A film on Diwali that truly describes the NRI's mindset

In praise of Rapunzel's witch

She was the baddie. The one who snatched little Rapunzel when she was just a new born. The wicked witch who confined poor Rapunzel in a solitary fortress for years. Away from the whole world, where no one could see her or talk to her or influence her in any way.

Sure we all have hated her for her heartless acts. But did it ever strike you that this wicked wicked witch could have been a brilliant chemist of her time. Who hit upon some kind of an amazing shampoo, conditioner or a secret formula perhaps, which she used on Rapunzel's hair. Just what was it that this wicked witch concoted that made Rapunzel's hair so strong, sturdy, long yet lovely? Did she put Rapunzel on some out-of-this-world diet? Better still did she chant some wild chants to nourish Rapunzel's hair? Whatever it was, she must have cared a hell lot for Rapunzel's hair than she did for the poor girl as such.

I sometimes wonder, why this wicked witch was never employed in modern day shampoo and oil commercials. She was a nasty piece of work but anyone would fall for her secret hair care formula!

'Futurism' is 100 years old

''Turn aside the canals to flood the museums!… Take up your pickaxes, your axes and hammers and wreck, wreck the venerable cities, pitilessly! Burn down those libraries, get rid of those museums. Let us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves, like fruit spiced with pride, in to the immense mouth and breast of the world! Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the absurd!"

These were the words of Filippo Marinetti, part of the Futurist manifesto published in 1909 in Le Figaro, a French newspaper. As I started reading this manifesto printed eight feet high up on the entrance wall of the exhibition hall at the Tate Modern, London, I felt as though someone had punched me in my face, pulled the carpet from under my feet. The words I read and re-read was the blueprint for an avant garde movement of its time. For the words rejected the stillness of life, the human habit to preserve, to revel in the past, shunned immobility... in fact it was a complete rejection of the past. I was transported to an era, which from the audacity of the words of the manifesto, the agile strokes of paintings, the racing sculpts appeared to be a philosophy way ahead of its time or to be honest, far more modern than today's times.

I witnessed change like I never had. I imagined myself in an era where cars had just started zipping on half baked roads, bridges were being built and hooting steam trains bellowing thick black smoke were connecting places, making distances shorter. I imagined the whole enthusiasm of man being able to at long last fly on an aeroplane and conquer the blue skies. I imagined man entering an era of speed, timelessness and globalisation. I could imagine men revolting and tearing down the walls of conservatism, monarchy and feudalism. I imagined man breaking free from the heavy chains of tradition and creating a movement of dynamism and raw energy. That was the kind of impact futurism was having on me.

Look at the painting at the top. Titled as 'The Revolt', painted by Luigi Russolo in 1911, it captures a mob of protestors marching against a movement establishment which is represented in blue. But such is the force and the raw energy of man that you can see the rules of the establishment (the blue houses in a row) bending, give in to the force. Such was the impact that futuristic art was supposed to have on the minds of the viewer. According to Marinetti, art should represent the movement. To shape their art they drew upon new ideas of perception, experimental photography and multi-sensory responses, and the simultaneous interleaving of memory and experience. He was deliberately provocative in his wholesale rejection of the past. With his radical words, he sent shock waves not only in the art and literary circles of his time but also across the masses. I don't know about the others but Marinetti's radicalism sure was giving me an art attack. I suddenly felt like fishing out a brush and some paints and splashing agile strokes and vibrant angles and set the canvas on fire.

















The sculpt above titled 'Unique forms of continuity in Space is a bronze by Umberto Boccioni done in 1913. It potently capture the beauty, the raw energy, the fire and enthusiasm of the running man. Most importantly it captures the era of speed man was entering in to.


As I moved from one exhibition hall to another, I witnessed the effect the manifesto had had across Europe. Futurism had not only spread across France, Italy, England and Russia, but it had taken new forms like Cubism, Orphism, Vorticism, Cubo-futurism, etc. It represented the night life (right: Paris night life), machines, instruments, man's genius, the changing cityscapes, the power of the masses, revolutions and war. Just a few years after the publishing of the manifesto, the first world war broke out and Marinetti encouraged fellow futurists to join the army and go on the war front and live so as to represent their experiences in their art.

