Ode to the Woman

The news of the divorce - Madonna and Mr Ritchie - was probably just another chapter in the grand dame's re-discovery process. One more time. She's changed so many times already, it's a wonder she even knows who the real Madonna 'really' is. Fans will be saddened no doubt, and her detractors will add fuel to an already sad and sordid tale made more so by the misery of pain and separation,... her own as well as the lives she has ruined.

But in the end, she will rise above it all. Because, for her fans - she represents something beyond the mundane and the ordinary, something timeless that a few tabloid columns and headlines on the daily news cannot tarnish. For them - as for me - she is a passport to an entire epoch of our unspoilt youth, as fundamental a part of growing up as love and longing itself. We dreamed of her, worshipped her, pined for her, sang her songs in private and danced to her rhythmic beats that kindled flames of freedom, dark desire, and the promise of days to come. We worshipped her at the pedestal of innocence - and she was the original goddess of 'come hither boys and become men.'

We're men now,... but Madge - you are timeless. As pure and pristine as the music that defined our growing years. Here's wishing you never change,... and that you always do. From now until eternity.

Genius and the guitar hero, or Only the most committed wins

They say genius is the ability to take pains. I came across the following article on the Metallica site about Kirk Hammett:

"A keen student of his instrument even today, Hammett followed his first 'Kill 'Em All' tour by taking lessons from Joe Satriani, and embarked upon a passage of guitar self-education that took in jazz, blues and classical styles. Indeed, education has always been Kirk's answer to potential burnout. After the marathon 'Black' album tour ended in 1993, he immediately went to the City College of San Francisco where he took classes, something he credits as the reason behind his reinvention as a guitarist on the 'Load' and 'Re-load' albums. Kirk continues to bring not only a dazzling array of lead guitar parts to Metallica's music but also some savage rifferey, having started sharing 6-string duties with James during the 'Load' era. .......Oh, and for the record, Kirk plays his guitar at least 361 days a year. "

Got me thinking. What is genius? Maybe it's not about solving Fermat's last theorem whilst waiting for a pizza, or writing 'The Gift of the Magi' whilst your publishers are waiting downstairs (yes I hear old Henry pulled that one off), or painting the Sistine chapel or even scoring perfect 800s on your SATs. Yes it IS all that.... but a little more. It's about losing yourself in 'your' art, making it a passion that rules you, and no compromises.

Is it very different in business? The most successful practitioners of the art of commerce have been men who have devoted - literally - their lives in some manner of speaking - to the advancement of their chosen field(s). They have lived in it, enriched it, and sometimes changed the rules of the game. They utterly and completely justify the adage: "The most committed win."

So I ask today - How committed am I? I think it's a question we're not so much afraid to answer, as we are afraid to ask. Because, that's one of the fringe handicaps of being human. Born with unlimited potential, the last thing that we want is to discover that we're really good at something, but that something comes at a price: total commitment.

Can you live with that? Consider well the following, before you answer: There is a point of inflexion in every thing that we do,.. be it learning a language or solving a problem or cooking a dish. Human expectation is that the more we practice, the better we get at it. Right? Right. So far so good. But there is a point of inflexion beyond which that improvement tapers off, plateaus and perhaps even declines. 99.9% of people give up at that point. The .1% that persist? - you guessed it.

The most committed win. As a sign-off, check out the latest from Vlad's library of images. Peace!

The Women: The return of the ditsy genius

Imagine waking up one day and walking out, only to find that all the men had disappeared. Now if you're a man, that might be deemed cause celebre unless you're George Michael; but think about the women! Downright scary you might think. Who'll take out the garbage? Bring home the microwave dinners? Lie belly up on the bed on Sunday morning in a tangle of hairy appendages, orange juice and the sports supplement of the times! The implications are legion, and horrifying. I can hear Germaine Greer groaning in displeasure, but hey - that's just me.

But director Jane English seems to have no problems with that; nor does she have any problems with foisting it on what was predominantly a male audience (at least last night when my wife and I went to see it). Apparently Ms. English has gone to great lengths to ensure an all-female cast, to the extent that even the dog was a girl. I wonder if all the NYC cabs we saw had female drivers!

Nonetheless, a brave movie even if it was a remake. The ensemble cast reads like a who's who of middle-aged Hollywood. The intro might be mistaken for a 'Sex and the city' sequel, and Annette Bening looks decidedly 'Cattrall'ish as she negotiates the pavements in the opening shots. What followed was an unending stream of 40-something starlets dolled up in Hamptons-couture and driving upscale Japanese brands, going on about charity dinners, manicures, Saks, cheating husbands and friendship till I felt like getting up and banging (no ... wait for it) my head against the walls (which were thankfully padded). Again, the spectre of Sex and the city loomed on the horizon. The dialogues were hammy, albeit delivered with as much chutzpah as one could possibly muster and hats off to the cast for that. The ending was the saving grace, and will probably count as one of the most memorable delivery room scenes since 9 months. There were laughter and tears, forgiveness and joy and all round heart-warming fuzziness as the audience spilt their guts onto the floor laughing.

