For those of you who may be interested in my professional existence, I write a separate blog on it. Perhaps to try out a different service, I chose Wordpress to host that blog. I was impressed by the service.
The dashboard has exactly what a blogger would want to know about his site
The metadata service is better
There are many more themes than blogger to choose a layout
I haven't figured out how to insert Youtube videos though (not that I do that often). Just out of curiosity I tried to import this blog into Wordpress. "Khag" is the bengalee name for a weed that was used to make pens that people would dip in ink to write. As children, we were made to write the name of Godess Saraswati (deity for knowledge) on banana leaves using a "khag" pen and milk for ink. Hence the name for the blog.
I went to watch the Bangalore Royal Challengers play the Delhi Dare Devils in an IPL 20-20 cricket match yesterday. It was fun because I had never witnessed, in person, the off-field entertainment aspect of the sport. Shaan (a super-hit singer from the Hindi filmdom) performed live on the far end of the ground. He looked like a puppet from the distance but the gigantic video screen more than made up for it. There was this psychedelic display of laser lights and loud music played each time something worth celebrating happened during play. Lastly, but most definitely not the leastly, the presence of the Washington Redskinnettes (the cheer girls) added a whole lot of spice to the balmy evening. The spectators were hugely engaged with what was happening all around.
At the Chinnaswamy Stadium, the video screen usually sends out prompts to the audience to start a Mexican Wave. I guess the rapidity of events in a 20-20 match possibly precluded such attempts this time around. So an entrepreneurial spectator (he was wearing a South African rugby shirt) decided to try start one all by himself.
·He did the "1-2-3-Ho" act of counting and standing up after the count with raised hands. Obviously people around him didn't respond because they didn't know they had to
He did the act again but this time shouting "c'mon fellas, let's do it" before he did. Suddenly the whole aisle was rising up with him. People in the adjacent aisle took notice but didn't respond quickly enough
Now everyone in the first aisle was kicked up and people from many aisles out were noticing this attempt. A lot of them were just waiting for the juggernaut to reach their stands.
The next attempt was miraculous. Not only did the second aisle respond but the wave just spread across the aisles all around the stadium. Not once but the wave did three rounds around the stadium before people again got engrossed in the cricket.
It takes time to build momentum around an initiative that involves several people to succeed. And there will always be one person with the idea to start things off.
The first phase of elections in Karnataka is today and Bangalore is one area that goes to poll. Looking (and driving) around it is impossible to tell today apart from any other given Saturday (of course the booze joints, euphemistically called "Wine Shops" in Bangalore are shut). Some reports say the polling is 12%, which possibly explains why the queue outside the ATM is longer than that outside a polling station. Apathy towards a chance to decide governance is a dangerous symptom in a democracy. When I used to stay at Harare a lot of my friends took pains to tell me that this is exactly what used to happen during election time in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe methodically ensured he "got" the votes year after year and stayed on power to rule the country. Twenty eight years into its independance, Zimbawe stands perilously close to economic obliteration. Chilling though but let me drop this analogy here.
The IPL is at its halfway stage. For the duration that it has been on air, the tournament has re-written television habits of Indians besides altering the cricketing habits of a few T20-migrant cricketers. It is impossible to pick up any form of media - print or electronic - that doesn't dwell on IPL. Even business channels on TV inevitably veer to that in favor of bulti-billion dollar take over bids.
Coming to the cricket, a few truisms have started evolving
It is futile to have the jack-of-all-trades all-rounders. This is a game of specialists.
Having a bowling superstar or batting superstar doesn't help. The top wicket taker at this stage (Zaheer Khan) and top run-getter (Virender Shewag) don't feature in the top teams
Any team that loses 3-4 wickets in the first 6 overs is doomed. They may produce isolated fireworks later on but their fate is sealed
(corollary of above) Any team that scores 60-ish losing no more than one wicket in the first 6 will most likely win the game
And for my J. Pierpoint Morgan style phrophecy - the fortunes of teams in IPL shall fluctuate
I am betting on the Delhi Daredevils to win the tournament
He wrote, he made films, he composed music, he painted. He was arguably only second to Rabindranath Tagore to leave an indelible impression of Bengali art on the rest of the modern world.
Much before I was introduced to the films of Satyajit Ray, I was an avid fan of his fictional detective "Feluda". It was only later that I realized that his films had a deep impact on the way he wrote. His writings, like his films, were devoid of flab, of excesses and told a story through a multidimesional plot. Moreover, his literature had a strong visual aspect to it. It was impossible - especially for a teenager - not to try visualizing the story in parallel to reading it. And then Ray had the uncanny ability to create a film out his own story that brought out completely unexplored aspects of the written piece. It was this ability that converted a short story for children called "Atithi (The guest)" to his last and seminial film "Agantuk (The Stranger)". It would be apt to describe the film as - if our perceptions were not pre-clouded by the phrase - an adult film. In fact, Agantuk went on to tell the story of not only a family under dilemma of accpeting a relative they had never seen but also allowed Ray a medium of communicating his philosophy of life through the main protagonist. The same went for his music, especially the fusion of eastern and western classical music that came about in his composition.
Like Tagore, Ray is relevant even today. It is the responsibility of our generation - the thirty and forty somethings - who grew up on Ray, to propagate his creations to the next generation.
Works for an American multinational by the day and for himself otherwise. Thinks about a lot of things and writes when inspiration strikes. Wakes up at Bangalore, likes to travel, voracious reader and can't do without sports.
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