Story so far: Episode 2, Episode 1

[For my loyal reader Parikrama, and anyone else who doesn't want to read previous parts]

Chaitali is wakes up in the middle of the night, and ruminates over her married life, and her husband: the Kitsch writer V, who’s yet to publish anything. V and Rakesh (his school buddy, a popular crime thriller writer) have a talk about writing, sitting in a dilapidated Irani cafe.

Rakesh thought of V as someone who did not give a hoot about what others said about him. V’s high-brow attitude, even when he had hardly anything to show for it, puzzled Rakesh. It also made him uneasy. His other friends were much generous in their praise for his writings (although he wondered if they had really read any — whereas with V, he was at least sure). But all he ever got from V was an indifferent, and even that indifference seemed to be an after-thought at worst, and a concession given to an old friend at best.

Do I write that badly, Rakesh wondered, as he drove back in his old Esteem. He reminded himself, that he needed to change his car. There was no question of affording a newer and better car. It was his emotional attachment to the car that was holding him back. His father had bought that car for him when he joined college.

The thought of his father disturbed him tremendously. His father, who was a successful businessman, self made at that — he was penniless, and illiterate when he started — wanted his son to be more cultured. His father lamented how people always seemed to envy him his wealth and power. He assumed, wrongly thought Rakesh, that people’s aversion to his wealth was due to his lack of education, or prominent ancestry. He tried to hide his provincial background by engaging the services of the experts in every field — the architects, the interior decorators, art dealers — and trusting their judgment (a bit too much, Rakesh thought). He even had set up a wine cellar and a well stocked bar at home at great expenses, and entrusted it to a bartender he had flicked from a socialite joint that was mired in financial difficulties. And he had got personal tutors to improve his hindi accent (more urban), and to teach himself English. However, almost everything had backfired, and he was ridiculed in the circles he so wished to belong to as a vulgar, tasteless rich — by the same people who drank his expensive, imported wines. Things were generally said on his back, for many who laughed at him, were indebted to him, yet he would learn about them from some source. They even gossiped about his English tutor.

It was this social humiliation that had made his father want an acceptance for his son in a world he could never manage to enter. He wanted his son to make it big in fine arts, or literature, or some such — what he called — higher ventures. Rakesh wanted to enroll into commerce stream, and later join his father’s thriving business, for that seemed to be the most logical thing to do. His father refused to even entertain the possibility, and made him enroll for arts stream.

“I’ve earned all the money that will be needed by you, you don’t need to waste yourself earning money”, he insisted “Taste the high-culture, and make your mark there”.

But Rakesh had no artistic aspirations, neither fine, nor performing. Nor did he believe he had a way with words. So he pulled through the M.A years, hoping his father would see sense, just to discover that his father wanted him to go for higher studies, abroad. In humanities! It was there, in the creative writing courses, that he realized that writing wasn’t such a big deal. He decided to try out his hands.

His father did not live so see the publication of his first book, which instantly became a best-seller. Rakesh wondered if it was a good thing, after all.

In particular, there was one remark Rakesh was glad his father would never hear. It was the first time he had taken V home. This was long after his father’s death, when he was living there alone. V had observed the house without saying a word. But when V had had a few drinks, he had finally passed his judgment.

“Now I know how you can turn out kitsch so regularly”

A step by step guide to regaining sanity 2.0.real

Or

Live in the Time of Twitter and Real-Time-Web

I’ll be honest. It’s a misleading title. But then it’s catchy (or so I think), and also displays the writer’s knowledge (if one can call it that) of the literary work that inspired (as defined by Bollywood music directors, story writers) the title. It hardly matters, then, that the article has no connection whatsoever to that literary work, or the title. Actually it has some connection to the latter (I have to keep someone interested!).

Yes, that’s the first mental adjustment you should make, before its too late: everything in web 2.0.real (or whater version that’s out right now) is designed to catch your attention.  Attention first, content later.

It’s not very dissimilar to people faking things in their resumes, to pass the first cut — for when you’re competing with people who’re faking royally, those who don’t fake never make the first cut, despite the real content (as opposed to real time? lol, I didn’t say that!) in their resumes. It’s after the attention (or first cut), that the content becomes relevant.

So to get back to the point (did we ever go away from it?):

1. Just because it’s catchy doesn’t mean it’s worth reading.

Yes, learn that as fast as you could (except, make an exception for this blog).  And save the disappointment (except for this blog). In short: don’t trust the lead ups. Don’t trust the title. Scan fast, and decide if you want to spend time reading it.

