Worst day ever.

I’ve heard this phrase thrown around often for the slightest of problems — often accompanied with a bad mood, short temper and leeway to be grumpy. I’m sure you’ve seen this too : with yourself, with friends, with *cough* bloggers *cough*.

You know, on second thoughts, I don’t know any blogger who always complains at their blog.

(I can count so many reader/bloggers who are going to identify with this bit and grin).

Anyway, well then, today was the worst day ever. For me. Statistically. Just statistically — which means I cannot recall another day when things were so wrong. You know the day is going to be bad when you get locked out of your own office room, and things appropriately kept going wrong. However, this post isn’t a rant to vent out my frustration.

Instead, I found that today I was more cheerful than most normal days. It is a strange feeling when you know everything is sure to go wrong, you accept it and give that one day away, predict all the things that could go wrong and when they do go wrong as expected, how can it be anything else but amusing ? You can’t help but laugh along. When everything around you plays a game, you just play along. Sounds right, no ?

So here’s to the ‘worst day ever’s. May we have plenty of those.

Villages get legal right over forest.

It appears that today is a day when more than just a few things are right :

Gadchiroli villages get legal right over forest.

Two tribal villages in the Maoist-infested Gadchiroli on Tuesday became the first in the country to get legal rights over forest and forest produce.

Mendha (Lekha) and Marda will manage the forest and water in their jurisdiction and be the legal owners of forest produce except timber, according to a document, Record of Rights, presented to the representatives of the villages by governor SC Jamir.

On August 15, the government had announced its decision in favour of the villages. The Record of Rights recognises the villagers’ right to manage their forest, water, and the right to forest produce as per the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Right) Act, 2006.

I hope this precedent paves the way for many more similar decisions. Tribals rightfully own their forests and giving them legal ownership can only help solve the cause of Naxalism, which in most cases stems from Government seizure of forest land and subsequent contract deals.

Locals are also capable of preserving forests far better than the Government, which — at last count — wasn’t really good at anything and had a long nose that it used to poke into unnecessary issues. For more, check the Stuff Government Does That It Shouldn’t Be Doing.

Dudes of the week.

are Goa CM Digambar Kamat and Congress MP Shantaram Naik for their views that the Russian rape victim was — for lack of better words — ‘asking for it’.

Goa CM Digambar Kamat :

Do you believe that Goa’s image has taken a beating by this incident? This is not the first such case. Do you believe Goa will be seen as an unsafe place?

I don’t agree. First, you should go to the root cause of this case. What was this lady doing so late in the night with some people? Why did she accompany this man in this car? These are some of the questions which have to be answered.

Congress MP Shantaram Naik :

Rape is a heinous crime but “an alleged rape of a lady who moves with strangers for days together even beyond the middle of the night is to be treated on different footings,” said Naik.

You know what, millions of other think likewise, so I’ll just bundle them together and present this Dude of the Week to all those men and women. Go enjoy.

Euthanasia plea admitted for hearing.

I read the poignant and heart-breaking story of a nurse, Aruna Shanbaug, raped by a sweeper 36 years ago and comatose since. Her euthanasia appeal was brought to the Supreme Court and in a positive sign for an otherwise pro-life court, it hasn’t been outright rejected. The case will be heard by the bench.

Such cases are borderline which make even the pro-life audience rethink their ideals.

As for me, I believe everyone has a right to take a decision about their life, including take it away. If we cannot provide a better life to the distressed, I don’t think we have a right to criminalize their actions.That said, even if we could provide them a better life, my stance would be the same.

Before Sunset — the movie.

I saw this sequel to Before Sunrise a few days back but kept putting off writing about it. I couldn’t make up my mind about several things. Let’s give it a try now.

I can’t comment if it is better then Before Sunrise — the comparison would be unfair; apples to oranges. Before Sunrise was about romanticism, this was about pragmatism; that was about idealism, this is about reality; that was almost a perfect fantasy, this reflected a bitter truth.

The movie — standalone — is a great piece of art, no doubt. The writing, which was the highlight of the first movie, is as good and keeps the conversation engaging. It differs vastly in the setting and plot and thereby, theme. Jesse and Celine, now 9 years older, meet once again in a European city — Paris, this time — and once more, Jesse has a few hours before he flies out of Europe.