2009 saw Marinetti's seed of madness- 'Futurism' complete a 100 years. Today, man has moved to the forefront of technology, conquered new heights, moved in to a digital age. But despite all this, I think Marinetti was a visionary, a courageous one, who was born way ahead of his time. Someone who revelled in the taste of iron and steel, and gave the human retina a whole new treat.

If you are interested in reading the manifesto, here it is. But before reading it just imagine yourself wearing a frock coat or an Edwardian attire, and reading the newspaper on a crisp February morning in 1909 ;)...

MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM
1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.
3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
6. The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.
7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character.
8. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.
9. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
10. We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
11. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

If only all advertising was like ORANGE

It's hard to say something about advertising that speaks for itself. Advertising that you can identify with, whether young or old. Advertising you love to see over and over again.

Advertising copy you actually think about after it's long gone from the front of your eyes. Advertising that becomes an integral part of your daily vocabulary.

Advertising that makes you feel ambitious to be someone like it. Advertising that answers questions in your head. Advertising that makes you nostalgic. Advertising that gives you goose bumps. Advertising that reaches out to you like no one ever has.

Advertising that acknowledges your existence and that of your universe, and speaks your language. Advertising that is effortless and not an encroachment on your privacy.

Advertising you are glad to be seeing in a cinema hall. Advertising that makes you wish you had that product to throw that attitude. That my friend, is advertising for the future.

Central London is to a Londoner, what South Mumbai is to a Mumbaite. It is hep, happening and out right hedonistic. Every street, lane, nook and cranny has something extraordinary to offer to your senses. You can’t help feeling all the seven sins coming alive in broad daylight.
The office where I was working for a while was placed in the most happening part of London, between Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden and Leicester Square to be precise. It is a Mecca of sorts- for connoisseurs of food, art, books, films, music, theatre and fashion.
On the left is China town where even the street signs are in Chinese. Here I had the most amazing dumplings for a pound. Since Chinese New year celebrations were on, there were bright red paper lanterns with golden tassels adorning the streets of China town. It looked a bit tacky but nevertheless inviting. I almost felt as though Jackie Chan would emerge skidding and hanging down a line of those bright red lanterns chasing the baddies. Here in Chinatown, you can buy anything Chinese you have on your mind. Specialist Chinese supermarkets sell everything one would require to make an authentic Chinese, Malay or Thai meal. The noodles varieties were so many, it was a bit puzzling. Ready-to-make sauces and curries starring a chubby-faced Chinese woman with a shot away chin were screaming for attention. It reminded me of an old Rajasthani dadaji, with a tie-n-dye (bandhani) feta (headgear) on the Indian MDH masala packs.

Nearby is Soho famous for its pubs and nightlife. If you want to go star-gazing, this is the ideal spot. You are sure to bump in to the rich and famous in the bars, clubs or generally hanging out in the book stores and designer shops.

Not very far away from here, is the popular Oxford street, the shopaholic's dream come true. Down south is the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square and the towering Nelson’s column. Take a walk down Northumberland Avenue and there you are gaping at the famous city sights around Embankment like London eye, Big Ben, etc. On the whole, I think there is something very infectious about the air, just ideal to get your creative juices flowing. I feel so very consumed with life, it's almost like falling in love again...
Just across the street from our office is the right wall of St. Martin's theatre that claims in big shiny brass letters- "AGATHACHRISTIE'S THE MOUSE TRAP- THE WORLD'S LONGEST EVER RUN". Apparently, the show has never been cancelled since its first show some fifty sixyears ago! How inspiring (and theatrical) is that?!!
Next to our office is a fantastic pasta joint called Rossopomodorro,which, believe it or not, imports all its ingredients from Italy. I have seen the French turning peppery about the British but the Italians? Apparently, they are so fastidious about things that they even import the water for their coffee from Italy!

