[Cross posted on my Wordpress blog]

I have often wondered what makes accomplished people participate in something that would hammer their conscience for the rest of their lives, and I have found myself unable to come up with an acceptable answer. How does a lawyer defend somebody who murdered somebody in cold blood? How does a soldier kill a helpless victim? How does a scientist invent a weapon of mass destruction?

All the answers to the third question are in this book. The byline reads 'A personal history of the atomic scientists'. I was recommended the book by a colleague and even though its not a thriller, I could hardly keep the book down until I had finished it!

The story of the atomic scientists is so intriguing that I would doubt if any other real story would come even close to it in terms of their truth and sincerity, their single-minded devotion to the science, and their shock at the results of their discovery. The book paints these scientists as real human beings, with greed and compassion and dedication and ruthlessness, rather than a human-computer many others would.

The story itself is fascinating -- it begins in idyllic surroundings in Europe, where students all over the world learn from the Gurus about the new emerging field, the great friendship and competition amongst the scientists, the carefree concentration in their research (they would routinely switch their shoes!). It shows how science can bring the world together, cut across state boundaries and get people with extremely diverse backgrounds to work together amicably and solve problems for a larger cause.

Great progress was made in the labs in Europe at the time. However, as the clouds of the second world war gathered, and Hitler started rounding up the scientists, this utopia soon started crumbling. Many had to move to other countries because of their Jewish backgrounds -- and became extremely paranoid about Hitler's plans. At the same time, many threw open the doors to their friends and collaborators -- welcomed them with open arms sometimes even putting themselves in the line of fire. The paranoia, however, grew and it was some of those scientists who approached their governments with suggestions of developing new materials to halt Hitler's stride. They wanted a deterred strong enough such that Hitler would not even think about trying to expand his power base. They were also worried that the dictatorship in Germany might be forcing its scientists to develop an atomic armoury and the race began.

Thus was the Manhattan Project started and the Los Alamos National Laboratory set up. Oppenheimer assumed leadership, and the scientists worked day and night, living in an uninhabitable place, disconnected from the rest of humanity. However, very soon, they were going to be shocked. They had never anticipated that once a weapon is in the hands of the government, it would be obliged to use it. Despite their protests, and their initial baby-steps towards a third-party controlled nuclear certification policy, the worst annihilation of the century was perpetrated by their government.

What we see now of the IAEA and other such bodies was germinated by the scientists. However, some of the scientists in their greed, promoted the idea of the Hydrogen bomb -- the world has never recovered as yet! It was also quite topical because all the Indo-US nuclear negotiations were still going on while I was reading it.

The book is almost like the fall of Adam and Eve -- an idyllic world interrupted by evil forces and disintegrated into the morass that now remains.

[Unfortunately, I found it extremely difficult to find the book. Had to read from an almost tattered second-hand book which I bought at Blossoms]

I had written another of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's in the past in this blog and for some reason, I feel that I need to keep coming back to it every once in a while. He has this amazing ability to write very simple things which touch our hearts. And for some reasons, for me, things that are closest to my heart are oftentimes expressed so succinctly and brilliantly in the Hindi language.

अर्द्ध रात्रि में सहसा उठकर,

पलक संपुटों में मदिरा भर,

तुमने क्यों मेरे चरणों में अपना तन-मन वार दिया था?

क्षण भर को क्यों प्यार किया था?

[Suddenly, in the middle of the night, your eyes brimming with intoxication, why did you give you heart and soul to me? Why did you love me for a moment?]

‘यह अधिकार कहाँ से लाया!’

और न कुछ मैं कहने पाया -

मेरे अधरों पर निज अधरों का तुमने रख भार दिया था!

क्षण भर को क्यों प्यार किया था?

[All I could say was, "Who gave you this right?" Why did you love me for a moment, placing the weight of your lips on mine?]

वह क्षण अमर हुआ जीवन में,

आज राग जो उठता मन में -

यह प्रतिध्वनि उसकी जो उर में तुमने भर उद्गार दिया था!

