He's watching you!

I vividly remember a prank that my brother and his-in-cahoots wife played on unsuspecting us in a log cabin at Lake George, USA. The panic attack that I experienced at that time was matched only by my ensuing embarrassment for not having guessed their plan! The game was simple, we would all ask questions to this online intelligent entity (www.peteranswers.com) who would answer our every question, but the catch that we missed was that my brat of a brother would be the privileged one to type in the questions; turns out he keyed in the answers under our collective noses! And there were three other very intelligent ones in that very room, I might add!

The feeling that there was this invisible phantom following us around was the spookiest feeling I ever got! But guess what?! It’s been following me around again- this time while browsing the internet!

Sometime back I compiled a wish list on a prominent Ecommerce website, of all the games and toys that I would like to order for my children when time and resources permit. And lo behold! Suddenly every website I now visited had got wind of my ‘private’ wish list. They pester me everywhere I go like a whining child who has learnt of my intentions of buying him a gift!

Something that reminds me of a presumptuous Search Engine that very helpfully offers to correct the spelling of my search, even though I may be completely confident of the content!

Or that officious auto correction feature on my android OS phone that interferes every time I key in a basic Hindi message. A ‘Kya’ becomes a ‘Kay’ and ‘ka’ turns into ‘is’! After some diligent training my previously anglicised android phone is now semi- literate in Hindi!

Or the spell checker in every word document program that prods you to spell the word 'behaviour' as 'behavior', lest we deteriorate into British English from American English!

This over-the-shoulder AI trend is quite disturbing. Consider cookies stalking your every movement, piecing together bits of an individual ‘you’, all to facilitate the work of canny marketers - that should make Edward Snowdens out of most of us who value our privacy above everything else! Not for us the sneeze and change FB status lifestyle! Neither the ubiquitous selfie clicked on any given opportunity!

As everything else there is a flip side to this. One could argue that tracking consumer behaviour on the internet has led to the most benefits for the customer herself. Before we appreciate that nebulous need completely, the internet cookies have done that thinking for us. Isn’t that allowing for a better, easier consumer experience?

In an increasingly materialistic and consumerist society- Yes.

But speak for yourself- I would probably run away and take refuge like the famous Bengali actress- Suchitra ‘recluse’ Sen!

Discord in harmony!

If you have ever sung as part of a choir, you will experience the need to fit in, to modulate your voice and tone to be in harmony; a feeling not unlike the strain felt by a teenager who buys the latest Nike shoes or the latest iPhone. It takes a while for the novice to realize that along with the accompanying beats, words and music, there is space for individuality. This taut relationship between uniting togetherness and rippling below-the-surface individuality is what makes for an engaging performance!

This constant battle between being one and united as one is played out in numerous arenas. A group of amateur Garba dancers offers a glimpse into their multifarious lives. The synchronous feet matched with every beat and the arms swaying to the lilting song, cannot hide the different colours. The restrained sari clad housewife ever mindful of her pallu, the playful teenager with limbs flaying in all directions, the maverick who dances to her own beat, the thoughtful young lady on the cusp of maturity ......all in harmony, playing out the garba in tandem, in surprising congruity! A microcosm at play!

The world is all about non-conformists revealing blasphemous great truths to the regimented troops that abound. It took a Snowden to question conformity, a Newton to ask an obvious yet unasked question, a Gandhi to challenge the notions of superiority of force.

And yet we are obsessed as ever with suffocating order and discipline in schools and colleges. ‘We don’t need no education’ screamed the rebels but we looked away. It’s convenient after all to herd children together and guide them through the same rigmarole day after deadening day. The same chants and the same rhymes repeated year after year, long after London Bridge and all the accompanying references fell down!

Mercifully they break away at play. Anywhere in the world, you give me a park with a slide, and I’ll give you a child who climbs up and refuses to merely slide down! Rules be damned! A plastic cricket bat turns into a microphone, a guitar, an athlete’s pole vault, a road for miniature cars, a gun, an impromptu tray, a cash counter for an imaginary retail store, a propped up tree- what have you not!

In a world where more than ever before, we need creative politicians, scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs...and more and more out of the box thinkers, where are we going to get our saviours? We’ve boxed them in!

'Barfi' - a movie review

Barfi – Review of the movie

For me the touchstone of a good movie is the lingering hangover- a simple barometer, the longer, the more intense, the better.

