aditya kumar's weblog

I first watched “The Rainmaker” in Delhi, when it was released in 1997. It was the first english movie I saw and also the first time I went to a multiplex. In fact, they didn’t even call it a “Multiplex” at that time.

There was one more reason why I remember that movie. Karan Thapar was there, standing alone, waiting for the show to begin. I could not be sure at that time though, but it was confirmed when he mentioned his own movie experience in one of his columns for the Hindustan Times a couple of weeks later.

I liked the movie so much that I wanted to buy the book minutes after the show ended. I could not afford to buy that book at that time but I purchased it a few months later and went on to read all of John Grishams in the next two years.

I have seen the movie a few times and I love to see it because Rudy Baylor, a fresh law school graduate, the main character of the movie (played by an always impressive Matt Damon), is a hero of sorts. He is nothing less but the guy next door but as the story progresses so does the stature of his character. He doen’t know that you are supposed to ask the judge’s permission before you approach the witness but he does not repeat his mistakes again. He is imperfect, yes, and that’s the beauty of it. He is scared but not intimidated.

And Somewhere in the movie you realise he is telling you to be the same.

Watch it if you can. If you like good cinema, you will love it.

“It’s hard keeping my mind on Leo Drummond and his people.
They’ll be flying in first class, and after dinner, they’ll discuss my destruction.
When I check in to Motel Six, they’ll be sleeping soundly in their suites.
They’ll wake up fresh and rested and ready for war.
It’s my deposition, but it’s their turf.”

Have your cake and eat it too!

The magazine of todays Sunday Times of India carries an advertisement claiming Kerala to be a monsoon, honeymoon destination. It shows a young couple, in each others arms, under a tree, by a river as the rain is pouring in.

On the left side of the advertisement, a line says “Showers of passion”.

Now, I am nowhere near being in such a position, but I wonder if it were the case and if, impressed by this advertisement, I decide to goto Kerala, would they allow me to do that? Won’t the police come and hit me? Won’t the moral police condemn it? Hell, I could even be on National television. Afterall, in India, its almost criminal for a couple to even hold hands in public. So what if they are married.

Okay so here we are, Truman changes the look and feel of his blog after about 10 months. The last template received a lot of accolades and I fear this may have a lot to live up to.

Here is what I think. What is new and what would be missed.

Good things:

1. This is more readable. The font attributes are better than what we had in the last template, hence the improvement in readability.

2. The Blue and White combination is good to the eyes :)

3. The Cessna 172 Skyhawk image, I am absolutely in love with it. It held the most important place in my scheme of things. Now, I must mention here, the sky background and the aircraft were two different images. What you see is a blending of those two. The credit for that goes to my friend Dipankar Bose, who worked on it (from Calcutta) because I requested him to. Being a part-time artist myself, I can’t help but appreciate the fine work with the imagery.

4. I think, overall, the template is simple, uncluttered.

What will be missed:

1. The Newspaper template. That was not originally a newspaper-look-and-feel theme. It was just that I had customised it to such a degree that it had started to look like one.

2. Three column look. I have always preferred that. But in the three column themes, readability often takes a backseat.

Anything else? Please let me know your opinions :)

I feel the urge to go to the sea every few months. Two weeks ago, on a friday afternoon at work, I decided to go “somewhere”. Anywhere. Preferably, somewhere near the sea. I thought of going to Mangalore. Though I realised that getting a deluxe/volvo bus ticket just a few hours prior to the journey on a weekend is one highly improbable thing, I still gave it a try and to my surprise, I managed to get a ticket to Mangalore.

By the time I had the ticket in my hand, the only thing certain was that I would be in Mangalore by 7 am, next day. What I would do after that, I had no idea.

Since Mangalore and Udupi are nearby, I decided to visit Udupi. There were two reasons for that. First, I wanted to visit the famous Krishna Mutt and second, I wanted to have authentic Udupi cuisine. From there, I could catch the Konkan route train to Goa and then take the monday train back to Bangalore.

