Why I Choose Not To Watch IPL 2016

After watching a few IPLs, I have now decided to give this tournament, IPL 2016, a complete miss. It feels good to have made this decision because it suddenly opens up about 180 hours of my time that I could use in some other way. My friend Suri who visited me last night said - 'I can't believe you're not watching cricket.' But that's how it is now. Even World Cups are now relegated to the sidelines. I prefer watching the amateur games - Afghanistan, Ireland etc or even the eves cricket. They certainly brought me more joy than watching some of the regular games.

But why would I want to miss this tournament? For starters its just too loud and garish and I cannot stand such loudness anymore. I guess I'd leave it to the young fans who can shout, scream, bare chests and wave flags. The loud commentators and their loud sense of humor is another put off.

I find the faces at the tournament increasingly repetitive. Players, franchisees, commentators, the special elite flag waving fans who come to promote their movies - I am up to my gills with these people. Enough.

I don't find the quality of cricket too high either. A World Cup perhaps might interest me still but a team that's a hotch potch of international talent, local talent and U19 talent is just not up there. It's surprising to see that the stars here don't perform too well in Ranji Trophy. Are we missing something here? Also the young stars of two seasons ago are nowhere to be seen.

I find the administrators boxes also rather nauseating. I don't know why. Maybe their smug look. Maybe the fact that I can't see anything that recognises good cricket in their faces. I cannot really associate the cricket that I played and enjoyed with these faces so I'd rather go and enjoy watching the kids in the gully.

What does this decision do to me? It saves me a good 180 hours. That's about a full month's work - eight hours a day for about 23 days.

I can watch 60 movies in these 60 days and still save some time. So 60 of the greatest movies can be now identified - that's my number 1 plan. I can read books - that's my second plan. I can use this time to write a new idea - that's my third plan. I mean if I actually use these 180 hours I could well get a first draft of my book done. (Maybe I should make this the Number 1 plan.)

Or I can just do nothing. I can meet people. All of which sound extremely promising. I am quite happy to let this one go by. And if I may suggest, you could do it too. You don't HAVE to watch it you know.

As for those who wish to go to the stadiums to watch - have fun you all.

Fine Performance by MPA Students - Department of Dance, University of Hyderabad

It's the second year in a row that I am teaching a course called 'Arts Management' at the Department of Dance, Sarojini Naidu College, University of Hyderabad. It's part of the Masters of Performing Arts course (MPA) that is offered by the department. It teaches two main forms - Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi - the theory and practice of it. The course is a part of their fourth semester. The class sizes are generally small. Last year there were 9 students and this year we had 12.

Standing - Shanmukha, Tejaswi, Me, Vaishnavi PB, Vaishnavi S, Kavitha
Sitting - Seenaiah, Anusha, Ardra, Athira, Chudamani

I know little about dance, classical or western, Bollywood or pop. But I studied management and apart from that have tried to understand what one must do to gain an advantage in a particular path they have chosen. In other words, manage things without feeling overwhemed by the odds. I try to do the same with my writing - manage it. One of the main aspects of becoming better as a performer or even as someone who wants to understand performance arts is to perform. What we call in cricket - match practice.

To perform well over a period of time one certainly needs to strive for expertise - hence purposeful effort is a must. My theory is that one needs to deconstruct skill, get an expert coach or coaches to guide, practice the right things the right way (instead of  merely putting in loads of hardwork going nowhere) and once ready, perform on as many stages as possible. One needs to meet people of higher standing, have clear role models, engage in discussion and in interpretation and analysis, and mainly take responsibility for their careers. Visibility is important, understanding audience needs is important, understanding how to present oneself is important and mostly, like writers, one must also realise that its not just learning the skill but understanding and fitting in with the environment that's important for career growth.

Based on these principles, we decided to organise one performance at least on a stage - either at Shilparamam or at the DST, UoH. It was wonderful to see the students organise the event all by themselves and perform so well. They transform so much on stage that you wonder what it was that they were worried about - so much passion and work cannot just go waste.

And so it was that I got to see and applaud my students this year - Athira, Ardra, Anusha, Chudamani, Kavitha, Radhika, Shanmukha, Seenaiah, Tejaswi, Vaishnavi PB and Vaishnavi S. It was a wonderful evening and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. It had live music. Prof Anuradha Jonalagadda was there, as always helping the students. I met Dr. Siva Raju, Head of the Department too at the beginning. A good sized crowd came by to cheer - the hall was almost packed.

Well done students. Wishing you many more performances to come in the future.

Birdman - Movie Review

'Birdman' is the story of a fading-ed movie star who acted a couple of decades ago in a series of comic book films as the masked hero 'Birdman'. He is now trying to resurrent himself through a Broadway adaptation of a short story which he is producing, directing and acting in. The movie takes you through three days before the opening show - a time when he meets all his worst fears and biggest critics and finally does something that ends it all in a big bang. Literally.