Here is the corollary:

2. Not everything needs to be bookmarked

Gone are the days when you clicked a link, and bookmarked it, tagged it, put it on this list or that. Organized it …

Gone gone gone…

That only made sense, when you actually meant to come back to those links for a detailed look, for ruminating, for thinking over (mean the same thing? I know. It’s for effect), for reading about and around them. And that only made sense when the links were far and few, that you could actually do those things.

Remember this: too many bookmarks is no bookmarks.

Sure you’ll get a couple of links in hundreds that you come across on twitter on a daily basis, that you’ll need/want to bookmark. But the rest you need to treat with the same respect (or lack of it) that you would afford, say, a conversation you have with a colleague over a cup of tea in the office pantry. You listen. You comment. You forget — trusting your brain to bring it back, if it ever became necessary.

And that brings us to the next point:

3. Not everything needs to be read with full attention

Yes. What’s more: it cannot be done, so don’t try doing it. If you ever learned about  sampling theorem, you know what to do. If you didn’t, go read about it NOW (haha: that’s rule 4, we’ll get there). And forget rule 3 while you’re doing it.

The problem of the ‘real time web’, as of now, is that it’s a waterfall.  And till things get sorted out, with filters, meta-filters, agreegators, and meta-aggregators, and net-oracles (yes!) come to your aid, you’d do well to glance and discard. Even at the risk of loosing content. Yes. (That’s rule 5. We’ll come to that).

Keyword is: fast. Yes, real-time-web demands a wire-speed decision making about value proposition of a content. You’re maybe lucky enough right now: you still have a few milliseconds per lead. Soon, you’d have microseconds. Then nanoseconds. Sharpen up your skills, or you’ll become one of the unreal-timers.

4. Now is the time

Now, is the time when everything has to be read. Not later. Not tomorrow, not sometime later. Those were the old days. It’s now or never,  for most of the content you’re reading won’t be relevant tomorrow, or day-after. Why not ‘not read it at all’? Well if you can do that, you’re the liberated. You, my friend, were not sucked by the matrix. And you my friend, are a big fat lier: for you wouldn’t be reading this stupid howto then. Not this far, at any rate. If you’re here, you need help, dear. You’re already sick. Like me.

5. It’s okay to miss news

Yes. Remember this: all ad campaigns are trying to sell you what you don’t need. And so it is with the real-time-web, and tag lines of its creators.

So when they say: “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world” don’t take it literally. Don’t take it to heart.  Share what you can. Discover what you can. The rest — you’ll thank me for this insight — was always there, and you were good at missing it, not not even knowing you missed it. And you could live with missing all that. So don’t forget ‘that’. Say with me: it’s okay to miss news.

6. Don’t throw away the baby with bathwater.

Yes. For all my sarcasm, scepticism, cynicism, there is lot to be found there.  Things for which you should forget rules 1 to 5. You’ll bookmark those things, tag them, put them on lists. You’ll read about them, around them. Blog about them. Update your world-view with them.  You’ll read them later; reread them even.

And that is why, it’s a good thing that you’re sick. Like me.

Go, get real!

Deewar 2.0?

(A bit late in the day to post it. Didn't get time to create the graphic. Would have been more relevant a month back, I guess)

Authors@Google has some interesting collection of talks. I enjoy watching on of those once in a while. This video where Rushdie’s talks chiefly about The Enchantress of Florence, is another charming exhibition by the man, who has a way with the words, love him or hate him.

Noteworthy is the long Q&A session at the end.

While talking about ambiguious characters in The Satanic Verses (which I haven’t read yet), he says (quick transcription by me, so not verbatim):

“… you have devilish angles, and angelic demons. I’m sounding like Dan Brown now … which i guess would be good for my bank balance but bad for me in every other way … but anyway, i did it first”

Watch it unless you hate him blindly (it’s an hour long video).

The latest Amul gem!

Previous Parts:  Episode 1

“Why do you keep on writing in this same, crime thriller genre?”, V asked Rakesh.

Rakesh is the author of four highly successful crime thrillers. He makes quite a bit through the royalties, and generally spends his time sitting in one cafe or another talking to his friends — when he’s not writing something that is, which is seldom. He doesn’t have to put too much effort in writing, because all his novel have the same blueprint, with details varied. Besides, the accuracy of the details is not important to him. Or to his readers.

