Good golly, Miss Dolly - my attempts to make sense of Dolly ki Doli

[Did this for The Daily O]

The best thing I can find to say of the new film Dolly ki Doli – about a con-woman using marriage as her playground and decamping with valuables midway through each suhaag raat after drugging the groom-of-the-moment – is that it has the sense to be only an hour and 40 minutes long. This is a definite point in its favour. If they had chipped away another hour and a half, it may even have been a good film.

What is this movie about, I kept wondering, and why does it exist? Some observations that may or may not answer those questions:

It could be a sort of fable (though the thought and energy required to interpret it in those terms probably isn’t worth it) – an allegory about the Revenge of the Dowry Givers; a satire on the socially sanctioned assessment and bartering of young women, their subsequent shackling into married life where they are treated as inflatable sex dolls by husbands and as slaves and jewellery banks by parents-in-law; an exercise in wish-fulfillment that takes women’s empowerment into a new dimension.

If this is the case, the central character is meant to be a blank slate on which men (and their overbearing parents) can scrawl their own fantasies or ideals. “Dolly” is different things to different people – a gharelu ladki, a seductress, and so on – and you’d think such a tabula-rasa role would be well suited to Sonam Kapoor, who is as synthetic and vacant here as anything I have seen her in so far (with the exception of Dilli 6, where she had a few good moments). That isn’t how it works though. Kapoor is passable in the scenes where Dolly is carrying out her charades (because, think about it, what standards do we use to judge her performance in those bits? Anything goes. Every gesture and expression, however broad or unconvincing, can be explained away as being part of an act), but when Dolly is with her own people, being “herself”, there is no sense of a person with any inner life. Instead she mechanically drones lines that might sound meaningful on paper (“I would rather be in an actual jail than in your shaadi ka jail”) but have little overall relevance to this hodgepodge of a film, which doesn’t stay focused on any one thought for more than a few seconds.

But here’s another theory. The pastiche-like feel of the film, the wild tonal shifts, the problems in logic, the lack of continuity, scenes such as the one involving a misplaced dadi, the non-sequiturish incomprehensibleness of the note left behind by Dolly at the end (why do I do what I do, she says, pronouncing Hindi words with the diligence of a child in elocution class. Well, why does a sabzi-wallah sell sabzi and not alcohol?)… all this can be easily explained if one assumes that Dolly ki Doli isn’t a film but the sum of a series of auditions where actors like Rajkummar Rao, Varun Sharma and Pulkit Samrat were asked to try out a few different things – look, here is a role you could be playing in a big-budget film we may or may not be planning, so:

“Speak in a Sonepat accent.”

“Put on a moustache and try to look grown-up and policeman-like.”

“Be sleazy.”

“Look avuncular.”

“Bumble.”

“Do pelvic dance.”

“Say ‘dadi!’ and slap your forehead while looking surprised and sad.”

“And Sonam, no, you don’t have to pronounce ‘वे ’ as ‘Vay’ just because it’s written like that – ‘woh’ will do nicely. Oh well. Whatever.”

And then all those audition clips were thrown together.

Ultimately though, I have decided that this film is best seen in meta terms, as yet another self-examination by the movie industry. What better way to comment on certain feudal-patriarchal traditions in our society than to reference another major feudal-patriarchal tradition, the star system? So here is a savvy con-woman getting the better of a host of men who are clearly out of their depth in her company – and as if to echo this, we have a privileged, glamorous, second-generation actress in the lead role, surrounded by “plainer” actors from more low-key milieus. (“Itni lambi ladkiyan hoti hain?” asks a boy’s mother amusingly, and one is reminded that as a physical specimen of lambaai and gorapan, Sonam Kapoor bears roughly the same relationship to actors like Rajkummar as the elven-queen Galadriel does to the Dwarf Lords in Tolkien.**) No wonder then that when all these non-starry men can’t track down or tame Dolly (she is always out of reach), it needs a cameo appearance by a mainstream star (Saif Ali Khan) to help apprehend her.

And no wonder too that the final, “money shot” cameo – even though it’s only a photograph – is by Salman Khan. Forget all those platitudes about shaadi as a jail, or the “serious” angle of a woman, let down in love, avenging herself on other men. THIS is what the film has been building up to all along: Salman as the ultimate ideal of malehood, the prem rattan, the superstar capable of turning even our opportunistic heroine into a bag of mush. Poor Saif. Despite that grand, star-cameo entrance, even he turned out second best in the end. And as for the film’s ostensible leading man Rajkummar… at least he got an item number.

-----------------------------

** No offence intended to Lady Galadriel or her followers

How iPhone met my mother (and turned her into Darth Vader)

[Did this piece for the Daily O website]

A few years ago I bought my mom a computer and made her say hello to the internet. This was long-overdue and I had been feeling guilty about putting it off for so long. Naturally, there were teething troubles: I had to keep an eye on things, tell her not to get hysterical each time a notification appeared on the screen, or when a new window popped up and hid an earlier one. Being in a position to provide reassurances, to supervise these baby steps, made me feel smug and in control – which is not something I often experience when it comes to technology. (Even today, after switching on my laptop, I sometimes reflexively look for the little “VSNL dial-up” icon that made getting online – via a medley of shrieking bell sounds – such an adventure back in 1998.)

My new role as improbable tech-guru didn’t last long though. While I stayed safely atop my Luddite plateau – using my computer mainly for writing and for basic net use, congratulating myself if I managed to pull off something as complicated as taking a screen grab – my mother was scaling new peaks just because they were there. And because she had now been gifted an iPhone by a cousin, following which the laptop was relegated to its bag. Later, an iPad or some similar tablet-like thing arrived and conversations in the house began to pivot around the word “Apps”. The realisation that Skype could be accessed on a small device, easily carried about the house, came with a roar of triumph akin to that of the primitive ape-man in 2001: A Space Odyssey discovering that a large bone could be used to smash in enemies’ heads and thence lay the road to civilisation.

Watching a parent learn to stand on her feet – to probe the marvels of the world for herself without constantly pointing at things and asking questions (“What is a Cloud?”) – was poignant in its way, though I felt I could do without this bratty business of having a phone thrust at my face (“Look look, Jai has just come in – isn’t that an ugly beard?”) so my maasi could glare at me all the way from Chandigarh.