क्षण भर को क्यों प्यार किया था?

[That moment will live forever in my life. Even today, I feel that passion, a reflection of the bliss you filled my heart with? Why did you love me for that moment only?]

I saw a performance of Vijay Tendulkar's Kanyadaan, directed by Lilette Dubey. One of the best professional plays I have been. The story was strong, a family drama with a strong social undercurrent, and backed with extremely powerful performances. It was performed at Chowdiah Hall, Bangalore, tonight and I am so glad I went!

The play is about a girl born into a political family with progressive views who marries a Dalit man because she sees angst in his poetry, and promise in delivering him from his devilish tendencies. Her fathers lofty ideals have inculcated in her a spirit which tries to find the good in people, and strive to change them. However, after getting married to him, she soon realizes that the devil and the poet-lover are one and the same person, they can not be separated, neither can he be cleansed of the vices (drinking, wife-beating) that are a part of him. In fact, there is a strange malice in him, a sadistic desire to punish her for the suffering his ancestors have gone through the ages. Finally, the father, who has taught her the lofty ideals of humanity and socialism is defeated -- he finds himself powerless before the predicament of his daughter, and has to praise his son-in-law's autobiography, applause spewing from his mouth and poison dripping from his eyes. His daughter tells him how his great ideals, his hope in human innocence is faulty, and how she is a victim of his faith in pursuing this promise.

If the story was already strong, and relevant even now -- 25 years of its setting (Pune in 1981), the acting lived up to the script. It is difficult to pick out any of the actors, but if I could, I would pick Joy Sengupta for his portrayal of Arun in the first Act. The unpredictable savage beast-like portrayal of Arun sent shivers down many a spine. Rajendra Gupta as Nath was brilliant as well -- cracking jokes with suavity, as well as handling emotional scenes brilliantly. Lillete Dubey as the Mother should have got more lines, and should have been more cathartic in some parts perhaps, but considering she directed the play as well, it is too much to expect. Radhika Apte as Jyoti was also good, but perhaps not in the same league. She was just a little monotonic. The set (a living room) was very good, and the lighting and the sounds were just perfect!

What stood out in the performance was Joy Sengupta's portrayal of Arun in this first part and Rajendra Gupta's humour -- very well intentional and very witty. The monologues were very well done with excellent usage of lighting and music since not once did the audience feel that a dialog was not required. The great thing was the acting was very real -- nobody seemed to actually be acting, rather they just fir into the scene (except for the son in a few places). They cueing was just perfect, not once could somebody feel that it was really not happening. The first half was just fabulous!

If I would have liked to change some things, they would have been in the second half. The brilliance of Joy Sengupta in the first half, some how became a very predictable malice in the second half. It would have been good to keep some shades of good in him till the end. In the scene where Arun comes to meet Nath, Joy's acting seemed overdone. Another thing I would have liked to see would have been more shades of Arun in Jyoti when she comes to talk to her father in the last scene. While the strength in the girl came out very well, and her determination to stick with the destiny she had chosen for herself as well, the impact on the audience would have been so much higher if she had inculcated some of Arun's unpredictable savageness instead of just a steely determination. Lastly, Rajendra Gupta's final whimper should really have been a wail -- a heart-rending purgatory wail which could make a person cry. (A woman crying doesn't have so much impact because the audience expects it, but a man crying can just destroy mental peace)

An amazing play, amazing script, amazing performances! I am out of words... I just wish I can now see it in Hindi, or better still, the original Marathi.

[Some more details here]

Chowdiah Hall was brimming with youngsters yesterday (Sat, July 21) when Evam presented the Madras Players' production of Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone. The theatre group is based out of Chennai and the book was adapted and directed by Nikhila Kesavan.

