? The other 1 billion Indians in the country? In India, I'd think the NIB/G would be much more regionalized – a Nice Malayalee Boy/Girl, for example – because people there are more part of their own regional communities than the national one. Whereas with Indian people living abroad, the numbers of these regional communities are small enough that now they identify more with the national identity than the regional one. At this level, the Nice Malayalee Boy/Girl has no meaning, so the term's replaced by the NIB/G that we've all heard way too much about. Of course, with increased immigration, certain communities grow big enough that the national affiliation is dispensed with, to be replaced with regional ones again.

In commenting to that post, both Cale and Salil made points that I think merit discussion, so here we are.

From Cale:

“Nice Indian Boy though - hmm well, truly, properly, there're none of course, but the intensely fucked-up ones aren't so much in the country as tens of thousands of miles out of it. They're either born there and face "identity issues" or are immigrants that're disillusioned by the evils and loose morals of the filthy putrid icky West.

But here, they're either all dangerous-like a la Delhi Jats ... ”

Here I'd have to disagree. I'd I don't believe there's any difference in the level of fucked-up-ness between Indians at home or abroad. To me, a Manu Sharma is just as frightening as a Kimveer Gill, because the level of entitlement that makes you feel you can shoot a waitress for not giving you a drink and then get away with it borders on the psychotic. Different things mess you up – overindulgent parents, chemical imbalances – but the end result is equally scary.

Now Salil:

But it's not just Indians - plenty of others people immediately exempt their own kind from so many common issues. Indians, Aussies, Poms, etc - we're all human; ergo, fucked up in some way or another.

[As for Kimveer Gill, that incident asks the same question about another false stereotype. Remember how Moore's Bowling for Columbine started giving people the impression that Canada was some sort of lovely, gun-free utopia while madmen roamed the USA with .45s? Seems like quite a few people bought into that. *So* many people were shocked by the Montreal shootings. "In Canada? But isn't it so quiet and gun-free there?"]

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that all groups exempt themselves from common issues, because it seems to me that the development of the Nice Italian Boy (cf Mambo Italiano) or the Nice Greek Girl (cf My Big Fat Greek Wedding) or any other Nice Young Thing is the product of being part of a minority group in a larger community - and that it's only the Nice Young Minority Person who is somehow considered, by members of his/her own community, to be above the vices or peccadilloes or issues of the society outside. (Holy Run On Sentences, Batman!)

And yes, Canada is not some crime-free Utopia - last summer was actually dubbed the Summer of the Gun by the Canadian press because of the sudden increase in gun-related crime. Mind you, apart from a few neighbourhoods I'd consider Toronto completely safe - but I think we Torontonians have had to give up our illusions of living in a pristine gun-less environment. I guess it needed something as violent and jarring as the Dawson College Shooting for the stereotype to finally shatter south of the border as well.

More feedback is totally welcome.

PSA: Brown people are messed up too

Now Playing: Omkara - Naina

So, it turns out that the guy who walked into Montreal’s Dawson College and opened fire, killing one person and wounding 19 others, was Indian. You can bet that across the country, Indian aunties are saying, “Can you imagine? A nice Indian boy doing something like that!”

It’s not as though Indians are exempt from social phenomena present in the populace – how could we be, really – but a lot of us still prefer to think that we are somehow different. It’s as though certain things – infidelity, divorce, homosexuality, addiction, mental illness, murder – are somehow inherently non-Indian things that really have nothing to do with us.

We’ve all seen that bit in Bend it like Beckham where Parminder Nagra’s friend tells her that he really likes Beckham – and she goggles, sputtering, “But you’re Indian!” She’s entirely supportive of him afterwards, but there’s still that first moment of doubt when she’s all, dude, you can’t be gay, you’re Indian. And we – the Indian members of the audience – are laughing as much at her as we are at ourselves, because we too were staring and thinking, “How can he be gay? He’s a nice Indian boy!”

It’s not just Indians that do this, but South Asians in general. For example, my current family doctor, a Sri Lankan Tamil, whose practice consists mostly of Tamils, asked my mum which hospital she worked at, so she could look into referring people there. Mum obligingly tells her, adding the doctors there mostly do family medicine and addiction medicine. The doctor immediately loses interest, saying, well, our people don’t really do that stuff, do they?

Huh?

Newsflash, people. Us Indians are the same as the rest of the Canadian populace – we’re just as frelled-up, fracked-up, fucked-up – Kimveer Gill being a case in point – and we fall in love regardless of gender and we have things we can’t bring ourselves to stop doing and we see things that aren’t real and we cheat on our spouses and we leave them and you know what?