As this sort of thing continued, I became increasingly self-conscious about the bulkiness of my own laptop. Feeling like the Jedi masters must have felt on learning that their precocious student Anakin had not only surpassed their skills but was now also a bad-ass in a shiny black suit, dispensing storm-troopers across the galaxies, I tried suggesting to mum that she use her computer once in a while because, well, all those Engelbert Humperdinck and Pat Boone music videos look better on a big screen. But she had moved well out of my ether. Worse, having grown up much too fast, she was becoming faintly parent-like again. “Jai, you aren’t on WhatsApp?” was no longer said hesitantly (as if wondering if I were using something more sophisticated that she didn’t know about) – instead it had the sharp, accusatory timbre of those cold 1982 pre-school mornings: “You haven’t finished your milk?”

Much of this could still be shrugged off, but when I began eavesdropping on her video conversations I was mystified. Smart-phone and tablet technology is so empowering for people of a certain age – people who spent decades being in touch with loved ones only via snail mail and expensive long-distance phone calls – you’d think it would lead to actual talk: gossip about the good old days, the childhood and college years in Ludhiana and Bombay, the problematic parents and spouses.

Instead, all the conversation now is about the very gizmos they are using.

It began simply enough (“Neelu, the Wi-fi doesn’t seem to be working, let me use the phone connection instead” and “Yes I can hear you fine, but I can’t see anything... why have you kept your phone facing down?!”), but then progressed to:

“What? Viber? V-I-B-E-R? Okay, wait, I’ll just download it. I heard Tango was better?”

“It says downloading.”

“It still says downloading. Now it is asking if I want to upgrade the App. Should I upgrade the App?”

“Of course I sent you a photo of the new iPad. I sent it through MMS. Should I email it too? Where’s the attachment?”

“I don’t have FaceTime on my phone – this is an old phone – so I’ll move to the tablet, give me a minute, okay?”

Few of these conversations are decipherable to me, stuck as I am with my old machine. But why be surprised? In a post-modernist age where literature is mainly about literature and cinema is mainly about cinema – and where the done thing is to ruminate constantly about the medium one is operating in rather than supply fresh content – perhaps it's natural for new technology to facilitate the sort of communication where all you’re doing is talking about the new technology.

Or maybe she needs a little more time to outgrow the teen-slang.

Abhimanyu the wobbly doll (and a plug for Anti-Serious)

A shout-out for the new online magazine Anti Serious (Laughter in Slow Motion), launched by Sumana Roy, Manjiri Indurkar, Tanushree Bhasin and Debojit Dutta. You can read their mission statements here and surf the various sections. And here is a piece I wrote for them about the tonal peculiarities of some scenes in the Star Plus Mahabharata (centred on the so-tragic-it-was-funny killing of Abhimanyu). The piece was written back when the show was still on, so content-wise it may seem a bit dated - but hopefully the basic point comes across.

Attacked from various directions (by a bunch of people who look more like clumsy sidekicks than seasoned warriors), Abhimanyu continues to smile, like the college fresher who is undergoing a spell of mild ragging and knows he will come out of it having influenced people and won new (grown-up) friends [...] And perhaps here, the writers unintentionally tapped into something truthful about the Abhimanyu character that generations of teary-eyed Mahabharata readers have missed: that he is a swollen-headed – if insanely talented – 16-year-old boy with a highly romantic view of war, who doesn’t quite understand the implications of it all.

 [Full piece here]

New ways of writing about books

In which blurb writing - that fine tradition of the publishing industry worldwide - skyrockets to new depths. The invitation card for the launch of Anupam Kher's book The Best Thing About You is You! includes the following note of approbation by India's leading literary celeb of the past month:

"What a powerful title. I believe it."

- Oprah Winfrey

I love the mental picture this blurb conjures of Oprah being led through the publisher's warehouse and handed sundry book covers which she studies intently before pronouncing judgement for generations of readers to come. I also like the Khushwant Singh blurb just below hers (and look forward to his full review, which will no doubt be a chatty account of how he knew Anupam Kher's grandfather in Lahore in 1925).

How the Modern School man evolved to its present form

Press releases are usually dull, unreadable, Inbox-cluttering things, but every now and again I get one that is so magnificent in its terribleness that it makes me want to pirouette around the room, clutching a cushion to my chest, singing "Quando Quando Quando". Consider merely the following mail subject:

"Book Launch: By Rohan Shroff, 17 Old Boy, Modern School: The Origin of Species"
 

The interest is piqued immediately. Is "17 Old Boy, Modern School" an address ("Old Boy" being the name of the building where the embalmed bodies of this school's alumni are stored) or were they perhaps trying to say "17-year-old boy"? Also, the title of that book - surely he isn't passing off a 150-year-old classic as his own?

These doubts are cleared when one reaches the main body of the release and learns that the book's title isn't actually "The Origin of Species" (the PR guys got confused, and would you blame them?) - it's the much more elegant "The Species of Origin?". That's right, with a question mark at the end.
 

Now I quote:

A YOUNG MIND TRIES TO GRASP THE WORKINGS OF THE UNIVERSE

Challenging few of the aspects of Darwin’s theory, a book named “The Species of Origin?” is written in a very simple language by Rohan Shroff.Rohan Shroff, a student of Modern School, Barakhambha Road, has just given his +2 exams.

The focus of the book is on the creation of the universe and how the modern man evolved to its present form. The author accepts some of the views of the Darwin’s theory called the “The origin of species”, however, refutes some other views and hence has named his own book as “The species of origin” stating that some extraterrestrial species is responsible for the origin of species on the earth. Hence, the readers are requested to not hesitate from questioning the current beliefs or accepting the newly proposed one.

This book was inspired by the movie and book by Brandon Levon named ‘Old World Secrets the Omega Project Codes’.

This will be followed by the launch of Book by Dr.Geeta Shroff titled as "Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy Chronic Spinal Cord Injury Cases Descriptive Statistics”.

I have no intention of reading young Rohan's book (or the embryonic stem cell one, scintillating though that title is) but based on the synopsis I suspect what he's trying to tell us is that Charles Darwin was planted here by extraterrestrials. No doubt his book is full of excellent evidence for this thesis, carefully accumulated over 12 years of tiffin breaks and profound thought.

Random observation...

...from sending dozens of tennis-related SMSes to friends over the past two days: when you type the first four letters of "Amritraj", the text predictor changes it to "Borg". (Now that's what I call an automatic upgrade.)

PoV 2: the many wonders of Gumnaam

The second of my "Persistence of Vision" columns for Yahoo! India is up. This one is about Agatha Christie filtered through Manoj Kumar's quivering lower lip, Helen's swimsuit dance and Mehmood's Hitler moustache. Here's the link.