At the outset, I must confess that it can never be easy to adapt a book like Five Point Someone to stage, and I was pleasantly surprised. Five Point Someone is the story of Alok Gupta, Ryan Oberoi and Hari Kumar, three freshers who make it to the hallowed Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi, from completely different backgrounds and vastly different takes on life. Alok has a family to look after -- he is the only hope for his paralyzed father, school-teacher mother and a simpering sister. Ryan is ubercool, with parents earning a dollar salary, but indifferent to the needs of their child, and as a result, the son has turned into a cynic, a brilliant cynic. Hari is a rolling stone, and most of the moss he gathers is what Ryan feeds him. The three who become friends right in the first few days of their stay during a ragging incident, decide to take life light, enjoy the 'best' years, and end up as five-pointers, and barely make through the semesters, who are supposed to be scorned at, humiliated in class, and as a result spend most of their time outside of it rather than in it. They however, find time to fight with each other, make up, fall in love, lay inebriated on the institute terrace, get caught stealing question papers, and finally make it out of IIT. The story is well known -- the book having sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but capturing the magic on stage was not an easy task.

It is at this point that one needs to commend the director and the actors. If I said that the audience was in splits, I would be undermining the amount of noise the auditorium generated. The book is in first-person narrative style, and the director stuck to it, introducing the author who was recounting his story as a fellow actor while we saw the actors on stage. The play was full of punch lines -- about how students lived their life at 'Sassies' (the all night eating joint), the inability to understand the female species, the altercations with the professors -- and the audience raised the hall with their claps at each of them. The directory was also able to portray the emotional parts well especially the dichotomy in Alok's mind. The sets were minimalist and most of the action was limited to a single room. The lights were well-handled except for a lapse or two in the entire play, which really commendable since they were used very heavily since the two likenesses of Hari were together on stage a lot of times. I am afraid I didn't much notice the music except for Floyd's 'Brick in the Wall' before the beginning and after the end.

Sarvesh Sridhar as Alok was the pick of the actors. This monologue about being a 'loser' was really well done since at no point the audience felt that it was dragged. Also, little things like always running when he got on stage (and near perfect cueing) made it a treat to watch him perform. Abhijeet Mohanty as Hari was faltering, as the character demanded. However, his movements felt a little too unnatural and forced at times. Praveen Bharatwaj as Ryan was blase, but one hoped to see something more exciting -- and the maverick didn't come out that well. S Vidyuth as the author was detached and the high-point was when after Hari and Neha have sex, and the author comes on stage and blushes! Uttara Krishnadas as Neha handled the romantic scenes quite well (which were well applauded), but the emotional scenes became a little drab. The other professors did their small roles quite well, esp. Shankar Sundaram as Prof. Dubey.

While he play was very well adapted and very well presented, I personally felt that two of the scenes they had left out should have been there -- the initial ragging scene, and the scene where Hari goes to give his Viva having had a few rather large shots of Vodka. Those two scenes would have been superb, and I was silently wishing that they would be there. The little things which as a hostelite I have lived and experienced, and the (perhaps not so much) pressure at another such institute that I have seen, really made it a personal journey.

 What I also really appreciated was that the organizers were kind enough to give me (and my friends) tickets to see the show (divine intervention) and one was able to establish a personal rapport with a few members of Evam. And I came back with a bag full of chocolates as a prize for being super-insistent for the tickets! Thanks guys! I wanted to give a tempo shout (a celebration of victory) of my college after the play but sadly my friends were not willing.

A great show -- and I am sure everybody who saw it absolutely loved it -- and went back feeling much lighter and happier. And the intense stomach pain after the play due to all the laughing -- as they say hanste hanste mera pet phat gaya. A must watch! Technorati Profile

I have a big complaint with the producers of this movie. It should really be called Bheja Unfry, because if your bheja is really fried, there is no better movie to unfry your brain!

Vinak Pathak is a genius. I think he has long had great acting talent, and everybody acknowledges it, but this is one movie where he is really liberated and does justice to the actor in him.

It is certainly not easy to play an idiot. The comic timing has to be spot on -- a Herculean task! And Pathak is Hercules. From the first scene when he is introduced in the bus, his presumptions on the co-passengers -- stretching over them, engaging them in uncomfortable conversations -- to the way he removes the scrap book from the plastic cover making sounds of plastic creasing all the way is excellent. This dialog delivery is brilliant -- he seems to use exquisite Hindi in a number of places, and precisely in the places which would drive others crazy.