Of course, I did not have any train tickets. If you stay away from home for eight years and travel alone, you learn to make plans like that.

Once I reached Udupi at around 8:30 in the morning, the first step was to book the ticket to Goa for the afternoon train leaving Udupi at 4 pm. While putting the unconfirmed ticket in my wallet, I realised it already had 3 old rail tickets. Flattened now. One Vasco-Bangalore second class sleeper. One platform ticket, Bangalore railway station. One Bombay local train ticket. These are travel declarations and they have their own stories to tell.

Udupi is a small town, one of the last towns on the Konkan belt. The railway station is a little off the city, but like all Konkan Railway stations, its clean and very well maintained. A sign informs me, hinting a sense of pride within, that all the water served on the station is UV treated. Indeed, an achievement.

The Blessing of Udupi

The city’s biggest and the only tourist attraction is the Krishna Mutt. Its as if the city is aware of the fact. Every auto-driver expects the Mutt to be the ultimate destination of each visitor. I meet one such auto-driver and without much effort, reach the mutt.

I rent a room, take it for a day even though I know I would be leaving the city by late afternoon. Freshening up and taking a little nap is on my mind. That is what I precisely do before I head downstairs for the Krishna temple. Crowds gather at the entrance, as expected. The place is well-maintained, well-managed. Albeit a little surprising that even in this huge crowd, the calmness prevails. The Sarovar, a pool of green water, is a beauty to take a look at. I break my fast with the meal offered and its time to go.

The Sarovar at the temple

At Diana Circle, I achieve my second objective. The Diana restaurant is one of the oldest restaurants in the city. Having a masala-dosa there is of prime importance since I want to know if it is only the Bangalore-udupi restaurants that put the red-chatni in their version of the masala-dosa or is it a part of the real thing. As it turns out, the entire thing does look like what they serve in the name of Udupi cuisine in Bangalore but the familiarity ends there. The taste is entirely different, untreaded territory and what not. Second objective achieved. And how.

By 2 pm, I am back at the station, waiting patiently for Matsyagandha Express to arrive from Mangalore. I have almost a couple of hours to spend there. I (try to) feed the two kittens I find there, give them milk and bread. Only that the kittens refuse to oblige. In those two hours, not one train passes by, though the frequency of trains on this station is as good as any station on the Konkan route.

The view that I get throughout the journey, my third on this track, is such that it makes it a sin, to travel without a digital camera. I make the most of what I have. Its peak summer but the rivers are full, the backwaters lovely and the greens are inviting. Trust me, when you travel here and you see what I saw, you don’t need any book, you don’t need any music.

All you need is the Sun spraying yellow rays on the layers of various shades of the Green below. That is all.

Peace

The Backwaters

“Look at the star, look how it shines for you, it’s all Yellow”

Hope you liked the photos. Comments, as always, welcome.

The best thing about music is that it has the power to take you to another time.

The years 1998 to 2000 introduced me to a new kind of music. I was the proud owner of a Sony Walkman and took even greater pride in my music collection.

It’s hard to categorise music in genres. People do it anyway. I listened (and still do) to everything. I did not care (and did not know) what the term “Rock music”, in its literal sense, meant and could not care less about the so called Pop music. I kept it simple — Listened to anything that I liked. Purchased an audio tape costing Rs.125 just because I liked 2 songs. Sometimes it seemed, the Audio Industry thrived on me for their business in Indore.

As I hinted, those years introduced me to Artists who I have been essentially listening to this date. I want to tell you about them. I just feel like writing about music today and that is what I am doing.

In 1998, I left Delhi for Indore to pursue my graduation studies. I had with me a suitcase of clothes and in the name of amusement, a Philips stereo and three audio cassettes (my friend suggested the music). Bryan Adams-Mtv Unplugged was one of them and it was to become my first addiction. I listened to it till the tape broke. Bryan Adams came up with “On a day like today” a few months after that and I think it was one of his best efforts till date, even though it was not much applauded as his other albums like “18 till I die”.

