Thank You Uncle

"When zealous kids greet me by adorning the path with flowers and waving copies of the Tinkle, there is nothing more that I can ask for. Such instances may have been few, but forever etched in my memory"  - Anant Pai

Traveling by train has always provided many of us with fond memories as a child. We may not actually like the destination, but the journey would be made memorable thanks to the sights and sounds it offered. I, as a kid was always averse to traveling, the whole practice of searching for clothes, packing them, dressing up in clean clothes, and traveling all the way to Central Station was a ritual I abhorred. A reason for which was because I hated to get out of my comfort zone and take the trouble of getting out of my home to a relative’s place where I would not have the complete freedom to be myself and do as I please. But my whole outlook on travel was changed by one man, his creation – that was exclusively for kids had completely converted my hatred for travel and had ignited within me an eagerness to look forward to that crowded Central station and the whole ordeal of traveling in packed trains with vendors and other passengers alike hustling by. 

 

He had transported me to a different land, a land where Shikari Shambu - a bumbling hunter by a comedy of errors managed to catch his prey, Kalia - a smart crow who always outwitted Chamataka the cunning fox and Doob Doob the crocodile, his ever-faithful yet dimwitted friend, Tantri - a scheming minister who always ended up at the wrong end of his own plans while trying to steal the royal throne from the good natured and trusting king Hooja, Uncle Anu - a bearded and bespectacled man of science who educated his young friends with simple and practical science experiments and Suppandi - a simple-minded servant who tickled my funny bone with his lack of common sense. This man was the father of all these characters, a man who brought all these colorful characters to life and with their antics brought a smile to our faces. He may be no Walt Disney, but then in a time where there were no playstations or I-Pod or no multiplexes and twenty-four hour cartoon channels he had managed to capture the imagination of every boy and girl who had at some point of time flipped through the pages of his creation. And for that, he shall not be deemed lesser than a Walt Disney, he was Anant Pai– the founder of Amar Chitra Katha, the publishing house for Tinkle Comics and widely regarded as the Father of Indian Comics.

Uncle Pai, as he is famously known to every child, not only entertained us with his comics but also managed to teach us history and mythology in his own inimitable style. Amar Chitra Katha which was found as a reason to reignite a dying knowledge of our history among the young audience not just achieved that, but in the process it was also able to preserve our culture and our folklore. With beautiful illustrations and a very simple narrative and language Uncle Pai had blessed me with those memories of childhood which I shall never forget. Before Enid Blyton he was the catalyst who was able to inject in me with a fetish for reading the printed material, which before graduating to reading novels actually began by reading Tinkle comics. Summer vacations was always about spending a lazy afternoon curled up in the bed reading through the troubles that Shikari Shambu had fallen into, those were also the days when there were lending libraries more than video-game parlors. 

Back then in the publishing industry in the early 90’s there were probably not many publishing houses around which catered to a child audience in the way Amar Chitra Katha did. While there were others desi superheroes like Nagaraj, Doga and Chacha Chaudhury and Sabu who used an over-the-top storyline, Uncle Pai had always maintained to entertain children with clean humor and humane characters and a simple story, a reason why it was a big hit. Tinkle may not have had the flair, the richness or the packaging of a DC Comics or Archie’s digest, but then it was a comic book which we could all relate with, a comic book with a lot of heart and sincerity. It was simple and honest, it portrayed the simplicity and the honesty of the Great Indian Middle Class. If Doordarshan with its teleserials like Buniyaad, Vyomkesh Bakshi, Hum Log epitomized the Indian Middle Class Adult of the 90s, Tinkle Comics with its simplicity and down-to-earth characters symbolized the Indian Middle Class Child of an era that has gone by. In this age of digital revolution where entertainment actually means playstation and I-pods and flashing high-end mobile phones to the new generation brats, it is worrisome to see the death of simplicity that an Indian comic book house possesses.