Vinay Pathak really walks away with the cake. Rajat Kapoor as Ranjit Thadani is good, but pales in comparison. Ranvir Shorey has a short and brilliant cameo as Asif Merchant. The way he is introduced -- watching an Indo-Pak match patting his stomach which is half covered with his baniyan was hilarious. The other actors fail to make any mark. Milind Soman is a real disappointment. Thankfully he wore a beard all through, because otherwise noticing his always-wooden face would have been child's play (it still is!). Sarika has a mostly inconsequential role.

The movie stands out due to its script. However, it could have been made much more crisp. The scenes where Pathak is not there are so low-energy that you almost doze off. The editors ought to have used their scissors more often. Still, a different movie -- and a comedy movie after a long time which dares to be different and gets it right!

Oh, and if you watch it at a time when your bheja is really fried, it is a superlative therapeutic.

Unfry your bheja!

Watched Butter and Mashed Bananas at Ranga Shankara today.

Butter and Mashed Bananas is a play written and directed by Ajay Krishnan, peroformed by Haraami Theatre Group (Googling for them sadly brings up pages full of expletives). It is the story of a boy born to unusual circumstances and unusual parents. The boy grows up to become a world famous author, attends pseudo coctail parties and becomes a politician who tries to speak "the truth". The play came highly recommended with many awards and performance at the Prithvi Theatre festival in Bombay.

The incisive humour was refreshing. The play takes a dig at the pseudo-ism that has permeated our lives, from feminists to fundamentalists. The boy is born to a passionate and illicit relationship between a communist-feminist and a fundamentalist-right wing, and speculation about his political inclinations is rife even before his birth. His impending birth seems to be full of so many choices that he obstinately refuses to come out of his mother's womb. The story then weaves along to the adult, an internationally acclaimed writer, celebrated by the media, lapped up by pseudo-intellectuals. There is a long tirade against the censor board, and then the boy finds a political voice, which gets drowned in the (again illicit) romance between the Prime Minister and the Leader of Opposition. Free speech is curbed, and so are the words and the lexicon, voice is killed.

What was really good about the play was the satire, a comedy poking like a pin at our society and tickling the audience. Politics, moral policing, pseudo-intellectualism was debunked, splitting them open, audience splitting in laughter. The acting of the guy who played the father (I could not find this info anywhere on the net -- they should really have a website -- it sounded like Gunjan to me) was amazing, excellent comic timing, great stage presence, and an outstanding performance overall. The other characters were also well played, but it would have been better if the mother had been a little more effiminate :)

The use of music was also great, it gets absorbed in the flow and was non-intrusive. In fact, it makes the performance all the more entertaining. The actors were wearing ghunghroos on one of the feet, and a lot of abstract art made it very absorbing. The props were few but well used. In fact, in most cases were abstract objects made out of a sheet of white cloth.

Most of the play was very well choreographed, the actors moving in perfect sync, in both body and voice. It was evident that it had been practiced well. In fact, a lot of places, the actors got away with their acting because the choreography was well done. At the same time, a few places, one got the feeling that the choreography was forced, the dance movements intruding the context, confusing the audience. It also seemed puerile at times -- excess of anything is bad, if it is good choreograhy.

A very good watch overall, an excellent way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, and with a little bit of editing would have been perfect!

Another one from the LittleMag stable. This one's a play called Crossings at Benaras Junction by Kaushik Basu. The play is about a professor of philosophy, Siddhartha Chatterjee, who wins an international honour, but instead of being elated, is instrospective and lonely. He seeks the love of his life, and his life seems incomplete. There is another thread about a travel tour operator, who somehow unwittingly tries to use acronyms of international agencies (wuch as WTO and GATT) for his agencies, whose sole aim in life is to make money, and not ethically. The two stories come together in the end.