“Because it comes naturally to me. I don’t have to take efforts to write that stuff”, Rakesh answered, puffing on his half-burned Marlboro Light. Then, carelessly, he threw it out of the window of the dilapidated Irani cafe.

V looked at the wastage, annoyed, but then it occurred to him that it was better than wasting one’s lungs. He hated cigarettes. Normally, he wouldn’t sit with someone smoking, complaining that the smoke gave him asthma. But Rakesh was an exception. He had soft corner for Rakesh, despite his (what V called) pedestrian writing. Rakesh and he went to the college together, and he was one of the few friends from back then with whom V could still connect.

“But what’s the point? Aren’t we writers supposed to get out of our comfort zones?”

Rakesh looked at V quizzically. He wondered if he should pick issues with the phrase ‘we writers’. V, as far as he knew, had wrote nothing that qualified as writing, not in the world he inhabited at any rate.

“Have you ever done a honest day’s work as a writer?” he asked finally, looking out of the cafe window, at nowhere in particular.

“What do you mean?”, V asked, trying to sound nonchalant, yet his voice betrayed a tinge of anxiety. Or was it reproach?

“I mean, have you written a single page of prose, keeping in mind who will want to publish the shit?”

“You mean, honest work in this line means taking other people’s judgment of what’s right and wrong, or suitable/unsuitable for publishing, as one’s starting point?”, V said, his voice agitated. He waited for the answer to his rhetorical question. As he expected, no answer came. For a brief moment V held his pose, in every sense of the phrase, and added in faked nochalant voice, “I guess not”

“I thought as much”, Rakesh said.

“Why would I want to be a writer, if I were to accept that as a starting point?”

Rakesh sighed. He didn’t have time for V’s childish questions.

“The trouble with the world of art is that people come here trying to escape the hard right and wrong judgments, believing they can redefine right and wrong”

For all his faults, V thought, I can still talk to him, because he at least understands the fundamental questions of life. Not too many people these days had time for those fundamental questions. They were so lost in the mundane facts, and problems. It was hard to even talk to them.

What about Chaitali? He wondered …

Long back, when they were dating, he remembered he could talk to her. She understood. She even had answers that seemed to align with his. Or was he too eager to find an alignment? Like the Indian pundits who would fix up any horoscopes. Not that he believed in horoscopes, but wasn’t that cheating? And sometimes, both the parties would do it, each believing that the other cares for horoscopes. Or was it that they wanted the other party to think that they believed in horoscopes — thus establishing their ‘traditional’ credentials?

But what about Chaitali?

He shuddered. Maybe he had cheated himself? Even before he knew there was alignment on things that matter, he had stopped judging? How much more ridiculous was that? He who hated arranged marriages, had he arranged his own marraige by the same methods, in spirit? Nah, he said to himself. Chaitali was okay. She still understood the questions, and their importance. It’s just that her answers had changed over the years, while his had stayed the same. Was it because he never had to taste his answers, in the real world, as opposed to all the imaginary worlds that he tried to create, while she had to?

And Rakesh? He looked at Rakesh, who had lit up another Marlboro light, and seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Trouble was V had no idea what it was. Then he remembered the thread.

“And?” he decided question was the best option.

“And soon they realize that unless they’re genius, they are more constrained by rights and wrongs as defined by someone else — and there isn’t even a way to resort to objectivity. Hell, those are random rights and wrongs, that can never be defeated”

Trouble with those who can think through other people’s shoes, V thought, is that you can never judge. You always keep the case open, for further evidence. He loved Chaitali, so judging was now superflous. There was a time and date for it. He had done it. The case was closed now. If he reopened it, it will just stay open.

“Unless you’re a genius?”, he suddenly said, picking up the thread finally. This was getting interesting.

“If you’re a genius, you can escape them in your lifetime, yes. But down the line, you become another random set of rights and wrongs. In a sense, you lose to the system by being endorsed by it. And worse: you can’t even fight, because by then you’re long dead”

“Do you think you are a genius, V?”, Rakesh asked suddenly.

“Ummm?”, V said, half automatically, half deliberate.

Rakesh laughed. “You do, don’t you? You conceited, arrogant bastard!”

“Well I don’t know if I’m a genius, but I don’t think I’m ordinary, at least”

“No one thinks they’re ordinary, dear. Welcome to the club”

Trying to figure out where the festive mood has gone. Tamaso ma jyotirgamay. May the light shine within — each and every soul 'enlightened'. Let the lives brighten from within and without …

Happy Diwali to everyone.

