ROFL - Rowling on the Floor, Laughing....

Kind of late in the day to do a 'deathly' review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? Or is this the right time, now that the initial euphoria is over, I mean?

Here's a book and a series that has involved the world real-time into a fictional world. In the past ten years, we have kept pace with the author's imagination - happily gone wherever it has led us. I recall coming back from a trip to the US, telling all and sundry here in India, you've got to read Harry Potter. I'd bought five copies of Chamber of Secrets (that was the one out those days) along with Philosopher's Stone, as the de facto gift for everything - birthdays, weddings, home visits, whatever. And trying to explain it was an amazing children's book series though it was me recommending it; also a book for all ages...

JKR's confidence by now, her seventh in the series, borders at an arrogance - that we Harry Potter lovers would be waiting with bated breath, would've read the books in the right order, and know all about Polyjuice Potions, Expelliarmuses, Disillusionment Charms etc. No need to explain and no need to try and come up with any other new surprises that a magical world gives full leeway to its maker to bring about. Recall the amazing idea of Tom Riddle's diary? Pensieve? Time Turner? And in this Deathly Hallows, forget coming up with the new stuff, she seems to have kedged a line off Pulitzer winner Toni Morrison's Tanner lectures of 1988 ( wherein Toni refers to one of her novels as 'Book can be seen to open with its close'). Uh oh...
Kavya Vishwanathan, you are no longer alone. One, a does-not-know-any-better teenager and the other, a nouveau billionaire with a host of secretaries to do the background reading up, and provide the appropriate warnings wherever necessary.

Also why try to keep the book lean and crisp any longer, when the world - mainly consisting of children following the proverbial Pied Piper, fawns over every extra word put in? So we get 600 plus pages of a vista that seems either to take its readership for granted ( it meanders along even while the book seems to move at breakneck speed) or made to order with a Warner Bros. future for itself - wont this Big Battle look great on screen? Same with the Gringotts seige that is suspiciously like an entertainment ride in one of the modern 'Disney Worlds' (can already imagine this ride in the future 'Harry Potter World' coming up). Humour is absent even when the Weasley twins are around - and often, when we are exhorted by the author to LAUGH since the characters on the pages are laughing till their bellies ache or something like that (page 119: they were all laughing so much...) bewildered we smile at the joke that escapes us.

And she puts Deaths (the capital D is my interpretation), into the story with the attitude of - 'haven't I told the world I am writing for a mature world and not merely for children'? Haphazardly, and helter-skelter. When a Weasley brother dies - come to think of it, one of the ones we loved best all through, it is with this same sanctimonious underlying feeling - did you think I'd leave you to get away scot-free, she seems to be saying to the hapless readers, caught in the throngs of the imagination of a You-Know-Who author who has risen Phoenix-like in the past decade, to capture and ensnare our minds. There is no real mourning for this character. And no naming of children after him either, in the nineteen years later last chapter. With all the other dead guys having got their place in, with the names of the next gen, this most deserving bro is left 'out in the cold'! :-(

A last chapter that seems to have a close-to-reality feel paralleling JKR's personal life - as the brood expands, and the babies start to grow. A fellow blogger Uma Damle has written it well : the unexpectedly expected ending rather than an expectedly unexpected one. Also, wonder what a feminist reading of the book will come up with... Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and Fleur do all the cooking as and when there is any cooking spoken of, and the men - well, they go out to work. Also, in the last chapter, please note, it is men who do the driving, no mention of women, however 'brainy' they may have been through the long journey so far.

Anyway, the wait - from July to September, was worthwhile. I did not have to buy the book after all :-) My nine year old niece Ishani has kindly lent her personal copy of the book to her much much older aunt, just a few days ago. To me, this has been a well-timed borrowing along with being down with a viral attack ... in other words, no rapid reading, and consequently, more time to mull over JKR's plans for our imagination.

And a glimpse into hers too. Why in the world does she want us to accept that if a Horcrux has a bit of your soul, you don't feel a modicum of anything while it is being destroyed, but just sharing a thought within your mind, like Harry does with You-Know-Who, is excruciatingly painful.