What I loved about the play was the subtle humour, the word-play (WTO and GATT), allusions to well known literary works (Lady Chatterjee's Brother). There is sophistication in the humour, for instance there is slight paradox brought out when Siddhartha counters June's statement about being god-fearing with a quip from Vivekananda -- "There is no sin bigger than fear", and whether Siddharth speaks for both sides -- whether bluffing is good or not.

Gupta ji is an interesting character, I guess it would be fun to play him!

However, I felt that a lot of places the play sagged in energy. The sophisticated humour notwithstanding, one needs to have some energy to sustain audience's interest in the play. Also, the climax was a big disappointment. As we went towards the denoument, one got the feeling that the whole play that had been built up so beautifully, came crashing down like a pack of cards. I really don't understand what the need of a Bollywood style ending was!

On another note, I find myself reading a lot of articles from Little Mag and enjoying them. I guess I should just buy a subscription.

by W. H. Auden

I have always liked W.H. Auden's poetry. It gets under your skin, and disturbs you, even though it is funny on the surface. All of us would remember The Unknown Citizen, a verse that describes what modern human civilization has been reduced to, where men are mere numbers, record names in the state file cabinet on whom the state maintains statistics, but no face, no disposition, no countenance.

Digression enough. Coming back to The Shield of Achilles, which was published in 1955 and which Auden won the National Book Award. The poem is a take on the passage in Book 18 of Homer's Iliad, where the smith god Hephaestos makes a shield and armor for Achilles at the request of Achilles' mother, the goddess Thetis. (Achilles' armor was lost when his friend Patroclus wore it into battle and was defeated by Hector). In the original poem, Homer described cornucopia inscribed on the shield, the planets, gigantic cities, fields full of produce, cattle (heifer) and so on.

Auden takes a very different view. Thetis looks for symbols of wealth and power, but she finds desperation on the shield. Instead of crops and full fields, she finds 'A plain without feature, bare and brown', signs of desperation all around, troops lined up for battle without a twinkle in their eye, 'an unintelligible multitude', men who respond not to invocation, but to 'a voice without a face'. She wants to see sacrifice and worshipping, but instead finds 'three pale figures were led forth and bound/ To Three posts driven upright in the ground.' This reminds us of Christ, 'That carries weight', and for whom there was no help. But unlike Christ, 'they lost their pride/ And died as men before their bodies died'. She wants to see beautiful men and women sashaying across, athletes competing for the grand prize, but all she finds is a street urchin killing birds, chaos and anarchy, rapes and fights, a world where word is meant to be forgotten, and where it was unimaginable that 'one could weep because another wept'. The great warrior Achilles, the man slayer, could not live long. Not when the world around him was such.

The poem has a lot of reflection of modern times, times of poverty and anarchy following the Second World War. The contrast that the poet draws between the idyllic world of bravery and self-sacrifice that Homer had described and the modern world with its disregard for rules, for honour and for pride, where men are but war machines without a thought for why they move to battle, and prisoners are executed without any thought for their weakness, is exceptional. The poet has matched word for word, phrase for phrase, every word of Homer that alluded to honour has been decimated to a symbol of our troubled times.

The verses below have been copied from here. This article was very helpful for understanding, while a good account of Auden's life in short is given here.

    She looked over his shoulder
   	   For vines and olive trees,
     Marble well-governed cities
   	   And ships upon untamed seas,
     But there on the shining metal
   	   His hands had put instead
     An artificial wilderness
   	   And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
   No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, 
   Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
   An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line, 
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
   Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
   No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
   Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

     She looked over his shoulder
   	   For ritual pieties,
     White flower-garlanded heifers,
   	   Libation and sacrifice,
     But there on the shining metal
   	   Where the altar should have been,
     She saw by his flickering forge-light
   	   Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
   Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
   A crowd of ordinary decent folk
   Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
   That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
   And could not hope for help and no help came:
   What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

     She looked over his shoulder
   	   For athletes at their games,
     Men and women in a dance
   	   Moving their sweet limbs
     Quick, quick, to music,
   	   But there on the shining shield
     His hands had set no dancing-floor
   	   But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone, 
   Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
   That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
   Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

     The thin-lipped armorer,
   	   Hephaestos, hobbled away,
     Thetis of the shining breasts
   	   Cried out in dismay
     At what the god had wrought
   	   To please her son, the strong
     Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
   	   Who would not live long.

