Beef's no holy cow

Some farmers give aging cows to Hindu temples. At the Vedanaiki Solisvaran Temple, near the cow market, prayer leader Dharmasivan says temple leaders are too busy with day jobs to care for the donated cows. So the temple sells them in the market. Dharmasivan has seen a cow being slaughtered there. "We know it's wrong," he says. "We can't stop it."

That was WSJ journalist Daniel Pearl in an article he wrote, How Many Ways Can You Skin a Cow? In Hindu India, There Are Plenty, perhaps a few months before he was abducted and killed in Pakistan.

The piece sums up the many Indias in the country we call home. I love the irony of it all. Incidentally, the cow's probably one of my favourite animals. And it seems I'm certainly not the only blogger to think so.

My favourite Polish export (not the Pope)

Reader's block. You're just not able to settle into a book. You try one, discard it, pick up another, only to toss into that pile you call 'for later'. You begin to feel you'll never finish a book again. You blame yourself and become so irritable that one day your partner tells you to quit belly-aching, roll over and go to sleep. And then one day you bump into a book that brings back the magic of reading, and all is well again. As you may have guessed by now, it was so with me until I came by Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski.

I first came across Kapuscinski in The Soccer War, as the 4 1/2 readers of this blog already know. So I won't bother with a long introduction, to Kapuscinski, the writer and journalist. Suffice to say, Travels with Herodotus was his last book before he died earlier this year, a part-memoir and part-meditation.

Kapuscinksi begins by saying he was presented with a copy of Herodotus' The Histories just as he was headed for his first overseas assignment - to India. In fact, Herodotus remains a reassuring presence as the young Polish journalist embarks on his journeys with eagerness, naivete and the air of one who is blithely unworried about where his next meal will come from.

Reading through the book, one doesn't quite know who's the better teacher - Kapuscinski or Herodotus. But there's no need to compare. Both of them have valuable lessons for the journalist. Kapuscinksi, then in his 30s, writes of Herodotus,

I was quite consciously trying to learn the art of reportage and Herodotus struck me as a valuable teacher.

And he goes onto to tell you why the ancient Greek writer was a good reporter.

But to the extent that it is possible to do so - and, given the epoch, this speaks to a tremendous expenditure of effort and to great personal determination - he tries to check everything, to get to the sources, to establish the fact.

That should tell you not to google.

A little later in the book, Kapuscinski speaks of a moment of epiphany while in Algiers. A coup has taken place, but on the streets there's nothing to show for it,

...it was here in Algiers, several years after I had begun working as a reporter, that it slowly began to dawn on me that I had set myself on an erroneous path back then. Until that awakening I had been searching for spectacular imagery...it was the fallacy that one can interpret the world only by means of what it chooses to show us in the hours of its convulsions, when it is rocked by shots and explosion, engulfed in flames...

Lessons for journalists, lessons on writing, Travels with Herodotus also underlines some of the faultlines of the world we live in today, the struggle between militant Islam and the rest of the world for one. It is certainly a book to be read again & again. Let me quote Kapuscinski one final time,

One must read Herodotus's book - and every great book - repeatedly; with each reading it will reveal another layer, previously overlooked themes, images and meanings. For within every great book there are several others.

There are at least a couple of more books of his I'd like to read, Shah of Shahs and Imperium, among them. Who woulda thunk RK would one day replace Joseph Conrad as my favourite Polish writer?

I think I'm a fan of...

... Neil Gaiman. (And no, this isn't about Sandman.)

A few moons ago, I did a piece on what fantasy fiction to read after Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, for which I was in turns praised and criticised. I took the help of my friend Jayaprakash, someone who's read more fantasy (and other genres) than anyone else I know. He'd then recommended three books/series I hadn't read, one of them being Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.

I managed to track down Coraline while in Bangalore. At a little over a 160 pages, this is a slim novel about a young girl (Coraline), who, while exploring her new house, discovers a passage leading into another world. A world where her 'other mother' and 'other father' want to trap her and never let her go. How and if she managed to come back is what the tale is all about.

Coraline has received many awards in the 4 years since it was first published. And it's easy to see why, for the book breaks new ground and steers clear of your typical fantasy set-pieces and settings. Philip Pullman, of His Dark Materials fame said in his review,

Gaiman is too intelligent and subtle to invoke the supernatural - this is much more mysterious than that - and too wise to let Coraline face the horrors alone: she has an ally in a sardonic and very feline cat.

Ah yes, the cat. That did it for me. The black cat, reviled and used as an evil conceit in literature for long, is one of the good guys in this tale. That alone deserves a thumbs up!

