The End-of-Year Post

As another year comes to a close, it is time for many to look back at what has gone by and for others, it is the occasion to plan and look ahead in time. I am not too sure where I stand. For me, memories are as important as the anticipation of what the future holds. While I do not have any misgivings on being able to change my fortunes too much through New Year resolutions, at the same time, I am not taken up by crying over spilt milk or taking my pom-poms out for whatever I may have been able to achieve in the past.

Having said all that and created the background, let me still go ahead and talk about some 5 things on what the year 2011 had been in my life first (for records, if not for anything else, you see :-)).

1. I completed the first year in my 30's...wasn't so bad actually :-)
2. Since Priya's marriage in December last year, I have stayed alone for more than a year now (the longest such tenure ever)
3. I managed to finally close my education loan that I had been carrying along for more than 5 years now.
4. The family did not keep too well as far as health is concerned, what with Papa breaking his leg yet again and Baba being taken for the worse.
5. I set in process the efforts to find my "someone special"

And now that I have set the ball rolling anyway, let us get the crystal ball out and look at 5 things on what the coming year may look like (again for record, if not for anything else, you see :-))

1. I am going to get a change in what I do for a living...the stagnation is too much to bear now.
2. I do not intend to stay alone for any more time. I am going to ensure that parents have no choice this year but to move in with me.
3. Without making any unrealistic promises to anyone (including myself), I shall be fit.
4. I am going to make efforts to be more social this year...all long lost friends are going to get the shock of their lives when they find me banging their doors down once too often this year.
5. "Someone special" shall find her rightful place in my life.

Crossing the line

There is a very thin line between expressing concern and trying to establish authority and more often than not, one is interpreted as the other, not just by the recipient of this concern/authority but at times, also by the proponent of it. There are things that one doesn't like about a situation and is concerned about, especially if the situation invloves one's own self or some one/thing one is very attached to. However, while expressing this concern, it is seldom that we realize how close it comes to assertively sitting in judgment and actually wanting things to be done in a particular manner without arguments and deviations.

At times however, it is purely concern and experiences related to similar situations that guide such behavior of the proponent. Depending upon how sensitive the recipient is to the assertion of someone else's authority on his/her way of life, all of it may incorrectly be treated as undue and unjust. Taking a call on who is right or wrong in such cases is never easy, especially if the words do not match intent (as is the case many times) or if the intent (and the words) crosses the line.

The next question, of course, is how does the problem get solved. One of the things that such a situation leads to, undoubtedly, is frustration all around. The proponent is frustrated because he/she is concerned about the way things are going on and wants to put across his/her point of view (albeit a bit too strongly in some cases) about how the situation can be changed. The recipient is frustrated becase he/she can not accept someone else taking over his/her life and feels suffocated with the entire undermining masquerading as advice (albeit being extra-sensitive and over-reacting in some cases).

It does require more than some ordinary common sense and maturity to solve this and unless both parties put their palms together, there is no clap that is going to be heard. While it becomes important for the recipient to don the forgiving hat and look benignly at the well-wishing intent behind the whole thing, it is equally, if not more, important for the proponent to realize that it is not just the intent that is important but the way things are communicated can completely change the context and make even a good thing appear bad in a space of minutes.

What this translates practically into is that the proponent, while expressing concern and wishing that things were done in a different manner, needs to exercise restraint and know when and how to put things forward based on how sensitive the recipient is. Similarly, the recipient needs to give out a longer rope than normal and yet communicate his/her take on the situation in very clear and unambiguos terms.

Unless such situations are treated in a mature manner (and I may be doing the mistake of wanting things to be done a certain way myself by saying this), emotional volatility can often take an exponential upswing and grievously reduce the chances of happy and peaceful co-existence for both the proponent and the recipient.

The December Nostalgia

Ever since I started having an understanding of what goes on around me, I have known that the month of December every year is time for the annual family gathering. December 26-27 of each year has always been the time slotted for the Hari Kirtan organized in the memory of my late Great Grandfather. Baba started this on the passing away of his father (on December 27) and following the year after Babuji's passing away, this has been a regular fixture of what I know as my childhood.