We’re not special. That nice Indian boy (or girl) doesn’t exist. Quit the illusion, take the red pill and look at reality.

Melancholy in a bottle

Now Playing: Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)

Tagged by Hem -

I am thinking about...
escape.

I said...
more than I ought to have.

I want to...
write better.

I wish...
I’d grown up the way I thought I would when I was 15.

I miss...
the way I used to be.

I hear...
the rain on windowpanes.

I wonder...
what matters now.

I regret...
quite a lot, unfortunately.

I am...
giving in to my more melodramatic instincts.

I dance...
like I’m trying to get it out of my system.

I sing...
only at Church and karaoke. God gave me this voice, so he can’t complain, and my friends should have known better to take me to a place where microphones and Celine Dion songs are available.

I cry...
quietly.

I am not always...
happy to be laughed at.

I write...
contrivedly.

I confuse...
what people say and what they mean.

I need...
to get out more.

I should try...
exercising my muscles/exorcising my demons.

I finish...
books I’m reading very quickly, but put everything else off. (just like Hem!)

I infect, I mean, I tag eM, Cale, Rishi, Beth & Salanth.

Do you know a bot?

Now Playing: Basshunter - Boten Anna

Now you too can share in the trippiness that is Boten Anna. Props to Jools for telling me about this song.

In other news, close-up photography bugs the crap out of me.

On Lake Ontario

Now Playing: Muse - Map of the Problematique

These pictures were taken during a sunset cruise on Lake Ontario.

Watching the Watchers

Now Playing: Alizee - Moi... Lolita

These pictures - of people watching/waiting for the sunset - were all taken from a terrace in the cliff-top town of Oia on Santorini.

Waiting...

Pretty Colours...

Really Pretty Now...

I sense a theme here...

The Grand Finale

The List

I’ve realized that unless I make a list of things that need to be blogged, and then cross them off as I post, I’ll never cover all the things I want to talk about – which means that I will go on mentally composing snatches of posts that are subsequently forgotten.

So, sans further ado, I give you, THE LIST (categorized, natch!) –

Affairs, Current:

• Lebanon
• Pakistan-Hair fiasco

Books:

• A Country of Strangers – Blacks and Whites in America: David K Shipler
• From Beirut to Jerusalem: Thomas Friedman
• Life isn’t all haa haa hee hee: Meera Syal

Life, Mine:

• Ongoing Occurrences
• Pet Peeves
• Trip to Greece

Movies, Hindi:

• Bluffmaster
• Fanaa
• Rang de Basanti

Movies, English:

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Television:

• Battlestar Galactica
• Doctor Who
• House, MD
• Life on Mars
• Prison Break
• Veronica Mars

In Memoriam

Now Playing: Mozart – Benedictus

My paternal grandmother died last month, of complications resulting from angina. Amachi was 84, and had been mother to 12 children, and grandmother to 16. It was a quick death, in that she slipped into unconsciousness and thence into death – she would have hated a long, lingering illness, not least because it would have induced her to rely on someone else, something she would have hated fiercely.

Amachi was a remarkable woman – practical & tenacious to the point of stubbornness. She’d been ill on and off – diabetes, heart problems, glaucoma – as long as I can remember, and in early 1991 things had reached a head, with her doctor recommending a bypass operation. She refused, despite recommendations and exhortations from all sides. In particular, Velleappan, my uncle on my mother’s side, told her she should get it done. In a moment of high dudgeon, she replied that the doctor’s mother could get the operation, his dog could get the operation, but she would not. Ironically, Velleappan himself was dead within six months of a heart attack, while Amachi lived another fifteen years.

We were never able to communicate very well, as she only spoke Malayalam, and my Malayalam is terrible. In the two weeks we spent there every year, she did try and make sure I learnt something. I remember once responding to her calling me with “what?” in English, and she’d said, in Malayalam, “don’t say ‘what,’ say ‘endho’!” After that, I always did.

She loved watching Malayalam movies, with a passion. In the evening, after the work was done, she’d watch the evening movies on one of the Malayalam channels, and nothing could shift her from this routine. Before the movies started though, as dusk was drawing, every evening she’d cut up cucumbers and tomatoes to go into a salad, and we’d sit on the porch as she’d pass me bits to eat, and Safi, our dog, would nose around, hoping for some sort of treat before he’d give up and curl up next to us.

