tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86226512024-03-08T06:07:04.378+05:30Bland SpiceSometimes there is a blog...
This is that sort of a blog.Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.comBlogger483125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-84294580565195887982021-06-23T13:24:00.005+05:302021-06-23T13:24:34.608+05:30The beautiful prose of Nadeem Aslam, and what more can be done<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am rereading Nadeem Aslam's <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44086.Maps_for_Lost_Lovers" target="_blank">Maps for Lost Lovers</a></i> after, I think, seven years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I discovered him then in the flush of several other Pakistani authors, and went through everything he had written till then, mesmerised by his commitment to beauty. A commitment that meant shaping his whole life around it, every drifting moment, and not arriving at it every morning or night at his desk after he had shrugged off and hung like a coat over his writing-chair a hectic public life on Twitter or elsewhere. The kind of metaphors that can only rise when one has seeped oneself completely in hours and days of contemplation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">To illustrate, I pick some of them from my reading in the morning today:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">“the laboratories where the microscopes slept like hawks under their dust covers. ”</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">“the crowd that spilled onto the street like a nest of termites broken into.”</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And this truly great passage on something as mundane as food-preparation:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">'She prepared for him all the food he had been missing during his years away. Bamboo tubes pickled to tartness in linseed oil, slimy edoes that glued the fingers together as you ate them, naan bread shaped like ballet slippers, poppy seeds that were coarser than sand grains but still managed to shift like a dune when the jar was tilted, dry pomegranate seeds to be patted onto potato cakes like stones in a brooch, edible petals of courgette flowers packed inside the buds like amber scarves in green rucksacks, chilli seeds that were volts of electricity, the peppers whose stalks were hooked like umbrella handles, butter to be diced into cubes reluctant to separate, peas attached to the inside of an undone pod in a row like puppies drinking from their mother’s belly'</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">For me, the only writer who can transcend this eye for metaphor and beauty is John Banville, but then he transcends every other writer living or dead.</span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">One could fault Nadeem in how this profusion of beauty overwhelms his prose. Like a baroque inlaid panel that overwhelms the eye to the point that one can only barely make out the original frame on which it has been laid. I am not talking of plot here, for Nadeem Aslam is a master story-teller as far as even that goes, too much of it in fact. Not only the broader outline of the story, but even the smaller movements within its various stages. In fact, it is not so much the beauty of his prose as the plot that steps into self-indulgence a little. Too many little things keep happening but that do not really develop the character as much as they could.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And I think herein lies that trifling fault I can find in his work, that his characters are never psychologically alive for me as the other prose-masters'. They are too seeped in beautiful thoughts, not theirs entirely but the writer's. They do all the things that characters do in modern novels - masturbate, fornicate, doubt, despair - and yet remain too ethereal to be entirely real. This is a problem I have myself faced as a writer where certain characters become so much of conduits for that ache for beauty and wisdom that own material and mundane dimensions are entirely repressed. In Maps for Lost Lovers, the two brothers, Shamas and the lepidopterist Jugnu, are cases in point, especially the latter. One can imagine Jugnu only in abstract, a soul too beautiful for this world, but one also imagines that after an hour spent with him in a room, one would walk out dazed and nursing a headache like emerging from a walk around Musee D'orsay - too much beauty on the walls. In fact, nothing that Jugnu ever does in the novel is not a gesture towards beauty and some deep wisdom about the world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> One thinks of Banville (again) whose prose is, to me in my limited readings, the most beautiful prose in English ever achieved, but whose characters are greatly complex, narcissistic creatures whose slightest thoughts have been shaped by a tremendous amount of research in the field of psychology, as the book <i>John Banville's Narcissistic Fictions: The Spectral Self </i>attests. In Nadeem Aslam's fictions instead, most of the characters' complexities are explained away as their Pakistani identities trapped in an English milieu, and even independently of that, all the damage to the psyche that Pakistan alone does to you; all the contradictions of its overwhelming beauties and cruelties. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a very powerful stimulus of course, but what of all the micro-stimuli? When do the characters stop being only victims of Pakistan and also victims of their own cruelties done to others, their own frustrations of what little they have done with their lives? What are those moments when Mah-Jabin, Shamas, Jugnu, Charag and Suraya stop fluttering about like beautiful butterflies caught in burning air, and stand revealed in their own follies?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that is why the book remained in my head for seven years as the story of Kaukab, the matriarch who unconsciously sets about destroying the life of the children she loves, her brother-in-law's, and even her own one because she would not give up the Pakistan that she has brought with her to Dasht-e-Tanhaii. The novel is her great tragedy, almost at par with Lear. An ageing woman pining for the love of her children but unable to give up the prejudices and narrow-vision of the world drilled into her. She is perhaps the greatest character-study of the women from the subcontinent of that first-generation of migrants. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">And this is what Nadeem Aslam can achieve when he frees his characters from the constant burden of beauty (for there are great passages of beauty in Kaukab's everyday and mostly lonely chores about the house). A character fleshed out from not only the macro-forces that have shaped her identity but her own contradictions and cruelties. I think of the character of the judge in Kiran Desai's <i>The Inheritance of Loss</i>, another study in beauty where the only character allowed to be ugly stands out so magnificently human. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the seven years I have been away from Nadeem Aslam, something that I aim to compensate for in the coming months, I have often wondered why I don't hear more of this great, great writer of our times. It is a loss to the world, and especially the subcontinental ones, if they haven't seen their own world through the prism of his scintillatingly beautiful mind. Like never having listened to Faiz. And the day he achieves that balance of beauty and insight and psychological complexity I have spoken of, I feel a truly great work for the ages waits to burst upon us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">To end this, I would end with his own beautiful quote from <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/nadeem-aslam-i-know-him-vaguely/article18057414.ece" target="_blank">this interview</a> here:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'How to counter the ugliness of the world? To be kind; to never lie; to not be competitive; to ask for forgiveness; to give forgiveness; to just want to make a living, not a profit; to say to someone, “You’ve given enough”; to say to someone, “I think I can give more”; to leave your wealth to the nation at your death, not just to your family; to observe the birds appear and disappear with the seasons around you; to notice how something that happens over the course of a decade in a human life can be over in a week in the life of a moth; to read a novel or spend 20 minutes looking at a picture. I am an atheist; but I believe that Paradise, if it existed, would resemble the books of Italo Calvino illustrated by Persian miniaturists. All this may sound impractical, abstract and amorphous, but I can tell you that I know people who live by these rules. That is where hope is.'</span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><div id="highlighter--hover-tools" style="display: none;">
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</div>Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-88481192641997365442014-11-01T00:56:00.000+05:302014-11-01T01:02:48.104+05:30Filimstaan - Why competence is sometimes not enough<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I finally saw Filmistaan – two friends starred as the
terrorists keeping the hostage. I was surprised that it turned to be quite watchable
(the trailer did dreadful injustice to it), managing to engage me from the
first scene to the last. Given the stasis inherent in the plot – a man being
held in a rude brick cell almost through the length of the film, with only a
few ramshackle huts and the desert beyond – I thought that the screenplay was
good, the acting and direction capable. It definitely deserved a watch in the
hall. But unfortunately, it never rose above this level of competence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The issue with me was that the film set itself up so that it
could never rise beyond the level it was being played at. The protagonists – Sunny
Arora, a wannabe-actor from Bollywood held hostage in a border-post Pakistani
village, and a Pakistani bootlegger of Indian films – are that and that alone.