A few hours after finishing the book, the partner and I watched Stardust, at the friendly neighbourhood theatre. Another one of Gaiman's creations, it has all the ingredients of a good, children's movie. I say children's movie, but it's perfect for adults as well. Even the bad parts are good, if you know what I mean. Since I'm feeling too lazy to write more, I'll point you to a Roger Ebert review. He's critical of the film, but since he is a bleeding critic that's okay.

Six blind men

"You need every edge in a terrorism investigation, and a blind officer with languages could be a powerful weapon."

Yes, you read that right. The Belgian police have taken on 6 blind men, because the blind have a more acute sense of sound and can thus be far more effective when listening to wiretaps. For instance Sacha van Loo can not just figure out whether the suspect the police is tracking is driving a Mercedes or a Honda, he can even tell you which number has been dialled, by just listening to number tones on a mobile phone. He's a linguist as well, which enables him to identify the nationality of kidnappers and terrorists just by listening to them speak.

Sort of reminds you of the Six blind men of Hindoostan, doesn't it?

A candlestick for Uncut

For a little more than two and a half years, my daily regimen in office has been: walk in, switch on comp, chat with colleagues and login to India Uncut, the moment the machine's warmed up. And so I'm chuffed that Amit Varma has won the Bastiat Prize for Journalism, 2007 for his columns in Mint.

I met Varma while covering the 2005 India-Pakistan test series. During the first test in Mohali, this long-haired friendly chap, mentioned he had a blog. Since then, IU has been a regular fixture in my life. His writing points me towards where I hope to go some day.

Here's his post on winning the prize. More power to him!

Writers & Editors

Writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr. scoffs at those who feel creative writing courses are infra dig:

"Listen, there were creative writing teachers long before there were creative writing courses, and they were called and continue to be called editors."

Read the entire piece at New York Times, which talks about how life need not be the only 'school' for writers.

In Rainbows

If you'd asked me, same time last year if I listened to any Radiohead, my answer would have included the standard Creep (go ahead say 'hah'!), High and Dry and Fake Plastic Trees. Just three songs, and only because of incessant TV-watching during my college-going, MTV/Channel-[V] days.

I'd pretty much given up listening to music regularly in the years after leaving Bangalore. Mainly because,
a. I shared an apartment with a guy who digs astrology and little else.
b. I didn't have a music system or even a tape recorder.
c. My music-loving pals weren't around to push me into discovering anything new.

And so on and on until about 4 years later, facing the prospect of a two-hour daily commute, I bought an I-pod Mini. Thus began a musical renaissance - now I was listening to stuff because I wanted to, and not because someone said Van Morrison (or someone else) was cool. I listened to lots of old bands, scoured the net for new ones and eventually made my way to Radiohead. Around the same time, a friend presented The Bends and OK Computer as a wedding gift, so I ended up logging a few kilometres in the neighbourhood park with these guys.

So a few days back when Radiohead announced they would be offering their new album In Rainbows only via downloads, for any price we were prepared to pay, I jumped. Offered my credit card for two pounds (and 45 pence for the online transaction fee) or roughly 170 rupees.

“Digital technology has reintroduced the age of the troubadour. You are worth what people are prepared to give you in the digital age because they can get it for nothing”, the New York Times puts the band's new gamble rather neatly,

Although a third of those who downloaded the album decided to pay nothing for it, I at least have the moral high ground + I'm really happy that Radiohead will get all my money since there's no record company to take a fat piece of the pie. All in all, a great idea, and hope pals Thermal and a Quarter will do something similar. They offered their third album Plan B free to download originally, and I sincerely hope they will choose to sell album IV through the net.

First impressions, the album seemed to pick up where OK Computer left things. But having not heard Kid A and subsequent releases, I don't know how accurate my observations are. It certainly gets better with every listen and my current favourite is the insidious Nude. I think I will reserve my judgement for later. For the moment, only one grouse - am I the only person who thinks Thom Yorke's crooning makes it difficult to pick out the lyrics?

Bourne vs Cercle Rouge

Sometimes you need to be told exactly why a particular book is great or a cricketer valuable. The same of course can be said of films, and in particular Le Cercle Rouge. Funnily enough, the opposite holds true about the other film I saw this week, The Bourne Identity. It seems that you sometimes need to be told why a film is not so good as well!


The Bourne Identity

An immensely entertaining film. The partner and I came away satisfied with promises that we'd be back for a second viewing. What I couldn't figure out however, was whether Ultimatum is a great film and if it really deserved all the critical acclaim it got. Rottentomatoes gave it a 93% freshness rating; which is, if you are a regular 'ttentomato', as close as it can get to a hundred percent. But on the other hand, this rating only reflects the popular verdict.