Uncle Pai in his lifetime was sadly not conferred with any notable national award for his contribution towards having revolutionized the publishing industry, except for the recently received Lifetime Achievement Award at India's first Comic Convention. He may get an imaginary yet a fitting farewell from the characters he had etched in his comic book. He departs as an unsung hero, a visionary, a dream weaver, and a story-teller, but to millions of children across the country he would always be regarded as a man who gifted them with the simple pleasure of reading. And for me he will always be the man who made my train journeys special.

Image credit : http://www.ack-media.com/new/characters.php

The Plan

There is always a thrill of doing things on the sly, like watching late night porn with the T.V on mute when everyone is sleeping, or texting your friend during class hours when the most hard-assed of all professors is taking a class, whispering sweet nothings in your girlfriend's ear in a movie theatre when the lights are out, watching youtube clips when actually your boss is the next cubicle, lying to your nagging wife about a business meeting and spending a weekend with old friends. It is the fun of making people believe what they want to believe. Your professor must be thinking that your are immersed in his powerpoints while actually you are texting your friend in the opposite corner asking "Which theatre do we go to?". Your boss must be thinking you are busy meeting your targets while actually you are watching videos trying hard not to laugh your ass off. Your wife back home must be thinking you are busy closing business deals, but little does she know that your are with your friends acting drunk and stupid like a teenager all over again. But we fail to realize that sometimes the real thrill is in planning for the deed than actually doing the deed, and sometimes the planning gives us more satisfaction than the end result.

The thrill lies in tiptoeing to your T.V while everyone is asleep, switching it on without making that "Click!" sound, hitting on the mute button as soon the screen flashes, inserting the dvd which has "Software" neatly written in a marker pen, and then hit PLAY and skip all the story and go to the meaty part, but there may come a time when the CD gets stuck and stops playing. It breaks your heart, but then it is in that process till where you insert the CD that the real thrill lies. If you think about it, all those heist movies would not seem worth a watch if they had not shown how they plan and execute it, how the cookie was actually baked before it was crumbled. Think "The Great Escape", would the escape have made that impact had they not shown Charles Bronson digging the tunnels away?, or good ol' Steve McQueen do a survey of the prison?, or how they all planned behind closed doors for *that* escape? The epicness in the movie lay in how the P.O.Ws planned their escape. And that's all we need, an escape from our daily life into that of hope, a brief moment of the day where we lived our dreams.

The idea had struck me two days back when I was sitting in my manager's cabin when he had gone out to attend a call. I looked at my calendar and saw a cricket match scheduled on the 24th of February. 

South Africa v/s West Indies it showed.

"I think I will bunk this Thursday" I whispered to my colleague sitting next to me, as if I were planning to steal the crown jewels.

"Why? What's on Thursday?" she asked aloud as I signaled her to bring down her voice.

"Okayyy, what is on Thursday?" she asked with a mock whisper.

"South Africa is playing the West Indies, it's their first game of the world cup. I need to see them play the first game." I said with a quiet murmur.

"It's just the Windies, South Africa will win it easily don't worry, you don't have to stay home just to make sure that they win." she said with a serious sarcasm.

"Don't say that! You will jinx them! they never had a good record with the Windies at the world cup. They lost once in India during 96 at the quarter finals, they lost once in 03' in their home ground at the opening game. You never know, the Windies are an unpredictable squad. They have Gayle, Pollard, Bravo....." I rambled on.

"Very interesting..." She cut me short impatiently, "but anyway if you know your team is so suspect why do you have to bunk?" she asked.

"That is because my mind will always be wondering what is happening at the stadium, and it's not like I can browse at work either. They have blocked almost all the sites that are worth browsing......."

It's true, almost all URLs that had cricket, tube, book, and boob(s) attached to it's name were blocked at my workplace.

 

".....no Cricinfo, no twitter. I wont be able to focus on work at all! You don't understand! It's like I am forced to marry someone when actually my heart belongs to someone else."

"So what excuse are you gonna use?" she asked.

"Need to think of one, and don't you dare go tellin' around everyone about my plan. I won't catch a seat for you in the train next time." I warned her.

                                             * * * * * * * * *


"so what excuse do I use?" I pinged my friend online.