When I was a kid and all of my cousins were yet to be impacted by the travails of a busy, nuclear, and urban life, we used to get together, if not at any other time during the year, at least once during the Hari Kirtan. The timing was just right for my uncles and aunts to take their annual leaves and visit their hometown. The normally lean period between Christmas and New Year with easily obtainable leaves from work and the winter vacations in schools was utilized to the hilt.

While the grown-ups alternated between organizing and attending the Hari Kirtan and catching up with the news in each others' lives, the kids used to have the room farthest from the Kirtan venue, all to themselves. This does not imply that we were not the religious type but we were just too young to understand what the "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna" signified. For us, it was just a big distraction from the fun and games we could participate in, now that there were more than a dozen of us together.

From the games of Antaakshari and Passing the Parcel, to impromptu jigs and song renditions, those were the days. We were part of a big joint family despite each of us having our own nuclear set-ups. Baba and Amma used to pride themselves on the way the household filled itself during the five-six days around that period, with each and every room, nook, and corner taken up by someone or the other, voices of merriment coming from everywhere. There were no hassles that anyone had with all of us willing (and even wanting) to sleep on the husk covered floor with blankets being shared in the most chilling of winters. Unlike today when the most hardened of us have gone soft, the communal spirit then used to take care of all discomforts, in an absolute and complete manner.

Once Amma passed away in 2007 and subsequently as Baba started losing interest in many things (including his work as an advocate from which he retired at the age of 85), things started to change. In fact, things were already a little different with most of my generation already out of colleges and making a living in some remote city or another. It was getting more and more difficult to see all of them every year but it was still some consolation since I could see most of them, even if once every alternate year. For me, going to Buxar in December was still a part of routine because Papa, Mummy, and Baba would be there irrespective of whether anyone else came in or not.

Baba's health went from good to bad to worse very rapidly this year, so much so that for more than 3-4 months, he was bedridden and had almost lost the will to live. He is better now and can sit up for stretches of an hour or so, and can even walk from one room to another. However, for the purposes of treatment and in order to be close to doctors and medical facilities, Baba was shifted to Banaras to Bade Papa's house about six months ago. Ever since the ill-health, Baba has lost whatever focus he had and the only thing he seems to continue to be excited about is my marriage, whenever it takes place. To expect him to also worry about the Hari Kirtan would be asking for too much.

Baba always wanted to keep doing this, at least for his life time. Since it was the memory of his father that he used to celebrate, he never wanted to give up. As I was speaking to Mummy last night, I was joking with her as to why she did not ask me to come to Buxar in December this year and was playfully teasing her about how she has forgotten me ever since Priya got married. She told me then that in all likelihood, there is not going to be anyone home this time for the Hari Kirtan which would probably not take place at all.

I always knew that the intensity of the occasion has been going down and with Baba being in Banaras, it would be hardly of any import this year, but I had never brought myself to realize that it was well and truly over. I could hardly reconcile to the fact that the transition from one generation to another had failed...as Mummy told me that there was no one willing to take over the responsibility of organizing such a big scale festival (apart from the Hari Kirtan, there is also a Bhandaara organized where a lot of guests from the village and the town are fed the choicest of delicacies).

I am confident that my generation, all my cousins look at the last week of December fondly and associate it with happy memories. It is all about galvanizing them into taking the onus of running with the tradition for at least some more time...not keeping the next generation away from forming their own experiences, making their own memories of our roots. There is hardly any time for it this year but even if it is the first New Year resolution that I make, I want to try my best to do something about it the next year and if Hari is with me, I am sure that His tales will be sung again in Buxar very soon.

Self-destructing in 5 seconds...

This is your mission...should you choose to accept it.



Mission Impossible it is, what with escaping from a Russian prison, breaking into Kremlin (of all places for an American to break into), jumping about outside the glass walls of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world and chasing cars in the Dubai sandstorm, and finally driving at break-neck speed supposedly on the roads of Mumbai. A collage of some really fast-paced action sequences with not too much of a plot to speak of, Mission Impossible's latest franchise impresses as an all-out entertainer.

Brad Bird brings a fresh perspective to the MI series and instead of following the established formula of a mixture of intrigue and action, he tilts this edition towards a very tight, action-packed succession of sequences that leave the viewer with hardly any time to breathe or think about the plot or the supposed lack of intrigue in it. Making excellent use of the image created by Tom Cruise over the three editions of the MI franchise, Bird deviates from the one-man-army heroism that Ethan Hunt is known for and in the process, adds some more central characters and subsequently, some more jazz to the proceedings.

