Rushdie in The New Yorker

Salman Rushdie's in fine form with his short story for The New Yorker this week. It makes me long for my relative youth already.

Senior endured the multiple health problems of the very old, the daily penances of bowel and urethra, of back and knee, the milkiness climbing in his eyes, the breathing troubles, the nightmares, the slow failing of the soft machine. His days emptied out into tedious inaction. Once, he had given lessons in mathematics, singing, and the Vedas to pass the time. But his pupils had all gone away. There remained the wife with the wooden leg, the blurry television set, and Junior. It was not, by a long chalk, enough. Each morning he regretted that he had not died in the night.

Go on, read it.

Open Magazine: Why election symbols are weird

Among the 59 symbols released by the Election Commission for this year’s elections were a batsman, a frock, a shuttlecock, a fork, and a doli. The EC does not create symbols, it only approves and standardizes their appearance. For unregistered parties and independents late to file their nominations, it offers this list of free symbols. “These symbols were created a long time ago,” says KF Wilfred, the secretary. “They were done by someone who knew drawing.”

While the exact source of these symbols is unknown, Wilfred says the EC has a large number of images to choose from – the result of over a thousand candidates filing their papers during a 1989 Tamil Nadu election. Over a thousand symbols were created. “We’ve trimmed that list significantly to make it more relevant,” Wilfred says. “If one guy wanted one glass, another wanted two glasses. If one wanted a mango for his Mango Party, another wanted an apple because it confused voters. There was also a cycle and a motorcycle.” Also removed were symbols that made sense only in one state.

The EC now has a list of approximately 200 to choose from (The choices are also rather limited. Which could lead to interesting combinations, such as an alliance between the parties with the frying pan, the gas stove, and the gas cylinder).

The list is an example of political correctness taken to extremes; nobody could claim to be offended by any symbol without sounding silly. How to be annoyed by a diesel pump or a comb, or a road roller? And this, when the EC releases symbols, is the body’s mandate. “A symbol should not have religious connotations,” said Wilfred. “It should not depict violence, nor should it have animals and birds.” The body took a call on animals and birds in 1990 after petitioners complained that parties were using dead parrots and doves on a string during their campaigns. “Nearly everybody with an animal symbols agreed to use a new one, but you still see the elephant and the lion around.”

South Park. Here. Time to migrate.

South Park is now in India. I know this because my peaceful early morning ride was cut short when I noticed a giant hoarding of Kyle's behind. This has to be among the darkest days ever.

Open Magazine feature: Shahrukh's throne

Alright, so this story isn't exactly journalism. Khan didn't want any part of it. His acquaintances said they needed his permission. That left his rivals, industry neutrals, and professionals on the periphery. Rivals will say all sorts of things without evidence, so we didn't go there. Neutrals provide small but revealing insights, so we included some of their thoughts. But the professionals really shaped this story. Their criticism was even, they were fine with being quoted, and they made a distinction between the actor and the brand. One reader asked what was new about this story, and I found myself agreeing with him in part. The idea, however, was to take what was being said and create a solid narrative. I'd like to think that we managed that, although I'd remove lines such as "This isn't Raj's time anymore". That line sounds so whiny it's not funny.

By Rahul Bhatia and Madhavankutty Pillai, with inputs from Manju Sara Rajan and Rubina A Khan.

On December 12, 2008, a day when most visitors to the cinema had a Shahrukh Khan movie on their mind, an inspired marketing idea reminded them of a forthcoming Aamir Khan release. Behind the counters, passing out tickets for Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, were cinema staff with military haircuts and a shaved parting identical to Aamir’s appearance in Ghajini, out a fortnight later. Anywhere else this would be seen as shrewd marketing. But not in Bollywood, where the idea caused grave offense. Shahrukh used the incident to point out, "I think it is a good strategy. You take the biggest brand in the country that is SRK and then use that platform to publicise yourself. I think Aamir rocks. The problem is that I cannot use any another brand because there is no one bigger than me".

Lately, Shahrukh has found it necessary to repeatedly inform readers and watchers that he is the country’s top actor. Not by the time-tested method of performing in a series of hit films or pushing the boundaries of his art, but by saying it out loud, over and over. His declarations are reported faithfully, with all possible meaning extracted and magnified by the media. Taken in isolation, he sounds like a mouthy upstart boxer: say it, and it shall be. But he isn’t. His proclamations sound as strange as a doctor insisting he’s number one (“I am the biggest, meanest, pediatrician in the country”). And so, each new announcement makes the case curiouser and curiouser: why does a man who has achieved so much have to reiterate this? What started it? Is this insecurity? Why does he sound like he is No.2? Is he?

Shahrukh, friends and acquaintances will tell you, was a star the first time they saw him. He was sharp and ambitious and willing, and said he would be a star; and in that respect, not much has changed. He listens intently, he watches carefully, and he sums up people quickly. When he enters a room, people say, he energises it. A cluster of strangers will soon be friends. He can make a journalist feel special. He’s open, and he’s witty. He remembers faces, if not names. In short, there’s something oddly Clintonesque about him.