David Bordwell* offers a more nuanced view in his post Unsteadicam Chronicles. For those who don't know this - The Bourne Identity has been entirely shot by a camera called the Steadicam which doesn't require a tripod or stand. So when Jason Bourne runs, the cameraman - onto whom the camera is strapped to - runs behind him. When he jumps, the cameraman follows suit. What it yields is a wonderfully spontaneous effect because the viewer is right there with Bourne. At this point, let me quote Bordwell,

The handheld camera covers three mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing. It’s worth considering, as some of Ebert’s correspondents do, what Greengrass’s style may serve to camouflage.

Perhaps the non-stop action also hides loose plotting. Some questions worth considering, Why would the CIA set up office in a building so easily viewable from another building across the street? How does Bourne get into Noah Vosen's office? How does he steal the Top Secret file? (Fine he recorded the phone conversation, but how did he get over the thumb scanner problem?) So it turns out that the film is not perfect after all. But it sure razzle-dazzles you. And I would certainly watch it again if I got the time. In the meantime do read all three of David Bordwell's posts on the film, they touch on a number of issues, from the fight scenes to the way the film was shot, edited and scripted.

Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle)

This is a 1970 heist or gangster film by Jean Pierre Melville, of French New Wave repute. If The Bourne Ultimatum has in its entirety 3200 shots, making for an average of just 2 seconds per shot, then Le Cercle Rouge is the opposite. Shots are carefully & lovingly composed, they last several seconds, in some cases minutes as well. There's not much dialogue, which forces you to concentrate even more on the screen. The movie's also shot in a predominantly blue tone with large amounts of yellow as well, as you can see from the still here.



More stills can be found at Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind post from where I swiped this photo. Everything about this film is different from Bourne, even its 'freshness' in Rotten Tomatoes. Le Cercle Rouge manages the almost impossible 96% freshness rating.

For those whose secret wish is to have an all expenses paid stint at a film school, the Senses of cinema page on Melville's directorial style is very revealing. His characters, to quote from the write-up,

often appear trapped within a particular moral framework or aesthetic design

...which explains a lot. For instance it helps you understand why Corey is stoic, unassuming and honourable. Finally, why name the film Le Cercle Rouge? The Criterion Collection page takes a stab at explaining the symbolism in the film. Mighty interesting stuff. You wouldn't lose much by reading it. And yes, in case you're afraid I missed the whole point, the film was fun to watch! : )


* Was introduced to the fantastic David Bordwell by Jayaprakash.

Offsite blues

Green and verdant Punjab, where effective irrigation enriches land that's been described as a 'happy geographical accident' (5 rivers flow through the land) rolls by. But in this horror of a bus, there's not much time to appreciate that. The photo of the bus reveals benign interiors, but surely you know pictures can lie? During our journey one of its interior light panels fell off and as night approached the bus began to look like a seedy bar complete with yellow lighting, beer fumes, kebab smells and cigarette smoke.

Office offsites are supposed to help you slow down, consider your work and brainstorm. You're supposed to come up with bright ideas that will eventually help your company sell more ads at better rates. But I suspect our bosses had settled on slightly less ambitious goals - come back safely without killing each other, seems to have been the brief. And so it was that a motley bunch of political reporters, news features people, bureau reporters and cameramen began their journey from Delhi to a resort in the Shimla hills that nobody had heard of.

The music system in the bus - if it could be called that - was of stone age vintage. The kind that plays tapes with the volume fading up and down. Not that the selection on offer was exciting either. This should help you understand the kind of stuff we had to listen to, "Sab tho milake peethain hain, paani sharaab mein. Mein peegayaa jawani sharab mein." Anyway, our Sikkimese friend fiddled with the tape 'deck' and conjured up a servicable arrangement, consisting of a mic placed next to his Nokia phone on speaker mode. Thus were we treated to mono sound renditions of 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' (hah!) and other such classics.

The journey reminded me of Calvin & Hobbes and the trips Calvin's family takes for character-building. In the books its rainy and the fish aren't biting. Here the journey was uncomfortably long and nauseating. Several colleagues experienced catharsis in a plastic bag, if you know what I mean.

Koti resorts wouldn't set your pulses racing, but at least the rooms and toilets were clean, the water decently hot, the food strange but certainly not mouldy and the views excellent. We went on a really long, aimless walk that saw us shimmy up and down forested slopes and ended up on a golf course where we played cricket. (!!) Too tired to go back walking, some of us hailed a bus. Didn't know bus conductors could be courteous, but here apparently they are. That evening, the icing on the cake - the India-Australia Twenty20 semifinal in front of a bonfire.