"say you have to take your mom to the doctor, managers find it very touching and they cannot say "no" when it comes to mothers, even Hitler can't. It will actually win you some brownie points with chicks at work too, they always love guys who help out sick mothers and grandmothers"


"girls?... no one at work is worth the try, anyway what disease do I say my mom is diagnosed is?"


"disease?? are you crazy! planning to make your mom diagnosed over a stupid cricket game!? go for a mild disease like headache or fever, the ones that don't last long. Don't go for cancer or parkinsons. I've used that up and it really came back to bite me in my balls, you throw up big diseases then these managers will be up your arse every now and again askin "how is your mother? I hope she is fine,how much time has she got? what stage is she in? " and you are no Doogie Howzer to explain about stages of disease. You don't even know the symptoms of common cold."


"true that... but I am feeling guilty over using my mom, after all she has spent sleepless nights trying to teach me vertically opposite angles.. something I still don't understand by the way."


"oh! then you can say that you are coaching your brother for his board exams, a decent reason, you can take up thursday and friday off, that way you got solid four days with you! :-D"


                      *********


"So you are using me to get a couple of days off?" he asked.

"Yeah that's what siblings are for, I am gonna tell them that I will be coaching you for math, physics, chemistry and computer science, that way I can use up two days  - Thursday and Friday! I got Saturday and Sunday as a holiday anyway! Man am I glad that February has 28 days!"

"Yeah and while you are at it why don't you teach me molecular biology and astrophysics too?"

"You have those subjects in school too?" I asked.

"Sigh! look, I don't mean no disrespect to you and your job. But if you really were that good in school you probably would not be in a shitty job where you are dotting the t's and crossing the i's.And really, what's an arts student gonna teach me about integral calculus? they won't buy it and in an age where we believe the written word in solved out answer papers than the ones given out by our teachers, I feel you stand no chance in convincing your managers or your office receptionist about teaching me my subjects!"

"Why don't you tell them that you have a suspicious rash all over your body and you are going to meet the doctor?" he suggested.

"I want to get a day's leave, I don't want to get isolated from the team forever, I'll think of something else" I said.


"Do you know the country is loosing twenty one million dollars worth of production due to cricket, and also because of people like you?" he retorted. 

 

"I know, and I blame my company for that. Because had they installed a T.V at work place for score updates I would not be at home." I clarified my stance.

"Yeah, and while they are at it they should serve you beer and probably a lap dance to raise your spirits among other things."

"You have a board exam to prepare for don't you?" I asked.

                                                 *********

Marriages are made in heaven they say, but then marriages can also be made out of thin air, all you need to do is let your creativity run amok. When your parents and your sibling serve you no purpose it's your father's cousin's wife's brother's son who comes to the rescue. In short a distant relative of whom you have never heard and would have only seen in family functions. And as we have a plethora of traditions and customs, every once in a while there also comes a reason along with it to skip work, it's all about how you are going to use it. 

I walked in to work with a valid reason. I now need not have to get my mother sick, nor do I have to "coach" my brother for his exams, neither did I have to break a leg or have rashes on my body. I logged into my leave portal, and clicked on to the "Apply for Leave" page, as it guided me through the process. I typed out my reasons for taking leave and thanked my father's cousin's wife's brother's son and wished him a fictitious happy married life, if and when he crossed his teens decided to and get married.

The Cup Of Good Hope

Finally the show has begun! After months of speculating over who will triumph over whom, those repeated telecast of World Cup matches which were running on a loop, jingoistic advertisements that advertises their products by pairing them with cricket heroes, and an opening ceremony where Sonu Nigam crooned like a Celine Dion with bowel problems and asked the players to "go for glory" – lyrics for which were actually inspired by all those locker room talks that a coach gives to his down and out players during halftime, the real deal has finally started. 