Whatever he does, his people believe in him. Who are his people? Anyone, absolutely anyone, whom Shahrukh has touched. His employees are paid well, his assistant directors are charmed by his spontaneity and attention, and his sponsors adore his commitment. These are grown men and women who know that life outside Shahrukh’s sphere of influence isn’t pretty, and they love him for it. Speak to them and they all say the man’s a game changer. On the sets he isn’t a star. He’s an evolved version of you and me; a father, a mother, a friend, and a councilor. He treasures loyalty and repays it. Juniors say he looks out for them. They eat out of his hand. They feel for him something that borders on genuine love. Not for his work, which can be cheesy, but for the man. If you know how love works, you’ll appreciate how stunning the achievement is.

Therefore, a conversation today with his assistants about him feels like a conversation about two people. The man they love, and the guy they don’t understand in print. The pattern is a familiar one of denial (that he uttered the words), followed by rationalising (he said he’s No.1 because he has every right to. Because he is). When it comes to it, they’re as beaten as anyone else. Why would Shahrukh keep insisting on it? Well, there’s a theory.

A journalist recalled a conversation where he once mentioned to Shahrukh how good Hritik Roshan looked in Kaho Na Pyaar Hai. “He only did it for a second, but he recoiled physically. It’s the only time I saw him react that way.” The theory goes like this: competition makes Shahrukh Khan behave unusually. “SRK has always been a very insecure person despite his phenomenal success in the business,” says a person who has interacted with him. “His desire to monopolise the number one spot is almost megalomaniacal. But as much as he is a shrewd player, he is also a very sensitive and thoughtful person to those he loves, having given them apartments and cars and many such expensive gifts in the past or done cameos without charging his superstar fees.”

His supporters say the allegation of insecurity is nonsense. Wouldn’t anyone behave this way? But what makes it strange is that in his highly image-conscious profession, Shahrukh seems to have forgotten a basic tenet: stay on message. The CEO of a sports and celebrity management company, who requested anonymity, says that there was a time when Shahrukh used to come across as someone very humble. His appeal was, in marketspeak, reliability, friendliness and accessibility, and it had reach. Aamir had trust, but not reach. This is image, the thing we react to internally, well before it is manifested in our conscious opinion. In our minds, Aamir was the better actor but the more reserved one – unlike Shahrukh, who acted out mad fantasies with abandon. This, the CEO believes, began to change two years ago when two things happened. “One, everything became about Shahrukh the celebrity. It began with Kaun Banega Crorepati. Meanwhile, Aamir’s steady run continued. He opened up to the media. He became more likeable, and because he chose his films selectively, he came across as being more credible. And his reach increased.” People began seeing more of Aamir because he let them. And with every passing snipe or defence of his territory, they saw more of Shahrukh than they wanted to. “He forgot that the guy they liked was not SRK the megacorporation, but SRK the individual, the Raj they all knew.”

The Eternal Raj

Raj. Every Raj and Rahul comes to understand this fact early in life: his name is not his alone because Shahrukh appropriated it a long time ago. In small towns the names are an implication of romantic love. In large cities they imply filmi love. Shah Rukh holds on to the two as a man holds on to his youth. In Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi he was Raj Kapoor, a smooth operator serenading his unsuspecting wife. It was the 14th instance in his 65-movie career where he played a character with either name. This is hardly a coincidence. Fourteen years ago he performed his most famous role, as the romantic Raj Malhotra who wouldn’t elope without parental consent. Critics say he hasn’t left Punjab since, even as Aamir has taken greater risks and exposed himself to new challenges.

While Shahrukh took on simple romances that allowed him to be Shahrukh, Aamir re-invented the tapori, and played a cop in a smart thriller (before two absolute turkeys). Then Lagaan happened. It was first offered to Shahrukh. He declined, Aamir took it, and then came the Oscar nomination. Ever since, Aamir was typecast as experimental, while Shahrukh was himself; safe on familiar ground. But in the invisible side of cinema, the business side, Shahrukh was a fascinating innovator. He foresaw the possibility of a man becoming an industry. On the screen, however, he was becoming a cliché, a ghost from the past. So unexpected were his turns as a scientist and a hockey coach in Swades and Chak De India that fans aren’t sure what to make of him. One said he didn’t know which Shahrukh was the real one, and that is a revealing comment. He isn’t seen as an actor. He’s a good guy, a friendly guy, who made it big. A film like Swades throws off people because they’re trained to see Shahrukh the personality, not judge his skills. That is why Chak De was remarkable; it became bigger than its main actor and told a story. It seemed the kind of role Aamir would take on.

“That there is competition between the Khans is no secret. Both Shahrukh and Aamir are great strategisers when it comes to making their movies succeed,” says a producer who went with a script to both actors. It was an unconventional role. Aamir didn’t bother to get back but Shahrukh called the man over for a meeting which stretched half a day. After a couple more interactions on the phone, Shahrukh backed out. “Possibly because the character was just too unconventional for him,” says the producer.

Many industry people don’t agree with the notion that he plays safe. They say Shahrukh’s daring lies not in his roles (although his choices here aren’t too shabby they say, pointing to Paheli and Rab Ne…), but in his decisions. He produces movies with his own money, they say, unlike Aamir, whose productions are in large part financed by PVR, the cinema chain. “He puts his money where his mouth is,” a producer and friend of Shahrukh says. “Now that’s risk-taking. Now he runs a sports franchise. Of course he’s No. 1.”

What is a Brand?