‘Barfi’ hits you like the aroma of freshly ground coffee as you step into a café. It stirs your senses like fresh air let into a damp room.

No matter the blatant copying of the Charlie Chaplinisque jokes, they are still so appealing and delivered with such panache by a brilliantly versatile Ranbir Kapoor.

A fragmented yet taut storyline set in shifting time frames, grips you from the start. Ostensibly, the story of a hearing and speech impaired boy (Barfi, played by Ranbir Kapoor) set in a sleepy hill station, Darjeeling, in due course, Barfi becomes a revelation of what ideal love should be. It depicts the innocent and fresh love that blossoms between Barfi and Jhilmil, an autistic girl portrayed remarkably well by Priyanka Chopra. Their love speaks of the desire to dance together to the beat of the other, to be able to see the world through the other’s eyes; a raw pure, primal attraction between two souls, where being together, always, is all that matters. Unhearing yet perceptive, Barfi senses Jhilmil’s elation with the dance-drama performers. In the final moments it becomes a thoughtful wedding gift!  Barfi stirs those long forgotten emotions - the desire to laugh, run and play, unrestrained and uninhibited like little children in the open countryside. A freshness and innocence long lost in the worldly cacophony. Perhaps, the hearings impaired have rightly more perspective on what a more fulfilling life should be.

The director cleverly gives the audience a view from both Barfi’s as well as Jhil Mil’s side. The blindening confusion of a noisy insensitive society is reflected in the blinking diffident eyes of an aptly named Jhil Mil. (She prefers to decipher the world inverted in a glass ball.)

And the keen perspicacity of a man who does not hear the vehement denials of a concerned caretaker guardian, but gauges the restless body language of a man who is lying. The powerful scene leaves you speechless!  

The backgroundscore is appropiately sprightly, to keep up with the verve of an upbeat Ranbir and solemn with the pathos of some truly poignant moments.

Barfi is a heart rending love story of a differently gifted young man and a woman. Or maybe no - Barfi is an eternal love story. Period.

 

My memories of a trip to Dang Forest, Mahal

Standing on a balcony of a forest rest house, overlooking a muddy river, one can hear the rustling leaves whispering a forgotten secret, the humming drone of a thousand insects, the rousing breeze that sways the green branches of the canopy over me and the constant gush and the mad rush of the brick coloured river breaking into white waves at the check dam...unspoilt, virgin, untouched by the decadent insidious fingers of commercialization. Open your eyes and one can see in the distance, tall trees draped in green foliage, stoically standing sentinel over a boundless, immeasurable ocean of greenery, with ebbs and troughs of grass and leaves rippling in the wild wind, the sun playing hide and seek with dusky, boisterous clouds........Mahal is Nature's lap indeed.

The intermittent chirping of invisible birds, a flight of birds cackling in unison, their unexpected crescendo, the calypso beat of a an elusive woodpecker,...forest ants marching down a green railing bar, all adding up to a magical symphony conducted by nature. I'm not the first one to be in the throes of this rapturous beauty, and I hope I'm not one of a dying breed! There are others happily ensconced in their simulated world of Angry Birds and Temple Runs!

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The population here mostly consists of marginal farmers with small plots demarcated by rickety fences. All day long one can see villagers (mostly women) doubled up, draped in dowdy saris, planting paddy saplings with back breaking ardour. Men ploughing the fertile fields with bulls abound. All along the way, wonder-eyed, half naked little children arrest your attention with their out-spread palms, innocent wonder in their eyes...many already burdened with siblings astride their gentle hips.



My Umbrella!



Does verdant nature have to be hand in hand with heart rending poverty? With nature's bounty abounding one wonders why can't the fruits of so called economic development percolate down to these adivasis? In an era of a vibrant industrialized Gujarat, one realizes that growth is perhaps never uniform. The alluring beauty seemingly camouflages this harsh truth. The irony is that this untouched canvass of beauty exists because of the protection that it receives being part of a protected forest reserve. 

You want to roll on the green meadows, like 70's heroines!

 

The river following a tortuous path amidst lush greenery. View from the top of a somewhat dry waterfall.



I am dreaming.... of a land of regained opportunities....of flying unfettered in sapphire skies....a phantasmagoria of aspirations and ideals.