The full post:

Lost on Translation Island

The pilot announces that the engine has a snag and they have to make an emergency landing. The passengers - a small group of lucky-draw winners whose prize was a trip to "videsh", and a young steward named Anand (Manoj Kumar) - disembark and wander about what could be a jungle, an island, a desert or possibly all three at once. Then the plane takes off, leaving them stranded (but thoughtfully unloading their luggage before going).

So the wrathful tourists converge on the steward, who seems a natural candidate for co-conspirator in this turn of events. Manoj Kumar is facing the camera, brooding handsomely, contemplating a long future playing martyred characters in patriotic films. Why not get in some practice? He looks down, covers half his face and says in a broken tone that somehow manages to be understated and overwrought at the same time: "Mera iss mein koi haath nahin. Main kuch nahin jaanta!" ("I had no hand in this. I know nothing!") Laurence Olivier, preparing to play Iago at the Old Vic, would have had a jealous tantrum if he had witnessed this scene.

Thus unfolds the central premise of the eye-popping 1965 film Gumnaam, which was one of the few movies of its vintage that I actively sought out as a child, scouring the city's video-parlours until I had a new cassette of the film in my hand. Only because I had heard that it was based on one of my favourite Agatha Christie mysteries, And Then There Were None (also known by the less politically correct title Ten Little Niggers, or Ten Little Indians). But Gumnaam turned out to be so, so much more. It forever changed my conservative ideas about how a book should be turned into a film.

Christie's novel, one of her best-crafted, is about ten people - each of whom has a guilty secret - brought together on an island by a mysterious, absent host who then proceeds to knock them off one by one. As their number diminishes, the survivors get increasingly paranoid; it's obvious that the murderer is one of them. For a (mostly) straight-faced screen version of this story, you can't do better than the 1945 And Then There Were None, directed by Rene Clair and featuring a cast of very honourable character actors including Walter Huston, Barry Fitzgerald and Judith Anderson. It deviates from the book's ending, settling for a more upbeat climax, and there are moments of tongue-in-cheek silliness, but the events it describes are recognisably from the world of the classic thriller.

Gumnaam, on the other hand, takes the original template and works in slapstick comedy, a hurriedly developed romance, a confusing back-story about an inheritance, truly bizarre set design, a couple of item numbers, a dream sequence featuring statues of Egyptian mummies with glowing eyes, and even a red herring about a "bhatki hui aatma" (wandering spirit). And boy, does it play with our expectations of Hindi cinema's star personalities. Pran was the leading screen villain of the time, so naturally he is framed in various sinister ways - giving the camera a knowing smile as he closes a door, for example - that make him the most obvious suspect early on. Likewise, the swimsuit-wearing Helen is clearly the "bad girl" (though she's easily the most graceful thing about the film), especially when compared to the demure Nanda; but since this is a mystery, could the "twist" be that the murderer is someone we least expect it to be? The film's original viewers must have struggled with these questions. I know I did.

The thing I loved most about Gumnaam as a child was the soundtrack, especially the rambunctious 'Jaan pehchaan ho', which plays in a brilliant nightclub scene early in the film, and the title track 'Gumnaam hai koi' (the tune of which, I later discovered, was "borrowed" from Henry Mancini's score for Charade). But alas, some of the loveliest songs in old Hindi movies are mismatched with tacky visuals or careless lip-synching, so that the music and the images belong to completely different worlds. Thus the plaintive etherealness of Lata Mangeshkar's voice as she sings "Gumnaam hai koi" goes hand in glove with shots of Manoj Kumar's twitching eyebrows. The song leads the protagonists (and us) directly to a large mansion, and thence to a magnificently silly scene where a shrouded figure lying on a dining table rises slowly like the Frankenstein monster and then drops the sheet ... to reveal Mehmood, wearing a Hitler moustache and a lungi.

(From the Christie novel: "In the open doorway of the house a correct butler was awaiting them, and something about his gravity reassured them ... The butler came forward, bowing slightly. He was a tall, lank man, grey-haired and very respectable.")

Hitler-Mehmood looks around at the party and giggles. Everyone smiles, relieved. Hey, it's only Mehmood. He has to be harmless, right?

And indeed, he is. He's the bawarchi who has been hired to receive these guests (the Rene Clair film turns the butler Rogers into a comic figure too, but it's nothing compared to this), and one of the great joys of Gumnaam is how quickly everyone comes to terms with the morbid situation and settles down into what is effectively a five-star heritage hotel. They have their own rooms with fancy furniture and beach views; Mehmood brings them tea and snacks; since there is no television, and cellphones and the Internet haven't yet been invented, they spend their time smoking and drinking copiously, and forming little cliques. Even after the killings begin, there's a general sense of bonhomie, and some of them treat the whole thing as a game: "Tum kehte ho ke main kaatil hoon. Main kehta hoon ke tum kaatil ho. Isska faisla toh ek aur laash ke baad hi hoga." ("You say I'm the killer. I say you're the killer. We'll know only when another body turns up.") Twenty-first-century reality TV could learn a trick or two from this film.

Gumnaam is filled with little mysteries that Agatha Christie would be hard put to resolve. Why does Manoj Kumar randomly scratch his cheek while singing "Jaane chaman, shola badan" to Nanda in the rain? (Is it a form of naturalistic acting?) Why would anyone sing "Jaane chaman, shola badan" to Nanda in the rain? What's with the brief shot of the statue of Jesus on the cross, with a pigeon fluttering near his shoulder? What was the film's set decorator smoking? Where did the two pink, green and white beach-balls come from when Helen sings 'Iss duniya mein jeena ho'? (Was someone carrying them in their luggage?) That rock band we see in the nightclub scene - is it really called "Ted Lyons & His Cubs"? (Lyon cubs?)

That nightclub scene, incidentally, reappeared when I least expected it, in one of the greatest WTF moments in my movie-watching career. I had just acquired a DVD of Terry Zwigoff's indie film Ghost World. I slipped it into the player and sat gaping as 'Jaan pehchaan ho' began to play alongside the credits, accompanied by the familiar sight of Laxmi Chhaya (aptly credited as "Masked Dancer" on Gumnaam's IMDB page) convulsing across a dance floor. The video is being watched by Ghost World's protagonist, the sullen social misfit Enid, whose love for "old Indian rock videos" suggests a non-conformist, even warped, bent of mind. I think she would have liked the rest of the film.