The curious incident of the dog on Aamir’s blog now feels like a strangely silly chapter, despite Aamir’s protestations of innocence. However, people close to the matter say he was taking the mickey. That he’d had enough with Shahrukh, and decided to give it back. Shahrukh responded, and Aamir escalated the jibes. They read like the kind of entertainingly inane argument siblings have (“Your elbow’s on my side”). These statements were made only in part jest. After one lob and parry, Aamir complained that Shahrukh had lost his sense of humor. The bone of contention was over who could claim the number one status. Aamir’s supporters had a line of four straight hits to back them, while Shahrukh, even with only three hits in 17 releases (including special appearances), mystifyingly insisted on being called number one.

But then he isn’t just a movie star. He does introduce himself as a film maker. So there’s some logic, however skewed, at work. Perhaps for Shahrukh, he’s No.1 in an empirical sense. King of everything. Which fits in nicely with the ‘megalomaniac’ tag that seems to go everywhere he does. A trade analyst says, “He was a very calculating man from the beginning. The diversification into IPL is a sign of that. He’s even started making television serials now. He’s got a Marwari brain. People say he takes Rs 30 - 40 crore, but no one really knows what he takes. He’s always been a very reasonable man. Only in the last 3 to 4 years has he hiked his price. Otherwise till then he was charging Rs 2 to 3 crore, when he could have taken much more. Nowadays, he takes some percentage of the profits. He’s the only actor who reads the financial newspapers daily. You can’t fool him.”

A producer says, “You’re looking at Ghajini. Tell me how much it made. 280 crore? 290 crore? (None of these numbers, readers have to note, have been confirmed.) Well, what was the film’s budget? Look at the return on investment. Rab Ne had a greater return on investment than Ghajini. Why do you think people want to work with him? He gives you everything. He wants to be completely involved. And your film is guaranteed to make money! Of course he’s No. 1.” No room for doubt, then?

Just when you think they’re about the acting, they tell you, no, it comes down to money. Of course. “Shahrukh first tasted blood with Main Hoon Na. He had produced movies before, but nothing had worked like this,” an acquaintance says. “Only then did he decide to go full tilt with Om Shanti Om.” Perhaps that’s what Shah Rukh means when he says he’s No.1. Everything he touches turns to gold. It explains the gold on his team uniform.

Advertisers say he’s the biggest brand by far. A creative head who worked with Shahrukh says, “I think SRK is still the biggest name for brands. The reason is that SRK’s stardom is a self-propagating machine. And it has an accumulated effect on his stardom and fame. He’s sheer eye candy. Aamir Khan makes you think, SRK makes you watch. He has what we in advertising call the ‘screensaver syndrome’, it doesn’t mean much, he’s there and you’ll keep looking at it.

“The great difference between Aamir Khan and SRK, and the reason why SRK is the bigger brand is that, SRK’s fame is not derived from his movies. He’s gone beyond that. AK is very strongly associated with his movies. Aamir’s standing with the audience and their desire to emulate him draws directly from the success of his films. I don’t think that holds true for SRK. He’s beyond the stardom machine. Like Sachin’s fame is no longer associated with how he played his last innings, the brand SRK is no longer associated with how his movies do.”

But is branding about money? When you take money out of the equation, and include the many intangibles of art, suddenly Aamir seems to have no equal. That is why a photojournalist who covers Bollywood says that Aamir is clearly up there. In his mind, Shahrukh has some distance to cover. “It has to do with success and the kind of movies which he makes successful. Take a role like Taare Zameen Pe, in which he enters the film just before the interval. Which actor in Bollywood would possibly agree to such a role? And yet, because of Aamir the movie went on to become a superhit. Whenever Shahrukh has tried to do any sort of offbeat roles, he has inevitably flopped.”

There is comfort in familiarity because managing your own image is easier when you are in familiar hands, hands that belong to friends and people you’ve known for a long time; they’re as good as family. They know what he can do, and know what he isn’t capable of. They know what makes Shahrukh unique. The actor, otherwise resistant to a change in his acting technique, relaxes. He’s in familiar territory. He can be himself with friends. This is where Aamir scores over his rival. The only image he needs to maintain is his own -- as India’s most experimental actor.
And that’s why there’s a gradual change in perception.

Some Stars Fade

Ask yourself a few questions. Why do you visit the movies? Would you watch a movie for its star? Would you watch a movie without a star? It isn’t much of a choice, but you know the answer. Now rewind to fifteen years ago and ask yourself the same questions. That’s why Shahrukh doesn’t make you feel the way you used to. This isn’t Raj’s time anymore. There’s more to life than love, which is why Swades and Chak De worked for so many people in cities (Audiences in NY and London don’t count; they’re still living in 1994). There’s autism, and hockey, and anterograde amnesia (not to be confused with retrograde amnesia, which a bump on the head in the 1970s gave you). That is why, as the public image guy put it, “This disconnect between who Shahrukh is and who he was hasn’t yet spread outside the cities. But if he keeps this up, it will.”

The small circle he works with keeps his image intact, but that image, a result of his obsession, hasn’t kept up with the times. The circle is claustrophobic. In fact, few movies could compare with the intense suffocation of Rab Ne, which revolved around chiefly three characters. It feels like a miscalculation. Audiences don’t expect you to declare yourself numero uno. Not with the run he’s been having. It feels misplaced, like he’s holding on to something slipping away. Audiences know. They just know.