But the real (re-)discovery was Meg Ryan. The ditsy genius of rom-com is back. One wonders what she has been doing since 'In the cut', but Meg is alive and well. There was the trademark eye-rolling, nose-twitching, flouncy dresses and poetic self-deprecation all dipped in syrupy melancholy, all the traits that we have come to love. No Tom Hanks, but Meg shines her own light. She was an Atlas carrying the weight of the film on her shoulders. And in the end, however the film does, I think people will just be happy to have their favourite fighting 'shop-girl' back on the screens, looking none the worse for wear.

Hurrah!

For England...

It was like a chapter out of Moby Dick; except that in the end Ahab got the whale. Andy Murray embodied the spirit of the man who donated his name to the stadium; this was no Connors-Ashe match, and Nadal is too honorable of a man to belittle his opponent in the manner of Connors,... but Murray showed that whilst confidence is classy, class is classier.

Never for a moment in the match did he put on that he was pressed to the hard. Shots flowed from his quiver as effortlessly as words from the pulpit, and in the process Murray re-wrote the record books, doubtless ensuring that his name will not be lost in the annals of this great game.

And whilst Roger Federer proved yesterday beyond any measure of doubt that he is alive and well and in no way out of the reckoning, yet he will look upon Murray with new-found respect when they cross rackets 22 hours from now in NY. But for now, Andy Murray is the king of the world.

For England. And for tennis.

Solace

These days, my wife and I are bucking the trend. We spent the long weekend holed up at home, barely kept alive by the antics of the crew from ndtv.com. Then the next weekend, we took off to Cornwall on a whim. 600 miles behind the wheel, and the weekend flew past in a flurry of castles, coastline, fur-seals and overdone cornish sausages. But there were small blessings. The image on the right is proof that there is still that 'measure of peace that so many of us search for ....' lines from 'The Last Samurai.' Knock yourself out with this photo we took at the foot of Pendennis castle.

So peace out - till the next time I decide to test the limits of human boredom. Or the next weekend. Whichever comes sooner.

A Knight's tale

As I came out of the movie theatre, treading fairy footsteps so as not to trip over the sagging carpet, I looked back at the screen as the ending credits of 'The Dark Knight' rolled down against a shadowy tapestry of a myriad movie-goers. And I could only think of one thing: DC - 1; Marvel - 0. This one goes to Bob Kane. The man who gave us the Batman, would have been proud of this one. To see his characters come alive on screen not through the chicanery of special effects, but in flesh and blood. As people with angst, hate, fear, self-loathing, and heroics.

And whilst Bale's Batman may have been spent more time brooding and dishing out pithy on-liners than one might have expected, the masthead of the plot had to be the triumvirate of the Batman, 2-face and the Joker. Master stroke that, from Chris Nolan. It could very well have doubled as a 101 on Freudian analysis. Batman and the Joker each living in the hope that society would embrace the best and the worst (respectively) of human tendencies, whilst Harvey embodies the fragile balance between the two, forever swinging between right and wrong, aided and abetted only by a coin and a fascination with chance. Somehow, amidst all the chaos it was Harvey, and not Bale's Batman that stood out (at least in the first half) as the sole voice of reason and hope. And he proved - at least for a while - that sometimes, you don't need a costume and a mask to take up a cause that is right.

In particular, his line about 'You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain', was a rebuke to modern morals, I think. Is he saying then, that one can't survive by treading the straight and narrow?

Something to think about,... especially for all the corporate wannabes out there. But one thing's for sure... this one goes to Batman. And maybe it's time Marvel had a deep think about what it comes back with next, to counter this Knight's move.

Till next time.

Life at 30(000 ft)

Picture we took in Paris: lends some perspective at the end of the first innings of my life. I guess there's a sense of isolation when you're that high up. So just how far does one have to go to fulfill one's dreams?

Dawn comes with rosy fingers...

In 2000 October, I turned 24. I'd been thinking about this event for quite some time: about 11 years to be precise. Since it coincided with the Millennium, it meant something to me. I associated it with a coming of age, almost. I’d spent long summers idling on a hammock staring at trees, birds and prehistoric buses from my crow’s nest on a Calcutta highrise. Passing jet planes enroute to distant locations reminded me of an England where I’d spent many summers growing up. I wondered and worried about where I would be when I was old and sane.

