Somewhere in Space

The script was brilliant. After all the author was a Tony Awardee. And it had its share of playing to the gallery. Trust the Irish to not miss an opportunity to ‘up yours’ the Americans.

The set was minimalistic. No clutter. And the only mobility for most parts on stage was Sharanya who played a games playing Marion. With the hypnotising voice of Nakul Bhalla as Dr. Conroy the play moves along at a surprisingly rapid pace. With Siddharth Rao popping up from his slumber with some real gems as the scramble headed Rooney and Nidhi Pant low profiling as a reluctant Olivia the circling of the boats, sorry Cruisers, becomes a fascinating thread to string the meandering of the story.

Ratika Sant Keswani’s entry towards the end as the housekeeper who gets coopted to be the play mother slips into her role with aged ease.

All in all a lovely evening, a tight well written script.

But I came away with the definite feeling that my memory of the Pizzazz performance by Dramanon Hyderabad brought a wider smile to my face. Why? I don’t know. Am I biased? Maybe.

But I feel that the twist in the tale which is what makes the play hilarious at the end was led to with too much intensity by Sharanya who also directed the play. I missed a gradual shift from casual banter to heavily loaded dialogues. I thought the play slipped into the mode, the groove, too fast. Prematurely if I say so myself.

This is not to say that the play was any the worse for this. In fact it kept the tempo inspite of the NIFTians switching off the AC midway. But it was perhaps the only area where improvement would have been possible, or even necessary.

On a note that may stamp me as a perv (after yesterday’s blog where I pointed out Gomatham’s need for cycle shorts) I think Sharanya should take a fresh look at her costume. The tell tale signs of bikini panties (if that’s what they are called) was an unnecessary distraction.

But, well done Dramanon Bangalore…and come back soon.

Woody Allen’s GOD is a play written in typical Woody style and demands an audience performer interface that does away with the proverbial fourth wall and throws dialogs around with such ease that you often forget that the author has warned you in advance that everyone is a figment of his imagination.

The wonderful thing about this evening’s performance of GOD by Samahaara was that it stayed true to the original script…mostly. And held the audience’s attention throughout.

Rahul Premchander, with his depiction of a slave who prefers slavery to freedom and as a starving desperate tippling actor did a marvelous job. And so did Abhinav. His quandary with having to come up with a script that has a conventional beginning, middle and end captured the frustration of an author stuck for words and his portrayal of a writer who realises that it is not he who is holding the pen, was admirable.

With the rest of the cast filling in very well what was there in the play not to like?

Well for one, the lighting was poor and unimaginative. But perhaps that has more to do with auditorium limitations than directorial intentions.

The attempt to caricaturise all the other bit characters landed up with some exaggerated in-your-face performances that reminded us that speaking loudly does not mean shouting and loss of clarity is unpardonable.

Both Abhinav and Krishna Shukla need to work in this department.

The absence of a brochure prevents me from taking individual names but the chorus girls performed very fiestily. More could have been done with the Zeus sequence but I am sure there were practical challenges to be overcome.

You need Guts to perform GOD. Well Samahaara proved that they have guts and more. The way they supported the performance including encouraging the two young girls who directed the play was inspiring. Well done Rathna.

And yes Abhinav, please wear cycle shorts when you are in costume the next time. It was the only burr on the otherwise clever costumes. I am sure the intention of the playwrights, both real and fictional was not for the audience to realise that you were not a Jockey Man

The last couple of days, the beauty of Hyderabad that has a lot to do with the concerted efforts of Chandrababu Naidu in the past, has been marred by splashes of yellow.

Yellow banners. Yellow posters. Yellow hoardings. Yellow streamers. And so on. Strung up between trees. Pasted on walls. Essentially, the party has tried its best to give the public the feeling that Telugu Desam still has a presence, still has a voice.

But the almost callous manner in which the citizens of Hyderabad have ignored the yellow revolution proves beyond doubt that the party which was at one time seen as a viable and proud alternative to the Congress is in tatters, yellow of course.

No one’s giving the publicity material a second glance. In fact I saw in quite a few places traders and small businessmen quietly and discretely removing the tell tale signs of the yellow surge.

What a fall. How the mighty have been humbled. Worse, they have been forgotten. When Naidu goes today in his convoy his movement is seen as a major irritant.

Does he even deserve these perks? Who would want to kill him now? Questions like these dot the landscape of confusion.

In the history books that our grandchildren will study, perhaps there will be a chapter dedicated to the near decade of Telugu Desam rule and to its founder NTR and the usurper CBN. But beyond that they have reduced themselves to a reluctant footnote.

It is better now for the shades of yellow to fade. Sunset Boulevard is where they need to be headed. Because the faster they realise that they have been relegated to history, the better, the more graceful.

Many years ago, when I was in Bombay, my office at Clarion (the Advertising Agency which today calls itself Bates) was in New Marine Lines very close to Churchgate Railway Station.

The agency was very well located. The next building housed the Syndicate Bank Branch so we could all hop over anytime and deal with the bank work. At Churchgate there were a lot of eateries and small drinking joints. Metro Cinema, Liberty Theatre etc. were just down the road. We even had a hospital a few hundred yards down the road. We had a Khao Galli next door which served delicious pav bhaji and chaat. Nirmala Niketan was so close that we used to think someone had planned for eye candy to be available to us at stone’s throw.

But most conveniently, there were a couple of Udipi kind of restaurants on New Marine Lines that most of used to frequent, more in the interest of time and money than any preference for their cuisine.

One of them was Balwas.

Balwas continued to be a part of my life even after I moved to Hyderabad because Suresh Sheth who was a photographer I used quite regularly in those days and Multivision, the Audio Visual facility set up by him and run by his children (all of them being staunch vegetarians) depended on Balwas for their client servicing needs. Snacks, Lunch etc.