If Aamir is No. 1 today, and there’s no dearth of support in that corner, it’s partly due to Shahrukh’s unwillingness to come to terms with a basic truth. There’s a point when spontaneity on tap is no longer spontaneity. There’s a point where every exuberant wave feels practised. There’s a point where you say so much more when you aren’t being witty. His subordinates love him because they know him, and they know he’s a great guy. That’s because he’s natural with them. But with educated audiences – people who live in a complex world - he gives them unnatural simplicity, a forced youthfulness, a tight t-shirt and orange pants, all in the name of the grand entertainer. There’s no formula. It’s common sense. You expect an adult to act his age, so what if he’s a star?

Open Magazine feature: Struggling scriptwriters

Yes, it's been done a thousand times before, but I tried to approach this story differently. What if it wasn't a vignette, or a few short portraits of watchmen and drivers trying to make it? What if it was about one man? That way the struggle could be magnified. I'd like to think I nailed it thanks to Vishwas, who gave me one heck of a story. So much of meeting the right people for a story comes down to dumb luck.

Debobrata Vishwas, a tiny, nondescript man with a bounce in his step and a script in his satchel, came to the Film Writers Association one morning to hang around. Every writer with aspirations to film has to visit the dowdy, lightless office of the association. Here, writers meet others like them. Many are here to insure themselves against outright intellectual theft. Some are here to chat and catch up, hoping to pick up leads. The association is decorated with pictures of dead greats and the nearly there. It is administered by middle-age men in white kurtas and safari suits who begin sentences with “Kabhi Kabhi…” in their free time, and point out application form errors with the severity of government employees. Scripts and lyrics, once officially registered with a round stamp, are returned to the strugglers.

Vishwas was beyond all that. He became a card-carrying member seven years ago, and he knows the drill well: Don’t show your script until it’s been registered. And even then. He has no pull. No vasta. He’s just a driver. Like Vishwas, there are others, among them watchmen and building painters, with ambitions to film. There’s too much competition, he says, surveying the crowd in the corridor. The greatest threat to Vishwas is people like him.

Vishwas was 12 when he decided to run away from Bengal with two friends. No place looked more adventurous to them than Bombay. But the plan, like all schemes hatched by sincere twelve-year olds, had its share of logistical errors. The five-rupee budget for Bombay evaporated before he reached Howrah Station. His friends disembarked in Calcutta, forgetting him.

At Victoria Terminus, Vishwas was amazed by Bombay’s bustle. He wandered in his half-pants outside the station like a truant schoolboy until a concerned Bihari asked about him in rudimentary Bengali, the only language Vishwas understood. The Bihari threw Vishwas a lifeline and the boy began work in a tea stall. Everyday he rose before the birds and slept after midnight for 200 rupees a month. As he grew more comfortable with the local language, Vishwas started communicating with customers the best way he could: he told them stories. Of kings and queens, and ghosts and myths. Something told him they loved his stories.

He soon left for a hotel on Mohammad Ali road, where life began to look up. In the day he washed plates. At night, Vishwas slept under a street lamp beside one of the many unhappy goats that live there, often straddling one to read a newspaper. He was helped by men who ran neighborhood stalls in the day and shared the pavement after dark. He began writing stories, slowly at first, but kept at it. With a pen and notebook Vishwas would sit at Hanging Gardens, where regulars would later come to ask him, “So, Vishwas, aaj kya likha hai?” They heard his stories, and told him he would go far.

One day, as he washed plates and rattled off another story in a hotel at Girgaum, a buddy in the kitchen asked, “Oye, you tell us these stories, and they’re good, no doubt. Why don’t you make a script out of one? I’ll tell you what. Write one, and I’ll show it to my friends. Mera Film City mein connection hai.” Patriotism ran high at the time, and the story, about ordinary people and terrorists in Kashmir – with some masala thrown in – was titled ‘Awaaz’. “Khatarnaak tha. I read it today and cannot believe I wrote it. Even my friends cannot believe it. Bhayanak tha.”

Nothing came of it, but Vishwas anyway took off for Film City when he could, Awaaz neatly wrapped in a bag, where he found no producers or directors, only jaded production staff who told him: “Big deal. Thousands like you.” This he heard in practically every exchange, and it broke his heart. In this despondent and lifeless state, Vishwas met his first vulture.

The man told Vishwas that he was Mani Ratnam’s khaas man. That he was with Maniji everyday, and that, incidentally, Maniji needed a script. Vishwas wrote a love story with some violence thrown in, for he knew Ratnam made movies about love with violence thrown in. It is not clear whether Ratnam saw the script. Vishwas doesn’t think so because the khaas man disappeared.

“This is a dhokebaaz line,” Vishwas says. “But what else can you do? You have to trust people. You have to believe they will be good to you, because if there’s no faith, nothing will work for you here.” Vishwas learned two things: butter up the middle man and the people around your target, but only give the target your script.

When we meet in early December, Vishwas looks preoccupied, not to mention glum. The week before, he resigned his job to pursue his interest. A small tailoring enterprise at Bhindi Bazaar (cuffs, collars, buttons) saw to the costs of living, but there’s nothing like good solid work, he thinks.

Soon after, his luck turned. Deepika Padukone’s driver, who Vishwas happened to know, alerted him to an opening that could change his life. Vishwas clinched the job. When I called, he all but screamed, “I got my big break! I’m Kunal Kohli’s driver!” Kohli, who gave the world Hum Tum, Fanaa, and Thoda Pyaar, Thoda Magic, asked Vishwas to work for his father.