The whole nation has come to a standstill, malls have have giant T.Vs installed, there now will be an increase in absence of employees from work, students would get so caught up with the world cup fever that they may forget about their exams around the corner and would secretly indulge in score updates with the T.V on mute, wives and girlfriends and mothers would crib over the lack of attention that they are getting. If the politicians have any more plans of scamming the public and stealing their money they may as well do it over these couple of months because the whole nation is busy giving field placement tips to Dhoni. Ghaplas and ghotalas won't take up the front page - Yusuf Pathan's ability to pulverize the bowling will, twitter would be burdened with running commentary from all over the country as tweeters would be giving their own brand of sarcastic insight over the events unfolding at the stadium. New friends will be made with not a "Hello how are you?" but with a "bhaisaab score kya hua?" (Sir, what's the score?), this is a fine time to be living in for a cricket lover as each nook and corner of the country is brought together by the country's most favorite activity after sex : Cricket.

Things have changed over the past four years, not only with the world order of cricket, where now the Aussies are just a pale shadow of what they were a decade back, or with the Indian cricket team - where more than half of the team is playing its first world cup but also with the Indian cricket fan. The Indian cricket fan has become more tech-savvy as he keeps track of his players over twitter where he wishes his hero a great game and also advises him over his stroke-making or a delivery selection, thanks to EA Cricket we now know a lot about field placements and shot selection. If only we had a control pad over our cricketers, we would decide which delivery to bowl and what shot to play just with the push of a button.

But for a cricket hater and there are a few of them, this is a tough time. This is a time where the whole nation eats, drinks, burps and craps cricket. From Sadhus to Movie Stars, all are busy praying and wishing their team the best of luck. The haters have to put up with their relatives and friends who go on a cricketing hyperbole where they compare cricketers with the Sun, Moon, God, Bull, Tiger, Panther and every other celestial object and wild beast known to man. Apart from the visuals in the form of advertisements that they have to put up with, that includes an over-the-top portrayal of cricketers painted in a Na'avi like color palette which makes you wonder if they are promoting the game or the product or auditioning for Avatar - 2, they also have to put up with the "elite" cricket panel of burnt-out cricket players who are now known more for their repetitive stating-the-bleeding-obvious comments than their exploits on the cricket field. If you thought that the heavily decked up soap opera stars from Ekta Kapoor serials that have a never-ending storyline get into your skin, then the likes of Siddhu, Shastri, Gavaskar, Arun Lal, Robin Jackman, Sivaramakrishnan would probably get into your skin, tear it up, add citrus and salt to it and rub it all over you gently with a sadistic glee over their faces, whilst they spew some cringing commentary gems like "That sped to the fence like a tracer bullet", "This is a good move by Dhoni", "Listen to the roar of the crowd!", "One gets the feeling.... (add whatever seems appropriate)", and to the one that describes the team's virility "They will come hard at the opposition" (the only time of the year where the term "come hard" is not used as a sexual parlance) and not to forget the lyrical Mr.Sidhu's "An apple-pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze" which would make you say "Arre Mr. Sidhu will you now STFU please!?".

This also is a bad time to be employed, when you spend most of your time in the office or end up doing overtime against your wishes, the most of the live action you could catch up with is the presentation ceremony, making you secretly wish if only you could quit you job for these couple of months. And with a work place like mine whereupon trying to access any website URL that has "cricket" in it show up "Access Denied", I end up going to the loo every few minutes to browse the score from my mobile, which made a few of my colleagues ask if I got bladder control problems. 

But hate it or love it one cannot deny the unseen force that an event like this brings along with it, it not just brings the whole country together but also brings along with it a hope for the cricket lover. Fifty over cricket is that format of cricket that is threatened by the flamboyant and eye-popping extravaganza that T-20 is, T-20 cricket may give birth to instant heroes like those instant noodles which one may eat out of hunger, but fill our appetite it will not. The 50-Over game is now 36-years old, it is more like a middle-aged man who is going through a midlife crisis, this version of the game is going through a phase where its potency to keep the viewer enthralled for a longer period is under question. Poweplays and free-hits are those drugs induced which one hopes can revive this game. To a format of the game that is believed to be dying a slow death, it is only fitting that the efforts to breathe life into it is made in a place from where it had always received undying support. This is the cup that a true cricket fanatic counts to provide it with some resuscitation, this is the cup that should bring a hope of life to a format that is now under life support. And with the madcap frenzy with which we have embraced this event, it can be safely said that there still is good hope.