All in all I can confidently say that between me and my colleagues at Clarion, both past and present, we contributed substantially to Balwas’ prosperity. How can I forget my late friend Anil Jagga who introduced us to the Rum Coke & Tandoori Chicken combo that we used to consume in large numbers almost every evening.

If you are wondering where this blog is leading, please bear with me. I am quite confused.

Ever since someone pointed out that some of the money, maybe just a fraction, but some of the money that the Balwas scion used in the recently uncovered telephone scam may have been ours, a few of us Balwas regulars have been having sleepless nights.

Can the money trail be traced back so many years? Did we leave any tell tale evidence that we had made huge payoffs at Balwas? Did we ever give money directly to the son? After all these years can we be involved? Apparently there is no statute of limitations on economic crimes.

So I spend hours waiting for the knock on the door or the call on my phone. As a precaution I have advised my children never to go to Chutney’s, Shanbagh etc. If they feel like some Udipi they can always ask for take away. Who knows what plans are being hatched at these innocent looking restaurants? Who knows what the owner will turn out to be? Now that digital archiving has arrived, footage of them eating at these outlets can be preserved for years and can be used as evidence against them if necessary.

Oh My God. The very thought gives me the heebie jeebies. And things are not made easier when my children inform me that the cigarette shop that used to supply my cancer sticks a few years back was owned by someone called Suri who killed some Rayalseema goon and was also killed in retaliation.

Forget it. I don’t want to go to Tihar. And neither do I want my friends and families to be invited there. If that means I have to live only on my cook’s rock hard idlis and out of shape dosas, then so be it!!!

Sometime this morning I saw a picture shot by a student of a friend and the shot disturbed me. I commented on it and have been thereafter been accused of being a prude, being a person who has no appreciation of the art of glamour photography and so on.

Needless to say I am deeply affronted. I have nothing against cleavages. In fact I have shot quite a few myself. What I did object to was the sum total of the picture.

Let me explain. Just as in real life a woman goes out of her way to protect her modesty by covering her cleavage but does not hesitate to use it to advantage when the situation demands, in photography too the cleavage is to be revealed only in a few situations. A cleavage shot, remember, can symbolise everything from attitude to state of mind, from sexuality to casualness and from a studied non chalance to a posed taunt, a gauntlet of sorts.

The trick however lies in finding the harmony. The harmony between the model and her surroundings. The harmony between the way the cleavage is shown and the way the body speaks.

But it has to be all according to plan. Great shots do not happen by chance. The planning could involve small things like arranging the lights required, the location required etc. to much more important things like getting the model’s body and eyes and lips to speak in the same tone her breasts (and what lies in between) are.

Photography is not just about understanding light, nor is it about owning a swank new DSLR. It’s about facilitating the synergy between the body (the model), the mind (the photographer) and the soul (the audience and the environment).

On the 21st of May every year I do not remember Rajiv Gandhi. I remember my wife. Let me tell you why.

We were in Bangalore the year he was assassinated. And since my wife and kids had come down for a holiday to be with me (I used to operate from Bangalore in those days) we slept in late in my one room studio apartment.

We had no TV, no radio and I did not subscribe to a newspaper.

So when we finally woke up and got the kids ready and then trooped to the car so we could all drive somewhere for a lazy brunch we were quite surprised to see clusters of people hanging around street corners, paan shops, udipi joints and what have you. All of them had hang dog expressions on their face and an uneasy calm seemed to hang like a mist on the city of Bangalore.

My daughter pointed out that there was hardly any traffic on the roads. And she was a toddler, so go figure.

We reached the restaurant of choice and I asked someone what the matter seemed to be. He looked at me as if I was an alien and hurried inside but not before announcing with a sob that Rajiv Gandhi was dead.

I spoke to the Manager of the hotel and he confirmed the news. Rajiv had been blown up by a female assassin.

My kids had a baffled look on their faces and I couldn’t understand why. I mean how does the death of the ex Indian PM affect kids of 6 and 3. Then I realised that their baffled faces were a reaction to my wife’s.

I looked at her and was stumped. Here was my wife, a temple of calm and serendipity in most situations…with tears running down her cheeks…with giant intakes of breath as she choked on the news. He is too young. He cannot die. That’s not fair. She went on and on. Crying. Sobbing.

I couldn’t but help admire her naivety.

She pulled the kids to her and went on telling them that Rajiv Gandhi was no more. Not that the kids understood but I am sure they picked up a note or two of panic in my wife’s voice and they hugged their mother even harder. The back seat of my Ambassador began to look suspiciously like the front seat of a tear jerking soap opera.

It took me the better part of the rest of the day to soothe my wife into normalcy.

Ever since then on every 21st of May we remind her about how she broke down; how naive she was; how simple and vulnerable. I tease her too but with a sense of respect…to feel for fellow man  is a sign that the heart is sufficiently sensitive.

For a person who can feel only his own pain is callous. And has a heart that only pumps blood…not emotions.

Many years ago. No let’s make that many, many years ago…when I was wetting my feet on the banks of the gushing Internet River our local newspaper, the infamous Deccan Chronicle carried a news item that caught my attention for more reasons than one.

They wrote about a site called www.nakednews.com.

The story was intriguing to say the least. And was for once true to character and reality. The site featured good looking women working as news anchors. The difference being that while they delivered hard core news headline by headline, they also removed pieces of their clothing, headline by headline.

Imagine an attractive newsreader announces that YS Jagan has won the elections with a record breaking majority.

And then she takes off her blouse.

She then adds that YSR’s wife also won the elections with a handsome margin.

And then she takes off her skirt.

And this goes on till the anchor is completely naked.

When I saw the site those many years ago, the site was free to view. But in the years that have passed I have realised that there is no free lunch on the internet. Not if you want to survive and thrive in a fairly competitive and fluid market.