Kohli’s father – an experienced hand – heard Vishwas’ latest story. He worked out an informal deal with Vishwas about an idea that needed developing. If what results is of an acceptable standard, the senior Kohli will show it to his son. Vishwas was taken, and dove into the masala romance when he wasn’t driving. Then, one morning, Kohli’s father was hospitalised. Vishwas thought he was a goner. “It takes years for something to come up, and only one moment for everything to disappear.” Luckily for Vishwas, the father recovered.

There are experienced writers, like Vishwas, whose hopes are tinged with cynicism; men and women who have seen too much to blindly trust anybody. They hope and believe not because they want to, but because it is all they have. Then there are the naïve ones, fresh off the boat, the Vishwases of 16 years ago.

One morning outside the FWA, Vishwas and a writer from Bihar got talking. “Hum geet likhte hain,” the writer declared.

“Achcha,” Vishwas said, “Aap writer hain.”

“Ji nahi!” the man thundered. “Hum geetkaar hain! Anyone can be a writer,” he said, eyeing both of us. “I write Bhojpuri lyrics.”

“Whatever it is that you do, you need help in Bambai,” Vishwas said. “You need someone who knows people.”

“I need nobody. I have to forge my own path.”

“Good luck with that.”

For all the talk of modernity, the film business remains a feudal and interconnected place where one phone call does more than years of waiting outside offices. This has not deterred thousands of would-be writers outside the industry whose belief in their own ideas is unshakeable. They are convinced that doors will open if they’re given one hearing. That the unseen gears of fortune will turn when a producer – any producer – asks for their story or lyrics. There’s the excise inspector from Allahabad who can’t figure out why Prasoon Joshi hasn’t called back yet, and is pitching reality show concepts to Sony and Star Plus (with revenue stream ideas). There’s the realist with bit roles in Mixed Doubles and Raghu Romeo who continues his impossible and damaging fight for a stolen script. Otherwise sensible, otherwise real about their prospects in any other sphere of life, they put logic aside when it comes to film writing because, hey, it’s film. You never know.

Another afternoon around the FWA, I met a man who had watched too many Dev Anand films. His hand fluttered as he spoke, with his head tilted in style as he drank tea. He talked in monologues.

“My name is Avinash. Yes, I write scripts but I enjoy writing lyrics. Wahi mera maqsad hai. I write only at night, in the dark, because that is when this bottle cap in my head opens and the words pour out. Well, har roz toh nahi hota hai. Kabhi ek shabd, kabhi ek mukhda. But only at night, because this is my dream. My real job is as a painter of buildings, mazdoori karta hoon. Jo zindagi ne diya hai, usey kheech kar chalana padta hai.”

Avinash grew up in Kerala, but moved to Bihar to earn. Two years ago, he moved to Mumbai. “Two things brought me here. The construction, of which there is a lot, and Hindi films. I will work there someday.” Madhumati, by Bimal Roy, brought Avinash alive to the possibilities of language. “People spoke of actors and directors and all that, but I saw through it; in films, the writer wields greater power. Everybody else is a puppet who dances to the writer’s tune.” He began to write songs and plays, and in time gained a good reputation back home. Here he hoped to pen love songs.

If Vishwas was an example of the fortunate struggler, how could a rank newcomer make it? His smile was beatific. “That’s how you think, and it shows who you are. When I came here, I gained strength from the people around me. When I look around me at what you call competition, I see my brothers and sisters struggling for the same thing. Look at how many of us there are. Surely one of us will make it? Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to be off. I have an important meeting.” The man was a star.

Sandeep Shrivastava, who wrote the screenplay for Shimit Amin’s 2004 encounter classic Ab Tak Chappan, chimed in on the outsider’s dilemma. “Who will meet you?” he asks. Even if the script is gold, which producer or director will make time for a driver, or a waiter, or a painter of buildings? “That’s what they don’t understand. It’s sad, but they’re asking for trouble. Even today I find people taking credit for some of my work.” He doesn’t know what to tell the building watchman who stops him every so often, offering Shrivastava a story. He doesn’t know what to tell the chacha outside a friend’s home who has a new story for him every time. How many success stories have we heard of, Shrivastava asks. How many true-blue rags-to-riches have we heard of in Indian cinema? We think for a while. Not one.

Elsewhere, Kohli has a driver who writes at night, waiting for his moment. Elsewhere, Avinash is one of many laborers on a construction site. Elsewhere, storytellers work as waiters and beauticians and watchmen. It’s like LA, but without the hope. Just don’t tell them that.

locopopo

Lokesh Karekar's work always blows me away.

Sexy action video game babes etc.

When editorial meetings come up with nothing, this is what happens:

"These hot bods have made many action video games hotsellers by not just their sex appeal, but by their impeccable action skills and heroism."

Back where we belong

Last year, confused with html, I moved this blog from here to a wordpress platform at www.grch.wordpress.com. But it never quite felt right. Shortening a name that served me well seemed to make less and less sense over time and, in an irrational way, it never truly felt mine. So here it is, back where it belongs, where the vibrations feel right.

Much has changed since last year. Writing has become less intimidating, if not easier. I've discovered armchair opinion like never before. A few things have helped. For one, the narrow focus of my life widened from writing to include other creative pursuits, such as creating music. Soon I'll put up a sample or two. There's a short screenplay I wrote, currently being revised. There's another on the way.