The plot is simple enough with a former Russian nuclear strategist turning rogue and managing to get away with Russian nuclear launch device and codes. His objective is to start a nuclear war between Russia and America by ensuring the first strike and the mission of Tom "Ethan Hunt" Cruise and his team is to stop him. A pretty linear plot is embellished with twists and turns, if not to the story, then at least to the sequences with even a simple entry into the safe house (in the form of a rail wagon) being made quite interesting with the treatment it is given. Urgency is palpable and the turn of events fraught with a sense of daredevilry that is bound to appeal to audiences worldwide, cutting across cultures and sensitivities.

The acting department is managed effectively by Tom Cruise who breezes through playing the character of Ethan Hunt that has probably added more to his career than any other franchise (notwithstanding even Top Gun). The support cast is starred by the irrepressible Benji Dunn (played by Simon Pegg) who provides much of the comic relief to the movie. Paula Patton playing Agent Jane Carter and Jeremy Renner playing Analyst William Brandt seem a little awkward in their roles and get overshadowed by Tom Cruise's portrayal of Ethan Hunt. The sheer charisma of Ehtan Hunt, or the chutzpah of Benji Dunn does not appear to be matched by the other two characters.

And oh...Anil Kapoor has a blink-and-you-miss-him role in the movie; criticized by many for the sheer foolishness of the character he plays (Brij Nath, an Indian billionaire and owner of a telecom company in Mumbai that has access to the satellite which is to be used by the Russian villain to launch the nuclear missile). Remember however, that this is Mission Impossible and not Ram Lakhan and the person we normally think of as a hero is but a fringe player in the much larger scheme of things...the huge franchise that Mission Impossible is. His mere presence (and not a completely inconsequential role at that) in such a franchise is indicative of the fact that India is too big a market now for even Hollywood to ignore.

The direction is top notch with the editing although, despite the movie being so fast paced, ever so slightly slipping in the process to try and establish some emotional connect with the audiences. The rest of the sequences are so fast that even a couple of minutes of dialogue (whenever Hunt starts talking to Carter about her loss or to Brandt on the latter's insecurities) seem a waste of time and almost sleep-inducing. Action sequences, on the other hand, are wonderfully shot and form the high point for the movie, something that you wouldn't mind watching twice for the sheer beauty of it all. Executed to the tee by Cruise and company, the movie's action comes across as probably the best for quite some time.

The use of gadgets and gizmos is impressive to a fault. Whether it is the master key computing and figuring out the number pass codes from a huge array of possibilities, or the slightly funny and incredulous hoodwinking of the Kremlin security guard using a screen and a projector, all of them add to the fun and frolic. The background score (with the imitable Mission Impossible signature tune) is extremely effective in highlighting all the action and drama, keeping audiences at the edge of their seats for most of the time.

The Ghost Protocol having been enforced with the American President directing that Cruise and his agency, the IMF is disavowed, the stakes are high. Despite the risk of being branded a terrorist in case of failure (or death), Ethan Hunt and his team break through the plans of the Russian anarchist and save the world yet again. As Hunt hands over the next missions to his team and goes about accessing his own, one can't help but wonder as to what is next for this 50 year old (yes, that is how old he actually is, never mind what he looks like in the movie) and for the MI franchise itself.

The Untold Saga

Growing up on Amitabh Bachchan movies has influenced a lot in my life, much of the way I am and much of the way I deal with situations has been derived from Amitabh's characters in some of his movies. He has always been the celebrated hero, of course but it is not the loud one-man-beating up-ten-villains heroism that one gets on to emulate, it is the other kind of heroism that impacted me...the untold stories of the silences, the steady, resolute look on the face, the determination that does not want itself to be sung about, the single-minded, super-achieving and yet humble outlook to any situation.

There was the other side to his heroism too, the one we all loved to admire but perhaps never thought of emulating because it simply seemed so out of reach...the one Sachin Tendulkar embodies, arguably flawless, unarguably bordering on the greatest ever. There are very few however, who dream to be Sachin Tendulkar for it appears to be only that, a dream. It is therefore, as in my case, the achievable side of the hero that we all strive towards achieving...the Rahul Dravid side of it. Achievement par excellence, no doubt...something that any and all would be proud of and yet all of it done in such unassuming a manner.