My first reaction was that this was a clever attempt to marketize if not legalize pornography. I could see many pervs getting their dose of news from these bimbos and I could well imagine what the site would offer by way of evolution. Two anchors stripping alternatively. Men coming into the frame. Sexy moves being initiated. And so on and on.

What they did surprised me. They invited the audience to audition for posts of anchors.

Who would want to apply for a job which is nothing but that of a stripper, I thought. And went on to more relevant sites, more interesting sites, more monetised sites as the net went on from narrow band freedom to broadband pay per view.

This afternoon I have no idea why this site came to mind. Maybe it was because a friend asked me to take a critical look at breakingnews.com.

But see the site I did and was pleasantly surprised to see that it still existed. And not just that it was doing phenomenally well. Even getting Time Magazine to acknowledge that they are the best news coverage people this side of the BBC.

The subscription numbers have grown. The content delivery platforms have grown. And the naked ladies are laughing and running all the way to the bank.

So has the Internet evolved. Yes.

From snail pace to Mach and beyond. In more ways than one.

Truly if you are not making money by being present on the web you are just taking up space.

When I was finishing with school I had one desire and one desire only. To own a motor cycle. But alas my parents were very clear that it was neither in their budget nor in their plans. I begged, I pleaded. I sulked, I screamed. But to no avail.

The only ray of hope was that in a moment of weakness my father said that if I could earn even half the cost of the motorcycle he would chip in with the rest. But seriously, back in those days, the very idea of a sixteen year old kid earning money was alien and eminently laughable. So I saw the offer as a ray of hope that had no chance of lighting up my life.

A few dats later my parents announced that they were going to the Secunderabad Club for an evening of Tombola. Us kids had two options – stay at home and get bored or accompany the parents to the club and get bored. Needless to say we chose the latter.

The evening started normally enough. Mom and Dad picked up their tickets and proceeded to miss the house valiantly. Once by just two numbers and once with one. For the last house Mom decided to buy a whole sheet of Tombola tickets. I was by this time falling asleep. I didn’t like the game and in any case I was not allowed to play it as per Club Rules.

Till this day I cannot explain why I did what I did but I offered Mom to tick a couple of her tickets. She was grateful and accepted my help immediately.

To cut a long story short one of the tickets I was ticking won the bumper house that evening. Unfortunately so did several other tickets. So the prize money was whittled down to Rs. 750/-. Of course that was a huge sum in those days.

Dad and Mom had drinks to celebrate. And we were fed ice creams. And then we went home.

It was only the next morning at the breakfast table did it strike me to ask my parents – “Since it is technically my ticket that won the money, isn’t it fair that the money be treated as my earning?”

My father smiled benignly and carried on with his coffee. My mother ruffled my hair and smiled that typical Happy Mom smile. And no one said anything.

That was frustrating. I waited till everyone at home got on with their day to day lives and then embarked on a research trip. Which motor cycle could I buy if I had Rs, 1500/- ? 750 being my ‘earnings’ and the balance being Dad’s share.

I found that I had a choice of classic motor cycles. Matchless. AJS. BSA. I went and seriously confronted my parents. My Dad after some argument and debate was finally convinced and agreed but on one condition.

There was a gentleman in his office who was a motor cycle aficionado. He had to certify whichever bike I was planning to buy and my budget was strictly Rs. 1500/-.

At the end this gentleman sold me one of his bikes for Rs. 1500/- and made a little boy’s dream come true.

The bike was a 1942 model BSA 500 cc one. Its RC Book certified that it was part of the British Army and was assigned to a Captain serving in Arabia.

The bike had a unique air filtration system to handle the sand which seemed to be perfect for our local conditions. It was painted a rich military green. And had thump that put all other bike sounds to shame.

It took me a while to master the bike, but master it I did. And I had a great time riding it around town. Errr…did I forget to tell you that the bike had no shock absorbers. And that the pillion sat on a small bench type seat perched on the rear mudguard?

I remember I went with my sister to a relative’s wedding at Shanker Mutt. As we were leaving the relative gave us a few packets of sweets to carry back home. I was thrilled. And in anticipation of the feast that awaited me I rode home fairly fast and without much comversation.

We reached home and I was in for a shock. While my sister was safe and on the pillion, she had been so shaken by the ride that without realising it, she had let the packets go. So we partied with curd rice and went to bed.

On the day our ISC results were announced about ten of us got onto the bike and it took us around school and finally to Piush Bahl’s house without even taking a deep breath.

It sure was a powerful bike and I had fun with its four stroke majesty. Alas very soon it was time for me to go to college. And Dad was very clear that the only bike I could take to college was my bicycle.

The bike was left in Hyderabad and one day while I was away at College in Chennai, Dad decided to sell it. He got the sum of Rs. 1500/- for the bike and he was happy.

It was only in my second year that I could convince my parents that I deserved a bike and Dad was sweet enough to sponsor a 1969 model Jawa. Ar 250 cc it had half the power of my BSA but my pillion riders were very grateful for the comfort that this modern bike provided.

I had a lot of fun with the BSA and the Jawa. But then those are other stories.

Strangely enough I do not have even one picture of the bikes. The BSA we never shot, and the Jawa photograph is in Texas USA with my cousin who has been promising to scan it for me for years…

But here is a picture I downloaded from the net. This is what my BSA looked like…

After making films for almost all the big brands in India in almost every product segment I was a few years ago taking a break in Hyderabad when I got a strange request. Could I please make a film for a local Hyderabadi Client who had no budget except to advertise in vernacular newspapers like Hindi Milap and Siasat. The product was an energy tablet that promised improved sexual prowess and according to the manufacturer was more potent and reliable than Viagra. While this claim was interesting the client’s definition of the target audience was fascinating. He was selling mostly in the old city prompting me to wonder whether the residents there were handicapped or hungry. The tone of voice that the client was comfortable with was the tone we had grown up listening to at the Numaish (Exhibition) with a mix of street quack jadee bootee walla kind of spiel.