Subtitle silliness: ten were negritos, knights and indiecitos

There's a new series of classic-film DVDs out in Indian music stores. It's by a company called Enlighten (official website here), the discs are nicely packaged and include a short booklet about the film or the director, and there are many great titles available. (Samples: John Ford’s My Darling Clementine, Howard Hawks’ Red River, Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai.) The price – Rs 399 – is much too high for my liking, and predictably there are no special features, but I picked up a DVD of Rene Clair’s And Then There Was None because I wanted to see the film again for a future Yahoo! column. (It's a solid, well-produced if occasionally static version of Agatha Christie’s novel, featuring a cast of fine character actors: Walter Huston, Barry Fitzgerald, Judith Anderson among them.) The English subtitles were on the screen by default when I started playing the disc; I was about to switch them off when I chanced to read some of them. Truly astounding stuff.

The film’s opening credits are preceded by the handwritten title “Ten little Indians went out to dinner”, a reference to the poem (also known as “Ten Little Niggers”) that is integral to Christie’s plot. Now you could reasonably point out that this opening shot doesn’t require a further English subtitle at the bottom, but a subtitle there is (maybe it’s for people who can’t read the cursive version?). And this is what it says:

“Ten were negritos to dinner.”

A few more samples:

When the butler Rogers says “If you gentlemen will be good enough to follow me, I’ll show you to your rooms,”, the subtitle reads: “If I keep the Knights, I’ll show them the rooms.”

(This substitution of “Knights” for “gentlemen” continues through the film.)

“Tell him we are quitting” becomes “Tell that renounced.”

When the cook calls out “Here!” to the butler, the subtitle says “Takes!”

“I think a weekend will be enough” is changed to “I think an end of week will be enough.”

Non-English words frequently occur. “Don’t stand there gawking! Get them up” translates to “Do not stay there stationary, levantalos.” The word “botero” is used for boatman, and “indiecitos” is used for the little "Indian" statuettes. “I tell my patients fairytales” becomes “Les fairytale story.”

And so it continues. A hearing-impaired person reading these subtitles would think of this film as Chico Marx meets late-period Bunuel. I'm not sure what’s going on here, but I suspect the original English was first translated into another language (Spanish, French or a mix of both) and then clumsily translated from that language back to English. Very strange and, I’d like to think, highly avoidable too. If the subtitles on the rest of the Enlighten DVDs are of this quality (and there are many non-English films in the catalogue too), all that fancy packaging doesn’t amount to much.

[An earlier post about problematic DVD subtitles here. Given recent experiences, I’ll probably have more on this subject soon]

The rant for the week...

...is directed at people who feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they receive happy-birthday messages from their hundreds of Facebook “friends”. My wife tells me about a friend who gushed to her on the phone about how her day had “absolutely been made” by the 30-40 birthday wishes on her Wall. (She didn’t seem anywhere near as excited about the surprise party her ever-lovin’ husband and child had planned for her...in the drabness that is the real world.)

Also recently, I was surprised to see that someone on my list had written an enthusiastic “Thanks to everyone for remembering my birthday! I’m so touched!” Uh, remembering? Really? I barely use Facebook at all, but even I know that the vile thing keeps generating these sidebar reminders that tell you – starting at least four days in advance, so you can buy virtual sheep or eggs as gifts – whose birthday it is, and when. This makes it impossible, no matter how intently you try, to forget anyone’s birthday (except for those who are sensible enough not to include the date in their Profile details, like your truly). And these notifications are magnets for people who find it therapeutic to post a standard-form “Hey, happy birthday! Have a good one :) ” on the Facebook page of someone whom they’ve never met and never want to. Naturally, much cloying gratitude is directed at these unworthy posters.

The sharp-minded among you will have guessed by now that this rant stems from a deep private sorrow. A few months ago I wrote out a nice birthday message for an old school-friend now living in California and mailed it to both his email Ids (being unsure which one he was accessing more often). It wasn’t a message written in template form, it was a personal note where I also included a non-birthday-related question or two. The day passed, and another two after it, without a word of reply. Perhaps he’s met with a crippling accident or been devoured by bears in one of those national parks he visits so often, I thought, but something told me this was unlikely. Then I happened to check his Facebook account (typically, I hadn’t even remembered that we were FB friends – I’d thought that honour was reserved for people one didn’t like in real life) and discovered that he had written painstakingly composed “Thank yous” to every single one of the 30-odd happy budday messages on his Wall.

I brought the subject up when he visited Delhi recently and he at least had the decency to look shame-faced. After a weak attempt at hedging, that is.

“Um, I don’t check my email that regularly.”

“You don’t check your work email regularly?”

“Okay, sorry, I must have overlooked it. These days it’s just so much easier to reply to messages on Facebook.”

Then he tried to wriggle out of the situation in the oldest possible way – by using a word with a French accent, followed by a little laugh sound. “Email is passé, heh heh.”

Well, not yet. But birthday greetings as I once knew them definitely are.

[Earlier social-networking rants: 1, 2]

Freelancer perils continued: the credit-card application

(A belated addendum to this post)

Or: How banks go from deference to derision in the wink of an eye when they discover that you’re self-employed.

The story begins with a call from a bank where I have an account (one that was opened when I was working full-time). The representative offers me a new credit card. I say no, once, twice, but he persists. It’s a very simple process, he says. There are no hidden costs. Please take the card, sir. He doesn’t actually weep, but the general impression given is that his family’s future and well-being are contingent on my decision.

So I throw my hands up and say yes, after pointedly telling him that I’m never actually going to use this card or even carry it in my wallet. Soon someone arrives at my house to collect an ID proof and to get me to fill what has been described as “a very basic application form – it’ll take only a minute”. An hour later, I’m on page 27 of this basic form, scrawling out the names, diets, ailments, litter-box colours and collar sizes of every cat I have cohabited with since 1981.

When I write “Same as home” in the “Office address” field, a small frown appears on the man’s face. He doesn’t say anything at the time, but a few hours later there is another series of phone calls, and the tone this time is just as authoritarian and disdainful as the tone of the initial calls had been meek and imploring. Each of these conversations follows an interrogatory pattern. By the fourth call, I’m on auto-pilot.

“Mr Singh?” says a voice, “You just made an application asking our bank to give you a credit card.”

“No,” I reply, “I did not make an application. I merely broke down and signed an application form under duress, because your salesman vowed to hunt me to the ends of the earth until I gave in.”

“Anyway, sir,” the voice interrupts, “I need to verify some details. Can I have the name of the company you work for, and your office address?”

“There is no company,” I say mechanically, “There is no office. I am self-employed. I work out of home. I have lived with five cats.”

“Sir?”

“I’m a freelance journalist!” I shout, “Freelance journalist! Why won’t you people understand this?”

“Just a minute,” says the voice, “let me note this down. Your company name is C Lal Associates?”