Note: Image from ( covered under Creative Commons — see the link)

Of course I have left Ayn Rand alone, in that corner of my mind where a confused youth is looking for a seemingly coherent world view. Some find it in religion, some in philosophy (again Rand dismissed religion is a primitive form of philosophy, while others might have dismissed philosophy is a primitive form of religion — being non holistic). But the shoe, over the years, stops fitting, as it should even. No one, in their teenage years, has enough exposure to the world to choose a world-view that will encompass everything that their ever widening experience of the world throws at them. Almost no one, I believe …

Still, even then, in those wide-eyed, ready to be amazed years, we have already wrestled with a few questions, to get it partially right — the search (or left — if you allow me that cheap humor).

One of the recurring theme in Rand's writings is that of the creators vs those who live secondhand lives — those who consume, those who follow, those who live through others …

Well with twitter, I'm a certified secondhand reader. I hardly discover anything these days, it seems. I hardly get to keep pace with a bombardment of articles that keeps coming from some voracious readers, the netizens of the higher rank. I hardly choose what to read next. Not even the subject, it seems …

I wonder if in few months everyone will be reading only what some have been sending their way? The fast, voracious readers, net-scrapers, will send us ten articles before we could read one. And we'd be drawn in the ever increasing list of starred, to-read-later'ed, bookmarked, tabboed, articles. We'd stop our own searching. Google will be dead. And we'd have a breed of second hand readers?

Soon. Pretty soon — if it hasn't happened already … ]]> http://asuph.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/the-secondhand-reader/feed/ 18 asuph http://asuph.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/the-secondhand-reader/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AFineImbalance/~3/NDik1PLsr74/ http://asuph.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/broad-brush-paintings-episode-1/#comments Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:45:21 +0000 asuph http://asuph.wordpress.com/?p=486 ]]>

Chaitali could not tell how long she was awake, or why she had woken up. She checked the clock; it was showing 2:30 AM. As far as she could recall, no nightmare had woken her up. Generally she was a sound sleeper, and wouldn’t wake up at all, till just a few minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off. The thought of being woken up by an alarm did not appeal to her. Alarms can never replace a gentle human call for wakeup because there is feedback loop involved, she thought. A person waking up another person, unless she’s a sadist, will start with stifled whispers first, and if need be, change to nagging, louder calls.

A thought of alarm clock reminded her of the old Swiss clock her grandfather had bought from chor bazaar for the precious sum of 10 rupees. It must have been quite a  pinch, then, she thought, wondering what will she get now for the same sum? A tea in a decent restaurant will be more expensive! But then, for all the pinch, her grandfather’s clock had been worth every single paisa, and more. It was an old style, mechanical clock, that needed winding, of course. And it had survived a full fifty odd years, through  her school-days, even college days. She would keep it by her bedside, when she wanted to wake up early in the morning to study. After the first few days, when she was jolted to a wide awakening due to the monstrous, steely alarm of that Swiss clock, she had rarely heard it. She didn’t want to wake anyone else in the house, not even her mom, who would get up anyway to prepare a hot cup of Bournvita flavored milk for her. Her scholastic success meant more to her mother than it ever meant to her, then or now.

It was that terror of the jolt, and the fear of waking others in the house, that had stayed with her till this day, when there weren’t that many people in the house to wake up, except for V (or Vedant, but no one ever called him that), who was as sound a sleeper as any she had known. Besides, the alarms these days tried to mimic human waking up, with the frequency and pitch going up, ever so gradually.

She looked at V snoring besides her, his back turned towards her. His legs were cuddled up, and he was sleeping almost in the womb position. Men, she thought, never really come out of the womb. Then she scolded herself for generalizing. I should say most men, she reminded herself.

No alarm, she knew, would ever wake up V, not even the one in her grandfather’s clock. Where is it now, she wondered. She made a note to ask her mom about it, the next time she called her. The thought depressed her. Lately her mother was getting impossible to talk to. How long can she keep on blaming it on her mom’s menopause and excuse her, Chaitali wondered. But then, lately, lot of things depressed Chaitali. V’s dead sound sleep hardly made it to the list.