On my 24th birthday, I found myself in B-school with a 100 other wide-eyed wonderers. The next few years flew past in a crazy blur of jobs, flights, marriage, more flights, more jobs, cars and multi-ethnic food. Then 32 came. It was summer in Reading. A house, a home as my wife calls it, but also a yearning for better things. The promotion, the perks, the fancy job-title, the branded watch, the ultimate driving machine sitting in the underground car park ready to be let loose upon the world in ambitious fury, the compulsory trips to India and home cooking, doting parents, wary relatives and old friends who never got jealous. And yet. One asks oneself (aka Old Jack in the eponymous move): ‘What if this is as good as it gets?’

I put down my constant aggravation and moanings about the future to my b-school regimen. The steady drone of wisdom emanating from a bearded Socrates wielding chalk and a goodly volume. ‘If you’re getting comfortable, you’re getting slack. Time to move on. Look for the next best thing.’

But then – what if this is the next best thing? What if in this constant search for ‘better’ in today’s catalogued and glossy paperback version of life, I’m losing sight of Here and Now?

As I type, I grow increasingly aware that my dusty monologue is beginning to bear an uncanny resemblance to the suicial rant of a man with mid-life crisis. So I say: “Enough of this poison: let me seek the antidote!” I'm off to the hills and dales of Derby this weekend. The BBC weather service - frightfully accurate as always - has predicted snow on the hills. So I'm packing my gloves, picnic hamper and ample wife into the car and hitting the high-road. See you soon!

Happy New Year - the iceman cometh

They say that the first rule of writing - especially when you're in a block - is to wrote garbage. Which is what I'm doing. To hell with intention - it's the action that counts. So this year, it's gonna be all about the action. Doing as opposed to twiddling the appendage oft used (thumb silly!).

I love this thing about living in the hope of 'what next.' Isn't that a bit like - the greatest has-been that never-was? Because by the time you've gotten to the point where doing something will probably achieve the desired result: hey - that moment's gone. Past. Manyana. And you're on your bum again in front of the tv.

It's the first day of the New Year and I haven't a clue what I'm going to do. It's a holiday, so that's kinda nice. Watterson said that there is never enough time to do all the nothing that you want. I'm about to find out the hard way. I looked at a random horoscope and it said that in 2008, I'd be very popular. I'm elated. I've always wanted to be popular. Like Superman or Roger Federer. Actually, like JK Rolwling.

Peace out.

Airport

At school, my best memories were about imagining what it would be like when I grew up. Lazy summer days were all about putting my feet up on a crude hammock, and dreaming about being on a plane 'outta here.' Across the muddy waters of my boyish imagination lay the steel and concrete spires of NY, London, Singapore. And the airports.

It was always about the airports.

Later on,... I had the chance. Sometimes more than I wished for - perhaps. But sitting in lounges waiting for flights, became one of the fringe benefits of my chosen line of work. I think there's a crazy kind of anonymity in it. Almost like a drug... like being on a perpetual mellow high. And I think any airport grants you that. They do me.

I tend to think it's ot something to do with Holden's answer in Catcher in the rye : always seeking an imaginary view of the world rather than dealing with the complexities and problems of the world I really live in. A brief respite. Call it escapism - I don't care. But maybe it also has something to do with the spirit of an airport: all about meeting and parting, especially parting. We know the quote about parting: All we know of heaven and all we need of hell. But something of that spirit hangs in the air. And I swear it's magical.

Stand by the clear glass lounge-windows and watch a plane taxi on a bright summer day, maybe with the strains of Marvin Gaye wafting from someone's ipod, and air that's redolent of long-lost memories watching your mother making lunch. Everything that's pristine, timeless, and healing. And as the plane takes off, your heart expands and almost lifts with it. The best part - you can only imagine where it's going. Like you. Like any one of us. Our destiny is like that plane.

Have you ever felt it?

Batman and Robin

CNN wrote a while ago that Hillary Rodham Clinton was hands down the leader of the pack, for the 2008 dem-nomination. The buzz in the company canteen is that Condoleezza Rice is also about to throw her hat (?) into the ring. That is of course if she can squeeze in time between the gym sessions and totting up frequent flyer miles to the mid-East.

That should be a sight. Just picture the national debate. The silence of the hams. Stanford Vs. Yale. (The undergrads must be drooling in ecstasy) The cliches come pouring out.