The conversation has now entered a surreal dimension, a place where the usual rules don’t apply. Having just read V S Ramachandran’s Phantoms in the Brain, I know that the human mind searches for ways to fill gaps that it can’t deal with. But I still can't imagine where the man got the “Associates” from.

“Look,” I say, “Just send me the card. I promise I’ll even use it. But no more phone calls, please.”

“Sorry,” the voice says, “but we can’t process your application. The details are not satisfactory. Please try again after a few weeks.” He hangs up, leaving my Christmas stocking empty.

So I’ll try after a few weeks. As no wise sage said, there’s only one thing worse than getting what you don’t want, and that’s not getting it.

After the fall

The normal thing to do would have been to cordon off the section of the battlefield where Bheeshma lay on his bed of arrows. But since he had fallen on a spot right in the heart of Kurukshetra, this wasn’t feasible (try playing football with the centre circle completely out of bounds). Then someone suggested moving him elsewhere, but this too was problematic – the arrows were deeply embedded in the earth, and besides, all the talk about this particular patch of ground being Bheeshma’s “karma-bhoomi” would have made a shift awkward. One didn’t want sages buzzing about the place, yelling about protocol and generally disturbing the peace while the war was still on.
 

“Never mind, we’ll continue fighting around him,” said Drona, “just keep those elephants away.” So for the next eight days foot-soldiers tiptoed nimbly about the grandsire’s body even as they parried their enemies’ thrusts and blows. Unfortunately a couple of the servants hired to fan the pitamah and provide him with refreshments had their heads lopped off by stray arrows, but this was treated as collateral damage. The bigger problem was that as the war grew more intense, the facade of respect began to peel away. In the afternoons, when tiredness set in, soldiers developed the habit of resting their swords against the arrows sticking out of Bheeshma’s chest, and even taking a quick nap under his shadow. Some of the cheekier ones exchanged vulgar jokes – about how the old man had finally got "laid" at the age of 90 – within his earshot. 

 

“I’m no longer sure that celibacy oath was worth it in the end,” the aged scion of the Kurus thought to himself as he sipped on some flavoured Ganga-jal, “but at least the service is good.”

One flute over the cuckold's nest

Without comment, here's the synopsis for two consecutive episodes - yes, two full, 30-minute episodes - of Kahaani Hamaaray Mahabharat Ki, as provided on the Tata Sky menu.

Aunty asks Radha not to think about Krishna as her father wouldn’t allow her to marry him. Radha tells her that she is attracted to Krishna and can’t help thinking about him. Radha’s father arranges for her marriage. Sudhir informs Krishna that Radha wants to meet him near river Yamuna. Radha tells Krishna that her parents are getting her married. They part ways.

After she leaves, Krishna plays with his flute. You know what teenage boys are like these days.

Okay, okay, the last bit is my contribution to the saga. Ekta should totally pay me to do this.

(Earlier Kahaani posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

'Tis meet

Estragon: Shall we go?
Vladimir: Yes, let’s go.
They do not move.

- Waiting for Godot

When people ask me why I got out of the office grind and started freelancing, I make the usual noises about not wanting to be restricted to a ball-and-chain routine, about working on my own time rather than taking the path well-trodden by the bleating herds, and so forth. But one reason I usually don’t disclose is my fervent dislike of office meetings, which have to be among the most pointless of man’s many pointless inventions.

The specifics of office meetings vary with the profession – for instance, I’m told marketing people use slideshows, wear shiny suits and ties with Mickey Mouse designs on them and say things like “we’re cutting costs without cutting corners” as if they learnt to say them while still in the cradle – but this is roughly how it works for a team of feature journalists.

First we enter a conference room that is either large and plush with a fancy coffee-maker machine placed in a corner (if the publication is rich and driven by Advertising) or dingy and underlit with a spider mournfully plunking the strings of its cobweb along the ceiling (if the publication is poor and driven by Courage and Integrity). In either case, the same scene unfolds. The first 15 minutes are spent gossiping about the higher increments given to other departments in the newspaper, especially the pampered news-desk people. Then the editor coughs meaningfully, shuffles a few papers and invites story ideas. There is a profound silence. Everyone studies their coffee mugs.

A newly recruited intern, still in the first flush of journalistic zeal, launches into a brief for a great new story. Someone interrupts him midway: “Didn’t we do that a few months ago?” The intern feels betrayed, he had no clue that this publication did stories before he joined them. He feels the first stirrings of an unfamiliar emotion: in a few weeks, he will know what it’s called (Bitter Hopelessness) and he will experience it every moment of his working day until the end of his life. But for now he is rescued by a world-weary middle-rung editor who announces that since all feature journalism consists of recycled stories, they might as well do this one again; after all, as everyone knows, there are no new ideas under the sun. (This creates an awkward moment since everyone present at the meeting had been asked to “bring at least three new ideas to the table”.) The editor saves face by telling the intern to go ahead "but find an interesting peg, see if something new has happened, and get quotes from at least three people".

Then someone makes an offhand remark about a carelessly written cover story in a rival publication and this keeps the group busy bitching for the next 20 minutes. What little “ideating” does happen takes place in the final three minutes of the meeting, by which time no one really cares what is being discussed. At the end of the session the editor has a perfunctory list of story ideas for the coming week, most of which he doesn't completely understand. But he feigns satisfaction because the marketing team is outside with briefcases full of slides, waiting to use the room.

It goes without saying that none of the stories discussed will ever actually see the light of newsprint, at least not in the form they were presented at the meeting; come production day, the paper will be filled by random snippets thrown together at the last possible moment. This proves that office meetings are exercises in creative time wasting and those conscientious few among us who care to get some work done wisely stay away from them.

[From my Metro Now column. See, that's the real reason why I don't attend meetings - my columns would never be published if I had to get them approved first]

Facebook in a box

[Blogging will be sparse for a while, so I’m putting up some odds and ends. Here’s a little piece I did for a magazine recently, to go in a tiny box alongside a feature about social networking. What happened here was similar in some ways to the case of the child-free zones story. Because of a jokey column I had written about Orkut long ago, it was assumed that I was eager to be the Anti-Social Networking Voice and that I would write a serious rant about how terrible it all is. I replied that I didn’t mind doing a sarcastic piece about my personal view of Facebook, but that I wasn’t interested in being an activist getting up on a soapbox. Predictably, this non-strident approach didn’t work for them.]