What kind of people go on a three-day vacation and spend two of them travelling? I wouldn't want to explore that quesiton myself, simply because it could lead to disturbing conclusions about us, but no, the trip wasn't a dead loss. I got to know some of my colleagues, found out that the Patna correspondent really cannot function without three cell-phones and tasted single malt whiskey for the first time.

Too tired to attempt returning all the way by bus, we settled on the Shatabdi Express back to Delhi. It should have been a nice journey, with our sleepy heads nodding in unision to the rhythms of the train, but for some reason or the other some of us got into a version of the 'what ails India' discussion. The two loudest chaps were the pro-control leftist and the free-market liberal (that would be me) and I think we pretty much pissed people off in the train. While disembarking, a lady asked my colleague if we were wannabe journalists. It was that kind of trip.

In sight of Twenty20

This piece was cross-posted here.

Like most people I was ambivalent about Twenty20 cricket. Sure, the name was eye-catching (pun unintended) but it seemed like a distraction for a guy who was only beginning to appreciate the finer nuances of test cricket. Yes, I was happy that the format had re-ignited interest in England where cricket was dying a slow death, but if I ever thought about it all in the Indian context, it must have been only in passing.

Until a few months ago. Channel-surfing, I happened onto one of those anonymous recordings on a sports channel, a South Africa-Australia game (or was it?), in which something strange was happening on the field. The captain Graeme Smith seemed to be having a running conversation with the commentary box while fielding during the game, discussing tactics. At first I was puzzled; then it dawned on me. This was clearly some fun show, somewhat on the lines of Nokia Football Crazy. The realisation that it was in fact a Twenty20 international, with the whole Cronje-earpiece-given-a-delicious-twist was enough to make me fall off the proverbial chair.

Since then, all attempts to catch it live on TV have come to nought. I even missed India's lone match during the South Africa tour last year. But like many of you, I'm happy to be carried off in this cloud of hype (happily there has been little, given India's show during the other World Cup) and I've made up my mind to make an offering of the next few evenings to the sport.

Knowing nothing about the experience of watching this format, I thought I might as well go back to the past when ODIs, or Limited Overs cricket as it was called then, had knocked on the doors of test cricket. It was with much amusement that I discovered a certain Geoff Boycott had faced the very first ball in the very first one-dayer in 1971. And dipping into the Wisden Anthology offered what could be seen as a parallel comment. Don Bradman, writing in the 1986 Wisden Almanac said of ODIs,

...the Achilles' heel of the limited overs match, [is] namely the premium placed on defensive bowling and negative and defensive field-placing...But let me turn to the good thing about one-day cricket. It rids the game of the unutterable bore who thinks occupancy of the crease and his own personal aggrandisement are all that matter. It demands fieldsmen of great speed and agility with good throwing arm...

In contrast to what many stone-faced pundits predicted, one-day cricket revitalised tests and I'm hopeful that Twenty20 will do some good for this game we love so much. But lets for the moment leave the last word to Sambit Bal who looks at all angles in this excellent piece,

...For the true lover of the game, Twenty20 deviates from cricket's central, most appealing qualities: the length, the leisurely pace, the turns in the plot, the contest between bat and the ball, and the individual contests within the team game.

Kapuscinski: a window to the world

It's probably happened to you before. You hear of someone famous for the very first time, and suddenly you begin to see his name cropping up in the oddest places - conversations, newspapers and TV - in the next few days.

I first came across this strange sounding fella Ryszard Kapuscinski, in The Granta Book of Reportage. The very first piece in the book, The Soccer War is by this Polish journalist. This short war between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, reportedly sparked off by a football match defeat during the 1970 World Cup qualifiers, is described vividly and concisely by Kapuscinski. I was hooked at once.

A few days later I ran into him in A Mighty Heart (the brave life and death of my husband Daniel Pearl). In it, Daniel Pearl gifts Shah of Shahs by Kapuscinski to Mariane Pearl while he's courting her.

Now I see that Travels with Herodotus, his memoir is available in bookstores. The premise of the book is tantalizing - Kapuscinski's wanderings from an early age across the world as a journalist, segueing into thoughts on Herodotus, one of his heroes.

Thanks to a self-induced embargo on buying any more books till October-end, I won't be able to lay my hands on it. Any rich uncles out there?

P.S. Kapuscinski, the internet tells me, was a favourite for the Nobel prize for Literature a few times, but never received it. He died early this year and has a devoted following around the world. He wrote in Polish, but his crisp writing shines through even in translations.