Or why she believes that a mom can protect a child only till his 17th birthday. Is it because the law so decides in this non-Muggle world? The eons-old maternal instincts actually follow the bureaucratic decree of current times!

Perhaps, what does it matter, eh?
While the Galleons roll in, into the Gringotts of the Muggle...
ROFLOL.

Chak De India

My eleven year old daughter’s obvious delight was infectious. Ultimate compliment to Yashraj films is now paid: She wants to ditch basketball, that she is pretty good at, and go for hockey. And loves the idea of bashing up the 'bad guys'. At McDonald's no less, her mecca of gourmet food.

Am impressed with Yashraj’s finger on the Indian pulse of today:

• Pride at firangi lehraoing jhanda
• Our cultural symbols e.g. we value and respect age, little matter if its incomprehensible to others : The coach of the international team asking, during a match, in frustration: ‘Which one of them is Didi?’
• Bharat is a word consigned to the history bin. It is 'India' all the way.
  
• Girls who at last look endearingly normal and not the Yash-Chopra-filmy looking
• There is a time and place for romance – and it is not during the ‘winning that is everything’. Same goes for chiffon that gives way to khadi-types sarees.
  
• Women stating their wishes and needs – that men are beginning to pay heed to, but it’s a long haul yet… (Indian Men versus Women - Nah, women can't win!)
  
• Recognition that Madrasis is a phrase we use to club Telugu+Tamil + Malayalam+ Kannada in one; that we think of those from the North-East as ‘foreigners’; that we have new states like Jharkhand. But then, ultimately, in yashrajese, the North still rules... Punju sounding ‘Chak de’ is the phrase to go with. While some of the girls have been allowed to keep close to their real life names, Sagarika Ghatge becomes Northy Priti Sabarwal.

How many heads were needed to create an Indian Political Crisis?

The 'burning issues' we desis face... Ram setu et al!

Hopelessly proud of my nephew-in-law Vikram's talent.
Do see his blog 'point blank' - http://pointblank2006.blogspot.com
A staid TCS engineer when otherwise occupied...

RGV's Aag is a success...

Was reading Sidin’s blog ( http://sidin.blogspot.com)– his hilarious take on RGV's Aag.

Here goes my theory about a movie that one just MUST have an opinion about...

I can’t quite recall a period in the past two or three years when someone, somewhere was not carrying a story on it. The movie has actually succeeded in what the movie industry is conventionally here to do – provide entertainment. And how. Not just for a few hours, but over a period of a few years.

Let me theorize without ever having seen the movie (and God forbid, ever having to see it), that RGV who I’ve never met (and God forbid... ), has always been made out to be this supercilious and arrogant son-of-a-gun who ignores every single tangible individual in his life - his sister, his actresses & actors, and the media goes adoringly hysterical about a guy who is so atypical of the cultural norms of seeking social reassurance. Well, once in a while, it is within the realms of this new quasi-reality that the director must get his diabolical come-uppance from those who actively partake of his life, so freely supplied, as much as his movies, that one buys tickets for.

‘Reality shows’ have gripped the nation. The media definitely, but even the producer-director allowed themselves to be carried away by their own hype of build-up. The Reality was whatever was the media representation of the movie representation of a movie made in 1975, which was a representation of an Akiro Kurosawa movie. The Quasi-official truth Q = r of r of r of R.

So finally, the co-conspirator media, feeding and fanning the fires of stories of the remaking of Sholay turn into perpetrators, and cannot contain itself at RGV’s misfortunes of a movie gone dud. It is time to be the vultures to the kill (and blogging fits in nicely in this scheme of things as well) to pick the bones of RGV's A dry, at leisure.

In this culture industry , his 'Factory' made Aag cannot die a quick death, as long as it is not allowed to rest in peace. It's having a very successful debacle just like its long build-up.

So How Do You Respond to that 'pesky' call?