To me, Sheryl Crow was the first singer who sounded different then the then popular Backstreet boys and Spice Girls. Now I realise it was wrong to compare her music with the “Boys” and the “Girls”, but at that time I couldn’t help it. She had this reckless attitude, not necessarily denoting a rebel but surely a fire within. I was mad about this song called “If it makes you happy”. After that, her album titled, “The Globe Sessions” was released. It sounded fresh, different and some songs had in it to make you stand up and take notice.

Sheryl Crow

Television was a luxury available only at home in Goa. And going to Goa was a custom followed once every 3-4 months. In one of those visits, while eating rice and fish-curry and glaring at Channel [v], I met one Sharleen Spiteri of a band known as Texas. Since she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen and the 18-year-old I was, her voice made my heart skip a beat or two. “In our lifetime” was on Television and a few hours later, in my mp3 collection. Texas, was later to be one of the best music bands I had ever listened to, still continue listening to and Sharleen Spiteri was to remain on my personal list of the most beautiful women to walk this planet.

Sharleen Spiteri in “Black Eyed Boy”, “Say what you want” and the latest “Getaway”

During the second semester of my graduation, I stood on the edge of being officially termed a loser in college. Inspiration came from the song “Animal Instinct”, the first track of the album “Bury the Hatchet” from a band I had heard for the first time, called, “The Cranberries”. Being passionate about music and not performing it is not that bad afterall. It gave a dose of inspiration and made me realise that I had my task cut out during the exams ahead. The figure of Dolores O’Riordan, the female lead of Cranberries, crashing her guitar in the video of “Promises” took this rage of music to another level, carrying it ahead of what I had learnt from Sheryl Crow. Female rockers had arrived.

Dolores O’Riordan in “Dreams”, “Linger” and the rebellious “Promises”

During the same time, Robbie Williams was trying hard to woo some audience in the west (read America). He had come up with this hit called “Millennium”. I loved it so much that I got its tape in the middle of my examinations. In normal circumstances, I would have gifted this to myself after the semester exams but clearly Williams got the better of me and I had to purchase this after the first examination of Differential Equations itself. The risk didn’t pay off as I failed in Differential Equations. The argument that I and half of the class that failed in the same subject attributed this to a “complex malpractice” going in the university remained a fact that never was proven and labeled irrelevant.

Robbie Williams then came up with something that finally sent him to America. “Singing when you are winning” was that masterpiece which put him up there. Rock Dj rocked America. “Supreme”, “Better man” and “Kids” finally got Robbie Williams his due and to me, music that plays in my head till this day.

The Stylish Robbie Williams in “Supreme” and “Millennium”

Then in 2000, on TV, I saw a half bald man recording the desert scenery on a digital camera in his Jaguar driven by a beautiful chauffeur. He had this peculiar voice and a funny name. I, at that time, did not have any idea who Sting was. For a long time, I continued to believe he was a one-time wonder, a late bloomer and a rich man who wanted to see himself on Mtv. Still, I tried his latest album, “Brand New Day”. “A Thousand Years” was mysterious and dark, “Desert Rose” was an instant hit and “After the rain” slowly grew on me. Then one day, in a hotel room in Pune, I heard Sting’s “When we dance” and I knew I had to listen to more of this man. And now I think I like the “pre-Brand New Day” Sting more.

The Bald and the Beautiful: Sting (and the chauffeur), in “Desert Rose”

U2 arrived on my music radar during the same time as Robbie Williams. But that’s an altogether different story :)

I can’t go to U2. And U2 dont feel like coming here to my country. So I do what I should. I buy their latest “Vertigo//2005. U2 Live from Chicago” DVD.

Bono: Music for America, Money for Africa…DVDs for Asia?