The fact that Sunny is Punju explains everything about him. Their inner
narratives, their dialogue, almost never rises beyond the simplistic paradigms
of their shared obsession, Bollywood, and since the plot does not allow for too
many moments beyond these for character development, in the end, their characters
and their relationship seem too easily arrived at; worse, contrived.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We never see Sunny’s isolation beyond his empty-headed optimism,
nationalism and nostalgia. The thought of imminent death over many days does
not change him, make him introspect deeper beyond a confession of knowing he
was a bad actor all along. No relationship – friend, family – is mentioned
beyond a brief brush with an old hakim where the two reminisce about the lives they
left beyond the border. We never really get to know Sunny, the hero, forget the
bootlegger. It seemed that Nitin (the writer-director) was just not interested
in building the characters beyond the competent first-ideas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so you have the same clichés someone in Alaska who’s
seen five-six of such stuff can write – what did Sunny remember his grandfather
telling him about Lahore – Jinnne Lahore nai dekhiya... blahblah – that’s it. What
do the protagonists talk about when they realise the irrationality of the
border – the dreamteam with Sachin and Inzi opening. And these are two
instances I remember because they ending up mediocratising some potentially
very-good scenes building up. (The latter almost hurriedly stanching a
potentially powerful turn when, to Sunny’s musing of what might have happened
if the partition had not happened, the bootlegger darkly replies that rivers of
blood would have flown then.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And since besides these brief superficial excursions into
their real lives, the fantasies they discuss are not exactly world cinema, or
even stuff like Filmistaan itself, the depth of their inner worlds revealed in these
fantasies remains at the level of Maine Pyaar Kiya and KKHH they watch
together. No ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ here where the fantastic dialogic world
the protagonists build to escape the reality reveals almost everything about
them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am reading some collected stream-of-consciousness oral
narratives from Rajasthani villagers these days. The stuff is so, so dense with
overlapping references to their lands, their cattle, their folklore, their
society, their history – the various categories and norms of their world – a world
as rich as any, with its own grammar and vocabulary. If only the filmmaker had
cared to dig these worlds out for his two protagonists a little deeper. If he
had researched more to imagine them beyond first ideas, and brought forth what people
from such two different worlds, overlapping but not quite, might <i>really </i>experience
and share under this extreme and peculiar circumstance. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">But alas. And so, as so many times before, a
film in my mothertongue again settles for competency and I have to go back to
the old favourites or scout elsewhere for true transcendental greatness.</span></div>
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-15524287523897382032014-08-22T10:21:00.001+05:302014-08-22T10:21:32.310+05:30Our poor rich celebrities<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZEGiYskzO5IndEL0kmDVWwxlkNPjNf98ueBpYaa_m87S5Xs0b1NRRClK4WCgouJXGoMNFQ5_cjCCr4wEVlPJElPnTHwT1ecYlU2cFx5_wKj0odbPYzdXaW1YT2JlbygT6LGZ/s1600/Picture1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZEGiYskzO5IndEL0kmDVWwxlkNPjNf98ueBpYaa_m87S5Xs0b1NRRClK4WCgouJXGoMNFQ5_cjCCr4wEVlPJElPnTHwT1ecYlU2cFx5_wKj0odbPYzdXaW1YT2JlbygT6LGZ/s1600/Picture1.jpg" height="640" width="404" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/alia-bhatt-parties-again-with-ranbir-kapoor/#aayanmukherjee" target="_blank">Ayan is busy checking his mobile phone as he walks out.(Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia4oEjWEHerIyoCcMpcn95OUMQi60E0Sn7uuwYokyO0hAdAOHAARvi0JKy-hNcmIBoNn10RJm-PiWB2B9RvCQUFIN2ORcRoTWgL_n6qa7dIDaQkasBKsVmtNI18d9jOyw03sgC/s1600/Picture2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia4oEjWEHerIyoCcMpcn95OUMQi60E0Sn7uuwYokyO0hAdAOHAARvi0JKy-hNcmIBoNn10RJm-PiWB2B9RvCQUFIN2ORcRoTWgL_n6qa7dIDaQkasBKsVmtNI18d9jOyw03sgC/s1600/Picture2.jpg" height="640" width="362" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/alia-bhatt-parties-again-with-ranbir-kapoor/#aliaayaan" target="_blank">‘2 States’ actress Ali Bhatt was seen coming out of Ranbir Kapoor’s home on Saturday(August 16) night along with director Ayan Mukherjee. Alia has confessedto have a crush on Ranbir Kapoor. (Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXvfWeGZPK1wbUlhiCXyUXXIkTSpViOYkaMAGh3_J4EPucXHyEggEF8YyXhdkkuaB-RhZJ6YXEt6Eq_tZSW-Th4_24yaoWvyKSoLYQQgs-sFH3Klv2QALWIARxz1YShAYTlLJ6/s1600/Picture3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXvfWeGZPK1wbUlhiCXyUXXIkTSpViOYkaMAGh3_J4EPucXHyEggEF8YyXhdkkuaB-RhZJ6YXEt6Eq_tZSW-Th4_24yaoWvyKSoLYQQgs-sFH3Klv2QALWIARxz1YShAYTlLJ6/s1600/Picture3.jpg" height="456" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/alia-bhatt-parties-again-with-ranbir-kapoor/#aali-mukh" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt;">Alia in the car with </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt;">Ayan</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt;">. (Source: </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt;">Varinder</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt;">Chawla</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt;">)</span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqqCoH_5ix8M2V2JEu64FoTO1KKjKT2Abng64euyaO6SRj6CmvV2ysVUW0HDW1cLDToYK7mQ-aivP1mjPbHMLxbL-GTViYr49Wby_JfNC3nT1DGnlDLVNvmkNUtDyRa7h8CA0u/s1600/Picture4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqqCoH_5ix8M2V2JEu64FoTO1KKjKT2Abng64euyaO6SRj6CmvV2ysVUW0HDW1cLDToYK7mQ-aivP1mjPbHMLxbL-GTViYr49Wby_JfNC3nT1DGnlDLVNvmkNUtDyRa7h8CA0u/s1600/Picture4.jpg" height="434" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/arjun-deepika-get-goofy-for-finding-fanny/#arjunlooks-deepika" target="_blank">Wonder what Arjun Kapoor is trying to get abetter look at! (Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisq5UaIKtzh0f232k8Ux80RsyGEtd5VRi-qUMt9SGr0op-0IYlcKEFOmkDxDXx52uXLVKLQSR-tIR5ppr9IAdcEf_iaThlWjlp0qR0siS6ncTfM3d2bEs-EGnI0-w9nY-Ck5q8/s1600/Picture5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisq5UaIKtzh0f232k8Ux80RsyGEtd5VRi-qUMt9SGr0op-0IYlcKEFOmkDxDXx52uXLVKLQSR-tIR5ppr9IAdcEf_iaThlWjlp0qR0siS6ncTfM3d2bEs-EGnI0-w9nY-Ck5q8/s1600/Picture5.jpg" height="488" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/sonam-fawad-bipasha-vidya-have-a-busy-sunday/#vidya-balan1-4" target="_blank">Vidya Balan, who was dressed inher favourite red Kanjeevaram sari complete with agajra, takes a look at theflower rangoli. (Source: ExpressPhoto by Ganesh