She was fiercely self-reliant, refusing invitations from her children to come live with them, preferring to remain in the house she and her husband had shared for more than fifty years. On the wall of their dining room was a picture my brother had drawn of them when he must have been seven or so – Chachen and Amachi in front of their house, with a well – and everytime we’d go, this would be pointed out to my brother, who was deeply embarrassed to have such a visible reminder of his lack of drawing skills displayed so.

Every year when we left, the ritual was the same – she’d take my hands in her cool, dry ones, and kiss me on the cheeks – and that is the last memory I have of her; a tiny bespectacled woman, hair in a bun, watching as we got into a Jeep to leave.

Amachi is survived by her husband, eight children and sixteen grandchildren.

Bombay Rhapsody

Now Playing: Mobile - Outta my head

You know some of what I am going to tell you – but not all, or that would be boring and obvious, and is there any sin more cardinal in a writer?

More than two weeks ago, seven bombs went off.

Khar, Bandra, Jogeshwari, Mahim, Matunga, Mira Road, Borivili - in the space of eleven minutes, seven bombs.

There was another bomb at Borivili - found and defused by policemen - forcing the architects of the carnage to content themselves with a nice prime number's worth of shrapnel and death.

When I heard - or rather read the news - my heart caught in my throat.

A small digression – an overactive imagination can completely spoil one's appreciation of certain metaphors. Heart in throat, heart in mouth – I know what these phrases are meant to invoke, but instead the dominant image is the ridiculous, macabre, obvious one – a heart, beating & muscular, tangled in the gristle and tubes of the human neck; or even worse, that same heart in someone's mouth, monstrous and disgusting.

Now that I've put you off your food, let's continue.

I was – let's dispense with the flowery language – worried. I have family in Bombay. My mother was born and brought up there, and two of her siblings still live there with their families, as do my grandparents. Many members of my family take the train to work or school. Given the timing of the blasts, it was entirely possible that they might have been on one of the doomed trains. It was only after I got the text message from my uncle telling me everything was alright, the entire pultun was safe and sound, that I realized that none of the stations targeted were on the rail route we travel by. I remember thinking - and my thoughts were treacly slow and obvious as my brain slowed down from impending-heart-attack mode – fear is so fucking irrational.

The thing is, though, I'm just not attached to Bombay because some of my family's there. No, for the longest time, Bombay was my hometown; my point of reference.

Waitaminute, you say. Aren't you malayalee?

Um, yes. Both my parents are malayalee, born to malayalee parents themselves the offspring of malayalees. My mum, however, was born in Bombay, and grew up there, a mumbaikar to the bone. She and her siblings spoke more marathi than malayalam at home - it allowed them to talk right under their parents' nose and not be understood - and to this day, whenever they get together they speak this patois of english, malayalam and hindi with sprinklings of marathi on the side. My parents were married in Bombay, my brother and I were born in Bombay, and had things gone a little differently, I'd probably still be there now.

You're thinking that birth and maternal attachment are tenuous links to an entire city –

and you would be right. I was pushed into loving Bombay; if not for that, it would be just another city where my relatives lived, with nothing else to bind me to it.

Ironic that the ones who pushed me to it were those who loudly professed their distaste for the city, no?

Children are rude, mean, thoughtless - and me and my peers were no different. It was only my malayalee classmates, though - when I told them I was malayalee, but my mother's family was settled in Bombay - who replied with, " Bombay? Chee! Bombay's so diiirty!" That cemented my attachment to Bombay like nothing else could have. How dared they insult my city? Clearly they were insulting half my family by association! Family loyalty - which I understood to mean that as bad as it was for me to call my brother names, for someone else to do so was beyond the pale - was one of the cardinal virtues of our family philosophy, and so my reply to them was to show my total disdain for their disdain and indentify even more completely with Bombay. After that, I was "from Bombay" - not, "from Kerala, but settled in Bombay", not "Bombay Malayalee" - but just from Bombay.

In the years since, I've come to realize that I can't escape being malayalee (translation - I can't outrun my relatives) and so I've made peace with the different aspects of my identity. But Bombay was and always will be special to me, though I know now it doesn't need me to defend it or protect it. It's strong enough to take the taunting of brats who've never stepped outside Sahar International, and it's strong enough to survive whatever the terroristes-du-jour decide to throw at it. Nevertheless - I feel I need to say something to the bastards behind the blasts: You're a bunch of fucks. I hope you die painful, horrible deaths and spend the rest of your cursed, god-forsaken existences in the most sisyphean of all hells.

Sorry, what were you saying?