Needle and Nostalgia

As a child I have done many mundane yet sophisticated things which I don't get opportunity to do now a day. I have spent seven formative years in a boarding school in a nondescript town of deoghar. I went there as a kid of eight years and passed out of the school in the middle of my teenage. Anyone who has been to this small pilgrimage town must have guessed by now the name of my school. Its Rama Krishna Mission Vidyapith.

Before leaving for the school my mom had taught me the nuances of small arts which I think one would never do if one doesn’t go to a boarding school. Sewing was one of them, holding a needle and learning the trick. It’s quite simple but repetitive and requires patience. Once I had reached the school I had to shorn my fancy clothes and adorn school uniform. There were two sets of school uniform. One was school dress which we had to wear during the time classes were held. It was blue shirt and white pant. We had to wear half pants till class nine. Sounds crazyy! Some relaxations were given in winter days. The other set was dham (dormitory) dress. It was cream shirt and chocolate pant.

Most of the uniforms given to us were pre tailored to avoid deluge of new comers and only in case of extreme unfit a new pair according to size would be tailored. I remember all the new comers were given three sets of each uniform. The amazing fact was that there was a single tailor sewing clothes of roughly 350 students with additional load of 50 new comers in the month of March. hmmmm.... As a part of this process of only extremely unfit getting the fittest, I too had a brown pant which was not extremely unfit but quite unfit for me. It was enough unfit for thread sewed on two halves of the pants to plough into my ass. I could have got a pant which would have been a loose fit for me, but destiny always has a part in funny sequences.

I don’t remember when and where thread had unbungled from the pressure of my back to expose my ass, but I don’t think it was a public place else I would have remembered it. It was time to put my learning of sewing to practical use. The maverick was ready to yield his needle and use white thread to sew a chocolate pant. Doing rounds and rounds of painful motion of hands, concentrating hard to sew it in a straight trajectory, the pant was ready to wear. The time was in evening after classes were over and i was going to ground for evening football match. A step forward conjuring ball like no one else i could sense a problem. All the players behind me were laughing. The white thread has loosened to make it look like a zigzag of white tilak smeared on my chocolate ass.............. Next I remember I had to immediately rush to dormitory for an ass lifting.

ahhahahahahha.... How this particular incident did suddenly crop up in my mind.... A few days back, may be after a gap of fifteen years, i had again used needle to sew a tee-shirt and the journey down the memory lane.

Global Warming - "An Inconvenient Truth"

Yesterday I got a chance to watch Al Gore’s documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" courtesy the tepid batting of Deccan chargers who charged nothing like a rampaging bull. Rohit Sharma saved the day for them. The documentary deals with global warming and is more like a presentation on global warming full of research data and figures which forces us to believe the inconvenient truth. It’s inconvenient to believe that every small step we take every day is leading to our own destruction and still we turn a blind eye to the monster which has already started rolling.

Although I didn't watch the full movie, again courtesy the maverick batting of viru, but I could not escape the consequences predicted in the movie. There was a graph in which the earth's temperature and CO2 content were plotted. The graph showed the causal relationship between the two and ceased the usually perceived correlated relation. The deeper the movie ploughed the deeper I found the survival of mankind in saddle. We usually think that the change would be gradual something like ice age or the best that it’s a cyclical change in the earth's atmosphere which has happened previously also. But here I got to know one fact about ice age that in Europe ice age had lasted 1000 years more than the rest of world. The reason being that a huge lake of ice was created in northern America covering most of the Canada and at the end of ice age this big pool of cold water found its way into the Atlantic and further delayed the onset of new climate in Europe. Now imagine what would happen if the floating ice cap of artic suddenly disappears. Firstly why would the artic cap disappear suddenly? Ice has a unique property of reflecting 90% of sunlight falling on it which happens to be just opposite of water which absorbs 90% of sunlight. That’s why we can find snow in manali even in summer days. But in the case of the artic which is a floating ice cap the problem gets compounded by the fact that it’s not only surrounded by warm water but there is warm water beneath it also. So even a minor change in the temperature of ocean can cause havoc in the ice bed and when it melts there will be a big climatic change in Europe as a big shield of heat close to the continent will cease to exist. The other consequence is more plausible that the most of the coastal areas would be gone due to rise in ocean level. Already the width of the huge ice bed has shrunk by few inches and everyday it’s shrinking faster than the previous day. Doesn’t it sound credible?

The story in a nutshell is that even a small change in the greenhouse gases can cause a spiralling change in the earth’s climate as it further creates problem which fastens the process of global warming. Ocean the cradle of 70% of living beings will pose the biggest threat as it will keep on accumulating big chunk of solar heat and one day this cradle of life will destroy everything.

Jodha Akbar - the magnum opus

True .. its the first classical movie made with the grandeur of an epic drama. AG(Ashutosh Gowariker) has an eclectic choice of drama. In all the previous movies love has remained a spice to add taste to the main ingredient. Flashback Lagaan... Gauri's over reaction to the angrezi maam ...Swadesh SRK's swirl when Gita’s rishta is rejected. Love has remained a sub plot in all the movies, building up to the main drama. But in JA it works the other way. All the sub plots of war and treachery revolve around the tumultuous after marriage life of the royal duo.

It takes balls to make a period movie in the wave of neo Hinduism and that too on the subject of moguls who are widely apprehended by the new cult. AG must have perceived well before marching on to make the movie. The movie has a lesson for its detractors not only in secular terms but also in terms of tolerance of any type. Here is the story of a king who was as magnificent as the kingdom he had built in his native country. He didn't consider himself an outsider but a hindostaani, he didn't have the nostalgic burden of middle Asia. He had assimilated and allowed to flourish local culture and unlike his predecessors had a taste for all the flavours. This movie should be watched by all its detractors before pouching on the factual side of the history. History has always been subjective and every myth has a leg space for a story to be retold. The so called suryavanshis should learn from this.
Coming back to the movie, it has all the masala for a period movie. It has almost got all the masalas right except the back ground music. But first the pros. The war scenes are well shot and the climax duel between akbar and his brother in law is one of the most ferocious fight sequences I have ever seen in bollywood. I believe for any period movie to lure multiplex crowd, it should have enchanting war scenes showing the methodology of war instead of hotch poch of two differently coloured armies. The first half of the movie has many firsts war sequences. The songs are straight from the esoteric collection of the gifted rahman. This person can conjure music from drums and chorus.. Isn’t it the proof of his supremacy.. Isn’t it magical, can anyone else do this.. Nopes. I think AG comes second only to mani ratnam when rahman delivers music to his subjetcs. Drama has remained forte of AG and he has worked on the story to make it a gripping love chemistry between the two royals. The love chemisrty of the movie has sparkling charm of the foregone era. Coming to the background score of the film, i dont think unlike previous AG's movie Rahman hasn't scored background music for JA. Somehow with my feeling as the only explanation I didn't like the background score or i am too much infatuated with the rehman factor. Over all the movie is a marvel and once in a genre of classical period movies. Hats off to the whole team.

This year i have taken a resolute decision against resolutions. No promises.. no burdens of expectations. But its not that trivial. i fear swearing upon me, fearing that i will not keep the promise of resolution. It has happened each and every time I have taken a resolution on any special day. It doesn't mean i haven't set any resolution for myself. Its that i don't want to out rightly call black in first person but instead calling it a dark colour. I don't want to give it the name of resolution, it can be anything, better be it nameless. When i call it resolution (its still nameless) it brings with it a sense of futility in me. It brings with it burden of delivering. No expectations, no load....