parotechnics

This week's Mid-day column, coming on the heels of the world cup (although not about the world cup, not about cricket etc.) Just about our enthusiasm for censorship and such stupidities on the one hand so we can ignore how bigoted we really are and how much easier we find it to hate than to love. I don't know if that's just the human way as some tend to argue. I know that I do equal number of things from anger or annoyance as I do from enchantment. So if those who express hate are expressing love someplace, why aren't we hearing of it more? Or do we not see it as love, because we are prejudiced against the thing they love. Meanwhile, not quite connected but I found this amusing link - pride in being censored - while searching for an image of a CC. Took the image from a rather nice site called Doc Bollywood btw.

I was on my way to Gorakhpur in a train, stuck on a bridge over the Ganga in Kanpur, trying to write a column on train travel, watching men on the parallel bridge playing Holi - 8 days after Holi, as is the tradition in Kanpur (a tradition begun since 1857 when the Brits banned Holi said my friend), when I heard that Elizabeth Taylor had died. It was a shock, she seemed like she'd just go on... This beautiful nude portrait of her was released only after her death. You can read more about it here .

One Women's Day, many years ago, my friend Jabeen and I went to a Women's Day dance party. It was really a superb thing - it was in some pub type place in Mahim, the entrance fee was reasonable, the music was not bad and there were lots of women there, mostly who identified with feminism in an organised way, but perhaps some friends and fence sitting types also. On the whole we had a lot of fun and it seemed like a really nice way to celebrate Women's Day - different than the same old Women's Day marches. But as often happens, this sort of thing goes to the other extreme. I yearn now for those mixed up marches. Jabeen and I again went to a club on Women's Day along with our friends Anjali and Nidhi. It was a fund raiser, with rock bands. It was utterly depressing. It was expensive. A long line of people who looked like they had wandered in from tryouts for extras parts in Sex and the City stood outside. What is this with the FROCKS??? There was no connection with Wo...

Despite my best intentions I never do manage to update this blog on time and I somehow think it's not nice to neglect it - not sure why, not sure if others feel that way about their blogs. Yet Facebook has become such a default page and often you leave out friends who aren't on there in your news and sharings. I really don't like that - conformity to an interface should not determine social exchange surely. And there is a strange passivity about all that social networking stuff, whereas somehow this requires a little more involvement. You have to at least MAKE a post, and there is something meditative and respectful about that. Meanwhile after a very very very very hard working year I took a small vacation (much to everyone's shock). Just 4 days on a quiet beach. Slept a lot, swam a lot, read a lot. I'd like all of life to be like that. So that weekend the column was obviously about the pleasures of traveling alone - the necessity too maybe... And here's the b...

So for the last three months life has been one long slog. I can't remember when I've just been in such a tunnel of work and nothing but. Anyway the result is a new film - more about that in another post. Meanwhile for Spacebar and others who've scolded me for my slackness in updating columns, this is a list of links to all the ones I've written since Mr. B's below. I think I was so thrilled that he had complained about it that I felt, chalo, ab ho gaya. To list them, will no longer have a vulgar feel because unlikely subjects will then appear together, instead of a week apart, but here goes. On the snobbery of some cult fictions (sci-fi, say) over other pulp (Mills and Boons) On the strangeness of identity and the stranger still Unique Identity project On Koffee with Karan and the episodes with Deepika/Sonam and Anil Kapoor/Sanjay Dutt On censoring films On girls liberated from one thing, but perpetrators of another On the absence of hobbies among Maharashtra MLAs ...

My column in Sunday Mid-day about Amitabh Bacchan's desire to copyright/patent his voice. There's no point asking how much money is enough - none of us know the answer to this question. But have we got the pitsiest public figures in the world or what?

My column on watching Bigg Boss - or rather not watching it.. with a mistake, poor Deepak Parasher got called Pankaj Parashar (although the latter may also feel he is a poor thing) Of course now there is a stay order, so I am still not saved but hanging somewhere in between