Working on many projects simultaneously has helped focus my attention, for the limited time I can give them each day is all I can manage before the mind wanders. More importantly, and surely I've jinxed myself now, the last half year has been tremendous fun. This blog will reflect the change. I hope you'll keep visiting.

This channel's on a different frequency

I'm moving to www.grch.wordpress.com. That's over here. See you.

Woohoo

Juno gets in. Yep, there's no stopping them now.

Harder than arabic

HTML wasn't a tough language to learn, from what I recall. Typical of a school subject to fail you when you need it most. I give up modifying this template.

Ps. The white bar on the right? It's not by design.

Red channel

Starting today, this very moment, I've decided to have an on-and-off column right here for all the interesting news and innuendo heard in conversations, but can't use. It won't be regular, and I'll make full use of this format. And since being sued isn't much fun, the language will be indirect at times (This writing style will be familiar to readers of this blog, who wander in to read about things like clouds and the futility of driving).

Adam Gilchrist's retirement makes me sad. It was all so sudden, and just after a few disappointing Tests. But at least the timing's great, right? Because isn't the BCCI about to enforce a ruling that retiring players can't participate in the IPL for at least two years?

Absolutely sinister news dept: Is Lalit Modi's little monster, the IPL, about to affect the international cricket calendar? Word is, yes. We can't verify whether the West Indies Cricket Board has been approached (and whether other boards have been contacted) to not schedule any cricket between March/April and May/June from this year onward after their existing cricketing commitments are met. The ICC's looking more and more like the damn UN.

Boots pic by Dragass on Flickr

Truth in journalism

Lately I've had the sort of rough time I didn't quite anticipate. At Mint, when a story had to be written by the end of the day, I presented everyone's view - in cable operator versus broadcaster stories the views were diametrically opposite - and moved on to the conflicts between the two. Partly why I left the paper was because publishing everyone's views in a story doesn't qualify as the truth. And the satisfaction at having handed in a story is offset by the usefulness of the piece. In fact, as I'm finding out these days while I do my own research, a whole bunch of views are just lies told to journalists who should have found the time to do more.

The problem is, I now have the time, and it still isn't getting any better. The lying has reached new dimensions, because the stakes are higher due to the fact that a journalist has more time on his hands. As a result, I'm going to go mad by the time 2009 comes along.

A cricket historian digs up the past

And what results ain't pretty.

In a classy denunciation, Gideon Haigh sticks it to Sunil Gavaskar for his divisive column, in which Gavaskar breezily surmised that since Sachin Tendulkar's version of events had not convinced the match referee, his reputation was in doubt. First the provocation:

"This is what has incensed the millions of Indians who are flabbergasted that the word of one of the greatest players in the history of the game, Sachin Tendulkar, was not accepted. In effect, Tendulkar has been branded a liar by the match referee."

And Haigh's response:

"Again with the "millions of Indians"! It's not me folks - it's those "millions of Indians". In fact, this debating point is a much less impressive notion that it seems. India has a population of 1.13 billion. There's probably at least a few million who believe in flying saucers. Should we really pay them serious heed?"

The part of his response I've posted isn't the best bit, but it highlights Gavaskar's manner of presenting his opinions and biases. It's something I've noticed about Gavaskar on television - he says things you've heard before, things that are safe, things that fit in with the sensibilities of a majority. Case in point, the first day's play at Perth, and Sehwag on strike. Gavaskar: "There's no footwork there." Heck, I'm a half-assed cricket writer and even I could tell you that Sehwag doesn't have footwork in the traditional sense, but then, surely, we could be told how exactly he plays. But no, don't expect much insight, because for that a commentator needs to think about commentary and put some work in to it. The last time I spoke to them, the folks at ESPN-Star weren't happy with Gavaskar's work ethic.

Anyway. Haigh goes on to say, quite rightly, that Gavaskar's role as a columnist is at odds with his post as an administrator for the ICC. He also picks up a few passages from a book by Gavaskar to illustrate the man's own thoughts on race. Here's one bit:

"To call the crowd a 'crowd' in Jamaica is a misnomer. It should be called a 'mob'. The way they shrieked and howled every time Holding bowled was positively horrible. They encouraged him with shouts of 'Kill him, Maaaan!' 'Hit im Maan!', 'Knock his head off Mike!' All this proved beyond a shadow of doubt that these people still belonged to the jungles and forests, instead of a civilised country.... "

Read the whole thing. It's excellent. Reasoned, well-researched cricket writing like this is pretty rare today - is there anyone but him and Guha? - and, additionally, this particular piece is more satisfying because it delves on an issue Indian administrators studiously ignore: precisely what value does Gavaskar bring to the administration and growth of cricket?

A note on the reader comments in Haigh's article. What is it about Indian comment posters? You'd imagine that these are the "millions of Indians" Gavaskar talks about - a witless mob led by a crank. Haigh'll probably cry himself to sleep beside Trumper after reading the comments, because it's all so pointless in these message boards.

Sigh

Slow, quiet evening. Crap on the radio. I miss Dubai. (Photo from here.)