My creative juices were sufficiently stimulated for me to accept the assignment at a hugely reduced fee but I laid down a few conditions. I would not look for the female model. I had no intention of getting to meet hundreds of unsavoury characters in the search for the woman who didn’t mind being shown as the woman who gives her man the pill knowing that she stood to benefit. I would not make a trashy film however much the client felt it would work with his audience.

We learnt quite a few things while planning the shoot. According to the Censor Board Official (at that time) we could not show a man atop a woman.

After we shot we learnt that as per Censor Rules, a woman biting a man’s ear is seen to be overtly sexual.

And while we were shooting we realised that a half day stubble can be hell for the girl who in the throes of passion had her neck caressed and her cleavage sand papered into a rash.

The film was shot in a guest house in Jubilee Hills which today hosts an educational institute of repute (talk of irony).

While I was scripting for the film my dear friend the late Dr. Hari Pai casually asked me if I could weave in a cameo role for him in the film so I created the end customer stereotype who has to ooze lust as he asks the medical shop fellow to give him a strip of the tablet Mighty Forte.

Take a look at the film. It is nothing great cinematically and not something that I feel should be a part of my show reel. But it is definitely a film I had ‘fun’ making. After years of seeing how high I could go in search of excellence it was quite a refreshing change to see how low I could fall in terms of scripting and film making. In all fairness when my client told me that market feedback was that the film was classy and not massy enough I realised I had failed.

The sadder note was when I was informed that the girl who acted in the film was harassed by society with offers of the ‘let’s go to bed’ type so many times that in sheer frustration, she apparently committed suicide.

Mighty Forte–Shouhar ko banaye Sher!!! Don’t miss the pure Hyderabadi Scripting.

Those were the days when if I stood at Punjagutta Cross Roads I knew 9 out of every 10 cars that passed. And getting a lift was simply a matter of waving a hello to any car that looked like it was headed in the right direction.

I was luckily one of those who had a motor cycle. An old Jawa mind you, but a motor cycle all the same. And I had in Madras got the bike modified. It had an Easy Rider handle and sawn off shotgun style silencers painted a matt black. The engine was tuned to high performance and the facia had been fabricated in my friend Ram Prasad’s factory. So it was all black and chrome and roar.

One of the thrills we discovered while riding the bike was that when a heavy vehicle passed us by on the highway, the bike would actually fly sideways for a few inches. The pressure of air was so much and it was fun to let the trucks and buses overtake us, simply so we could fly a little.

One day I was going to the Secunderabad Club and was a wee bit late. It was afternoon, around 3 o’clock and the roads were near deserted. So I let the bike have its say and let loose. As I reached Alladin Building I spotted in the distance a unique shade of blue speeding towards me.

The blue was the Mercedes Benz owned by Nawab Basheer Yar Jung, the father of my friends Aamer and Saad bib Jung and brother in law to Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi aka Tiger of the cricketing captain fame.

Bush Uncle as he was fondly known was (and remains till date) a jolly old chap and I knew he would do something as he passed me. Something cheeky, something naughty, something to tease his ‘Motay’ which is what he used to call me affectionately. So I held fast to my path and sped on.

The Merc too remained resolutely on its path and I could now see the figures of Dimpu Aunty and the kids in the car. Closer and closer he came in a crazy game of Chicken but I did not blink. And then he had passed me by, him on his way to their Palace in Begumpet, me on my road to Secunderabad.

But not before I realised that my bike had been lifted off the road and flown sideways for a few feet, and that I was now riding close to the kerb instead of in the middle of the road.

Damn, but that Merc is heavy I thought. Even heavy trucks don’t manage to give me so much lateral movement when they pass me on highways.

It was only when I reached the Secunderabad Club and I was parking the bike that I noticed the pannier case.

It had a gentle scrape of blue on it. And that shade of blue was unique and very obviously from the Merc.

I hadn’t been blown away  by the wind I realised. I had been nicked and I was lucky to have survived without a scratch.

Shaken, I finished my work at the club and rode back to Bush Uncle’s house. Hello Motay, come, come…have a cup of tea…Bush Uncle greeted me with his customary bonhomie.

Motay my foot, I thought to myself as I proceeded to accuse him of rash driving and for daring to kiss my bike at high speed. Bush Uncle refuted the accusation of course and only when I showed him the blue paint leftovers on my pannier was he convinced. And then instead of being apologetic, he started to laugh. Laugh heartly and contagiously.

Till I was laughing as well. Only later at night when I was about to go to bed did I realise that my brush with the Merc was also my first with death.

Ever since she understood that while I was a film maker, I did not hobnob with heroes and heroines, my mother was convinced that I had taken up a second or indeed third class profession. No amount of discussions and debates could convince her otherwise. Only when she realised that my films sometimes involved models was she pacified. But she never missed a chance to tell me that things would have been much better if the models I shot with were of national if not international prominence and were quite often in Hyderabad where she could perhaps meet them and even, yes…even have them over for tea.

So when she overheard that I was sending the car to fetch my wife so she could watch me shooting with a few hundred models, nothing could stop her from coming along for the ride.

When she walked onto my location set she was scandalised and very nearly had to be hospitalised, Because what I was shooting was one of Asia’s largest slaughter houses and my ‘models’ for the shoot included only the best looking bulls, the meatiest of buffaloes and the choicest of sheep. And when she passed the section where hundreds of entrails were being processed, she gave up and beat a hasty retreat.

Now, even if you are shooting with Miss India, I do not want to come for the shoot, she said as she left in a huff.