Two Lives

With just two pages to go before I finished Two Lives, I remembered Vikram Seth is also a poet. A quick scan through the pages after I was done revealed that though this is no The Golden Gate, his novel in verse, the prose is nothing if not rhythmic. Almost as if Seth sung out his lines as he wrote them. (I actually think such writing would be instinctive for him). Here's a simple example I've picked out,

"A patient rang the doorbell; he was in acute distress. Henny told him that Shanti was too ill to help him. But when Shanti came out of his room and recognised the man, he told Henny that he could not go into hospital without treating him."

Of course, one might think there's not much to that sentence, but I'm pretty much convinced that rhythm matters deeply to Seth. Perhaps it is because the only other book I've read of his is An Equal Music. In Two Lives, Seth also reveals something of the way he approached this book,

In a double biography, an intertwined meditation, where the author is anomalous third briad, sometimes visible, sometimes not, there are intriguing possibilities of structure. For one thing, in what order should one recount events? ...Though I now know where to end this book, I did not at first know where to begin it...

It's a reminder that even celebrated writers are mortal (and therefore like me!), and that matters of form, structure and substance need to be worked on even by them, much like a random post in any blog! Two Lives also answers partly, the quesiton of what happened to the Jews who survived Hitler and what life was like for those who stayed on in Berlin after it was bombed out in the closing days of World War II. Indeed, this review quotes a line that may tell you more about the man who shaped the 20th century,

Shanti left Germany in 1936, though not before coming across Hitler in a Berlin park, surrounded by SS men. "He had a bridge in his mouth and he was made up with lipstick and all," he told the author. "I thought he might be a homo - but later on I found out they were going to film him in color."

My Favourite Communist and The Perfect Solution

My Favourite Communist

With all this constant newsroom talk of Leftist politics and Leftist hypocrisy, the only 'Comrade' I can stand these days is a gentleman named Psmith, with a silent 'P'. I'd think Psmith's legendary coolness would be a refreshing change from Comrade Karat's fervent, "if the Centre has any self-respect, it should recall the Ambassador" line.
On second thoughts, Comrade Karat's own inspiration to turn the Left into 'biting dogs' rather than 'barking' ones in recent days must have stemmed from Psmith's gentle explanation in Leave it to Psmith, in which our hero casually explains after pinching an umbrella, "other people merely talk about the redistribution of property; I practise it."!!

Overheard at the CPI headquarters

Indeed, I can see it all in my mind's eye. At the same time as Comrade Karat's above-mentioned epiphany, Comrade Bardhan must have finished Psmith in the City. And much in the manner of our protagonist in his 2nd adventure, called up Comrade Karat to complain about Capitalist Manmohan, "...he always set us down as mere idlers. Triflers. Butterflies. It would be a wholesome corrective for him to watch us perspiring like this in the cause of Communism."*

'Great Scott,' Karat would have said, 'there'll be a row.'

''Some slight temporary breeze, perhaps,' Bardhan would have said. 'Annoying to men of culture and refinement, but not lasting.' And so on and on...

The Perfect Solution

Smooth operator though he is, I suspect Comrade Psmith would find the Congress-Left slug fest too distasteful to enter. And although there's an uneasy truce on, everyone (journalists, sources to journalists, bosses, blog pundits) says it's a matter of time before our communist brethren take up the cudgels again. We will then have to turn to the services of that famed troubleshooter Jeeves.
Don't be surprised though, if the Perfect Jeeves Solution to the Left-UPA marital crisis involves a few unexpected engagements (a la Bobbie Wickham or Honoria Glossop), a few maidens pushed into a handy swimming pool and a fearsome aunt or two!

-----------------------------

* all quotes pinched from Psmith in the City and Leave it to Psmith. In the original line, Psmith uses the term commerce instead of communism.

Monday farce: Left is right

An electric shock at the bath is not the best way to begin a Monday, but that's precisely what I had to endure as I stretched my right hand to the tap this morning. A few seconds later I stood, dripping on the bedroom floor with the dual knowledge that I'd received a nasty shock and screamed - not a term you would associate with a man.

Indignation at the way our rented house is wired aside, there was some irony as well. It was as if the gods were punishing my right hand, on World Left-Handers Day. Had I not committed various blasphemies for a left-hander in recent years? From deigning to shake hands with my right (as the world at large does), to eating with my right in temples where using your left is frowned upon. Indeed it occurs to me, you would have been 'punished' too if you're a lefty, for accepting to live in a right-handed world. Aren't shirt buttons, jeans zips, car doors, scissors - even guitars designed to the convenience of our heavily populated evil cousins?

