The most uneventful year of my life.

Bye bye 2008.

I started 2008 in Kovalam beach beneath a sky full of spectacular fireworks, with frenzied crowd swaying to the ear-splitting music played in discos of the beach resorts.

Today, the year is ending with me writing a blog post in late lonely hours. So, what did I do in between?

Every weekday : Wake up, get fresh, get dressed, go to office, check mail, do your work, make some calls, have lunch, do some more work, have tea and cigarettes in break, finally shut down your system and go home. In home, before I got the internet: cook food, have dinner, have a smoke, call home, sleep. After I got internet and a cook : chat with friends, have dinner, call home, sleep.

Every Weekend : Wake up late, miss breakfast, have a late lunch, go for movie, shop at big bazar, have dinner, call home, chat in Gtalk, sleep. OR wake up late, miss breakfast, have a late lunch, shop at big bazar, buy vodka, drink vodka, get stoned and sleep.

Exceptions: The weekends when we go to Kovalam and have beer at Sea-Rock. The occasional strolls in small second hand book market of Palayam. The extended weekends when we go vacationing in the exotic Kerala tourist spots. The random long telephonic conversations that lasted till morning. The whirlwind visits to Kolkata.

Throughout the year, this is exactly what happened in my life. Regular, stable, peaceful stuff. And I am not happy. I desperately want the next year to be eventful.

1 Hour with an Unoriginal Shashi Tharoor

The illustrious Shashi Tharoor visited my office yesterday to speak. Speak on what? Didn't matter to the huge crowd who turned up at the hall. All were excited about hearing from one of the most high-profile global Indians around. Though Tharoor's official website projects him as an author, to us he is more familiar as a dapper, media-savvy diplomat of international repute. A guy who almost became Secretary General of UN, was naturally expected to share some very original insights that only he can offer, as a man having a truly global perspective. Well, Tharoor did not live up to his reputation.


Theme of his speech was 'Innovation / Imagining' which made us to believe Dr. Tharoor will present some thoughtful opinion about relevant international issues like the economic crisis, IT slowdown and how we the Young India should get over the hurdles. I agree that's not a very original expectation, still was fair nevertheless.

Dr. Tharoor started his speech by condemning the Mumbai Terror Attacks. At first it seemed perfectly diplomatic to express grief over the Mumbai Massacre, but few minutes into the speech, I realized that he is quoting from his own article that was published in Guardian 2 days back, on Nov 28th. And when I say quoting, I mean sentence-by-sentence, word-by-word. He used the exact same terms to draw picture of a diverse Indian/Mumbai population and to deduce how this attack actually is targeted toward pluralistic Indian culture. The Mumbai Attack part of his speech lasted for 15 minutes and ended with an appeal to whoever is listening that our muslim brothers and sisters shouldn't be demonised indiscriminately.

Next 15 minutes was taken up by another kind of propaganda if not a marketing initiative. Shashi Tharoor, quite abrupt to the mood built up by Terrorism speech, started explaining the reasons why his book has been named "The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone". He elaborated more on the Cellphone part and I somewhat liked this phase of his lecture. He used interesting anecdotes to exemplify how Indian Telecommunication culture improved over the decades.

He wrapped up the lecture on the customary positive note, ga-ga ing over emerging India, reminding us - the IT community that we, belonging to a a priviledged background, should never forget our downtrodden countrymen.

A Q&A session followed in which only 5 questions were handled by Shashi Tharoor because of his tight schedule. Questions were pretty general, and after one hour of listening to Dr. Tharoor, I got the idea of what really to expect. One guy sought Tharoor's opinion on India's Economic Surge and then it happened again. Tharoor quoted from a previous interview of his. The interview excerpt being fresh on mind ( I read it 30 minutes before the session), I could have mouthed his speech at that point. Remaining questions were pretty mundane open house stuff.

That was all : 2 cups of tea, 15 minutes of Terror-tears, 15 minutes of Why-My-Book-is-Interesting with "Innovation/Imagining" forced in between, 30 minutes of unimaginative questions and dishearteningly unoriginal answers. That was my 1 hour with Shashi Tharoor.

One may ask what is it that bothers me so much about Shashi Tharoor's session? Here you go!

First: Maybe he quoted from his own article or interview, but when someone comes down all the way to India and is speaking to a crowd who really admires him, is it unfair for the crowd to expect him to say something unique, at least express the same view in a different way? And anyway, why would one mug up lines from an interview or article? Maybe, Tharoor is a man of his own words. But for a man who gets paid to speak, it can be counted as a lack of Imagination .

Second: We wanted to hear something inspirational, bits and pieces of his wisdom accumulated over years of international exposure, glimpses of his global vision that could impact our otherwise stagnant minds and bring out the spark which we love to believe is still glowing within us. But all that we got was generalized popular opinions, that were characteristically unimaginative and at times - boring. His words sounded eerily similar to the secular propaganda practised and perfected by Indian politicians over years. His insights were too near-sighted, taking into notice that they are coming from a global diplomat. The vision, was not visible.