Yes, shooting for the slaughter house was one of the more difficult assignments I have ever handled. In about ten days of shooting I had about 8 crew changes. I had to change my camera person twice. Most of the crew turned vegetarian for a few months after a day at the slaughter house. While I was editing the film my editors used to have queasy stomachs and regular upheavals.

But the film eventually turned out to be a fairly good one. It very easily illustrated that here was a world class slaughter house that upheld both religious/spiritual and international health standards of hygiene. At the end of the film you were left with the firm impression that if you had to buy meat, you were much better off buying Al Kabeer meat.

Take a look at the film. It really changed the way I look at my steaks and burgers!

Al Kabeer, Hyderabad. Asia’s Largest, Most Modern Slaughterhouse

A few weeks ago several statues installed on the picturesque Tank Bund by that flamboyant Chief Minister NT Rama Rao were pulled down by the mob. Of the many that were there only a few escaped unshaken and unscarred. Why were they demolished? Was it just mindless mob frenzy? Or was it planned and premeditated? Was there a telengana bias in the issue? Was the mob justified in what they did? Questions like these have been raised ad nauseum. Debates have been raging and sides have been clearly taken.

In the same vein my dear friend Mimicry Srinivas posted a link to an article that expounded his point of view. And recently I saw a movie called Hatchiko. The movie was about a dog and a man. The affection between the two was so intense that even after the man died and the  dog became homeless, the dog used to come everyday at a fixed time to the railway station waiting for his master to come back home. It was a touching display of canine doggedness and when the dog also died, the people who had been watching the dog’s antics for a few years and indeed had helped keep him alive, all got together and put up a statue that still stands outside that railway station in Japan. The statue of the dog cannot be missed.

With two thought streams let loose the ensuing flood of emotions triggered off a slew of memories that I thought I should share with you. So here goes.

The story begins with an aborted attempt by my parents to instil in me the walking habit by sending me out every morning to the Tank Bund. Remember this was many years ago and much before KBR Park was formed and jogging and walking became early morning fashion statements. I for one couldn’t handle it. All that pumped up or should I say self pumped energy, and that unmistakable aura of self righteousness was more than what a simple minded person like me could come to terms with before a couple of cups of coffee had toured my insides warmly. So my early morn walks became my early classes in body language.

Who was that guy in imported track suit? Why did he not realise that he had (by mistake) picked up a tack suit, Why was that guy with a paunch insistent on wearing skin tight lycras. Why was that couple coochi-cooing in public? Answers to these and similar questions kept me amused and occupied while my parents laboured under the impression that I was huffing and puffing across the lake.

That is when I saw an old man who would drive up in a stately Ambassador Car. Get down with a bit of fanfare. And then wait for his pet dog to join him as they walked together without the aid of a leash across the Bund and back.

The dog was a delight to watch. Extremely well behaved and obedient. And he would pace himself perfectly. When they came back to the parked car, the dog would scamper to a nearby lamp post and pee to his heart’s content before trotting back to the car and his master and rushing home. The first few days I noticed this ritual, it was quite orinary. But then one day I think the dog saw heaven.

Standing with his one leg up in the air while streaming forth his gush, the dog seems to have taken a closer look at his surroundings. That’s when he spotted Hussain Sagar. And the Rock of Gibraltar. Or at least he spotted something. Since that day the dog would almost freeze in the same posture by the lamp post. And stare with awe at the huge lake in front of him.

What went on in his brain, I cannot even dare to venture. But the look of sheer wonder on his face imprinted itself in my memory banks. I saw the two for many weeks, Master and faithful dog. Going through their rituals every morning, and nothing changed. Then I stopped going to Tank Bund. I finally perked up enough courage to tell my parents the truth. That I was simply not interested in a life pattern that included long early morning walks even if they were good for my health. I was more inclined to spend my early mornings with reams of paper and an endless supply of Misak Pens and ink for the same.

A couple of years later when I had to go to the Railway station to pick up some guests I had to drive on the Tank Bund early in the morning. And was it a pleasant surprise to see the old man in his Ambassador again. Yes it was and we exchanged greetings. But the dog was missing and I had to find out what happened.

The dog died son, said the old man to me. A quiver in his voice let out his emotions and instinctively both of us looked at the lamp post which the dog had clearly marked as his own.

This was quite a few years back. I went back to the Tank Bund to take a first hand look at the playground of my childhood. Suddenly an idea struck me. Why not I, spearhead a movement to put up a statue of that dog. Next to his favourite lamppost, which is still there. Looking out at the lake, which is still there. Staring at the Buddha, who wasn’t around in those days.

The old man, I don’t know his name, must also have passed away. Maybe someone from his family will read this post and contact me if they understand and appreciate the love and affection the old man and the dog shared. And I witnessed.

Let’s hope. Let’s hope. Let’s, well….hope!

I normally am up by 4 am irrespective of what time I go to bed. And when I know I have to drop the wife to the airport in the morning some kind of Early Warning System kicks in and wakes me up even earlier. That’s exactly what happened this morning. So I woke up at 3. 45 am but seeing the wife blissfully sleeping, decided that I was being over enthusiastic and went back to bed, ostensibly for an extra hour.

So I snuggled into bed and woke up at 6. And that was the time I was supposed to be leaving for the airport.

So a mad rush followed, complicated by small complications like the fact that the wife had misplaced her spectacles (found in her car under the seat, check) and that the daughter had to be woken up too since I needed an escort on the way back from Shamshabad.

Then, a few minutes after dropping her to the airport I got a call from the wife informing me that her Mumbai-Pune flight had been cancelled. I offered her the use of my regular driver in Mumbai to drop her to Pune and agreed to wait for her callback after her office tried out other solutions.

While waiting, I thought it may be a good time to chat up with my older daughter who I hadn’t spoken to in a couple of days and found that she too was asleep. At 7.30 in the morning???

I disconnected the phone and put it in its pouch near the gear shift and was taken aback.