Shirsekar)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPEYXE6SzAR-UAXA4CeSFBZS14wMEiHOFNgpLazjZ8oWwerW6e0jxjHbkPwY1NVyFz1pSjglKvsDyDGdQu8HoK6j2A_3nNTXGAgj6hPnKlKtBb33SeVrt2hqeZMek-eEHASJV2/s1600/Picture6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPEYXE6SzAR-UAXA4CeSFBZS14wMEiHOFNgpLazjZ8oWwerW6e0jxjHbkPwY1NVyFz1pSjglKvsDyDGdQu8HoK6j2A_3nNTXGAgj6hPnKlKtBb33SeVrt2hqeZMek-eEHASJV2/s1600/Picture6.jpg" height="640" width="506" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/sonam-fawad-bipasha-vidya-have-a-busy-sunday/#bipasha-friends" target="_blank">Bipasha Basu was seen chillingout with her friends at a high-end restaurant in Mumbai. Seen here withdesigner and close friend Rocky S. (Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhez6zzeCtKQH30HQwplPRzR1a0r9lWiY0jkZKHR8nnP6F4ja-svkZBII42mAvNQZfdz-s9oMfG9dEJig5KDasjV_Y_vBDWI6In9oUUtYNMnrHwZhYIjZGp7ohVcpOwrQ2y4n2I/s1600/Picture7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhez6zzeCtKQH30HQwplPRzR1a0r9lWiY0jkZKHR8nnP6F4ja-svkZBII42mAvNQZfdz-s9oMfG9dEJig5KDasjV_Y_vBDWI6In9oUUtYNMnrHwZhYIjZGp7ohVcpOwrQ2y4n2I/s1600/Picture7.jpg" height="640" width="394" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/sonam-fawad-bipasha-vidya-have-a-busy-sunday/#richa-chadda-13" target="_blank">Tamanchey's lead pair Richa Chadda and Nikhil Dwivedi were also busypromoting their movie. (Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7iGTQWjb31vpO7V1dGwZIqoZwuHKdGZ_0F_IGb6jmai1o8zmbd1euUDP0kiKTxK5S7UL3Hl49lkcRUh-z_hNTRrlMyFvs2hyPHdbzzXO0DNPGiYsdOnzCCJPQ3FDmwt53DGU/s1600/Picture8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7iGTQWjb31vpO7V1dGwZIqoZwuHKdGZ_0F_IGb6jmai1o8zmbd1euUDP0kiKTxK5S7UL3Hl49lkcRUh-z_hNTRrlMyFvs2hyPHdbzzXO0DNPGiYsdOnzCCJPQ3FDmwt53DGU/s1600/Picture8.jpg" height="640" width="386" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/sonam-fawad-bipasha-vidya-have-a-busy-sunday/#sonamkapoor1-7" target="_blank">Sonam Kapoor, who will be seen inhe remake of Rekha's 'Khoobsurat', was busy shootinga special promotional song for the movie in Mumbai on Sunday (August 17).(Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/sonam-fawad-bipasha-vidya-have-a-busy-sunday/#arjunkapoor-17" target="_blank">All for his sister, Sonam's cousin Arjun Kapoor was waiting for herwhile she wrapped up the shoot. (Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7K8cbjMon_5aCUt4TB7_rz6RR3dFTggPxOs_dl1DTzmQCVhD-efzIIupvLtiq0W3zgBfkXco9iJjL2DAoYUb-cdYwUbotdjXAFp375udSYGruAsObsJhTjsNOvLngfBP6Ga2d/s1600/Picture10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7K8cbjMon_5aCUt4TB7_rz6RR3dFTggPxOs_dl1DTzmQCVhD-efzIIupvLtiq0W3zgBfkXco9iJjL2DAoYUb-cdYwUbotdjXAFp375udSYGruAsObsJhTjsNOvLngfBP6Ga2d/s1600/Picture10.jpg" height="640" width="418" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/entertainment-gallery/sonam-fawad-bipasha-vidya-have-a-busy-sunday/#sanjay-10" target="_blank">Sonam's uncle Sanjay Kapoor was cheerful as he posed for the waiting photographers.(Source: Varinder Chawla)</a></div>
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-19789915827315865922014-05-28T01:02:00.002+05:302014-05-28T01:03:33.050+05:30More Indian Express photographs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-takes-charge/#narendra-13" target="_blank">Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes charge of the office at PMO in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Source: PTI) </a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-Xz_KWyTAtjdeVaYxTyqtqTcQjcU92ONeuZ1KlIztq8mfjAkOyz5CtCZnLKrD4-nCkHKlk8rOsPTIDHoR_oncdDQiTXM6wRkXMHDnokuaJulgM9-huGmfnpuYOTeOD2xemn7/s1600/Picture2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-Xz_KWyTAtjdeVaYxTyqtqTcQjcU92ONeuZ1KlIztq8mfjAkOyz5CtCZnLKrD4-nCkHKlk8rOsPTIDHoR_oncdDQiTXM6wRkXMHDnokuaJulgM9-huGmfnpuYOTeOD2xemn7/s1600/Picture2.png" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-takes-charge/#modi7-3" target="_blank">Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office on Tuesday, a day after being sworn-in by President Pranab Mukherjee. (Source: Express photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU6Wd8DscddOES0RQ-tJ3OreLNIx7yYcnBVTtqWKNtvH8UZaO4vFDHlvi38hZhm3xZA2ZL-3nZ1DPZCI4f9lGZ7bdzIq0JCn5fR1AS303wkwP3O3C-iAoMapoJA6syssf4JXkS/s1600/Picture3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU6Wd8DscddOES0RQ-tJ3OreLNIx7yYcnBVTtqWKNtvH8UZaO4vFDHlvi38hZhm3xZA2ZL-3nZ1DPZCI4f9lGZ7bdzIq0JCn5fR1AS303wkwP3O3C-iAoMapoJA6syssf4JXkS/s1600/Picture3.png" height="640" width="315" /></a></div>
<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-takes-charge/#modi6-4" target="_blank">"Let us together dream of a strong, developed and inclusive India that actively engages with the global community to strengthen the cause of world peace and development," Narendra Modi added. (Source: Express photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)</a><br />
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-takes-charge/#modi6-4" target="_blank">Thaawar Chand Gehlot takes over as Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment in New Delhi. (Source: PTI)</a><br />
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-takes-charge/#modi6-4" target="_blank">Arun Jaitley takes charge as Finance Minister at his office in New Delhi. (Source: PTI)</a> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKvN8Fj8boZRxtGvA6IW6uMR_389TDUMb9ASm42z-LPWz8nRXRiia4T82GFhrv8Nt3QpLI9gLglXTkYDWLkBWfmb8Nplzj3gePs-ybPAhHy2phmL3FPqeNz76dNTqSQGb6bXh7/s1600/Picture6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKvN8Fj8boZRxtGvA6IW6uMR_389TDUMb9ASm42z-LPWz8nRXRiia4T82GFhrv8Nt3QpLI9gLglXTkYDWLkBWfmb8Nplzj3gePs-ybPAhHy2phmL3FPqeNz76dNTqSQGb6bXh7/s1600/Picture6.png" height="187" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-takes-charge/#modi6-4" target="_blank">Dr Harsh Vardhan takes charge as the Health and Family Welfare minister in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Source: Express photo by Ravi Kanojia) </a><br />
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-takes-charge/#modi6-4" target="_blank">However, even before assuming charge, Modi had already began his official work last night itself by holding a meeting with top officials. (Source: Express photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)</a><br />
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/narendra-modi-holds-talks-with-nawaz-sharif/#modi-sharif1" target="_blank">Ahead of his meeting, Sharif had yesterday said he was carrying a message of peace and intends to pick up the threads with India's new leader Narendra Modi from where he and then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee left off in 1999. (Source: AP) </a><br />
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<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/narendra-modi-sworn-in-as-indias-15th-prime-minister/#smiritirani" target="_blank">LK Advani greets Smriti Irani during the swearing-in ceremony. (Source: Express Photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ0p5_yVqH7UEjpgm8TlnWr-lghUksXOugEwcwkOAv2nwKjzEpxQdlUztj8P2MdAY0PRj2cDW15IOgUnn0eVK1kMn2SR934PpvcJvWuful2E1KAkCq3msvB7tHeW2-d7ipiew1/s1600/Picture10.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ0p5_yVqH7UEjpgm8TlnWr-lghUksXOugEwcwkOAv2nwKjzEpxQdlUztj8P2MdAY0PRj2cDW15IOgUnn0eVK1kMn2SR934PpvcJvWuful2E1KAkCq3msvB7tHeW2-d7ipiew1/s1600/Picture10.png" height="632" width="640" /></a></div>