Third : At times, he was repetitive as well, the idea of Great Pluralistic Indian Society was mentioned every 5 minutes. Personally I won't be excited to hear something that has been spoon fed to us since we were in school - "Explain your views on 'Unity in Diversity' of India" - I wrote answer to this History paper question god-knows-how-many times. Later on, I found certain book reviews also complains about these recurring themes - Indian plurality and diversity - in Tharoor's writing.

I had mighty high expectations from this Session with Shashi Tharoor. But the man turned out to be more gloss than matter. He won hearts with his easy talking, soothing smile and popular views, but not the minds that think. Disheartening and disappointing. Not something you expect from a person who was elected as "Global Leader of Tomorrow".

Rant of a Bond fanatic

Quantum of Solace rocks. I watched it twice. Craig haters go jump into a pool of shit and lie face down.

Ok. That was my review of Quantum of Solace. Ever since the first poster hit the net, I started counting days to November 2008. The wait ended last to last week. And I gladly declare that Quantum of Solace was worth the wait. Beautiful babes, breathtaking locations, stunning action and all things Bond. And of course, it has Daniel Craig. This guy alone has multiplied my Bond fetish manifold.


For the second time in last 1 and a 1/2 years, I arrived at the theatre long before showtime (first time being The Dark Knight). After the wham-bam car chase, I held my breath as the Title Sequence started rolling. There was something(and the only thing) I didn't like about Casino Royale. I kept my fingers crossed so that they don't repeat the sacrilege. And Yippee!! Scores of naked women started emerging across the screen. Bond Title minus silhouettes of nude women? Blasphemous!

Let me rant about Craig a little bit. Do you remember the Opera scene? Having 'compromised' the discussion of Quantum cronies, James Bond comes face to face with Greene & co. There, both of them stand still for a while, eye-to-eye, the opera's high pitch music rendering a dramatic feel. Not a single word spoken, not even any notable expression . But the menace that Bond is, is unambigously conveyed by the chilling stare and the relaxed arrogance of Craig's posture. What a confrontation! '

Or take for instance the scene of Mathis' death. Bond tosses Mathis' corpse into a Garbage Vat. Camille asks "Is that how you treat your friends?"
Bond "He wouldn't mind."
Heartless? Coldblooded? I'm seriously at loss of words.

Now, some fun facts. After Die Another Day, here comes another Bond loaded with classic odes to the earlier 007 outings. While the obvious Goldfinger tribute is awing the audience, one can note one more loose reference. Bond and Camille's stroll across the Bolivian desert is very much identical to the scene in Roger Mootre starrer The Spy Who Loved Me(1977), where 007 and fellow Russian spy Agent XXX(Barbara Bach aka Mrs. Ringo Starr), criscrosses through Egyptian deserts. This is purely a fan observation, as the director has gone on the record revealing his lack of knowledge of any Bond movie where 007 gets lost in a desert. Bad homework.

My only complaint about the movie is about the villains. Mathau Almaric is the most incompetent Bond villain ever. This guy doesn't want the world to burn, doesn't have a bleeding eye or 3rd nipple, doesn't look dangerous, does not do anything exotic (no cigar, no yacht) - in software lingo - does not add value to the story. The sidekick is even more pathetic, a clown with a bowl-cut, this guy can't hold a candle to the legendary Jaws , Oddjob or even Tee Hee.

But good villain or no good villain, the hero takes the cake. And Craig is exceptionally good in that. And that's why Bond fanatics like me are celebrating. Once this movie goes off the theatre (gonna take some time, if box office reports are to be believed), EON Productions should waste no time in launching the next 007 installment. We want more Bond, more Craig. And make the Bond girls sultrier next time, and bring back Q, and also the Aston Martin, and ...

Ok. Just bring back Craig.

Connected!

Finally I got myself a net connection. A fast, steady one. First thing I downloaded was GTalk. GTalk - used to be the chief medium of communication between me and my friends, and I missed it badly throughout last year.

Imagine sitting in some stuffy, hot cybercafe of Trivandrum, pathetic speed, guy next to you watching titillating clips from some B-grade Malayali movie and Creative speakers airing 'Mukunda Mukunda' with full bass and treble.

Not my idea of a comfort zone, where you can relax and have a nice chat with your schoolfriend in Adelaide, or maybe discuss The Dark Knight with another movie buff buddy.

These apparently trifle yearnings meant a lot to me, and I so much wanted to see that white list populated with some favourite names - green and red dots beside them. Last Friday, it happened at last. I ran the 1.53 mb setup file and up popped the familiar GTalk Window.

I checked it. Yeah, it looked the same. Those names were there. The lights were on. I knocked on each name, and the names responded happily. New camera in the market, new books to be read, whether Bond should show more skin and all things under the sky were talked about. Bing-bong sounds all the night, IM windows appearing allover screen, writing wrong message in wrong window - life suddenly became so familiar.

Late that night, one deviant glance at the clock reminded me that I had to be in office 7 hours from then. So there ended my first day of surfing. I was more than satiated. People whom I chat with in GTalk are my real-life buddies as well. They always were just a phone call away. Still, something was amiss.

Now, with the GTalk and YM icons on bottom right corner of my desktop, everything seemed to be in place. You know, an unexpected lump of happiness which can't be explained. It never felt so good to be connected.