A Field of Dreams

As a kid we all had lived dual lives. There were lives lived inside the classroom, where the importance of academic excellence was drilled down into our heads - how solving math problems, memorizing multiplication tables, mugging up dates taught in history classes, racking our brains on trigonometry and Pythagoras theorems would help us secure a future with a prestigious degree (as in B.E) and would lay a foundation for a "golden" career (as in Software programming). Then there was the other life, the one outside the classroom inside a playing field, where for that two hours in a day we chose to forget and not care about math equations, the history of India, the state capital of Nagaland, and countries that lay near the equator. For that brief moment we became what we wanted to be, the Superstars of the game we adored - Cricket.

Everyday as I walk past the playground that once existed nearby my home, there seeps in a feeling of nostalgia. I never was an "outdoor sports" kind of person. I was always the last guy to be picked in any team, I never owned a cricket bat, I was too scared of fast bowling, I could not remember more than two instances where I could have held on to a ball without dropping it. To sum it up, I was picked only because my mother was a teacher at the school where most of the kids studied. My only attempt to stop a ball would be to awkwardly cover my face in a flash when it was hit toward me. It would be hard to even fathom how a boy who could not hold the bat, nor throw a ball be picked in a team. When the boys around me would be playing the game with a seriousness that involved making strategies in a huddle for the 12-year old Master Blaster of the neighborhood who played with a picture-perfect cover drive that even Sachin would be proud of, I on the other hand played the game with a callousness. Imagine the Joker playing the game of cricket, he would cackle away heinously with every attempted wild swing of the bat that would miss the ball by almost a yard, well that was me. The captain of my team, which always ended up losing would often be chastised for having picked me in the team, but the poor lad had no other option but to fend for me, for he had a Social Sciences assignment to be submitted the next morning... to my mother.

And come summer vacations we all would turn into cricketers with a seriousness as if we are having plans of participating in the world cup. With the sun beating down our backs and the worry of summer projects to be submitted postponed to the last days of the vacation, we would enter the playing field as Men on a Mission, ignoring our mothers' call to come home on time for lunch. The seriousness of the other lads at times would turn out to be infectious as I would whole-heartedly make efforts to catch the ball, but the results would be the same nevertheless. We played till the Sun got tired of witnessing our play and would decide to go to bed, the rest of the evening would be spent with the boys in the dimly lit field strategizing for the next day's play. And as I went to bed, I would make a note of the scores I made for the day in a log book - 1, 3, 4, 12, 5.

There was something about that field which made us young boys act like men and grown men act like boys once we stepped on it. The field had something mystical about it, for a brief moment of time in a day we boys stopped worrying about homeworks and assignments and exams, for a brief moment of time the men would stop worrying about their job and responsibilities, for a brief moment they would have regained their lost childhood. It was the thrill of playing the game we loved along with the people we knew that made us vibrant. It was the glorious sun, it was the thrill of playing in front of the neighborhood, to be applauded by the people we knew that made us play those expansive strokes we saw on T.V. It was an era when we hadn't heard of the Internet, let alone Youtube as we tried to match each shot, each delivery and each jump to what we had seen on the television the last night.

With the girls in the neighborhood keeping an eye on the proceedings, that was as good a reason as any for a few of us to jump around and act like we were captaining our national team. We would do a few lunges and a few stretches nonchalantly as if the fate of the team depended on the strengths of our shoulders, the claps and the encouragement from the neighborhood uncles and aunts and their daughters would only make us act more like the cricketers we saw on T.V, as we chewed our gum even more stylishly with the mouths doing a complete circle, and a huddle held after every delivery bowled to discuss the field placement, add to that a "C'mon boys!" with an Aussie accent shouted every minute any outsider would feel like they were watching a match going on between future international stars.