When I become a dictator I shall abolish all right-handedness and even change our lexicon while I'm at it. In Hindi, the left hand is also known as Ulti haath, which translated means 'upside down'. In Kannada, the right hand is called Balagai, which literally means 'hand of strength'. My Ministry for Good Behaviour and Speech will have one John McEnroe as Chief Minister. The head of my Anti-Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Bureau will be Jimi Hendrix. And I shall coerce Sourav Ganguly to be Minister for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations. You get the picture right? And finally, anyone who hasn't read Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness will be punished!

Measuring the World

I have a tendency to distrust writers I haven't heard of. Yes, I know it's ridiculous and it's probably why I read too many Dick Francis novels again & again. But this admission shouldn't make you believe that I don't step out of my comfort zone. Once in a while, a book slips in between the cracks of my armour. One such example is Measuring the World.

At first glance it seemed a little strange, an English translation of a German novel about two 19th century scientists - Alexander von Humboldt, the explorer and naturalist and Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss the mathematician and astronomer. Humboldt became famous for, among other things establishing that the river Orinoco was connected to the Amazon. Wikipedia says of him in his prime, "with the exception of Napoleon Bonaparte, Humboldt was now the most famous man in Europe."

The other man Gauss, knowns as 'the prince of mathematicians' believed that parallel lines meet. This motif is also used to describe the parallel lives of the two scientists who may have never met in real life. In the book though, they do. Measuring the World is a witty, wicked tale that takes liberties with some facts but it's a delight - for the writer's style is unique. Read it if you can, don't wait for the book to fall on your head in some dusty bookshop.

p.s. I only realised I was reading another best-seller (not that the label should count for much) halfway through the novel when glancing through the blurb I'd earlier glazed over-

"measuring the world has...sold more than 600,000 copies in Germany, knocking J Rowling and Dan Brown off the bestseller lists."

p.p.s. Just before posting this, I read this review of the book again, and realised that the 2nd para of this piece borrows a phrase or thought from it. I haven't changed what I wrote as a reminder that it's all too easy to 'borrow' from other writers even if one has unwittingly committed the crime!

What to read after Harry Potter 7

You may have finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by now. In the next few weeks, you might even pick up Book One and read the series again. And you might undoubtedly be waiting for the remaining two films in the franchise. But the fact remains that the series is over. There remains the possibility that J K Rowling will find the idea of writing yet another one too hard to resist, but that's leaving things to chance and anyway that will take time. What can you read now that there's that empty void waiting to be filled?
Fortunately there are several books to be read in the fantasy genre for young adults, and all of them excellent. You can of course, choose to go back to the Naughtiest Girl series by Enid Blyton, but something tells me you won't. So here goes:

Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. J R R Tolkien's masterpiece spawned countless inspirations, J K Rowlings' among one of them. The ultimate quest tale, it charts the travails of Frodo Baggins and his friends as they strive to destroy the evil One Ring. Set in Middle Earth, just before the age of man, it's a rich world of Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, Wizards and Ents. I read it (after an unsuccessful attempt) during my impressionable college years and the world has never been the same since. And if you haven't been living in Middle Earth yourself, you would have probably heard of the films by now.

Chronicles of Narnia (7 parts). Written from 1950 onwards, Narnia was a world created by Tolkien's fellow Inkling C S Lewis. You can enter this world of magic through a wardrobe, but only if you're in the right house. Started off as the adventures of 4 siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. The books chronicle the classic good vs evil struggle, ending in The Last Battle. You might have seen the film that was released last year. I've read only the first two books so far, but everyone who's read the series swears by it.

Earthsea Quartet by Ursula K Le Guin. Wizards are called Mages in Earthsea and the first in this four-book series, A Wizard of Earthsea tells Duny's tale. Duny, discovered to have magical powers is sent to a school for wizards (sounds familiar?) where his arrogance leads to the unleashing of a shadow upon the world. The books plot his progress from repentance to Archmage, marriage and beyond.

His Dark Materials trilogy. Written by Philip Pullman, it charts the adventures of Lyra and Will, two 12-year-olds through various parellel universes. No wands here, only magical gadgets - an instrument that can answer any question (The Golden Compass) and a knife that can cut out doorways to a parallel universe (The Subtle Knife). The Amber Spyglass concludes the trilogy, which was originally inspired by John Milton's Paradise Lost. Controversial on account of being anti-church, it's an awesome tale. Sort of like a Rolling Stones alternative to the Beatlesque Harry Potter! There's a film coming out this December as well.

The Borrible Trilogy by Michael Di Larrabeiti. I haven't read it but it's recommended by Jayaprakash, a walking encyclopaedia of fantasy/sci-fi literature and writer. He e-mails me,

Borribles are runaway children who...live together in the parts of cities - London in these books - where no one else lives, steal what they need to live from us and are virtually immortal, unless they are caught and their ears cropped, in which case they become mortal children again. These books are full of fellowship, adventure and fun, but also pain, darkness and dirt. They are strongly anti-authoritarian and altogether brilliant.