<a href="http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/narendra-modi-sworn-in-as-indias-15th-prime-minister/#modipranab" target="_blank">The 63-year-old Modi, the first leader to get a landslide majority for BJP on its own, became the 15th prime minister in a virtual 'coronation' ceremony in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhawan before a 3000-strong gathering, the largest audience at the swearing in a of new government. (Source: Express Photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)</a></div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-65419235973442297422014-05-22T13:37:00.000+05:302014-05-28T01:03:11.209+05:30More photographs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/3" target="_blank">Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is greeted by US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. (Reuters)</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/5/1" target="_blank">Musician Missy Higgins performs at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (Reuters)</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/1/1" target="_blank">Today is the 80th birthday of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. (PTI)</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/4/1" target="_blank">Russian artist Irina Komissarova preforming Odissi dance in Bhubaneswar. (PTI)</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/picture-gallery/candid-moments-captured-at-the-screen-awards-2014/4311-12.html" target="_blank">The Bachchan family conference! Amitabh, Jaya and Abhishek are busy discussing something clearly unaware that the cameras are capturing their every move. (IE Photo: Dilip Kagda)</a></div>
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<a href="http://archive.indianexpress.com/picture-gallery/candid-moments-captured-at-the-screen-awards-2014/4311-14.html" target="_blank">Desi beauties Bipasha Basu and Sophie Choudary enjoy some camera time. (IE Photo: Amit Chakravarty)</a></div>
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-674304336566884912014-05-22T12:56:00.000+05:302014-05-22T12:56:49.166+05:30Eyes have it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">One’s eyes are always those of someone else,
the mad and desperate dwarf crouched within.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">- John Banville (The Sea) </span></div>
</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-67688052060349603932013-11-16T02:08:00.001+05:302013-11-16T02:38:04.775+05:30Yet another Sachin article<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, Sachin walked back to the pavilions for the last time
and I didn’t care enough to watch it. And I know I am not alone. I am from that
generation that has covered the distance with him from teenage to middle-age. Things
have changed since, the world has changed. Just in cricket, it seems lightyears
away now where we grew up blaming our national Hindu lack of killer instinct. A
lot can be said there, but the point is that the journey of the man somewhere
marked our own, across an upheaving canvas of collapsing world-orders and ditzy
transformations still not fully digested and understood. For that is what
adulation is, finding associating and investuring something of ourselves in the
object; an identification that goes beyond admiration.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I briefly glimpsed the match yesterday as wifey watched it,
and no nostalgia stirred but that wry amusement at the media overkill, where
once I would be muttering prayers every time he prepared to face a delivery. I
could not simply find that boy within me amid the high-pitched spectacle – and
all the boys and girls that made up that world then. I could not imagine how an
age I had lived and believed in was ending, despite the fact that it was, right
before my eyes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I understand the commercial interests of the media but did
it have to be really so vulgar and loud? Other sporting giants retire elsewhere
and generate as much media attention – but this cacophony? Did people need to
be stirred to a hysteria where none was needed? I mean this is Sachin. Whatever
the niggling fatuous debates of his legacy, he touched the lives of a few generations
as few icons ever have. The viewership and the engagement is absolutely assured,
all you have to do is plug in your content. But respect at least the man’s
sensibilities, if not ours. Yesterday, as the camera panned and stayed on the
man’s family despite their discomfort with it, his mother literally squirming
at its unmoving gaze, I had to avert my eyes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1wjeZSLw4l8VOYq8iARBsX_B9gTwX6lJlji-Yat8i_mPUyRzlAZ9Bl456_DAH43MbnAN4MpI0GLNNv1NBncKa3BDXSgx1d2AxjEg1sa2YxHIqIqhHqyiQJv9bdxG8AeO3Cm7o/s1600/Sachin+enters+elite+company.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="95" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1wjeZSLw4l8VOYq8iARBsX_B9gTwX6lJlji-Yat8i_mPUyRzlAZ9Bl456_DAH43MbnAN4MpI0GLNNv1NBncKa3BDXSgx1d2AxjEg1sa2YxHIqIqhHqyiQJv9bdxG8AeO3Cm7o/s400/Sachin+enters+elite+company.jpg" width="400" /></a>Sachin, the soft-voiced hero who
survived 24 years of the intensest limelight without a controversy, without a crack
in that quiet cultivated armature, now finally overwhelmed by the forces,
slotted clinically in the hype-ometer along with the likes of Poonam Pandey. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the man, for us,
was more than just a light of world-class genius in an age of darkness; within
that genius, he was an embodiment of an age and its values, humility and
understatement being the foremost. For he assured us that one did not have to
scowl and sledge and elbow to surge ahead, quiet determination was enough. We
were a generation of middle-class kids, humble to various degrees, unsure, no
silver-spoons in our mouths, no uncles who had glimpsed the world beyond our
mufassils, not a modicum of awareness of the world that south Bombay-kids were
privy to, the world that would in a few years suddenly dazzlingly open to
anyone interested via the ethernet. Our only view was a tunnel vision, a looming
pit we had to leap across, our only chance, and our only trick in the bag was merit
honed with, well, quiet determination. Sachin was the embodiment of that attitude
for us, a boy only a few years ahead of us, with more or less the same
resources without, and that is why he meant more to us beyond the craze for the
game. He might have been a colony bhaiyya whose example our mothers cited to
us. He was not the God for us that the media quickly crowned him and we accepted,
but an apotheosis of our own condition. In the days when we stole time from
studies, when the world and our future seemed hung only on the marks we drudged
towards, he gave us a reason to believe. Our identification with his lone-ranging
defiance in the midst of collapses that made Indian batting in the 90’s was so
visceral, almost commensurate with what the Argentinans must've felt for Maradona after the Falklands humiliation. He gave us hope that we had the fight in us, despite our diminutive
stock. (Those who came later would be surprised to know that there was a
prevalent eugenics theory then as to why we Indians always failed, such was the