The mobile was charging.

The only problem was that it was not connected to a charger. In fact it was not connected to anything at all. Also the blue tooth feature was off. So how the hell was the phone charging with great intensity and how were the bars jumping and dancing?

I decided that I needed to go back to bed, even for a short while. Hopefully things would fall in line by the time I woke up…let’s say half an hour from now!

Flash News: The wife just called and confirmed that alternate flight arrangements had been made for the Mumbai-Pune sector. See…..things ARE falling in line already!

In ‘Up in the Air’ a movie about a man who’s always on the move from airport to hotel to airport George Clooney demonstrates the art of smart packing, smart dressing etc. from an intrepid travellers’ perspective. He shows you how to judge which queue to join and which one to avoid like the plague, he shows you how to not pack stuff which you may not need and so on.

While I never thought of so much detail I did however, many years ago figure out the solution to one problem. At the baggage rack when hundreds of suitcases and briefcases come tumbling by in a rush it’s quite common to see people picking up someone else’s suitcase by mistake simply because their suitcase looked exactly like the one they picked. The size was right. The colour was right – black, brown, grey…and the weight was just perfect. Looking for initials didn’t seem to be necessary.

After a few trips I realised that there was only one way to avoid picking up wrong luggage and worse, letting someone get away with your luggage.

So I went and bought myself a hardcase strolley. And not just any ordinary one but one that was in the most horrendous shade of repulsive blue. I am sure that that particular piece escaped from the factory by disguising itself as an egg or something as trivial and insignificant.

Anyway it landed up on the shop shelf and then became my constant partner for millions of privileged miles. The size was amazing. It took three days changes, work papers etc. with great ease. And magically became more accommodative when I had used clothes and gifts for the kids on the trip back home.

And on the baggage line it was like a beacon. People stepped back in disgust when they saw it coming so I knew when it was on its way. In all the years of travel I never ever spotted another suitcase of the same colour or size so I never had missing baggage, no misplaced suitcases and no problem whatsoever with baggage identification. In fact the only awkwardness I had to live with was the pitying glances of my fellow passengers and officials who thought I must have bought that suitcase on a really desperate discount sale.

And then a couple of years back, someone (I can’t remember who) came home and needed to take some stuff away. He(or she) needed a suitcase and this one was found to be suitable. So with a breezy promise to return the suitcase soon, this person wheeled my blue baby away. And I have never heard from him again.

I miss my blue monstrosity. My heart aches when I am forced to travel with suitcases that look like my fellow passengers’. My heart pauses everytime I open my suitcase in the hotel room half expecting to see Victoria’s Secrets tumbling out of a suitcase that I had picked up by mistake.

I want my horrible blue strolley back. Seems I am emotionally attached to it. Can someone please help?

NO I am not a freak child of multiple mothers nor am I an orphan adopted by several kind souls. But this Mothers’ Day I realise that there are a lot of women I have to thank for their motherly love, for their matriarchal affection and for their very generous hearts.

Of course the day is the day when I celebrate my natural birth mother first and most. She was a grand old lady and what she did for me was amazing. Being an uneducated girl from a village she could easily have left me to learn lessons by myself but this lady learnt not just English and the Sciences but also mastered Hindi. Just so that she could be of help to me. In the process she instilled in me the confidence that there was nothing in the world that we could not do if we set our minds to it. She had the same attitude when it came to food, to books and what have you. So the village girl learnt all about international cuisine and churned out several masterpieces. She read up enough books to sustain a library and the acts of courage and passion and love went on. From simple mugs of hot coffee at 3 am in the morning so I could study to everything from pickles and jams that I so adored. That was Mum in a slice. As a whole she was a devastating package and to her I shall always remain grateful.

Then there were the other mothers. Friends’ mothers. Ladies who adopted me only because I was their son’s classmate. The kind of food I was blessed to eat is a direct result of motherly love that these ladies showered on me. Then of course there were the girl friends who mothered us through teenage. Especially the girls we were just friends with. How many break ups did they see us through. How many heart breaks did they help us get over.

An interesting aspect of motherhood was demonstrated by several secretaries around the country who seem to have adopted me at different stages of my life. From making sure I was eating on time to eating right these girls made my travelling job a mite stable.

The wife they told me was every woman rolled into one. She was the wife, the harlot, the friend, the sister, the boss, the servant and the mother. But it is in her role as the mother that I see her depth and infinite wisdom.

The ultimate mothers of course are the daughters. They have grown up from dependent babies to independent nurturers and in the process have become lovingly protective and overbearingly disciplinarian.

So to all the ladies who have mothered me – thank you Mas. Your role in my life I shall never forget. And Mom, my real Mom – you are the best. Love you all.

I have always been big. Though it’s been a few years now when people stopped using the word big and substituted it for the more honest fat. But inspite of my size I have always been comfortable in water and even under it. I was a top class swimmer and regularly used to impress friends with my ability to swim underwater for long periods of time. Big lungs you see.

And then I grew up and started to work. Writing copy for advertising is a demanding job and especially when you are at the bottom of the ladder you can’t even think of asking for Sundays off to go to the club for a swim. So I had to console myself with telling swimming tales to my land lubber colleagues. Little did I realise that my big mouth would soon land me in deep waters.

It all began when my art director friend who was a Maharashtrian who had always lived on land called me and asked me to keep myself free on the coming Sunday. We were working on Calendar ideas for a client and he had some idea that he wanted to experiment with. I readily agreed especially when he announced that he had gotten special permission from the boss to use the office car that day and that I was to drive.

Come Sunday I went to the boss’ house, picked up the car, then fetched my friend and having tanked up with chips and soft drinks and water I asked him ‘where to’. I was told to drive to T-Nagar. I did. And after a while actually reached the street that was specified. When we reached the building indicated, my friend got down, told me to reverse the car and be in readiness to leave. When he returned he had in tow a tall, well built young lady who was also quite good looking.