Away from it all

Elsewhere, on this calm morning, India have gone to the beach. After days of fury, it's comforting to know that they're by the sea. There are others making noise for them, burning effigies, posturing, and drawing boundaries. News channels are pulling out old footage to show us that obnoxiousness is an old Australian trait. Historians are apoplectic to the point of madness. Our news anchors look grave and ask questions that are pointed only in appearance. Rajiv Shukla, a politician, defends 'our players'. A great bowler returns to say Australians play hard and fair. Everywhere there is affront and offence. Everywhere there is patriotism of some kind.

A wasteful bowler, the man at the center, becomes a 'Sikh warrior'. Australia's cricketers are called wild dogs, besides much else. What does this say of our ability to transform normal men in to something else? Every flaw has disappeared, and these are either men undone or a pack of dogs.

The umpires too are not spared. A cricketing nation rages around them, trying to have them sacked, demoted, or disappear. Flaws are charming, it says, but not so many. But we cannot have technology doing the job either. So good luck to these umpires, who get 96% of their decisions right, and let us hope for them that god is on their side whenever India plays.

I can think of several people who'd be well-served by a trip to the beach during high tide.

Boria for president

The highlight of this fabulous day was Boria Majumdar blowing a gasket on Times Now. Here was the angriest man on television demanding that the board back its players to the hilt. "What use our economic strength, our clout," he spat in to the phone, "if you don't support your players?" (He said something like it.) Pity these orphans - abandoned by the match referee, the umpires, and all Australians. Speaking of which, Boria was pretty certain Australia were given a fair hearing and India weren't. It's great to see an intellectual giant like him contribute to all this in a meaningful way. And he wasn't done yet, by the way. He dusted off the old administration for show. Remember 2001, he said, when the board didn't go through official channels, and used its clout to have its way. That was legendary. 'And all this board can say', he spluttered - turning red - 'is no comment?!' Boria, if nothing else, we love the way you scream on television.

Waffling around

I wrote this piece for Mint to coincide with the Boxing Day Test today. Two ideas: balls haven't changed much over the course of the game; second, these measures to have day-night Tests and pink balls and whatnot are just diversions from where cricket might actually be headed - the league format.

Go beyond repackaging

India is due to start its cricket campaign against Australia today. Test cricket’s audience has dropped for years. Could day-night Tests be the answer?

They could be a brilliant spectacle and will attract a larger audience, as Cricket Australia officials recently explained. The opposition from cricketers and most media has been intense. The fear: Test cricket is about to lose its sanctity by being tied to commercial needs.

But is it? For years, Tests, as we know them, have evolved from even, balanced competitions to encounters where batsmen celebrate on flat pitches. Bats have evolved, bouncers have been checked, but the science of cricket balls, around which the game revolves, has not advanced beyond minute tinkering. This, in effect, makes it a batsman’s game, with the bowler severely disadvantaged (Is there any other sport where the balance between contestants is so unequal?).

Whether due to boring encounters or other choices on television and in life, people have steadily trickled away from Test cricket. One-day cricket, while still popular in India, is saturated elsewhere. Cricket’s response to this has been Twenty20, and we all know how that’s gone. But cricket is headed somewhere else, somewhere obvious, and these innovations seem like bells and whistles. A prototype of its future lies in leagues such as the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and Indian Premier League (IPL).

When players aren’t represented by countries, the market gets to work. It chooses players from everywhere, whether a Canadian batting talent or a freakish leg-spinner from Chad. Where the player comes from becomes irrelevant because he isn’t held back by the limitations of his national side. Had market forces been at work, a very capable bunch of Zimbabweans and Kenyans would have had extended careers and more games to play. And would anyone recommend Brian Lara continue playing for West Indies instead of a Galacticos equivalent? Would there be no takers for Mark Ramprakash? It would also be ruthless. Great players in poor form would be dropped with fewer reservations.

Right now, all cricket is doing in the name of progress is playing with uniform colours, and timing and scheduling—apart from Twenty20, which has so far been as much a bowler’s game as a batsman’s.

Administrators hold on to their territories with a vice grip, ignoring the fact that cricket’s growth requires something more meaningful than playing in Disneyland or Abu Dhabi. Unless local talents are involved extensively, cricket, as it is now run, remains open to the whimsies of local administrations and political imbroglios, such as the Zimbabwe situation. Private leagues remove regionalism. They actually make things fairer.

Zee’s ICL venture was less than successful, but it set in motion a concept Lalit Modi had only spoken about for a while. The IPL was a reaction to this threat, but it was inevitable. The cricketing world is only so big. And its largest audience, India, finds its attention drawn to more diverse things every day. Cricket could survive without changing, and probably remain healthy, but it cannot grow without proliferating and entering the vocabulary of newer, more diverse, audiences.

If day-night Tests take off, we’d do well to remember that it’s only a repackaging served to the same audiences. Compared with where cricket could be, it’s actually quite traditional.

Garbage Unlimited

Vic Marks, in the Guardian:

"On this tour only Alastair Cook scored more Test runs but Bell has received the most criticism. So he must be a good player. The problem is that he has seldom changed the course of a match throughout his Test career. One consolation for Bell: they used to say the same about Sachin Tendulkar."

With a few nifty jabs, Marks manages to appear sympathetic to Bell while relating him to Tendulkar's predicament without being offensive to either. He's being thoroughly dishonest, and very slithery about it. "They used to say..."? Oh, come on.