‘You bloody f&*%# b*&^%##, go jump from the window, that's what I like to say’. This was intoned by one of the distinguished guys, salt-n-pepper hair et al , with a great deal of relish, in a perfect staccato public school accent.

To which the other guy in the golfing attire responded. “No, yaar, for me ‘You dare call me again and I’ll have you a r r e s t e d’, when said menacingly, works best”.

We were in a Club in South Bombay (roundabouts here we say South Bombay, never South Mumbai), where a cocktail conversation was in progress.. This was about that unsolicited sales call received yet again on the cell phone. From banks, credit cards or insurance companies.

But, hold on....

In all likelihood, weren’t these very same corporate honchos, or their MBA pals heading these companies? I was curious. Had they ever received a call from their own bank / credit card/ insurance division, selling it to their own Big Guy inadvertently?

Sheepishly, one of them admitted, yes. Worse, it had happened while traveling internationally. This was received with much glee by the others, in the party.

And out there, the souls in the BPOs making the calls, have the same letting-off-steam sessions with one another. I was at one such place in New Delhi doing a study on something or the other, and in the open plan office, one guy who had just been at the receiving end, put his phone down and mimicked loud laughter. The next two quickly waited till their own calls got over (next 10 seconds), and in the cubicle, with low voices asked ‘kya kaha usne?’… What did he say?

‘Yeh wala naya hai. Bolta hai, pichhla boss ka number deta hoon, uska phone laga, chutiya’. ‘This is a new one. Says, I’ll give you my old boss’s telephone number, call him, you bastard’

What they were doing was, chalking up the responses, and by chuckling and sharing it with one another, reducing its potential sting. This was a necessary survival tactic to be able to make the hundreds of calls they needed to, all through the day. Being at the receiving end of a steady stream of invective was the rule rather than the exception. Not very different from the Club set, who were using this occasion to say the unmentionable loudly not just to the telephoning persons, but later, to one another also. A chance that the usual ambience belonged to, rarely gave, in the polished lives led. This was the 'carnivalesque' time obtained, when they could truly let their hair down.

And just like we all recognize the call that needs to be given a complete ‘put-down’, from the real bank person we need to speak to, urgently, the folks making these calls have their own systems too, to figure out which way the call will progress. Both ways, it is just the first few seconds when this direction is worked out. Do we modulate our voices to be welcoming while receiving that call? Or should we be suitably brusque? What is it in the intonation that we quickly recognize often in a split second? Is it the singsong chanting style of talking (irrespective of whether we are being exhorted to go for that credit card or insurance, in Hindi or in English – my friend tells me that in Bangalore, it is even in Kannada nowadays) that sounds so pat and standardized? Is it the way they jump in and start to speak 30 words in 10 seconds? Is it that they call just when we’ve found that rare moment to snatch a snooze in the middle of the day?

Once I began mulling over this question, I decided to allow the next pesky call a longer stretch than usually given, before I finally put myself on the ‘Do-Not-Call’ list. Strangely enough I did not get any such call for over a week (moral so far: If I had only sought that next call, I may have been able to avoid it altogether).

‘Good afternoon, this is Sonal, I am calling from Standard Chartered Bank…..’ came the much sought after singsong voice this morning.

‘Oh, hello! How are you’ I said, delighted at the opportunity presented.

Silence… even the pesky caller must have got alarmed. She had her own template that helped make a judgment of the ‘client’ and I think my response did not fit in with the usual ones she receives, and that they in the BPO cubicle, have learnt to laugh over/ ignore/ hate.

'Yes?' I said most encouragingly, 'You wanted to sell something, didn't you?

'Yes', she said somewhat doubtfully.

Hmmm, must be a new recruit. 'Yes, tell me what are the details', I repeated encouragingly.

'You have a credit card with us, and based on your payment performance, we wanted to upgrade you....' again her voice petered out.

'Go on' I said. Her voice had not yet perfected that absolute singsong tone that five thousand calls in two weeks can bring. I pegged her as being in her first week at her job.

continued on page 3, column 2.....

nah - to-be-continued …