Jesse is married with kids now; Celine, in a steady relationship. The characters are mature and have changed with time since they last met. They still hit it off in the same old way, trying to be like the person they were 9 years earlier, but the masks soon wither.

The first movie had an open end. In fact, it reflected the thinking of the audience — if you were an optimist, you’d think that would meet — as decided — after 6 months; a pessimist would, well, be pessimistic. Still, the end came across as positive. In Before Sunset, they are both not exactly happy with their lives and partners; the question of what-could-have-been still lingers, but they know the time to find out has long gone. They accept things as is, live a few memorable moments and part. It leaves you with a pinch at the end, because the question of what-could-have-been is not just unanswered, it just ceases to matter anymore. The movie, accordingly, ends sooner than expected — well before they part — because it has no significance anymore.

We still have no clue if they’ll be great together, but as shades of reality appear, we suspect that there is — after all — no ideal relationship. At the end, they are all deviations from a non-ideal one. That is probably why most movies end where they do, in a moment of happiness or closure, without probing further. That is why most songs end where they do, when the music is back home, at the ‘home’ chord/note/scale.

Technically, I didn’t have any complaints. The script was written by Richard Linklater and the lead actors, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. It makes a difference when the lead actors pen the script, for they have lived the characters and know the thought process of the characters better (assuming they are good actors). I saw this happen in more than just a couple of scenes — my thought process was exactly how the next dialogue went. The uncut long scenes were a joy : I often realized well into the conversation that the scene was uncut. Editing is minimalistic, done only when absolutely essential. Acting is superb, without seeming forced (something Sonali Kulkarni often does — forced good acting).

I strongly recommend both movies to everyone. If nothing, you’ll get food for thought.

*

An extremely silly joke that I couldn’t resist : Why does the director of Before Sunrise/Set hate static libraries ?

A : Because his name is Richard ‘Link-Later’.

OK sorry, I’ll stop.

More respect for Rediff.

We all know the story of Google Maps appeasing to local sensibilities vis-à-vis the Arunachal Pradesh issue : if a user is in India, Arunachal is shown as a part of India; in China, it is shown as a part of China; in the rest of the world, it is shown as disputed territory. Fine, since there isn’t much of a debate there : Google isn’t expected to resolve international disputes and is perfectly justified in what it did.

This story was recently reported at Rediff. A barrage of comments ensued — after all, the story tickled nationalist sentiments — but I’ll post what in my opinion was the best exchange :

User 1 : Does it show Telangana as a separate state?

User 2 : No it shows you are in pakistan.

User 3 : And it shows u r in Delhi sitting on Sonia aunty’s lap.

Can you better that ?

I know of friends who prowl at Rediff for sensitive topics to make offensive comments. I won’t lie to you — I would love to be a troll on the Rediff Discussion Board someday, but I am clearly nowhere as good as these pros. Perhaps I need to start picking up fights with readers here to train myself. Then again, I’ve tried offending the Bachchans, Aamir Khan, SRK, Congress, BJP, MNS, Shiv Sena. VHP, RSS .. the list is endless. I still haven’t attracted comments of this stature.

Any suggestion is welcome. It is a hopeless situation.

Please stop, Sonu Nigam.

Sonu Nigam features prominently in a music album (3 Idiots) after many years. He has been in hibernation for the last 3 years — even announcing his retirement from singing due to lack of quality work. Perhaps that announcement was directed at music directors so they would stop seeking him for uninspired numbers. I’m sure he wanted to maintain a high level of quality but looking at his recent works – Yuvvraaj, Blue and especially, 3 Idiots — I am in favour of Sonu Nigam retiring from Hindi film music.

Until he gets a challenge.

I know my bit about music, and I have no doubt that Sonu Nigam is the most talented singer Hindi cinema has at this moment. There are more skilled, more accomplished singers, but Sonu is far superior as a playback singer (strictly).

His formative years were spent mimicking Rafi saab, the next few in tearful songs for Gulshan Kumar movies and a few more getting a foothold in the industry. Since then, he was quick to rise up and gave some wonderful songs, a lot of them for A.R. Rahman. His acting remains pedestrian, but the stint helped his mimicry skills. Not many know, but he is a superbly talented mimicry artist — often mimicking singers from Adnan Sami and Kailash Kher to Lata Mangeshkar and Usha Uthup.