This does not mean that Sachin or those other characters essayed by Bachchan are arrogant or don't relate to the ground realities. It is just that their brand of success is too flamboyant, too Sehwag-ish to draw a pattern around. Dravid, on the other side, seems a lot like most of us. The hard worker who is super talented for sure but can perhaps not move mountains on the basis of talent alone...the one who has taken risks in his life but not out-and-out risks, only those risks that make sense and have a back-up plan along with them...the one who could not dare to give up a good education riding on nothing else but faith in his own talent...the one who built things up brick by brick with each brick joined to the other via sweat and blood, so to speak.

Dravid is the second highest run scorer in the world in Test cricket, someone who has hit more centuries than the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, someone who was requested back in the one-day team that was floundering without an anchor post his unceremonious exit from it, someone who went on to not just survive for five seasons (when other more celebrated contemporaries called it quits mid-way) but also captained two different sides in the most commercial and ruthless exhibition of cricket, and in a format that fits the least with his style of play. Dravid is all this and yet he is still the boy next door (despite, as per his own admission, being the oldest playing cricketer around in India, older even to Sachin by a few months). He is still the common man who has fought all odds to become special.

It almost gives one the goose bumps to realize the significance of what Dravid and people like him achieve in their lives and how they manage to contribute to the society in the process. Not just their achievements, but even the painstaking manner in which they have worked on to achieve the same become folklore, examples that parents give to their kids when they want them to follow the path to idealism. Dravid and his type would rate amongst the guys mothers (and fathers) would want their daughters to marry, CEOs would want to hire for the most complicated and critical jobs they have, army generals would want to trust with the post situated in the most difficult of terrains and marking the most amount of risk if it were to be compromised.

He is all that one would want to be...a clear thinker, erudite, well-read and logical, a class act at what he does, and someone who has a sense of humor good enough to crack jokes not just about others but at his own expense as well. An idol in the true sense of the word, Rahul "The Wall" Dravid shall remain an inspiration for me as much as Sachin "The Master" Tendulkar or Virender "The Nawaab" Sehwag would remain distant dreams I would want to keep striving for.

By the way, if you disagree with what I have said and insist on a different perspective, I respect that. I would only request you to read Dravid's address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra, the first time in the last 10 years that it has been happening that a non-Australian has been invited for it. The speech in video should be available on YouTube and it can be read in text at the ESPN Website

Nip in the air

For the first time this year as I stepped out from my bath, I felt a slight chill run up my body. Of course, this slight chill shall soon be bandied by the Mumbaikars and all local media as the arrival of winters to Mumbai or if some journalist is feeling lucky, even a cold wave. For me, at best it is disappointing and at worst, a reminder of what it could have been. Having spent almost all my life (except the four years in South India and 3 years here in Mumbai) in the north of Vindhyas, winter has had a special significance for me.

The arrival of winters, whether I was in Delhi for my schooling or job, or if I was in Patna/Buxar growing up, was marked by many distinct happenings. One of them, of course, was the grand revival of the quilts and the woolens. Dumped aside in some big box for the rest of the year, the woolens used to make their presence felt as Diwali came to pass. Starting with the half sleeved pullovers and the thin blankets and ending up at full bodied jackets and heavy duty quilts, the smell of mothballs combined with the heat trapped inside them after a day of being shown the sunlight form some of my happier childhood memories.

As I grew up, winters also became the opportunity to show off. Unlike girls who can actually heat things up in summers with their multi colored apparel extending up to multiple standards of length and size, guys hardly have options on what to wear. It is only in winters that the blazers and the jackets, the tweeds and the denim come out in full force. I started realizing this once I moved to Delhi from a sheltered Patna and became a part of the pack. The jacket that Mananmama bought me from the local Tibetan market in Patna was a prized possession then and continues to be with me, 15 years down the line. And then came the suits as well...starting with a dumb beige suit to the now-often-unused smart black suit, this sartorial journey has been a pleasant recollection for me as well.