Now that she was awake, she didn’t know what to do. She was so not used to getting up at such god-forsaken hours, that she couldn’t just go back to sleep. She was thirsty too, and the bottle she kept on the small bedside unit was empty. V had this (annoying she noted) habit of finishing off the bottle on her side too. Since she woke up only early in the morning, it didn’t bother her much, but it bothered her that he never refilled his bottle. She knew it was no use talking to him about it (as about anything else), for he’d just point out that she never drank water in the middle of the night, so how did it matter if he just drank from that bottle too?

She got up and dragged herself to the kitchen. Besides the sink, she saw a plate with crumbs of bread and left-over ketchup. V’s late night hunger pangs, she sighed. Was it the early dinner that was the problem, she wondered. After all, early dinner is only a good idea if you’re going to sleep early, like she did. But he had never complained, just as he rarely complained about anything. She knew he hated routine, and yet, it was routine that she excelled in. Her life was an endless progression of routine.

She sighed again. Her life looked like that of some extremely dissatisfied heroin in V’s numerous unfinished stories. Yet V seemed oblivious to it. She thought she might have been better off as some character in his stories. She’d at least get more attention. But then it wasn’t the routine that bothered her. It was routine that made her successful. It was routine that had brought her the security in life she was looking for. What is security if not another routine, she wondered. What bothered her, was that V wasn’t bothered by it.

She walked into the living room, and switched on the light in the corner. The room was illuminated by a dull, orange light, owing to the colour of the lampshade. She felt content. It was a long time since she had enjoyed such a peaceful space for herself. Not that V would ever encroach on her space. But he needed so much of attention, that she never got the space, and that too had become another routine in her life.

As she slumped in the couch thinking if she should just switch on the television, she saw V’s old writing folder on the coffee table. It was open. V must have been sifting through his early writings, she thought — something he did quite often. Wasn’t that also a routine of sorts, she wondered. How come he loves that so much, when he hates the routine? She picked up the folder, and started browsing. V, she knew, wouldn’t mind a bit. In fact, he would be delighted.

Autumn

You left
leaving behind a trail
of crumpled leaves
fragments …
of memories

Autumns are never pleasant
they’re the premonition
of cold, merciless winter

The nature is kind
for the winter
however certain
ends too
certainly

The autumn
you left behind
is the final season

I fell for this? She wondered. This kitsch! She was no snob, and her exposure to literature, and especially poetry, was quite basic. But this? I’ve married a failed kitsch artist, she sighed!

Even V couldn’t have created a better failed heroine himself, she thought as she switched on the TV.

In India, anyone can be your health advisor. Even that neighborhood marwari shopkeeper is no exception. Sometime back, I went to a shop to buy Amul Butter — that quintessential Indian icon of sorts. The shopkeeper nonchalantly passed me Amul Lite – the low cost low cholesterol breadspread (according to the official description).

I asked him if he has the regular butter by any chance?

“yeh jyada achcha hai”, he assured me (it’s better).

“lekin yeh butter nahin hai”, I protested (but it’s not butter)

“wohi to, sehat ke liye accha hai” (that’s what! it’s better for one’s health)

Now, if I wanted to eat less butter, I would eat less butter, not more (or same amount of) non-butter! Please, keep those margarines (reminds me of migraines for some reasons) and butter-like-bread spreads (which incidentally have almost no milk fat, and have vegetable fats in large quantities, according to the packet) away from me. I’m happy with less of my butter (even Amul butter — ther utterly butterly delicious!).

Not that I told the shopkeeper that. I just walked away. I’m getting more and more weary of what Michael Pollan calls “reductive nutritionism“. I know, I know … call me a follower of Pollanism!

—

Lately, I’ve been reading a bit too much of Alexander McCall Smith (no not his No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, which I found not even close to his best, rather on the opposite end of the spectrum). In fact, my last fictional attempt — A Blind Date — was inspired from his collection of short stories (although not from any specific one): Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations, which I had read just about then.

Now after reading his Corduroy Mansions and now one of his 44 Scotland Street series (book 3, to be precise), I’m bitten by the ‘episodic writing’ bug.  That it might make me write more ‘regularly’ is just one aspect of it.

So here is what I plan to do (they say making your plans public makes you little more serious about them — almost make them obligatory — and if they haven’t already said it, I’m postulating that): write at least one episode of the (yet unnamed) episodic story every two weeks. If I do more, I’d live with that, but I ain’t kiddin myself …

I Plan to post the first part over this weekend, and not to mention, name the damn thing. Watch this space