The two of them got into the car and I was told to head out of Madras towards the Andhra Pradesh border. Baffled but too confused to ask why I drove as instructed and soon announced that we were now about 70 kms out of Madras. I was directed to drive straight for a few more kilometres and then told to turn left and follow the signs to a waterfall.

That is when I was explained the concept that my friend had in mind. It was shamelessly inspired by Raj Kapoor’s Satyam, Shivam Sundaram and envisaged a white chiffon sari (and nothing else) clad nubile beauty who could walk on water with a gushing waterfall in the background. I saw the waterfall, I saw the nubile beauty but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how my friend could achieve the walking on water effect.

The evil glint in my friend’s eyes gave me an indication as to why I was part of the team. Before I could articulate any kind of protest my friend rigged up a cloth barricade between four trees and got the young lady to first strip then wrap around herself a white chiffon sari. I was then given the use of the changing room and asked to strip down to my shorts. Then the task began in real earnest.

First the girl would enter the water and wet herself completely so she had a cling wrap of a sari and then I would enter the water till I was in neck deep, and then she would step onto my shoulders and I would duck my head underwater and carrying her thus, would walk towards the centre of the pool. The girl had no sense of balance, she kept falling off my shoulders and she didn’t know how to wade leave alone swim.

So I’d take her on my shoulders, take a couple of steps to position, duck my head when ready and she would act as if she was walking on water. The sari having been drenched a few times when she fell off my shoulders was wet enough to show the desired ‘effect’ and the place was windy enough to get her hair dry and blowing in minutes. My friend got his pictures and I had a sore shoulder.

We shot till there was enough light and then drove back to Madras. The girl and I were exhausted and my friend was ecstatic.

When we dropped off the girl to her house she was sweet enough to thank me for the use of my shoulders and gave me a hug while saying ‘Thank you, My Water Baby’.

I was too tired even to blush.

I am by no means a qualified toilet designer. I have of course the distinction of having had the opportunity of trying out almost every kind of toilet there is in the world thanks to my bladdy urges. And over the years my demand to any of my clients who were footing the bill used to only be – get me a room with a clean bed and a cleaner bathroom.

I mean I am not fussy by nature. I am just a bit of a privacy freak and a regular visitor to the toilets of all the places my journey in life takes me.

And because I travel so extensively I have run the whole gamut, from open air ‘behind the bushes’ experiences to fancy bidet accompanied fantasies.

The most fascinating toilet anecdote I love to share with friends harks back to the days when I was in Chennai as a student and the helmet rule was being tried out. There was a theatre complex called Sapphire that included the infamous Blue Diamond Cinema. The toilet at Sapphire was cavernous. Nice and roomy, no need to tuck in your sides to enter the urinal cubicle as you need to nowadays at some public facilities. But the unique part of the Sapphire toilet was that not only were there urinals embedded into the four walls of the toilet hall but there was a central half wall that ran the length of the room and they had installed urinals on both sides of the wall.

While this effectively increased the number of urinals available and eased a lot of pressure for the patrons, it also created a situation where about 20 men had to pee while facing 20 other men who were also engaged in the same occupation. This resulted in a truly comical scene.

Without meaning to get into gross detail, suffice to say that the facial expressions that are displayed when a man is taking a pee and thinks no one is watching, are a lesson in the art of the navarasaas. Now imagine what happens when you realise that your privacy has been compromised and that you have to pee while exchanging expressions with the man in front of you. To complicate life further the helmet rule and the fear that helmets left on the bike in parking lots could be flicked, meant that most men during the interval actually put on their helmets to eat a snack or pee.

So the scene: A row of helmet clad men contorting their faces through the various degrees of pleasure as the pressure that had been built up was released in the much needed interval. And standing opposite them were more helmet clad men going through the same expressions. It was a sight mind you that gave me several funny images that I sketched in my mind and erased only when Sapphire Complex was demolished.

The lesson in this case was simple. Do not ever build urinals wherein men have to face-off with other men. It makes the whole scene look as if the men were pissing on each other. And luckily I have yet to see another facility where the same kind of scenario is reconstructed.

What however bothers me now is the propensity in Hyderabad to add a single urinal to a bathroom in the interest of saving water.

How this phenomenon evolved is perhaps as follow:-

A place is chosen to house a restaurant or a cafe or an office.

It is confirmed that there are two toilets so that the men and women can have separate domains.

Then someone realises that integrating a urinal into the Men’s Loo may be a nice water saving idea.

The plumber is called and the urinal affixed. And only later does anyone realise that because the toilet was originally designed to hold just the pot and the wash basin and perhaps a shower, there is no room to fix the urinal except on the wall next to the pot.

While the aesthetics of the toilet are marred by this out of turn addition to the loo, what happens is that if someone was to use the pot he would find himself face to face with the bowl of the urinal and have to inhale a lot of ammonia while going about his business.

I have seen this urinal in your face phenomenon in too many places for me not to be concerned. And I really wonder why the toilet designers and management members have been so blind to this ridiculously embarrassing situation.

I have kids who hold on till they come home for lunch to use the loo because the toilet in the office is so dirty or because it is poorly designed. I hope the designers who read  this put their minds to the problem and do something tangible to change things. And the same goes for managers and company owners who think everything is hunky dory and picture perfect simply because they never have to use the junta loos themselves.

Yes I plead guilty. I did watch the Disney movie “Secretariat (2010)” over a hundred times and I find I am not able to switch on my laptop without watching it at least in parts again and again and again.

At first I thought it was my way of remembering my late friend Zulu who always spoke of the stallion with great awe. But logic said that however fond I was of my friend I would not normally not be seen dead watching movies with such equine flavours. The other horse film “Sea Biscuit” I had watched 5 or 6 times but that was it.