Every few weeks, I visit my Facebook profile – created out of idle curiosity long ago – and find pending friendship requests (mostly from people I may or may not have met at some social gathering) and a long list of notifications (182, at last count). These include invitations to: pet other people's goats, pigs and iguanas (though not, so far as I can recall, to spank anyone's monkey); take various tests and quizzes, including one titled “What German philosopher are you?” (the only sensible response is “Sorry, I Kant”); set fire to people; serve a bowl of pain to a friend's Ancient Vampire; and gift or accept eggs that will eventually hatch into something cute (like a man-eating brontosaurus) or something monstrous (a teddy bear). The option of tossing said egg back at the sender does not yet exist, but they’re working on it.

There is also a “let's see how well you know me” invite from someone I have never met and never spoken to. Meanwhile, the news feed tells me that “A and B found each other using the Friend Finder”, a sentence that's creepily evocative of “Chainsaw-wielding cannibal found clueless teen using the Victim Finder.” It’s clear enough now that social networking, like much other online activity, fulfills an important atavistic need: the need to assert our presence, thump our chests, and bombard others with random word arrangements that confirm our ape ancestry. Once a “friend” “finds” you, you will be sure to get frequent messages like “Hope you had an inspiring and thoughtful Republic Day”. People who wouldn’t recognise you if you chanced to meet will send you syrupy messages just because Facebook has notified them that it’s your birthday.

Sceptics say social-networking sites intensify the alienation of the Internet generation, allowing people to substitute virtual mass-poking for Meaningful Personal Interaction. This may be true, but not being a particularly sociable monkey myself, I'll can't get judgemental about it. What I do wonder is how anyone gets their work done anymore. Most people I know go to office just so they can log on to Facebook. (It’s like the Pearls Before Swine strip where Rat interprets the phrase “I’m swamped” thus: “I spend 8 of my working hours surfing the Net every day but you caught me in the middle of a five-minute project.”) When their offices block the site, they leave their jobs, steal their parents' money and buy laptops and broadband.

Also, there is the matter of muscles atrophying. In the good old days, if you wished to fling a sheep at a friend, you had to step out into the meadow together (presumably after working hours). Now you can do it sitting at your computer. This makes us slothful. Expressing our inner apes is one thing (we’ve always found ways to do it, regardless of the technology available), but can we afford to physically devolve into hunchbacked primates, with poor eyesight to boot? How will we read our Facebook Walls then?

Security men I have known

Does anyone else feel sceptical about the little “bomb-checks” that take place outside the parking lots of movie theatres, malls and hotels? The ones where a bored-looking security guard positions a stick with a tiny mirror at its end under your car and pretends to study it from a couple of angles before waving you on?

Apart from being such a soporific process, it has to be commended for its pointlessness. What is the sense of looking for detonating devices only on the underside of vehicles, and that too a small portion of the underside (determined strictly by the starting position and convenience of the lethargic security man who happens to be doing the checking)? What about inside the tank? Living as we are in a time when simply visiting a crowded public place has become a nerve-wracking affair, I demand that each car be disassembled in its entirety before it is allowed inside a parking lot. (Hypothetically, if they forgot to reassemble the vehicles, it could only improve Delhi’s traffic situation.)

Once, outside the Select mall, I encountered a marginally more creative security man who asked me to open the car’s trunk. But having gone this far in dauntless pursuit of excellence in his duty, he contented himself with giving a friendly squeeze to the spare tyre lying inside, while completely neglecting the heavy cloth bag on the side. Exactly what parameters are these people using? The randomness of it worries me.

My one experience of a security-checker who took his job very seriously was at the Siri Fort Auditorium parking lot a few years ago. I was late for a film screening, but this man was in no mood to let me pass. For starters, he was unimpressed by the press sticker on my car. “Half the vehicles in this city have those,” he snorted. “Any competent terrorist would be sure to get one.” In fact, he was more suspicious now. “Kaun se newspaper ke liye kaam karte ho – Times of India ya Hindustan Times?” he asked, reciting the only two paper names that non-journalists in Delhi know about. When I told him I was a freelancer and wrote for various publications, he laughed like Gulshan Grover: “Hum bhi alag kisam ki gaadiyon ko check karte hain. Shaayad hum bhi ‘freelancer’ hi honge.” (“I check different types of cars as well. Maybe that makes me a freelancer too.”)

After mocking me in this way he circled the car, glanced into the back-seat and asked me to take out the packaged review copy of a stout new book I had just picked up from the Penguin India office. “Itni badi kitaab aap padhoge?” he asked shrewdly, “ya iske andar kuch chipaaya hua hai?” He tapped the thing a few times to check for signs of hollowness before handing it back. Then he twirled his stick at me menacingly (as if to say “If I find out you’re a suicide bomber, I’ll give your scattered body parts a nice whacking”) and let me go.

I must confess that at the time I didn’t care for his unnatural dedication to the job, but he has grown in my estimation. Today we need all the obsessive security checkers we can get.

(From my Metro Now column)

Suggesting a "nice" book

[From my Metro Now column]

Being a lit-journalist has its advantages. Among these is the daily receipt of a number of attractive-looking books from a multitude of publishers. Given the 24-hour limit on one’s day, it isn’t humanly possible to read more than 3 per cent of these, but the others can be arranged like building blocks in innovative shapes. Alternately, you can remove the cover jackets of a few books, cut them up here and there and stitch the pieces back together in colourful collage patterns. These activities are good for one’s creative skills and improve hand-eye coordination.

But there are also disadvantages to working on the books beat, such as the constant danger of being assailed by recommendation requests. The most terrifying of these typically comes from an acquaintance who has been gaping at my bookshelves, and it goes:

“Suggest me a nice book.”

“Okay, but what sort of book exactly?” I ask, as my throat dries up and droplets of sweat gather on my forehead.

“Oh, any nice book.”

Such phrasing suggests that the asker is very open-minded about what he is willing to read, but this is usually far from the truth. The first problem is how to interpret the bland and unspecific word “nice” (a word that some people use as if it’s the only adjective in existence, but more on that in a future column). If I take it to mean a book that I personally enjoyed, it’s certain to cause trouble: experience tells me that a casual reader asking for a “nice” book is unlikely to warm to a title such as The Intimate Personal Histories of Cannibalistic Serial Killers. But why shouldn’t such a book – assuming that it’s well-written, informative and insightful – be categorised as “nice” too? Why should the word be used only for the Paulo Coelhos of the world? This seems like genre-discrimination of the worst sort. Cannibalistic serial killers deserve the same respect as cannibalistic motivational writers.