nadir of our national confidence; and this is the time when Sachin, and before
that Kapil, walked in). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been a small, contained journey for most of us; we
started out desperate to land anywhere, just not fail, and have ended up better
than we thought we would. Hard work has paid, despite those darkest times when
we felt small and unchosen, as a people, in a manner that perhaps is now
forgotten to the next generation, and thank god for that. Even here, Sachin
showed a quiet way of handling success without compromising our essential
selves, our most personal values, without the image-makeover the hollow-men
were demanding all around us. There was always his example, steady and constant
dignity despite the brief effervescent threat from the doppelganger Kambli,
tempting us in the beginning but ending in a weeping heap in an Eden Gardens
pitch in Indian cricket’s darkest hour. But dignity was not what Sachin’s last time
at the crease was about. It was about hype, cacophony and melodrama; it might
very well have been Kambli’s retirement. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since the economy opened up, a whole system of myths – of Bollywood
stars, of Chetan Bhagat, of tycoons –has been foisted on us, that feeds and
grows fat on the money it sucks up from its monopolies of our sensibilities,
and would have us believe that mediocrity is an essentially <i>Indian</i> condition. That hyperbole is the
only manner in which we Indians Coca-Cola enjoy! Those who would keep you ever
stimulated, ever extroverted, ever unthinking and superficial. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was about manipulation. These myths have been out in the
sun for a month now, grinning Suhel-Seth fashion around, lapping up all the
accolades and eyes waiting for Sachin, the real deal. Nothing was spontaneous,
not even the spontaneous tributes, not the commentators’ asides every five
seconds, not the Tshirts, not the decibels, not the dedicated column-spaces
running for weeks. True emotions were elbowed out by their simulacrous
spectacles. In the end, Nita Ambani, India’s richest housewife, got to lord
over it while Sachin’s mother quietly tucks the rosary beads under the shawl
and squirmed and waited for the camera to go away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I turned my eyes away, for whatever the man still meant to
me after being left cold by that din of images and soundbytes, or perhaps a reflex
of a habit of respecting elders, and others’ spaces and privacies in general – I
am still not a voyeur enough. I am the sort of man who finds melodrama
disconcerting, for it sweeps everything, even the genuinely heartfelt, in its
tide and makes it appear as silly and excessive as the cheapest and the most
superfluous. And there are many, many more like me, and will always be. We will
stand with hands folded and smile but refuse to gush out our most hallowed
Sachin moments because someone’s thrust a mike under our chin, refuse to scream
and jostle in front of a camera trained on us. Every emotion has to find its
true form to truly express it, and this is not <i>our </i>form. We refuse to be manipulated, we refuse to share, we
refuse to participate without our inner consent.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe, later, after a few years, I will visit the moment in
a Youtube link, and forgetting the ugliness of this farewell party, remember
the lad once who became a man, Sachin, myself, my generation. And I will
remember, alone, quietly, hopefully smilingly.</div>
</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-63707452349859733312013-11-14T00:25:00.002+05:302013-11-14T00:38:09.996+05:30Yet another campus caper<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Besides the question why are so many people writing without
being interested in writing as such, why are so many of them writing campus-capers?
I can understand the still-hungover mid-twenties crowd, but men in their
mid-thirties? A purely-humorous campus-caper is not an impossibility, but humour
is a craft that has to be painfully learnt, and given that these people are in
too much of a hurry to do that, one can only assume that there was something
deeper in the tales told, an inner necessity propelling the writer. And when
you’ve braved through that bilious prose, at best functional, you wonder if
these vapid frolickings of characters who stir scant empathy really
deserve a retelling, given that the market is choked with so many similar
tales.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I refer particularly to a type of genre, of pseudo-jocks,
even bedroom-jocks, strutting around in the cloistered and secure world of
campuses ensuring 100% placements. Or at least 80%. Make it a campus in a
hinterland where unemployment stares at the actors two years ahead, and there
is always the looming threat of a thukai from a gang of local katta-wielding desperadoes
for showing too much attitude, and then it becomes a story, stark and
viscerally real. Why – because the fear lived is real. Unfortunately, very few
of these men are writing that story in English. When they do, like a writer
reviewed cruelly here before, the reference point is still the college he
couldn’t make through, the fantasied big-dick-waving affairs of their bigger
stop-the-press lives, than the humbler truth of his own.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But coming to these writers of a particular stock, whose various
but not much varied types I happen to be very familiar with – surely it was not
<i>always</i> so facile for them. Let me
state an example here. The third part of Amitabh Bagchi’s ‘Above Average’
examines the friendship between the urbane anglofied middle-class protagonist
and a vernacular small-town batchmate with such raw honesty, that it achieves what every
book must surely aspire towards – making the reader remember, with a lump in the throat.
This bit of the story is no quite as sensational as the prelude to a murder in Mayur-Vihar,
not as cool as the bit on fear and loathing among drummers in IIT, but it is
the bit, unsensational, small, so finely nuanced, that makes me rank it as among
the best campus-capers I’ve read. Even the success of Chetan Bhagat’s Five
Point Someone, that started this trend, was founded on a modicum of honesty of
feelings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Experience is a painful journey. We learn when we fail, we
achieve peace when pushed to the last depth of misery, hitting the sandbed,
kicking and then resurfacing in a new light. Friendships are tested when pushed
to the brink, when the stakes are bigger than a common love-interest, when
there is no rich parent to bail you out, when there is no citadel of the campus
to keep you cushionly secure against the real cut-throat world. And I refuse to
believe that none of this genuine human-condition is encountered even within those
turreted walls by even the most facile. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But that is so uncool. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, no story can be a story without some conflict and
angst. But these are either the superficially-experienced episodes or borrowed.