A woman who had been with her told me that Ma ran the fastest that morning. She pushed at the burgeoning crowds the hardest. She cursed the Devil the loudest. Like some hysterical lioness whose cub was being snatched away. But in that crowd, there were people far more desperate than Ma. People whose sons were worse than abortionists. They, too, wanted to attack and vanquish the Devil with all their might. These very people, these desperate, god-fearing fathers and mothers of sinners, were the ones who ran over Ma and pounded her body into the Holy Ground.

...

I see him often. He too works in Colaba. Has been a salesman in a shoe-shop for fifteen years. Sometimes, we take the same train to work. If we spot each other on the platform, we wordlessly board the same compartment and wade toward each other through the working-class crowd. Our actions would seem comic to an acquaintance. A father and son going through all this trouble to be near each other in a packed Harbour Line train, only to not exchange a single word. Like sulky kids.

...

I’d need a careless fuck-you attitude towards everything around me, including my own body, to throw away everything I have. Or else a greedy, gigantic embrace of everything life has to offer and spend my time doing, getting, doing, getting, getting, getting, getting…

No, people like me get the rawest of deals. We do our jobs. Live moderate, upright lives. Don’t drink. Don’t stone ourselves on bits of paper dipped in hallucinogenic acids. Have no burning ambitions.

Disturbing

A very good piece of writing by Amit Chaudhuri - Surpanakha.

First reaction after a long haul-flight -- Wow, there are so many people in here :)

Over the past couple of weeks -- I have observed silent sidewalks and empty elevators. Redmond is a exceptionally serene place -- all roads have mowed lawns on either side with green grass glittering in the (very rare) sunshine, rows upon rows of fairy-tale wooden houses along a lake, vehicles of all shapes and sizes moving obediently, trees and leaves of all hues and a rare snow-fall. What really gets to me is that there is nobody using the sidewalks, the order and marshalling of every object, the silence on the roads, a stupid TV murmuring when you get home. It gets to me -- what utter waste!

So, you can imagine, as soon as I got back, I could not wait to go and walk around the market in Malleswaram. A sea of people walking on the roads (sorry, no sidewalks), shops bulging with people, fragrances of dahlias mixing with sweat and squalour wafting around, garlands and vegetables overflowing from the wooden carts, a temple bang in the middle of the entrance of the lane with a priest alert on duty to boot, noises of all kinds -- cars sqealing, men mongering, women bargaining, children chattering, the bazaar sounds -- music to the classically trained Indian ears (or perhaps the right phrase is trained classic Indian ears), cars zapping around putting back your trust that driving is a skill and not a routine. Sometimes their zeal gets to them like the autorickshaw which almost stamped my feet and woke me up from my American-Cross-The-Road-On-White-Sign dream).

It's good to see people around, hear the noises, experience India. Ah, I feel alive again!

ईंधन

छोटे थे, माँ उपले थापा करती थी
हम उपलों पर शक्लें गूँधा करते थे
आँख लगाकर - कान बनाकर
नाक सजाकर -
पगड़ी वाला, टोपी वाला
मेरा उपला -
तेरा उपला -
अपने-अपने जाने-पहचाने नामों से
उपले थापा करते थे

हँसता-खेलता सूरज रोज़ सवेरे आकर
गोबर के उपलों पे खेला करता था
रात को आँगन में जब चूल्हा जलता था
हम सारे चूल्हा घेर के बैठे रहते थे
किस उपले की बारी आयी
किसका उपला राख हुआ
वो पंडित था -
इक मुन्ना था -
इक दशरथ था -
बरसों बाद - मैं
श्मशान में बैठा सोच रहा हूँ
आज की रात इस वक्त के जलते चूल्हे में
इक दोस्त का उपला और गया!