Another problem with the above request is that it invariably comes from people who are not habitual readers (in other words, they have read The Alchemist and two issues of Reader’s Digest in the past three years). Without being judgemental about these sub-humans, I have to say that giving them recommendations can be a hard task. Especially since they genuinely think of themselves as seasoned readers and have very firm ideas about what a worthwhile book should be.

But I still try.

“There’s a great new novel out. It’s all about this serial killer who...”

“Novel? Oh no no, sorry, I don’t read fiction.” (said derisively)

“No? How come?”

“Because it’s not real. I only read inspirational or motivational books.”

On hearing this familiar proclamation, I grit my teeth and explain, as politely as I can, that high-quality fiction can be more inspirational and motivational – more “real”, in fact – than a facile self-help book that sits in the non-fiction section of a bookstore and claims to solve all the reader’s problems. Whereupon the recommendation-seeker looks at me as if I were something that had just crawled out of her kitchen drain. So I mutter something vague under my breath, excuse myself and get back to playing building blocks, which in the final analysis is the only thing a book-reviewer is good for.

Ekta ki Mahabharata

Ekta Kapoor’s soon-to-be-telecast production of the Mahabharata (retitled Kahaani Hamaaray Mahabharat Ki, kyunki “K” ka hona zaroori hai) promises to change the landscape of mythological serials in much the same way that her daily dramas transformed how we look at Indian families. Some predictions for what we can expect to see on this new show:

– In a case of inventive rewriting, the character of Bhishma, the grand old man who shows more longevity than most of his great-great-grandchildren, will be turned into a woman and played by the actress who enacted the role of the timeless Ba in Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. This will save the casting directors some trouble.

– Each of Draupadi’s five weddings will be shown in loving detail, over several weeks, with a budget of Rs 200 crore set aside exclusively for the costumes.

– Dramatic twists will abound. During a teary family showdown, it will transpire that Dhritarashtra’s blindness was caused by the cumulative glare from the necklaces worn by the women in his family. After the failure of the vastra-haran attempt, it will be revealed that Draupadi, being a dutiful wife, was wearing all five of her wedding saris at the time. ("No wonder she looks so fat," Duhshasana will remark, causing Bhima to swear the fearsome oath that he will catch hold of Duhshasana one day and force-feed him bean sprouts.)

– There will be at least one cat-fight between Draupadi and Subhadra, with chiffon and jewellery flying about the palace and an emasculated Arjuna watching nervously from a corner of the room. The number of speedy zoom-ins and zoom-outs in this scene will break all previous records for daytime soaps and the episode will win a special achievement prize at a Balaji Telefilms awards show.

– One of the features of an Ekta Kapoor soap is the ostentatious piety of the characters (that is, when they aren’t busy conniving to destroy each others’ lives). This is most notable in scenes where family members gather at the puja room together, fold their hands and moist-eyedly sway their heads in unison as celestial music plays on the soundtrack. In Kahaani Hamaaray Mahabharat Ki, where one of the key characters is God Himself, this sort of behaviour will cause serious disruptions in the plot. Each time Krishna enters a room, everyone will stand in a line and start singing bhajans loudly. These scenes will buy the scriptwriters a few weeks’ time to plan the next plot twist.

– Unfortunately, the censor board will disallow the scene where Krishna and his family fold their hands and sway piously in front of statues of the Kapoor family.

– Wherever possible, sentences will begin with “K” words. For instance, when Satyavati is asked why her son, the vagrant scribe, doesn’t live with her in the palace, she will reply, “Kyunki Vyas bhi kabhi sadhu tha.”

– There will be unexpected promotional guest appearances at crucial points. Midway through the episode showing the death of Abhimanyu, Tusshar Kapoor will appear onscreen to announce the forthcoming release of his new film ChakraView.

– Though the Mahabharata war lasted 18 days, it will take six years’ worth of episodes to telecast, because of the Principle of Reaction Shots, crucial to any Balaji serial. Each time a character shoots an arrow at another, we will be shown reaction shots of every man, horse, elephant and vulture on the battlefield. These scenes will make the pace of Ramanand Sagar’s soporific Ramayana comparable to that of an Indiana Jones film.

– The arrows will, of course, travel in slow motion; the more important ones like the Brahmastra will take at least four episodes to reach their target. But since the weapons will be dressed in colourful saris, viewers won’t mind.

It is said of the Mahabharata that “what is not here is nowhere to be found”. The tagline for Kahaani Hamaaray Mahabharat Ki will be “what is here is nowhere else to be found”.

Waiter, there’s a drop of soup in my plate!

It’s not often that I’m struck dumb in a restaurant, but this happened at the Smoke House Grill in Greater Kailash a few days go. We had been warned by food-journo colleagues that the place is basically a bar that makes a very half-hearted effort at serving meals, but we were meeting friends on a short time-frame and our preferred haunt in the complex (Mainland China) had a long waiting queue, so we plodded across to Smoke House instead.

There were four of us. Since we weren’t hugely keen on the appetizers, we decided to order two soups and split them. All went well up to the moment we were placing the order and the phrase “1 into 2” was used. At this, the waiter smiled sadly and shook his head.

“Sorry sir,” he said, “Our soup portion is too small and it cannot be divided further.”

Coming from a member of the serving staff at a high-profile restaurant, this was a startling proclamation, but we recovered our poise. “Never mind how small it is,” said my wife, “We’ll make do. Just bring it in two bowls.”

“Ma’am, no!” he replied, with greater conviction, and the overall demeanor of a man who has fought these battles before and emerged triumphant each time, “It is very, very small. We don’t have bowls that are small enough.”

After he left we sat about muttering at each other, marveling at this conundrum of the indivisible soup. He was probably exaggerating, we decided, or maybe he was in a bad mood and taking it out on us; or this was a management ploy to get diners to order extra dishes (if so, we had foiled it by sticking to our original order). At any rate, the portions couldn’t be THAT small – we figured we could still pass the bowls around the table. But then the soup arrived and it turned out that the waiter knew his beat.

It was served in one of the most impressively designed pieces of crockery I have seen. Imagine a largish dinner plate – 14 or so inches in diameter – with a tiny bit in the centre hollowed out to make a circular cavity that can accommodate around 40 ml of liquid. Into this hollow was poured the soup, very carefully, so that not a drop would spill out onto the rest of the plate. One of the soups was tomato and it must in fairness be said that it was aesthetically pleasing: a blob of orange surrounded by acres and acres of white plate – like a fried egg with an exceptionally small yolk. But they should have given us a complementary magnifying glass.