And like the 3-Idiot’s suicide, never personal enough to transform the facile all-is-well
narrative into a deeper introspection as ‘Above Average’ achieved. The
structure of the stories is rarely organic and borrowed from the tropes
flooding us, Bollywood, Hollywood, MTV. The conflict is always outside and
never inside, experienced in superficial sentiments and not genuine emotions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I return to the question, why, despite the wisdom, are men
writing the same stories that they could have written a decade ago? What about
the collapse of certain dreams since, of encounters with starker realities,
deaths, divorces, of the simple joy of fatherhood? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because this writing is painful (even the joy has to be
experienced with the acuteness of pain) and they’re afraid of pain. Fear is
what they start out to avoid in these boisterous memoirs, and fear is what I
encounter splashed in pages after pages. The fear of irrelevance, foremost. We
were young and cool too, once. Possibilities alive once, now secretly feared
dead and gone forever. The tone of these capers is emphatic –effervescent prose,
generous peppering of caps and exclamations, slangs, fucks, sex they never had.
There are no nuances, only episodes upon episodes. The volume is turned on for
the writer as much as the reader, to drown out that faint inner voice and
really believe in the constructed fiction of their pasts. The human condition
needs no emphasis, only the escapist fantasies where we’re heroes of our stories,
larger than life by dwarfing everything else, the side actors and other
narratives, and that fear within that makes us feel small and uncertain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fear of their present condition. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fiction is an attempt to understand our deepest selves. One
begins thinking one will end at such and such place, but ends up at a nook he
never suspected. That is the purpose of writing. I have read interviews of some
such writers and listened to them gush about how this happened in bits, and
that is the tragedy – they never pushed themselves harder enough from there. Abandon
that first facile draft, as I did eight years ago, and chase that uncertain blink
of light. Writing, like all arts, is a process which you enter as one man and
emerge as a different man, a self you chase to realise within. Like genuine
travel. Unfortunately, these writers are determinedly tourists, they want to
return securely as the “them” they began with. They don’t want to become
anything else. As said before, the stress in their writing is on emphasising
their securely-held beliefs of “Kya-cool-hain-hum” and not transformation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What they do become is this closed self-congratulating clique,
insecure of any criticism, ranting about elitists and, like corrupt demagogues
winning elections after jail-stints, shouting how the people have voted with
their money. There they are, encountered in the new citadels of boardrooms, facebook,
pubs, golf-courses and drawing-rooms, loud opinions, still flaunting, self-promotion
of vapid blogposts, saying what everyone else is saying, doing what everyone else is
doing, only cooler and that witty ironic tone. Ever perpetuating the myths of
their lives lest the slightest drop admit a discordant note – especially from
within. They are the sort who would panic if their witty takes on a headline-debate doesn't get any likes on fb, two in a row.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was wrong. Even bad superficial writing does transform you. You return
an even hollower self for the truth of the experience encountered and denied.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For those thinking of writing their own stories, I have
nothing against any genre. Only bad, superficial writing. Write honestly, don’t
be afraid to acknowledge a wasted draft, imagine that entire spectrum of your
experiences, exorcise, transform. Disbelieve the strident myths we’re
surrounded with – we humans are much more intelligent and deeper than they
would have you believe. The readers have still not forgotten to discriminate
between the genuine and the affected.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-83167501441559741782013-10-09T21:51:00.004+05:302013-10-09T22:20:09.268+05:30Thoughts on why Indians can't read abstract art<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">This post might read out as a little – or
much – on the naive side: it is more in the nature of an inner dialogue, yet
unresolved, a side of an argument.</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-IN">Hypothesis</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">In India, if art has to connect to the
masses, even the more prosperous bunch, one has to go the figurative way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most Indians don’t have the wherewithal to
understand abstract art.</span></div>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-IN"> </span></h2>
<h2>
<span lang="EN-IN">Argument</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-IN">Differences
in reading an abstract vs. a figurative art</span></b></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">To read an abstraction, one has to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">complete</i> it. Firstly, by understanding its
broader CONTEXT, the tradition and time it is made under and that which it
addresses. Then, the EMPATHY to the artist’s specificity – his life, artistic
journey embedded in his works, motifs, the issues that bothered him
specifically. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">Lastly, while CONTEXT and EMPATHY prepare
the gangplank, the plunge is made only when we identify our own AFFINITY to the
work; this is where the abstraction really gets defined into something
MEANINGFUL within us. A figurative artwork contains its own meaning within
itself. Nobody can mistake what a Velazquez or Spielberg stood for. One sees
and enjoys it as an observer, with only that much participation as one might
want to bring. But a Rothko and a Godard have to be ENTERED, to varying degrees,
to be comprehended.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-IN">Why
Indians cannot read abstraction</span></b></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">In India, it is a fact that our knowledge
of our own traditions in art and ideas, and knowledge of our great artists’
lives, is sporadic and thin. Even the “best” of our primary education skip it entirely,
and the mass-media – television, cinema, newsprints – seldom methodically address
it. Most educated Indians have little structured knowledge of any of the
artistic traditions, its dialectics through the ages and what are the questions
its present artists are essaying to address. Those who do, either studied art
in the very few good arts colleges and/or generally come from those few <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gharanas, </i>artists and patrons, in whose
closed cloisters these traditions have managed to eke out a survival despite
the mass indifference. Hence, we lack in the structured knowledge that is
needed to understand the CONTEXT of an abstraction and to EMPATHIZE with what
the specific artist is trying to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">That brings it to AFFINITY. One can, in
principle, be moved by an abstract piece of work, even if one has no knowledge
of the CONTEXT and that which can prepare them to EMPATHIZE with the specific artist’s
mind. It happens – we see something that we don’t understand but are
nevertheless moved by it. We do not yet understand what moves us. This is the
moment when I have heard many artists tell the beginning of their journeys,
especially those who never had the privilege of being born into a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gharana</i>. They heard, saw, read
something, which clicked off something in the core of their being, and thus
began their journey to see the end of it. They seek to understand themselves, that
core, by seeking to understand that which touched it. For these traditions,
like mythologies, contain within themselves the runes to our innermost being,
that which makes us so curiously, so tragically, joyously, human. Polished, and
preserved over generations. We never reach the end of it, because there is none,
but the closer we get to it, the more we understand that inner self whose
ignorance vexes us like a pebble in a shoe. A great artist, great human-being,
told me once that he sought the music that swept him away because of the
meditative aura of the artist he heard that first time, the peace he had found.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">Here, it is important to realise that
knowledge of CONTEXT and EMPATHY, increase the AFFINITY. Which is why these artists
embarked on their journeys. We can perhaps feel an affinity with a silent
strange face on a bus, but a deeper affinity is established the more we
understand the broader and particular context of that face; the affinity when
we see a remark trigger a reaction on a close friend’s face and almost know the
why of it. One might see a Guernica and be moved by it, but one’s experience of
it is no doubt bettered when one understand the various bull horse and lamp
motifs that haunted Picasso through his life, and knows that garret where he