In a sense, it's all good. Jay Leno will have enough fodder to keep his pithy rhetoric flowing till the polar ice-caps melt, and late night television will never be the same again. Lexical and pixelian rainforests will be dedicated to covering the former 'primoris era' road to victory. Primary Colors 2 wll be released, only this time Emma Thomson will grab John Travolta's mammaries and whistle 'Battle hymn of the Republic' instead. Chelsea Clinton will achieve the rare distinction of being the only first daughter to have to put up with the same canteen staff twice in a lifetime. And the Whitehouse chef will resign again.

Hopefully history will be made in better ways than this. God save the interns though!

Security blanket

I grew up reading Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. I envied the kids in those strips. When things went wrong, they had something warm and fluffy to fall back on: a warm puppy, a security blanket, or even rocketship underpants. When you cross 25, those things kinda 'cease to exist.' Not fair: post-25 life should come with a 'Next' option . Like when the girl you've been dating for 4 weeks suddenly stops midway between the frozen fruit section and the cereal rack, turns around and asks you ' What do you really what from me?' OR When your boss calls you in for a one-on-one and asks how much you're going to add to the bottom line this year, and how. Those moments (sigh) : make you wish you could just press NEXT and move on to the next scene. Pity.

I think a lot of corporate honchos would give their eye-teeth for an option like that. Beats the corporate jet hands down; esp. when you're reporting the biggest loss in 14 years. Is Bill Ford listening?

Sequential history

My wife and I made a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation the other day whilst waiting in queue to watch 'Miami Vice', that by the time the 4th sequel of every character the Marvel/DC comics stable had come out, our kids would (theoretically) be going to college. Think about it: Spiderman-3 in May 2007, Fantastic Four (2008), Hulk sequel (2008), Batman (2008)...then you have the Hellboys and Spawns, not to mention Thor, Black Panther et al who are just starting to crawl out from under the woodwork at comic-central. So where does that leave the average movie-goer? And how long do the guys at Marvel/DC think they can keep this up before the comic-book juggernaut runs out of steam?

If the responses of the 30-40 something crowd at my local Vue are anything to go by, they don't have much to worry about. I caught one bespectacled, pop-corn-chewing, father-of-three, middle-aged hombre staring goggle-eyed at the screen as he took in Brandon Routh's latest capers, whilst the hapless wife slept with her eyes open in the seat beside him. The expression on his face said it all. To quote Kevin Spacey in his latest avatar as the balding Lex Luthor ' Bring it on!'

We just can't get enough.

There is only one... (comic book publisher), to cop a line from the Highlander series. Question is - who is it? DC - or Marvel? 20 years ago, this argument might have been resolved by simply splitting most of the civilised world into 2, arming them with machetes and AK-47s, and then putting them together on a big green field, with lots and lots of ambulances and paramedics. Simply because there would be no other way.

There's been a battle brewing - and I'm not talking about the one between mutants and humans. Ever since the creation of the graphic novel, two names have been slugging it out for every conceivable inch of our sensory landscape. And today, the showdown is happening in movie-halls, on our tv-screens, at comic-book conventions. It's overflowed onto the internet: lexical forests have been relaced by billions of dpis seeking trading blows over the relative merits of every character that came out of the comic book hall of fame.

Now - we have widescreen. :-) And internet polls.

So lets take a look at what's on offer for the fans. Batman begins (2005), Superman Returns (June 06) are/will be recent releases from the DC stables. And Marvel has been steam-rollering competition with the X-men trilogy, the spiderman trilogy, the hulk (2 on the way), Fantastic 4. You'd think that DC didn't stand a chance. Not so.

Save the whales... and Opal Mehta

The whole controversy around Kavya V and Opal Mehta which has been spreading through the blogosphere like a bad case of dysentery: leads one to ask - what exactly is plagiarism?

I used to read a lot of Enid Blyton back in the days when I had a waist: I used to really like the stuff. Maybe it was the subtly colonial, Rule Brittannia-esque undertones, or just the fact that you could go through reams on the Famous five without any mention of the fact that George was actually a girl and therefore might have breasts?

Maybe some of that comes out in what I write - the stuff that isn't mindless bilge, that is. Most of it is probably unconscious ... but could the critics care less? No.

A small example - and I'm not looking to stir up a controversy here: consider the following line from one of Kingsley Amis' works: ."His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum."

Then consider the following line from a novel (#1 bestseller back when it was published) by one of the most successful authors in recent times (sorry - no names): " His mouth felt like it had been used by a baby dragon as a potty chair."