Considering that I was the chap who launched and produced “Kingfisher presents Horsepower” for the UB Group and became by virtue of that the editor of Asia’s first ever thoroughbred racing video magazine and I didn’t quite manage to see my own films more than twice, the watching of “Secretariat” so many times was an aberration alright.

So what was it about a stallion that created horse racing immortality in 1973 that fascinated me? I didn’t know, at first. Till I saw the three races for the umpteenth time – the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes.

For 25 years before that no horse had won the fabled triple crown. The movie wove a fascinating story of a woman, a housewife who had gambled her everything to save her family farm and so on.

The first race was the Derby and Secretariat is shown to be running last in the field for almost forever. Only in the last quarter mile does the horse accelerate and go on to win the Derby.

The second race is the Preakness which also begins with Secretariat holding his place at the back of the pack. Again in the last part of the race the horse magically accelerates and manages a spectacular win.

However in the third race, the Belmont Stakes, the horse takes off from the word go. As the starting gates open Secretariat takes the lead and keeps it that way throughout the one and a half mile that the track runs. In the second half of the race the horse shows off his power and accelerates to give him a 31 length victory over Sham the closest contender. This is a record that has yet to be broken even 38 years after the event.

So what was it that drew me again and again to the film. The acting was pleasant enough. Nothing spectacular. The race sequences were slick but nothing extraordinary. It was a typical Disney production full of the feel good stuff that tears and popcorn always manage to generate.

Only after a lot of brooding and contemplating I thought of something which might explain the attraction.

Twice before in my life I had had to come from the back of the field and managed to pip the others to the post. I was now gearing up for a third chapter, a third chance if you will.

Perhaps I knew that this time I could not depend on last minute bursts of speeds or last minute miracles. I would have to, like the horse, take the lead from the start. And maintain the lead through to the winning post.

The win this time had to be emphatic. The victory had to be exemplary.

The way Secretariat finished off the Belmont Stakes left no room for doubt as to whether the Horse of the Year award the horse had been given was well deserved or not.

My performance too this time has to be nothing less exemplary, nothing less emphatic.

I am not a habitual Telugu Movie freak. It’s just that I have a friend who keeps recommending Telugu Movies and a Driver whose face lights up whenever I pick up a Telugu Movie DVD. Also in the last one year or so I have run out of English and Hindi movies to see, so I have had no choice but to watch the Telugu Flicks. In all fairness I must admit that the movies have come a long way from Nartanashala and Gandikota Rahasyam.

The actors are trimmer, more adept at dancing, better looking, fitter and deliver dialogs conversationally instead of oratorically. Technically I must confess that Telugu Movies are as good as at least Hindi Movies if not the Hollywood films. Films made in Hong Kong are not even a far off match to Telugu Movies. But just like every silver lining has a dark cloud, what has stagnated and indeed suffered is the story line for the movies.

Telugu Movies are released in waves. Once it is the Rayalseema Factionism wave. Then it is the Made around Vizag wave. Of course you regularly come across locales in Australia, New Zealand etc., but are left dumbfounded at the end of the movie when you are naively trying to figure out the connection between Madanapalli and Melbourne. But all this can be forgiven.

What I fear should not be tolerated is the free wheeling concept of the hero having to marry two wives at the behest of his elders and more often than not with divine blessings.

I have seen movies with Venkatesh, Mohan Babu and Junior NTR that end happily with the heroes continuing a marital relationship with two pretty girls at least one of who we know is not speaking her lines (it’s being dubbed by an artist) and doesn’t quite appreciate the double entendre woven into the songs she is asked to dance to happily forever and thereafter. Now these are fairly popular heroes and given the state of things here their word is often misinterpreted as Gospel.

My question is simple. What kind of message are we sending out on the big screen to various youngsters – school going, college attending, job hunting types, and worst to our rural masses – that it is okay to marry two girls. That it is socially acceptable indeed desirable and even enviable. The profanity which was introduced in the guise of colloquialism has already made abhorable phrases like ‘Nee Amma’ and ‘Nee Abba’ part of the Tollywood Lexicon. But where does it end?

I have seen street fights between 5 year old urchins where the language used left ME blushing. I have seen teenage girls who are yet to declare their puberty innings open, giving their pelvic thrusts sexier twists and learning to bend low so as to display cleavage. I am now worried that we are soon going to have enough youngsters going in for marriages that give a new meaning to two bedroom flats.

I think the Censor Board should be stricter and more responsible. Instead of going by the book and telling film makers like me that we are by law not allowed to show even a fully clothed couple lying atop one another, maybe they should look at messages that the films are blatantly spreading. Maybe…Maybe…

There was a time when everything we read in newspapers was gospel. And everything that the United States of America did was good and was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. But somewhere there has been a cross connection. Somewhere the media has lost its most valuable asset, reliability and the USA has lost its very credibility.

The scepticism with which the news of Osama bin Laden’s death was greeted should be indication of this grim fact.

TV Channels are going to town announcing that Osama and members of his family were killed at a location outside Islamabad and more and more channels are jumping onto the bandwagon.

I am however a hardened sceptic. Too many doctored reports, tapes and audio bytes have left me a cynical and doubting Thomas. So I did what I always do when confused. I went for a drive. And that took me to the Punjagutta mosque. And as luck would have it, the first person I saw coming out after prayers was the big ‘O’ himself. Yes, he is alive and kicking and watering the petunias.

How do I know it is the genuine article? Because HE said so himself. I greeted him with the normal ‘assalaam-waalekum’ and he replied ‘Osaama-bin-laaden’.

Worried that our conversation was getting recorded, I beat a hasty retreat but not before Osaama waved me a cheery goodbye which I fear has been picked up by the satellites that are keeping track of me ever since I reported to the police that I had spotted Adolf Hitler in Narayanguda.