painted it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">That brings us to that pebble in the shoe. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">We Indians, and I know this is a very
controversial statement, lack the proper INNER NARRATIVEs to understand modern
abstraction. What is that inner narrative? – That dialogue within us that goes
beyond the slatted contexts that bind us. Our propensity is to seek closure in
the things around us, closures that reaffirm that we already know. That is why
even the “deeper” literature and cinema that we prefer give the same answers to
those questions that beset us. We seek answers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">communally</i>, by consensus, that doesn’t really challenge the set
ideas around us. I am sure that those pebbles would be there in more shoes than
it appears, but they’re dismissed as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">betukay</i>
doubts, moral failures. They never become big enough to aggravate us further. It
was this slowly aggravating INNER NARRATIVE, at odds with the COMMUNAL
NARRATIVE, the pebble, that pushed the few artists who I know, who came from lower
middle-class income families with no serious interest in any substantial art
tradition. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">This absence of the INNER NARRATIVE is
another question that I struggle with. Reading Indian history through diaries
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nama</i>s and travellers’ chronicles,
I suspect that it might be simply because we never had the political stability
to give us the space to build those inner narratives. We were too busy
surviving through the shifting boundaries and whims of one despot after
another. Kipling believed that “that if we didn’t hold the land in six months
it would be one big cock-pit of conflicting princelets.” And I suspect he was
right in his time. I read about France, that cradle of modern ideas about the
self, and one cannot but contrast its political unity across the last few
centuries to our own. Our Hindu genius has been for survival, and that is why
we have lasted where almost all else, except the Chinese, have fallen to one
form of rigid Semitic simplicity or the other. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-IN">The India that we know really began to be
forged beyond an abstraction in the early years of the last century. And that
is the irony that balks me in this argument here: that while our own nationhood
is possibly the biggest abstraction of an idea, abstraction within us finds
such little toehold of space. But that might also explain why we want to break and simplify this grand abstraction to simpler more-closed narratives, a narrative that conforms to our own closed one. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-32244256291580486752013-04-22T12:14:00.004+05:302013-04-22T12:14:54.402+05:30PR ke liye kuchh bhi karega<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/shootout-at-wadala-stars-want-death-penalty-for-rape-accused/1105923/"><span style="color: #444444;">http://www.indianexpress.com/news/shootout-at-wadala-stars-want-death-penalty-for-rape-accused/1105923/</span></a><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;">"I flew to Delhi in the morning and I read three things in the
newspaper- first about the five-year-old girl case then next page had
news of rape of a four-year-old girl in Madhya Pradesh and another about
rape of a mentally challenged woman in Pune. <b>So, I think its shameful</b>,"
said John [Abraham]. </span><br />
<br />
He still <i>thinks</i>. Doesn't believe it. For all he knows, it might turn out that there is really no shame attached to it. Just a mental barrier.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #444444;">"Our country is represented in international space only by such
incidents. It is a case where we as a country should hang our heads down
in shame." </span><span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
Further onwhat really riles him is the international impressions projected of the country, the PR again, than just the raw fact of this borderless human tragedy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
These are the bloated gases we have crowned. And this is the low standard that PR has hit: marketing films on the backs of rapes of infants.</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-84500430483392825322013-02-26T21:41:00.001+05:302013-02-26T21:41:06.119+05:30Case Solved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /></div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-25962708794909824882013-02-22T09:21:00.000+05:302013-02-22T09:21:29.087+05:30Same letter, different font<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Q: How would Priyanka's character in this forthcoming production nuanced to be be different from all the other characters she's played so far?<br />
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A: The long-tressed perms.</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-58432222613521792032013-02-12T12:04:00.002+05:302013-02-12T13:21:21.906+05:30Lynch first, ask never<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB">One misconstructed idea of democracy is that
it gives opinions the weight of facts, just because they're held by the majority. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We see this in the weak defense Chetan
Bhagat puts for his books’ literary value based on their readership numbers. Here,
his argument contains its own fallacy, the fact that most of his readers are
non-readers, and hence have no basis for judging a book’s literary merit, a
fact he’s made a virtue of like his other mediocrities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This example, of a mass of uninformed
opinions mistaken for a gospel, is still innocuous. It doesn’t indict anyone,
just gives too much credit where it isn’t due.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIex15JvFnrIUHCb3LyvmOeGUV0F_otmrBm4YVsDyyQJhyphenhyphenlR4dcb0EDKOQjxspmpfFZrmP5snreD3suS05rXe-se3PDkcxXbvcZ_0zSrh41ovZ0NX_JpgkCo0_9sxJbqBpJORo/s1600/kumbh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIex15JvFnrIUHCb3LyvmOeGUV0F_otmrBm4YVsDyyQJhyphenhyphenlR4dcb0EDKOQjxspmpfFZrmP5snreD3suS05rXe-se3PDkcxXbvcZ_0zSrh41ovZ0NX_JpgkCo0_9sxJbqBpJORo/s400/kumbh.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">However, what seriously concerns me is this
kind of verdict by polls, because here the ruling is <i>against </i>someone.
There would be very few of us who would have any idea of what it takes to
control crowds of such record-breaking immensities; and yet, here we are,
exercising our right to pass judgment on the arrangements from many, many miles
away, having ourselves never managed more than our brood in the zoo ticket
line. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next we will be commenting on the security arrangements
of a visiting president, should a mishap occur. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Such armchair opinions are natural. We fear
reality’s ambiguities, and hence <i>need</i> to have our fingers wrapped around
everything we see and hear, to feel the reassuring closing tips of their conclusions
– and, hence, most of us have strong convictions on who Arushi’s killers were,
whether a particular person was culpable of taking a bribe or not, and whether
the security arrangement of a city we have never been to, a crowd of magnitude
we haven’t imagined, and having never managed more than 4 people, was adequate
or not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And CNN-IBN instead of collecting the hard
facts from the ground and talking to experts who would know better, would smelt
these shards of opinions into a sword of nation’s retribution, and publicly convict
someone who might or might not have failed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I have a poll for you – Is the CNN-IBN a
credible news agency or a mass-media machinery posing as one?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Go ahead. You needn’t have even heard of
the channel to bang the mallet of your verdict. </span></div>
</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-47913159241383682042012-10-17T13:25:00.001+05:302012-10-17T13:25:32.399+05:30A photo worth ten<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/4" target="_blank">Actress Mandira Bedi paying obeisance at Golden Temple in Amritsar. (PTI)</a><br />
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-84193302322371448232012-10-01T20:53:00.002+05:302012-10-01T20:53:47.102+05:30Hello stranger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I see you on my buddy list.<br />
I know you have a family - and close friends<br />
Tucked somewhere. <br />
But <i>if</i> we ever meet<br />
What will we ever talk about<br />
Beyond the banalities?<br />
Would I ever break<br />
A lunch date<br />
The morning I hear of your death?<br />
Would you?<br />
Are you a business-card<br />
I hoard then?<br />
A scratch-a-back coupon? <br />
Or a broken thread from<br />
The cluttered tapestry of my past<br />
I cannot let go? <br />
The day before my birthday<br />
I change the date<br />
To not receive your wish.<br />
To not be burdened<br />
With these ceremonies.<br />
To not receive these gratuitous <br />