- गुलज़ार

Indhan literally means fuel. The poem starts off describing uppla, or cow-dung cakes used to feed the fire in the villages (and cities) of India. The end however is philosophical because in the larger picture what are we humans but the fuel to the fire of life. The multitudes whom we know as brother and sister, father and mother, spouse and friend are drops of oil in this yagna of existence. All we do is fuel the fire in the crematoriums. A translation is given below:

When we were young
Mother splayed some dung
On the wall
Called it upla

And we
Put faces on,
Eyes, ears
A nose
The upla with a turban
A cap
My upla
Your upla
We named them as we pleased
Chosen after our hearts

The playful sun
Spread its warmth each day
On our uple
And when the chulha was lit that night
We gathered around it and waited

Whose turn was it going to be tonight?
Who would burn to ashes?
There goes Pandit
That was Munna
This was Dhashrath

Years later
I'm at the crematorium
Tonight, I watch
As another friend is lost to the burning chulha
One more upla reduced to ashes

The poem has been shamelessly lifted from Kaavyalaya and the translation is from The Little Magazine. I liked both the resources immensely.

Have also been spending time reading Jhaansi ki Raani (Subhadra Kumari Chauhan), Maa Keh Ek Kahani and Arya (Maithili Sharan Gupt).

Saw this lovely quote at an Orkut profile (which I have copied without permission):

While I can run, I'll run,
While I can walk, I'll walk,
While I can only crawl, I'll crawl,
But I will always move ahead.

Ok. Another Day went by. And Saint Valentine didn't smile.

But lot's of fun stuff to do. Running all over the building creating puzzles and serenading included. Much more interesting than the mush people do (reproduced below for the convenience of my readers ;-) -- A really funny article). And what Google did, which was certainly not as intelligent.

Back to V for Vendetta (2005) for the rest of the year.

The Hindu: Love was certainly in the air

Bangalore: Mush was the dominant flavour in Bangalore on Wednesday when the young crowd went all out to celebrate Valentine's Day. They were seen with their Significant Other soon after the day broke. Walkers and joggers in both Lalbagh and Cubbon Park tactfully averted their eyes, which was tough because every tree, bush, grove and even bench were filled with couples. In fact, as the day progressed, these spots were even shared by two and three couples strapped for space.

Those who couldn't ensconce themselves in a quiet spot decided to hit the road. Gift shops and coffee shops did brisk business as couples exchanged trinkets and sweet nothings.

As for roses, their prices tripled, and one could not choose the colour.

A single-stemmed rose wrapped in cellophane did not come for less than Rs. 25. Balloons, red please, another youthful favourite, sold for an inflated Rs. 28 apiece.

Mobile service providers made a killing. One glum Romeo was heard complaining that his message took over one and a half hours to reach the other end by which time he had received a frosty phone call.

Some married men actually found themselves buying roses and chocolates for their surprised wives.

A few days back I suddenly remembered Robert Frost's Mending Walls (which I produce below). I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because for sometime now I have been thinking of the walls we build between us, which hampers communications, free flow of thoughts and ideas, a clarity of the canvas on which we all work. How many times would you feel comfortable talking to a complete stranger? How long does it take to 'break the ice' even between people who seem to work together, stay together?

With all the 2.0ing of the world around us, has it actually brought us closer to people than farther away? How much do you know about your co-worker, room-mate, common friend? What has been your sibling upto for the last fortnight? Where is your best friend from school?

Walls have always been built. Perhaps they are required. Why don't I write everything about myself on my blog? But then, with the increased avenues of communication -- the internet, the IM, the blog, the social-network, the mobile phone, SMS -- perhaps we don't even get to understand and instrospect where we need a wall and where we don't.

Maybe I am just crazy.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The new milestone of Windows Live mail is neat. I see significant improvement in speed. At the same time, my gmail account has been behaving erratically, and I am really considering if I should mirror my mail accounts! I think both Gmail and LiveMail provide ExIm of contacts as well as forwarding of emails.

If you haven't checked out Windows Live mail yet, do it now by visiting http://mail.live.com. See the announcement of the M9 at the WLM blog.