Marks' piece, by the way, isn't a particularly good bit of writing. The chief criticism about Tendulkar is that he hasn't won enough matches for India single-handed. This is what I think Marks actually means. Even then, the assumption is simply incorrect. The image of the hero in sport is of a single person battling or blazing away to victory, etc. Is this what Marks subscribes to? When we talk of a batsman winning it, in our minds he has finished the job or nearly completed it. This involves the batsman being present in the second innings, where Tendulkar has been less good (avg: 42.98) than in first innings, where he averages 61.75. Surely Marks knows that to define a batsman by his being there at the end is to shortchange him considerably. What about the set-up, which Tendulkar has done many times? Or snatching the initiative, which is a characteristic attributed to men such as Gilchrist and Sehwag now, and Tendulkar earlier? Statsguru shows us that Tendulkar was often in the middle of India's larger first-innings scores, and often the only person between a decent score and a bad one.

What about presence and averting embarassment? Tendulkar, at a time, made a difference by simply being there.

In first innings where no one else scored a hundred, Tendulkar averages 121.63. The average team score is 322.75. This is against meaningful opposition. Dravid, in comparison, averages 179.83. The avg team score for Dravid's sole-hundred innings is 456.

But take a look at this. In each of these innings (there are six in all), each of Dravid's ten teammates have averaged: 23.3, 20.8, 22.8, 24.7. 30.1, 26.1.

In Tendulkar's eight innings, this is what his mates have averaged: 13.5, 10.7, 22.6, 10.5, 34.8, 17.3, 20.3, 16.9. (Where does Bell fit in here?)

The extras scene is revealing too. In Dravid's case, there are nearly 30 extras per innings added to the Indian total, which tells me the bowlers weren't exactly all there to begin with, or that Dravid drove them to distraction. In Tendulkar's case, the fielding side would concede less than 18 runs on average, which tells us that bowlers kept things quite tight.

Anyway, I meander. I could keep looking at stats all day but there's other work to be done. So Mr Marks, in a nutshell, the damn comparison's all wrong. I'd love to go on but I'd go bankrupt if I kept this up. Thank you for wasting half my day because of one half-wit paragraph.

The fiction in travel writing

Given a chance, a travel writer is capable of misreading entire cultures. But this genre of writing is not journalism, and so the rigorous standards of journalism do not apply. You only have the writer’s piece as proof. Ask anyone what they expect of travel writing and you will receive many answers, but most will demand accuracy and an interesting story. But is travel writing seriously read for its accuracy? I don’t think so. To be a travel writer is to allow yourself to be taken in by the stream of events around you, like a twig in a river of raging currents. You speed by actual happenings, capturing only their echoes. Try this: sit in a speeding vehicle and, staring at one spot ahead of you, describe the countryside. This is what writing about a place can be like.

Our times require precise information quickly, and travel writing unfortunately cannot be entirely accurate nor on demand. The result would be equivalent to: “8.15am: Woke up. Brushed teeth.” It is a loose form of non-fiction and fiction: It is likely, in an extreme case, to contain imaginary incidents and conversations that could have happened. These things are difficult to verify for all you have is the writer’s word. We know this and, as we do with all single sources, accept their word with a little skepticism. The instinct to not be fooled is strong in many of us, but I suspect deep down we’re wired to like good tales. That is what travel writing is, and will remain at its height. It cannot influence international events, and cannot change the course of history anymore. Once, people who brought news of foreign lands were, in all likelihood, travel writers. There is no need for them anymore. Reporters specialize, travel writers generalize. This is Paul Theroux from The Great Railway Bazaar:

The Singhalese…turned on the fan, sat on one of his crates, and began eating a stinking meal out of a piece of newspaper – the smell of his rotten onions and mildewed rice was to stay in the compartment for the remainder of the journey.

A fact-checker for the New Yorker would have quite a task with this: Was he Singhalese, did he turn on the fan, was he on a crate, did it stink, were the onions rotten, was the rice mildewed, and did the smell really stay for the rest of the journey? I lived with a Korean in New York who stank up the fridge, but the smell was offensive only to me. He ate his food without fuss.

This is Camilo Jose Cela, in Journey to the Alcarria:

The girls are young, very young; but they already seem to have in their eyes that special patient sorrow that one sees in hired animals, dragged hither and yon by bad luck and evil intentions.

This is precisely the kind of matter that suits travel or fiction. A journalist or historian looking for the feeling of the times will find value in the sentence.

William Dalrymple’s books contain the right kind of dialogue in the right kind of places. From an “unshaven, shambolic and friendly” tailor in In Xanadu:

“We live here under an undeclared apartheid.”

The last lines of the book, featuring a Chinese communist party official:

He grunted something in Mongol. Then he translated it for us: “Bonkers,” he said. “English people, Very, very bonkers.”

This is unreal. The comments are perfectly placed, the words strikingly lucid. There’s no reason to doubt Dalrymple’s conversational skills, but who can ascertain whether these things were really said to him, or whether these are recollections of broken conversations which, when remembered, the mind makes complete?

And yet there is an audience for this stuff because good travel writing takes you somewhere, as good fiction does. The truth cannot be completely sacrificed, but it can be subverted to make the story better. This is not to excuse writers who aren’t truthful. I have my doubts about a number of travel writers. But given the distance from editors, and the fact that travel is a very personal experience, it is possible to bend the truth. It’s why we don’t take travel writing seriously anymore. Our perceptions of it have changed. We don't want it to inform, just evoke. The genre has found a new place for itself.