In fact, Jayaprakash also recommends two standalone books for young adults. Coraline by Neil Gaiman and Grimbold's Other World by Nicholas Stuart Grey. All three recommendations sound very appealing and here's another one for you - wizard-detective Harry Dresden's adventures in the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

Enough in that list for many a long summer one would think. You can now safely consign the Potter books to the back row of your library!

A slightly different version of this post was posted here.

A hazardous existence

"When I get up in the morning, I find my bed's full of dark small carbon particles, the balcony is full of particles, and it is so difficult to breathe. In the morning we want fresh air, there is nothing like fresh...", says Anil Misra, resident of Sukhdev Vihar, a collection of DDA apartments in South-East Delhi. Misra and his fellow residents have gathered on the terrace of one of the apartments. He gestures to the squat red building, just 28 metres away, from which a chimney is throwing up black smoke. The building houses a Common Bio-Medical Waste Treatment Facility, that 'treats' all the discarded waste from hospitals, nursing homes and dispensaries in Delhi.

Cutting corners

These wastes consist of removed body organs, blood-soaked bandages, surgical gloves, needles, instruments - a mix of organic, plastic and even radioactive matter. Needless to say, this stuff is dangerous. Exposure to waste could lead to infectious diseases, even AIDS if there's contact with infected blood. If plastic parts are burnt, they would release dioxins that are cancerous. And there's always the chance of catching something less menacing. Of course, these risks could be considerably reduced if wastes are treated as per prescribed norms. This essentially means 90 percent of medical waste has to be autoclaved - a process that includes heating waste in a pressurised device to achieve sterilization. Somewhat like 'cooking' wastes in a huge pressure cooker! There's reason to believe though, that best practices are NOT being followed at the Synergy Waste Treatment plan in Sukhdev Vihar. Ravi Agarwal of Toxics Link, a Delhi-based privately funded agency that specializes in toxic waste says, "black smoke means there will be unburnt material coming out...it leads one to think that there is mismanagement on the facility." There's plenty of black smoke out there and it seems clear the company is cutting corners.

A government slip-up?

But even if Synergy Waste was doing a professional job of treating waste, should the plant have been allowed to come up at all in the first place? According to central government guidelines, such plants need to be 'located at a place reasonably far away from residential areas'. This plant though, was set up just 28 metres from the boundary wall of the DDA flats in Sukhdev Vihar. On the other side of the facility lies Haji colony, a densely populated locality. A third side is bounded by Ghaffar Manzil. "We thought it was going to be a godown of sorts, we only realised what it was when the chimney was erected", says Shahid Hasan a resident of the corner flat that is closest to the plant. Air Commodore Mehra, another resident echoes, "28 metres or 30 metres from our boundary is certainly not reasonable.we would like this to be shut down or shifted to another place." The colony hasn't spared any efforts - they've petitioned the Delhi govt, the State Pollution Control Board and the matter currently rests with the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Tejendra Khanna. There's also the matter of a precedent in this case - a similar plant was shut down earlier this year in Kota, Rajasthan.

Where do the wastes go?

Residents of Sukhdev Vihar say medical wastes should be disposed-off in hospital incinerators, like they used to before. Bigger hospitals may do that efficiently, but who will police the smaller nursing homes and clinics? How many times has one seen wastes strewn about in street corners? Agarwal says centralised waste treatment plants are the best bet - not only are they cost-efficient, they're also safer.But only if, (and it's a big IF) they're not bang in the middle of residential neighbourhoods.

This was a report I filed as part of my daily job; it can be found here.

Roger & Rafael: a burgeoning rivalry

Just when I was thinking it would be better to watch Aisam Qureshi (because he volleys on grass) than all those baseline bashers with titles, Nadal and Federer served up a treat at the final. The first five-setter at a Wimbledon final since 2001 when Goran Ivanisevic beat Patrick Rafter was everything a Grand Slam final should be - fast, furious and unbelievably close.

In the end, like tradition demands it at the home of tennis, the usurper had to be content with second place. Federer bawled like a baby after putting away Championship Point and promptly added on a white blazer and white pants. (The wrong way round, according to a few reports)! Who said Wimbledon doesn't make you do quirky things"! And when Federer congratulated Nadal for having made it to a 2nd final in a row, he managed not to sound condescending.