He has some superb songs in Meenaxi, Bose – The forgotten hero and his recent album, Classically Mild. Besides these sporadic gems, he has been largely disappointing.

This is where regional cinema steps in. Few Hindi music directors could give him a challenge, and singing in an alien language is in itself some effort. I’m not surprised that he has done well there, while not butchering the language, as other ‘outsiders‘ often do.

I’m posting some songs of his non-Hindi songs — judge for yourself.

First, HirwA Nisarga from NavrA MAzA NavsAchA. Note how he sings the ‘cha‘ (as in ‘chamcha‘ — the Marathi word, not Hindi). The language isn’t seamless, but I am not sure if someone who doesn’t speak Marathi often can do any better.

This also reminds me of an anecdote related to the song Ashwini Ye Na (the video is hilarious — mostly unintentional), Kishore Kumar’s only (?) Marathi song. Kishore Kumar was terrified of singing in Marathi (not because of the MNS — they were infants then), because he could never get the pronunciation of ‘cha‘ right. He agreed only after Sachin, the director, and the lyricist assured him that his lines wouldn’t use the syllable ‘cha‘. I went through it fleetingly, and it seems true.

Back to Sonu Nigam, he has been active on the Kannada circuit lately, starting with the 2006 blockbuster Mungaru Male. He also released a Kannada album this year. From the few Kannada songs I heard, this one I liked best : Ninnindale from Milana.

The south-Indian singing style is unmistakable. I asked about the pronunciation to a Kannada-speaking friend : he agreed Sonu Nigam was miles ahead of other non-Kannadiga singers. It wasn’t perfect — which I believe is very hard to achieve — but Sonu Nigam was close.

I still wish his best songs were in Hindi, but I don’t mind following non-Hindi songs in the hope that he might reinvent himself and show his potential — as he did in Classically Mild.

Thanks to Raghu, Srikanth for inputs.

Update : Gradwolf, in the comments below, points me to Varayoo Thozhi from Jeans. The song is decent, but once more — pronunciation.

Feel free to write in with other non-Hindi songs of Sonu Nigam.

Shahid Kapur isn’t replying to Amrita Rao.

If this doesn’t win a Pulitzer for journalism, what will ?

Shahid Kapoor ignores Amrita Rao’s Twitter messages.

Amrita is very disturbed at this development and is wondering whether the person she is following is the real Shahid or it’s a fake profile. A close friend of the star says: “Shahid was Amrita’s co-star and close friend. He has not been responding to Amrita’s Twitter messages in spite of his fans re-Tweeting him on his ignorance. Shahid was in touch with Amrita some time ago and no one knows what has transpired between them. Maybe they are texting each other privately, but Amrita is quite disturbed at this.”

The informer adds: “Amrita’s real id on Twitter is Amritarao17 and we are sure Shahid has good social conduct and will reply to her messages but she is wondering if she is Tweeting the real Shahid given so many fake profile holders are also.”

Foremost, my condolences to Miss Amrita Rao. This is an undeniably tough time for her, second only to that screening of Vivaah.

But I couldn’t help but notice a few flaws in the reporting :

• Amritarao17 is not a verified Twitter account. I’m not sure how the reporter is sure it is the actress’s ID.
• Her tweets are public. All the reporter had to do was find what ID of Shahid Kapur she was tweeting to and check if it is, in fact, Shahid Kapur.

Get these right. Until then, no Pulitzer for you.

The silly ski adventure.

This is a long post about the weekend ski trip. More than reporting, I wanted to flex my non-existent writing muscles. Enjoy.

For those curious about the ski trip : Yes, we did break the record of most Indians actually skiing at a ski resort — 8, to be precise. The Guinness guys didn’t show up — they didn’t believe we could pull it off. But we did, although it didn’t come easily.

TO start off, there was a heavy snowstorm at North Lake Tahoe, where the ski resort was located. As Murphy’s law goes :

• If you have snow chains and a rental car, the chains will be of a different size than the tires.