But as years grew along so did we, and with that changed our responsibilities and priorities. The field that once lay beside my home is now encroached with apartments and a lot of houses. The Playstations and the X-boxes have now become our virtual playground. No more do I hear young boys crying in anguish over a dropped catch, no more do I hear grown men shouting instructions on how to bowl, no more do I hear kids embrace each other over a match won shouting in joy, basking in their moment of glory. Yet, if I prick my ears up as I walk past the field, I could still hear that roar of joy, those claps of the neighborhood and the shout of an enthusiastic kid yelling "C'mon boys!" egging up his other mates.

Mississippi Burning - Burning Bright

"My old man was just so full of hate that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killin' him." - Rupert Anderson

Behind every nation's glorious present and promising future, there lies a history of violence,  a past brushed under the carpet which no one wants to talk about, a violence bred by ignorance and fueled by hatred, a history long forgotten. But occasionally a nation needs to look back into the past and realize where it had come from, for history is a great teacher. Alan Parker's "Mississippi Burning" takes us back to a time where America was divided over color. It takes us to a small town where color was the only reason to wreak havoc. It teaches us how ignorance coupled with hatred could burn a place into ashes. It takes place in the year 1964 in the Jessup County of Mississippi, just another sleepy little Southern county with farmers and religious people. Back then it was just another White dominated county that still believed in dividing its water coolers for the whites and the colored. It finds itself in the news for the disappearance of three civil right workers who had come to town to enlighten the colored folks of their right to vote. A shocking opening scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie, and scene by scene the same intensity is maintained.

Jessup county prides itself on its age old belief of White supremacy and oppression of the colored. Their belief is put to test when two FBI agents Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) and Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe) enter the small town to investigate the disappearance. Polar opposites to each other from their style of working to their style of thinking, Anderson is a veteran having served as a sheriff in a small town like this before, street-smart, shrewd and with a story for every occasion, he is a tough cookie who does not follow the rules. He is someone who believes in breaking the ice with a casual conversation before questioning about the who, where, when and why. Alan Ward is a young, "by-the-book" kind of officer who to quote himself "shaves everyday", is suited up impeccably and uses his power to complete effect, be it in summoning a hundred agents or questioning the locals by stamping his authority. With two different schools of thoughts working on a case, there is a friction developing between the two agents which slowly but surely starts to heat up. 

The locals of the town show their displeasure of the two agents who seem to be disrupting the values and beliefs by their aggressive investigation. There is a simmering tension between the two government bodies, the local police who are believed to be misusing their power in carrying out the dirty deeds and the FBI who want to get to the bottom of this case. With the arrogant Sheriff and his men consisting of both cops and the local heavyweights who terrorize anyone that cooperates with the Feds things become all the more difficult for Wade and Anderson.

It always gives us goosebumps to watch great actors immerse themselves in their roles, as Rupert Anderson, Gene Hackman goes on to give a sterling performance, a tour de force where he leaves us stunned with his brilliant portrayal. He starts out as the wisecracking federal agent who follows orders to the distinguished Ward, and as the movie progresses he shifts gears into a domineering ruthless fed who plays the game by his own rules as Ward helplessly plays second fiddle to Anderson. This is one of Hackman's finest performances on screen which makes us wonder why he never won an Oscar for this. Gifted with great dialogues and a wonderfully etched out Anderson, Hackman makes the most of it. It is still a point to ponder over why Hackman's name is not taken in the same breath as Pacino, Deniro, Nicholson or a Brando.

The movie never loses its focus even as the gentle chemistry between Mrs. Pell (Frances McDormand) and Anderson is etched out with a lot of maturity, never threatening to steal focus from the main issue. Dafoe and McDormand give neat performances. With murders and riots shot with realistic and disturbing detail, Alan Parker has made a film that drives home the tough years of racism that America had been through in the 60's, a sore point in the nation's history. Willem Dafoe and Frances McDormand play their roles with finesse. Alan Parker's adeptness sees the movie gently shift focus from Ward to Anderson as Willem Dafoe dictates the terms in the first half as in charge of the investigation, and later submits to Anderson's street smartness in handling issues. With great writing that wonderfully etch out the characters, and with hard hitting scenes that even strike a chord to this day, "Mississippi Burning" even after having released more than two decades ago still manages to keep the intensity aflame.