Kindness of strangers. </div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-75589205294608247802012-10-01T19:46:00.000+05:302012-10-01T19:46:34.069+05:30Jaane Bhi Do yaaron remake<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Rohit Shetty, known for his rim-tickling comedies, announced that he would be remaking JBDY at the launch of Anu Malik's new album - Kishore: In my voice. The cast is:<br />
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Rohit disclosed that this is his tribute to the classic and might feature cameos from Aftab Shivdasani, Abhishek Bachhan, Vivek Oberoi, Amrita Arora and other Bollywood legends.<br />
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-29971143268507903722012-09-30T07:54:00.001+05:302012-09-30T07:54:20.260+05:30Pre-planned, heh?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What does pre-planned mean? If it's planned on the go, it's not a plan: it's an <i>improvization</i>.<br />
<br />
On a similar vein, मुझे पहले से पता था can be truncated to मुझे पता था. Of course, the stress is more often used when the speaker wants to really convince you that (s)he had seen the whole thing coming much, much before.<br />
<br />
And what is pre-recorded? Either it is recorded or live - those are the only two options. There is no third unless we can gaze into the future.</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-55856707975860416262012-09-28T19:43:00.000+05:302012-09-28T19:45:26.297+05:30Male married stars have more fun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfMry9mDOdYbt34OzVRgneX1_M72s_QLsQNc6zxtgkbnlcalm2UtXfiLm0seuJe-WlQpU-KO0S2i6IPzqx0OEVooHZt8cKhd1RzbMhVgKEw-qc-A_HMEzGTmvysfQ9jtLZc4yX/s640/Twinkle+Khanna+MicroMax+Mobile+-+Print+Ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfMry9mDOdYbt34OzVRgneX1_M72s_QLsQNc6zxtgkbnlcalm2UtXfiLm0seuJe-WlQpU-KO0S2i6IPzqx0OEVooHZt8cKhd1RzbMhVgKEw-qc-A_HMEzGTmvysfQ9jtLZc4yX/s200/Twinkle+Khanna+MicroMax+Mobile+-+Print+Ad.jpg" width="153" /></a></div>
When we see star-wives in ads, usually they feature alone, with kids, or with their hubbies. It's a golden marketing rule that nothing remotely romantic can be suggested with any other male - and heaven forbid a black-alpha male . <br />
<br />
<br />
But this does not apply to the celebrity hubbies. They can go on scoring goals with girls half their age in umpteen ads and have the equivalent of those black-studs, blondes, press their lips to their grinning cheeks. (See ad below)<br />
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<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/_yufhabBXK4/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_yufhabBXK4&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_yufhabBXK4&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
<br />
Nothing wrong with that really, it's all make-believe, but it's make-believe that sells only one-way and it tells us about our hypocritical society.<br />
<br />
This is one of the reasons why we have so many young teens raping without qualms. Women are either bimbettes or pativrataas, men evergreen studs. I do believe we'll have a lot lesser rapes the day we can sell shoes without these chauvinistic displays of virility or, sell an equal number with Madhuri Dixit or Kajol surrounded by a bunch of teens and winking at the camera as they suggestively pinch the bubble-butts of one of them. <br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-515083357052856482012-09-28T09:03:00.002+05:302012-09-28T09:03:20.639+05:30Kaka नहीं रहे!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/380RajeshKhanna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://www.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/380RajeshKhanna.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/kaka-recalled-by-brazil-after-twoyear-absence/295884-5-21.html" target="_blank">Kaka recalled by Brazil after two-year absence </a></span></span></h1>
<h1 itemprop="headline">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></h1>
<h1 itemprop="headline">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">बहुत देरी कर दी तुमने, ब्राजील!</span> </span></span></h1>
<h1 itemprop="headline">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></h1>
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-90115083627752115462012-09-28T07:51:00.001+05:302012-09-28T08:03:04.956+05:30A picture worth 21<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/5" target="_blank">President
Pranab Mukherjee with J&K Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister
Omar Abdullah enjoying the scenic view of Dal Lake in Srinagar. (PTI)</a><br />
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-22566262601922853412012-09-26T07:58:00.000+05:302012-09-26T07:58:37.935+05:30More Indian Express photographs of the day - Explained<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/2/1" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Police personnel forcibly take away, one of the three fasting members of Tibetan Youth Congress, on the 20th day of their hunger strike in New Delhi. (PTI)</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/5/1" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Navjot Singh Sidhu jestures as Modi waves to the crowd at Vivekananda Yuva Parishad, in Vadodara on Tuesday. (IE Photo: Bhupendra Rana)</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/4/1" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">President Pranab Mukherjee with eminent vocalist Shubha Mudgal after a music voncert by her at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. (PTI)</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/7/1" target="_blank">CM Mamata Banerjee and former Central Minister Sudip Bandyopadhyay at the inaug</a><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/7/1" target="_blank">ural function of Palta to Tallah new water transmission main in Kolkata. (IE Photo: Subham Dutta)</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/9/1" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Villagers of Koothankuli protested against the commissioning of Kudankulam nuclear power plant in the convenier of S P Udayakumar and Pushparayan in Koothankuli village near Kudankulam project. (PTI)</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/12/1" target="_blank">BJP president Nitin Gadkari offers prayers to Lord Ganapati during the Ganesh festival at Bandra in Mumbai. (PTI)</a>
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/7/1" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">A crane lowers an idol of Ganesha into the Bay of Bengal for its immersion during Ganesh Chaturthi in Chennai. (Reuters)</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/2" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Mahrashtra Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar address the media before putting in his resignation, at the Mantralaya. (IE Photo)</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/3/1" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Nupur Talwar comes out of jail on bail. (IE Photo: Gajendra Yadav)</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/1" target="_blank">Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur being produced at Session</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/1" target="_blank">s Court. (IE Photo: Pradeep Kocharekar)</a></span></div>
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-72967038609138760532012-09-25T04:50:00.001+05:302012-09-25T23:00:41.017+05:30A picture worth ten<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/Picture-Gallery/757/27/1" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Lawyer Santosh Kumar shout slogans against increase in diesel prices during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address at International Academic Conference on Economic Growth and Changes of Corporate Environment in Asia, at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. (IE Photo: Prem Nath Pandey)</a></div>
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Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-41264623884356807492012-09-24T07:17:00.002+05:302012-09-24T07:17:43.445+05:30Ek se bhale do<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Have you ever realized midway in a Chinese movie that the protagonist you assumed to be one character, is actually two?</div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-59009579966607664222012-09-23T22:58:00.001+05:302012-09-23T22:58:40.740+05:30O say what's there that waves?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Is that a railway sleeper? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Or a napping infant?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Or some sleeper terrorist cell?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Or a hand, kept under a bum, gone to sleep?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8622651.post-90616603644760759182012-09-23T22:47:00.003+05:302012-09-23T22:47:33.919+05:30The cavemen in us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://brainsyndicate.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/cave-fire-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://brainsyndicate.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/cave-fire-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Looking at
the obsessive overanalysis following any sporting match, it seems to go back to
the cavemen sitting by the fire in the night, and reliving the hunt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /></div>
Bland Spicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18118881822892452579noreply@blogger.com0