Sound familiar? Is that plagiarism? This might be construed as a case of accidental plagiarism, ie "using the source too closely when paraphrasing." Chances are, the author of the second piece read Amis when HE had a waist (if he has similar eating habits to mine, that would be around 10), and it stuck somewhere in the recesses of his mind. So - does that take anything away from someone who has churned out more bestsellers (not to mention the movie adaptations) that anyone in recent times? My guess? - NO. But the owlish critics obviously have a different take on things.

Critics be damned. Let's remember that there is a subtle distinction between 'Freedom-to' and 'Freedom-from.' In laying down the ground rules for plagiarism, let's not blur that divide. Before we know it, there'll be a mad rush to copyright words like arse, paycheck and pepperoni. And then where would we be?

Cruise control: Victory Lane

There were around 350 people in the darkened theatre, and I can wager each and every one of them - including the ones who were cuddling in darkened corners behind the camouflage of Vue's extra-large popcorn - missed a heartbeat when Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian pulled the trigger on IMF super-cop Ethan Hunt's wife. As her head slumped to one side, we stared, mesmerised at the man strapped to the chair: torn, battered and bruised...tears welling in his eyes... and that all too familiar expression on his face as it made the seamless transition from disbelieving, utter pain, through nerve-freezing numbness , to the iron-resolve that we know all too well. You could almost hear that immortal phrase (MI: 1) echoing in the innermost recesses of your mind: " You've never seen me upset."

This is the man they call Tom Cruise . This is the man who cheated on Elizabeth Shue and threw his life away to get her back in Cocktail; the man who flew 'by the seat of his pants', flirted with his instructor and enemy pilots with equal ease and came out on 'top' in Top Gun', this is the simple yet passionate drag-racer romancing the brain surgeon (a dauntingly tall Kidman) in 'Days of Thunder' as he grits and grimes his way through to victory lane at Nascar; this is the razor-sharp, show-me-the-money sports agent who grew a conscience and found love and friendship in the time of Superbowl in 'Jerry Maguire'; the ambitious Harvard-grad determined to force life to stand and deliver in 'The Firm' ; the happy-go-lucky genius lawyer who keeps his tryst with the truth against a hostile system and the most unheard-of odds in 'A Few good men', the down-on-his-luck stolen-car salesman who ransomed his brother and then threw away a fortune to make peace with his conscience and his childhood in Rainman; and finally - agent Ethan Hunt: 10 years on from his first reality-defying capers as the perennially clean-shaven super spy, and Mr Cruise still keeps us on the edge of our seats. The skin is a bit rougher, the gleam in his eyes has dulled a mite, and the years have spun a wrinkly cobweb around the eyes. But he still has the 1000 watt smile. And when he smiles, the world smiles back.

Let's face facts Monsieurs and Mesdames... this man's name will probably never be uttered in the same breath as a Brando, a De Niro or a Pacino. Critics will not wax eloquent about his genre-defining performances as they will about a Denzel or a Penn. He'll never appear on Actor's studio and talk about his 'early days of method acting.' And there won't be entire lexical rainforests dedicated to his coming (and going) of age, as there have been for the likes of River Phoenix and James Dean, though for whom staying alive was obviously not part of a 5-year plan.

But that takes nothing away from his sheer ability to entertain. A 250-mn $ one-man show, whose unsurpassable ability to make us sigh, blush, shudder, wince, laugh and cry in the same breath - will be as much a part of our generation's growing up as sliced bread and wet dreams.

And that's why every time he stands up in a half-knotted tie holding out a goldfish in a baggie and asks' Who's coming with me, besides Flipper here...'we'll stand up and say 'Me.' Because you complete us, Mr Cruise.

As the reluctant fans tramped out of the Hall, I wondered how many of them were thinking what I was thinking. That in a Hollywood where a Hanks lends the tone, a Denzel the timbre and a Pacino the grace - this man provides sure as hell supplies the colour. And that Tom Cruise, must live for ever.

How not to lose your way

This is my first blog. Ever. I've been wanting to start one since like 1991, but I trashed the idea since it seemed kinda 'out of the times' then. SINCE THEN, someone has gone around and done moi and the rest of the world a huge favor by discovering this techno-freudian marvel.

When someone first told me about it, I thought it was a b-movie sequel to a trashy creature movie. I stand corrected. I now know that 'Sepia Mutiny' is not a remake of a Marlon Brando movie featuring Bridgette Nielsen, and that the shortest distance between the heart and the paper, is no-longer the pen. For me - the keyboard works just fine.

Obviously, I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself: which probably accounts for the little puddle at the base of my chair. Most of my life, I've subscribed to the Calvinesque philsophy of procrastination and rationalization, which has served me well, but left me somewhat handicapped when it comes to keeping up with life. So, in true Shakespearian style: Out damn'd spot.

Let the healing begin.