Probably the most favorite recollection I have of winters has been the one associated with the Christmas cheer, the one I witnessed in Paris. Having heard about the terrific atmosphere pre-Christmas in the western world, I was not to be disappointed as my exchange program during MBA chanced to happen in a way as to be spread over the months of September to December. The best time to visit Europe, the winters were in full flow by the time we were starting to prepare for our journey back to India. From ice skating to my first ever experience with natural snowfall, I could see all of it and I loved every moment...cherishing every experience.

The Christmas spirit, the warmth of new year that I had seen so much in movies, read so much about in books, heard so much of...was all there. Shops were decorated as if all light and flower arrangements in the world would run out tomorrow and today was the only day left to use them. Cafes were doing brisk business, people were walking about with smiles on their faces, and even the normally stiff metro co-passengers appeared to have that sense of joviality reflected on their faces.

It was quite a contrast from the winters I had seen in Delhi, for example where it becomes a challenge and an ordeal at times instead of people actually enjoying the party. The living standards starkly different, it is understandable I guess, if those who can't afford one square meal a day hate the season that exposes them at their most vulnerable, chilling the very bones of their existence...at times to the very end. But then the other strata in Delhi enjoys the season as well as any of their counterparts elsewhere in the world. You can always find droves of people (including me and my friends) around stalls of anything hot and edible...chaat, rolls, momos... Even a simple cup of coffee with friends and family turns into a celebration of the season that winter is.

Now in Mumbai, where the different seasons simply don't seem to exist, life (just like the weather) seems to chug along in the boring monochrome. The ceiling fan operates in full gusto in my bedroom whereas cold is busy gripping the sunlight out of other cities I know of...the contrast is stark. Is there an option but to bow down to the will and designs of that eternal being who controls all this...makes all these stark differences possible, rules our lives and of all that around us with such absolute control?

Starting afresh

And I have moved...finally. I had been having problems with blogdrive for a long time now. While it was one of the better designed and more promising blogging sites at the time blogging in India was just about starting to gain popularity (I am talking about a good 7-8 years aago), blogdrive lost its way subsequently. With the larger players consolidating in the form of wordpress and blogger, the others were either forced to shut shop or, as in blogdrive's case, have a pathetic excuse for a blogging site. The servers kept going down and the blog page refused to open once too often. Finally I got the better of inertia (more pronounced because there was no single click and transfer option available and I had to painstakingly copy-paste each individual entry and more importantly, each individual comment from one place to the other) and decided to move on.

The moving exercise, as in any movement, took a lot of time and a lot of cajoling the dear old me to stay true to the conviction of the continued utility of this blog. There were so many moments in the middle when I almost junked it, what with knowing that I have not been regular with writing and not being too sure if I would be, even in the future. Sanity prevailed on all such occasions and I kept toiling at it...and interestingly, the more I worked at it, the more passionate (and not tired) I became about carrying the thing through to completion. While doing the copy-paste stuff, I was more than once or twice, caught in the tales of those days, the posts and the comments that told a story of their own. It was such a different world...the blog had, for the first time in my life, made me socially active...so much so that almost an entire batch of about 120 people (not to mention the seniors and then the juniors) actually regularly read my blog and many commented on it too with, what I can now pronounce, an alarming frequency.

The comments on each of the blog entries that invited them reminded me of so many people...so many that were close to me but now appear to be lost somewhere in the distance (Mayank, Prashant Kumar, Ravi...) so many that were just there for the fun but are now out of the radar (Yash, Vikhyat...), and very very few that were there and are still very much around. Of course, life and work and the associated stuff have taken their toll and distances were but, to be expected. But then, wasn't blogging supposed to be a solution to this? Wasn't a blog supposed to have been my way of telling the world what I am up to and wasn't it supposed to have been the world's way of telling me that it cared about what was happening in my life?

So why did it not happen the way it was supposed to? Yes, I stopped writing and consequently, people stopped coming back for updates and then, even when I wrote, there was no one to read it since they were already tired coming in and going back empty handed...they had already given up on me.

So, with the new blog (and the upcoming new year), I hope to revive this space and make Mode C at least an image of what it once was for me...a big part of my social life, a place where I could be myself and be liked for it, a place where I had my friends and foes, my fans and critics...may raison d'etre.

I begin here with a call out to all of you. If you do chance upon this place, do come back for more and do engage with me...I shall try my best not to disappoint you this time around.