Though Federer reminded us that he had the touch even at the net, it was Nadal who was the revelation. He showed that he could out-volley the champion and unfurl incredible passing shots on grass. The intensity of play did not drop even in the final set. Five-setters tend to be tiring for the viewer as well, especially when the two players are sluggish after giving it their all. But this wasn't so because the points were short. Thankfully, we were spared tedious rallies with both players unafraid to rush towards the net. A brief summary for those who missed the match:

First set 7-6 to Federer. Nadal saves 4 set points in the tie-break, but Federer smashes a back hand volley to end the matter. Absolutely loved the angles Nadal was getting in, he must have rubber wrists!

Second set 6-4 to Nadal. Federer snuffs out two break points with three aces cool as you plesae to make it three games all. But at 4-5, serving to stay in the set, Nadal rushes forward to break him. A wrinkle of two appears on Federer's forehead.

Third set 7-6 to Federer. Unbelievable intensity. Am checking The Guardian's website commentary on the match, while watching the battle on TV. They quote Jimmy Connors on BBC, "if either player drops their level by as much as two percent, they will be totally overrun". Federer quickly ratchets up a lead in the tie-breaker and duly closes the third set out.

Fourth set 6-2 to Nadal. Hold on! Quick as a flash, Nadal snatches a break in the first game of the fourth set and before you realize it, breaks Federer again to go up 3-love. Federer intensely irritated, says 'shit' within range of the umpire's microphone. The marginal calls continue to go Nadal's way, is Hawkeye conspiring against the Champion" Alan Wilkins says something like this on commentary, "Nadal is like Joe Frasier was against Mohammed Ali, he keeps coming at Federer."

Fifth set 6-2 to Federer and with it the match! Both players are moving very well. Federer continues to rely on his serve to bail him out and Nadal is still whipping out passing shots that are hard to comprehend; Nadal also continues to come to the net. Vijay Amritraj in mock-discovery mode, "he likes to volley!" But Federer has begun to lift his levels. He breaks Nadal, his game getting tougher and tougher to match as he rides the momentum. Championship Point is upon us before we know it, and Federer ends it with a smash. Whatta match!

This piece was originally posted here.

MBA degrees for Page 3 gals?

Time magazine's cover story on media mogul Rupert Murdoch's bid for the Wall Street Journal reveals his own viewpoint on what a journalist should be like. Murdoch, in the report,

"...has always said that craving respectability is the beginning of the end for a journalist. 'Journalists should think of themselves as outside the Establishment, and owners can't be too worried about what they're told at their country clubs,' says the man who influences Prime Ministers and Presidents and still poses as a scrappy outsider."

Here's an admission - respectability is what I'm after. I chase after it, turning a blind eye to the need to break stories or what I believe will be half-baked stories. I'm not prolific enough, for fear of filing a report that 'compromises' me. Murdoch's words jolted me, because I realise now that I've often confused respectability for credibility. Credibility is what you get when you're constantly on the field - respectability has nothing to do with it. Just like a journalist needs to have a healthy disregard for all that's fed to him, so must he be wary of being too timid in going after those who've stepped over the line. Do those words resonate in you?

Not that I'm endorsing Murdoch - his reputation for editorial interference precedes him. But perhaps we've been guilty of demonizing him too. Read the entire cover. Before I sign-off, another mischievous quote from him,

'..Murdoch wouldn't be Murdoch if he didn't love sticking it to sanctimonious J-school toffs. "When the Journal gets its Page 3 girls," he jokes late one night, "we'll make sure they have M.B.A.s"...'

How to create comic strips

I've always wondered how comic strips are created. It turns out now that all you need to do is get yourself a banana, diet coke, cat and the right kind of computer. Hard time believing me?! It's all in the Dilbertblog.

On average, you're mean

I suppose all those fusty, badly-dressed statisticians get to revel in their profession and throw up puns like the one on the title of this post, for at least one day. Mark your calendars, for its day after tomorrow - National Statistical Day. How many professions even have their own day?


Number crunchers can thank a shadowy figure from history, one whose name was virtually unpronouncable, at least until I found he was Bengali. Prof. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis was born on this day, June 29th, 1893. He founded the Indian Statistical Institute and is even named after a statistical principle - Mahalanobis distance (click at your own peril!).


The reason I'm referring to him, is that he was the architect of India's 2nd five-year plan (1956-61) which took India towards industrialization. The period we're talking about resulted in the building of massive dams, steel plants and power plants - all the building blocks of modern India. The country took turns that were to influence society, economy, politics and foriegn relations for a better part of 40 years. Of course, many of the above 'achievements' had unintended consequences and there is much debate today about the effectiveness of following such a policy.

Yes, I continue to be influenced by Ramachandra Guha's India after Gandhi.