Yet another new phenomenon, thanks to working in Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square, is travelling in true London style- by tube. I think for a hardcore Mumbaite, nothing feels as energising as travelling each day at peak hour on buses and in tubes. I love it, the jumping on and off, the constant on-the-move feeling. It also gives you a lot of time to catch up on your reading. Besides, there is always a free newspaper on the tubes. So now Metro has become the quintessential morning read for me. It can nowhere come close to The Times or The Guardian, but the headlines are the same; incidentally, it is endorsed as a must-read by the residentof 10 Downing Street!

(Written in Feb 2009 when I worked as a freelancer with Woolley Pau, an ad agency)

Obsessed!

There are 180 songs in my itunes and all I am listening to is one song over and over again... Blame it on the frame of mind, the lyrics, the voice of Shafaqat Amanat Ali or the sheer beauty of the composition by Salim-Suleiman, the song 'Yeh Honsla...' has completely possessed me.

The truth about truth

How dreadful the knowledge of truth can be when there's no help in the truth.
-Sophocles, (495-405 BCE)

Back to college after a decade

It hit me at once
The smell of chalk dust
That was caking up on the edges of the black board
Crammed wooden benches
Arranged back to back
My heart pounding
just like the ol’ days
it was exam time
and I wasn’t prepared...
Just like the ol’ days!

Just Blog it!

Writing is like a catharsis to me or that’s what I rediscovered this morning. This morning on my way to office I was actually writing a letter in my mental writing pad. Just like the many others I wrote…

While admiring the flaming bright blossoms of Gulmohur from the kitchen window, while reading an explicit scene in ‘Love in the time of Cholera’ or while I was furious over my daughter, Maana for something and she was glaring back at me defiantly folding her hands and I had begun to melt in motherly love….. So many letters, smses and emails, of love, content, anger, agony, anxiety, surprise, displeasure and many such hundred and three (donno why that number, I think it just signifies countless) emotions caught in my breath, stuck in my mind, choking me… I don’t know how to extricate these feelings but I can only try.

Do you know what happens when you think things and don’t write them down? You hold back yourself from giving flight to that precious winged thought that has appeared out of nowhere, deny it an existence it rightfully deserves. And in its stead, you keep it flitting mercilessly in the depths of your memory or to quote Anne of Green Gables- ‘In the depths of despair!’ While the simplest thing you could have done was to pin it by its wings and trap it between the blank lines of your diary or better still your blog.

According to me, technology is still not good enough, it has to yet devise a way to redirect my winged thoughts to a vast repository or ideally to the respective person's Inbox!

To blog or not to blog is the question

I have been an avid diary person since the teenage years of my life. I used to write compulsively, innocently, without judging my words. My every thought and act of the day industriously noted down to the last detail. It was a time when there were no personal computers to key in your thoughts, no internet to surf and no blogs to write in. It seems like a bygone era now. People reading this might think I am one old hag or something but it doesn't matter. Internet gives you the option of not revealing your age and this gives me some kind of a cheap thrill. Well, where was I?

Ah... that bygone era... The era of snailmail, greeting cards, home made food (instant was unheard of then)... When I spent many idle hours together watching clouds, making limericks, counting the people passing by my building or simply rode far and wide on winged unicorns in my own dream world.

And here I was, suddenly transported in to this fastpaced microchipped, sms world, finding myself entrapped in the snares of forwards, chainmails and batlling spam on a daily basis. Friends often coaxed me to start blogging but my mind was too blocked about the whole concept. "Blog me? No I find it better the old fashioned way with my pen and diary. Besides, I don't want the world to read it...." Reluctantly I even signed up for a blog account, which remained untouched... until today... The day that changed my life in a way. A friend of mine sent me his very first blog. And then I thought hey not such a bad idea after all. Let me unblog myself a bit. Should be fun. Call it peer pressure or the excitement of doing something new I spent no time in digging out my blog username. And I finally decided to UNBLOG MY MIND!