The drive to Northstar was fairly uneventful — by the standards of what followed — with just some gentle snowfall and a little bit of trouble fixing the snow chains. I hadn’t used snow chains previously, so I skipped the offer of the store owner help us out with it (for $20, of course). All this meant we reached the resort at 11 a.m. instead of the imagined 9.15 a.m. The ski-virgins could take lessons at either 10 a.m. or 1 p.m., so 1 p.m. it was going to be since I didn’t take my time machine along.

Meanwhile, I had a 2-tickets-for-the-price-of-1 offer and met a fellow skier at the ticket counter, who was only happy to get a ticket at half the cost. He asked me where I worked, and the next question was : So are you allowed to talk about your work ?

Evidently, that is what is most famous about the organization I work with. By now, I’ve gotten used to this — in fact, I enjoy being tight-lipped about my work. Some strange sadistic pleasure, or so I think.

It was snowing all this time — mostly gentle — and I separated from my friends after a quick lunch to explore the resort in the few hours I had. The higher I went, the rougher the weather was. I absolutely loved skiing at Northstar. It had some of the finest — both literal and figurative — snow I’ve seen and it was a pleasure to ski. The black slopes of Northstar are all far away from the intermediate slopes — meaning lesser crowd and thousand-feet high black slopes. I skied alone since all my friends were newbies and my regular skiing partner is enjoying his vacation in India — whilst feeling jealous as he reads this bit. At higher altitudes, the snow was heavy and the wind was hard. Some gusts of wind caused a visibility of mere 5 feet, and I had to wait them out. I skied till my legs ached (it was my second time this season, and I wasn’t in the greatest of forms) and then joined my friends for the final ski down from the ski school to the base of the resort.

We were hopeful the ice rink would be open for ice-skating, but heavy snowfall since Thursday ensured almost everything was shut. We had to return the rental car by 11.30 p.m. so decided to take off immediately after some hot coffee.

This was when the memorable part began.

Skiing season begins.

The last adventure activity related post was a good 2 months ago. I have been lazying around since, and forgiving myself for it, ‘because I had one of the most exhausting summers‘. After a while, I got tired of the excuse too, but I was waiting for the skiing season to begin, so I was hibernating until then.

The only accessible skiing locations near the Bay Area are at Lake Tahoe, a good 4 hour drive away. Last year, I skied at Heavenly Ski Resort, and this year, I have a season pass for Squaw (this year, it is celebrating the 60th anniversary of hosting the Winter Olympics). The season opening was on the 21st November weekend, and for the second season in a row, I was there on opening day. Both, my skiing partner and I, had rustic feet after the 7-month long break, and the trail deteriorated within a day of opening due to lack of snowfall. So we didn’t get much skiing that weekend. It was followed by no snowfall for almost 10 days. That changed this week — snowstorms are predicted from Thursday through Monday at Tahoe and I’ll be back this weekend.

But — as much as I would’ve loved it — the post isn’t about me or my exploits (which I suspect bores everyone).

I’ll be going along with half a dozen ski virgins this weekend to Northstar Ski Resort, who will be taking their ski lessons. This might just be the largest ever collection of Indians at a ski resort, actually skiing.

Most ski resorts offer learning sessions for 25$ at the start of the season, when crowds have not yet picked up. Here is the link to the Northstar store — do take a lesson atleast once before giving up on skiing. If you do decide to pursue it, there are tons of financial optimizations you can do make the sport economical (else skiing can be a very expensive sport). Feel free to contact me for those.

***

The season looks exciting, with a trip planned by my hiking partners to the Bay Area for a skiing weekend, a weekend skiing trip to Colorado and possibly one to Salt Lake City. Some winter hiking can also be expected, if I can finally put my dreams of running regularly into action and maintain my fitness level over the winter. Skiing is exhausting, but not sufficient to maintain fitness — the feet get plenty of exercise; upper body, not so much.

If anyone lives in the Bay Area and wants to come along for skiing, you are more than welcome to join me and my skiing partner.

For others who plan to hibernate at home all winter, think that this post never happened. You look fit, I’m sure you have your adventures and remember : walking around in Walmart every weekend is exercise.

***

So why skiing ?

To be honest, I don’t know why I love skiing. I don’t think I love snow, or going down a slope at high speed or the chilling cold. Perhaps, it’s just the mountains. In summer, they allow to be climbed, so I climb; in winter, they allow to be skied, so I ski.