Providing a visual break was a tiny piece of maida floating despondently in the middle of the thin, translucent liquid. They called this a dimsum, but that’s a bit like calling Frodo Baggins the Great Khali. We suspect that the only reason the chefs allowed this food item to be pried from their grasp was that it would displace the volume of the liquid and raise the soup level, thus giving the impression that it was three spoonfuls instead of two.

“You didn’t have to bother with the big plate,” one of my friends called out, “You could have served the soup in a ladle instead.” The waiter simply grinned and walked away – it was obvious that this wasn't the first time he was hearing this joke.

But the restaurant did make amends for the small soup in the end – the bill was a large one.

P.S. While on food, a recommendation for Delhiites interested in Malaysian cuisine. There’s this very promising new place called Kayalan (website here) – it’s based in Neb Sarai in extreme south Delhi but it does home-delivery far and wide (even up to central Delhi as far as I know). I’ve tried their Nasi Goreng (which is a staple order for me at an Oriental restaurant), Otak Otak (steamed fish fillet in banana leaves) and marinated Pandan chicken, and all of it has been very good. Abhilasha, who ordered from there with her office crowd a few days ago (the ball-and-chain routine has a few side-advantages!), also recommends the Char Kway Teow, which is a stir-fried preparation of rice noodles with prawn or crab. You’ll find the details on the Menu section of the website.

Roads less traveled

[From my Metro Now column – another in a series of trying-hard-to-be-optimistic pieces about the traffic situation in Delhi]

Every dark cloud has a silver lining, we are constantly told, but the adage forgets to add that at times the lining must be surgically attached. This can be accomplished by grabbing the squirming cloud, pinning it to the ground, stitching the silver lining painfully into its side and then adding a few layers of cellotape as extra precaution.

The silver lining for the satirically named “bus rapid transit” corridor – a cloud that has been brooding above Delhi for the last few weeks – is that it will eventually free up a lot of retail space in our city. The reason is that many offices will empty out as people decide to make productive use of traffic jams and convert their vehicles into workstations. This is the most efficient solution to the current problem of south Delhi-based worker ants leaving their homes early in the morning and reaching their central Delhi offices in the late afternoon, just as things are beginning to wind up for the day. (All you can really do in office at that time is to go out for a long coffee-and-gossip break, which – as all conscientious and disdainful freelancers know – is the only thing offices are good for anyway.)

As more of these rapid-transit bus corridors mushroom across the city, I foresee a huge change in Delhi’s working culture. Since the government is too pigheaded to reverse a plan it has already set in motion, it will be forced to do the next best thing: equip all vehicles with free wi-fi, enabling people to turn the clogged roads into office spaces and their cars into cubicles (I only hope some nameless planning committee doesn’t decide to supply broadband cables with “special corridors” for different frequencies). Eventually, we will even be permitted to reserve specific spots along the road. Since auctions are the in-thing these days, public bids can be made for these spaces. I can just see it now: “How much for that 10ft x 8 ft spot in the shade beneath the large gulmohar on Josip Broz Tito Marg, right opposite house number 21? You, sir, in the brown safari suit?” School buildings will become redundant too, because it will be found that classes can just as easily be conducted in vans and buses (which can take a U-turn and drop the kids back home in the afternoon).

As the sage said, show me a city with a BRT problem and I’ll show you a city that can live and work on its streets.

What’s the point of getting out of the house at all, you may ask. Simple – after finishing your work for the day (which is around the time the traffic jams will start to clear), you can carry along the usual route and make it to office in time for evening conversation with friends. The rate at which Delhi is "developing", this will soon be the only way people will get any socialising done.

[Earlier posts on roads and traffic: A Hitchcockian road rant, Cutting Bluelines down to size, Jaywalkers]

Death (and embarrassment) by SMS

Take this news item from Turkey, about a misplaced character in an SMS sent by a husband to his estranged wife resulting in two gruesome deaths. Of course, a language where the omission of a single dot in a single word can completely change the meaning of a sentence is begging for trouble, but this is a universal problem. Those of us who use the Dictionary facility on our cellphones will know that a particular arrangement of letters can create two or more very different words, e.g. “awake” and “cycle”, or “ocean” and “madam”, and that this can cause confusion. If the sender isn’t careful, a perfectly harmless sentence like “Federer just crushed Djokovic in the semis” can come out reading “Federer just brushed Djokovic in the penis”. (Don’t ask me how I know this.)

This puts me in mind of an incident from a few years ago. Some of us had been invited to a colleague’s place for a debauched late-night party – it didn’t have to be debauched (you could choose to be well-behaved, sip a mocktail and check out by 11 PM), but the possibility was always open. It was an all-night affair at a large house, the sort of place where a hormonally charged couple seeking privacy might at any time stumble into an empty room together, accidentally bolt the door from within and then get down to playing “Doctor”.

One friend who didn’t know the host very well had a younger sister with no plans for the evening, so he asked someone else to check if he could take her along (since they weren’t planning to stay very late, he figured she wouldn’t be exposed to any of the murkier sub-plots that might ensue). “Can we bring Amit’s sister?” typed Rajesh into his phone, except that he wrote “Amits” as a five-letter word without the apostrophe and didn’t closely read what he was typing, so that the message that went forth was “Can we bring bogus sister?”

To make matters worse, our host, an expert in all sorts of shady party requests, interpreted “bogus sister” (or “fake sister”, take your pick) as “a girl of pliable morals, whom you wouldn’t want to publicly introduce as your steady – or even friend – but who is good for fooling around with at binges”. Human beings can be wonderfully inventive when it comes to slang and euphemism.

Thus it was that Rajesh, Amit and the latter’s sweet and innocent sibling had barely arrived when the host – already high on some obscure weed – leeringly asked her if she wanted an empty room immediately and if she would take turns with her two escorts or handle both of them at once. He also recited a short poem he had made up on the spot, which employed a series of salty Punjabi words and, at one point, rhymed “sister” with the Hindi “bistar” (bed). A nasty scuffle resulted – one that could certainly have turned out worse if there had been weapons at arm’s reach. It didn’t end as unhappily as the episode in Turkey, but there were no more parties (or at least none that our group came to know about) at this house for several months.

Not that we ever learn from these incidents. In an earlier post, I’ve mentioned the time I bought the DVD of The Pink Panther and hurriedly dashed off an SMS to friends asking if they wanted to see it over the weekend, only to have one of them call back and ask why I wanted to show him pink panties on a Saturday (or any other day for that matter). More recently, I conducted a fruitless online search for an intriguingly titled book after a friend messaged to ask “Have you read Phobia Deer, new book, sounds interesting”, only to discover that he was asking about Shobhaa De’s latest.