Birdman is not just a fading actor trying to resurrect his career, he is also a father of a drug addict who is just out of rehab and is assisting him. His ex-wife, his present girlfriend (who gently tells him she is pregnant), the replacement for the co-actor - Edward Norton - all get on his nerves plus the financial burden. Not to mention the fact that the play could just sink as the main critic promises to do. Edward Norton as the star actor who steps in to save the show brings an element of danger and unpredictability and it all leads up to a dramatic and highly freeing end.

Seen it. Off the list. Once again? No. I'll leave it to the critics.

The Wizard of Oz- Movie Review

It's a 1939 movie based on the popular 1900 children's tale by L Frank Baum. Young school kid Dorothy runs away from home to save her puppy Toto and finds herself in the middle of a storm -literally. The storm lifts her and her house to a beautiful land where she lands with a thud on the wicked witch of the west. That brings much cheer to the munchkins and an angel who tells her that to get back back home she needs to find the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy meets a scarecrow who wants brains, a tin man who wants a heart and a lion who wants courage.

The unlikely group finds the wizard who gives them what they want and also transports Dorothy back home. But did she really go to the distant land or did she dream about it all? Because the characters at their farm appear like the scarecrow, the tin man and the lion and professor Marvel looks suspiciously like the Wizard. I like the way the wizard gives the scarecrow a diploma, the lion a medallion and the tin man a heart shaped watch, to make them believe that they are what they want to be.

All's well that ends well.

The movie was one of the most expensive productions of MGM at that time and was nominated for six Academy awards but lost out to 'Gone with the Wind'. However it figures in the all time must-watch lists. 

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley

The Time magazine chose this book as one of the 10 most important nonfiction books of the century. With good reason. Malcolm X (1925-1965) came from the back of beyond, from a life that seemed to have just gone off track, straight into becoming one of the most active and committed civil rights activists fighting for the cause of American Africans in a system that was loaded against the blacks despite all the politically correct talk. He believed, thanks to some training by his own father who died at the hands of the KKK, and then later by the teachings of the Nation of Islam, that African Americans do not belong to America, that they have their own history and heritage which the white man obliterated in his greed, that the white man is their enemy and the answer  to the white man's hate was to hate them back. Malcolm X spoke the truth - and truth is violent and difficult to handle especially if you;re a white man. Malcolm was clear that what the white man did - enslaved and kept in wrongful slavery millions of blacks who were kidnapped from their homes in Africa  - was terrible and no amount of their minor appeasements like their weak attempts at integration were going to pay back. (From 1526-1867, 12.6 million slaves were shipped to America. 10.7 million survived.) He wanted complete segregation and he hated integrationists who believed that whites and blacks could live together equally, harmoniously. Of course Malcolm changed his hatred for the white man in general and accepted that certain attitudes were what he was against in his later part of life, but he could well be excused for what he said earlier because it also included the truth.

Interestingly the autobiography was conceived after Alex Haley, the author of 'Roots', a definitive work on African slaves and how the blacks grew in the US in the days of slavery, did a couple of articles on Malcolm X (The X stands for the unknown history, identity of the black man in America and they would wear it until they found it). Malcolm would meet Haley about his life and he told it in great detail to show how he had grown up. First as Malcolm Little, in a large family, with a father who had definite views on race and separation of African Americans and White Americans, a mother who was white almost, but hated it. (When I first read Roots, I realised that the fair African Americans, were the product of cross breeding or rather, like Malcolm puts it bluntly, the outcome of the rape of black woman slaves by white men which continued over centuries. The black slavery rules gave the white complete power over the slaves to the extent that even their children were owned by the white masters.) Malcolm Little was an intelligent kid who saw the KKK attack their house, then attack and kill his father and lay him down on a rail road so his body was cut into half (the police called it suicide and the insurance company did not pay because it was a suicide, when the body actually had injuries to the forehead caused by blunt instruments.) The family slowly went to pieces as the state welfare came and took the children away. Mrs. Little went insane and was admitted to an institution.

Malcolm did well as a student even from his foster homes but he cites the story of a favorite teacher who dissuades him from becoming a lawyer - become a carpenter instead says the well intentioned teacher. Malcolm drops out of school in his eighth class, heads to New York, stays with a cousin and learns the tricks of trade. Living in the streets of Harlem he understands their pain, their aggression, their inability to come out of the ghetto. He joins them, becomes a drug dealer, an addict, gets his hair straightened, tries to ape white men, gets a white girl friend, does everything a hustler does, and becomes popular as Red. A botched up burglary lands him in prison - with a longer term - because he pushed two white girls into the crime too.

In jail he meets a black Muslim who initiates him to the teachings of the Nation of Islam, an exclusive group for black Americans led by Elijah Muhammad, their spiritual leader. The Nation of Muslims believed that Christianity was never their religion. This new religion meant giving up a life of crime, women, pork and such other stuff. Malcolm takes his time to convert but when he does he holds on to Islam as a lifeline. He also starts reading, and begins his second stint at educating himself, this time with a vengeance. On his return from jail he joins the Nation of Islam full time and a more committed worker who worked tirelessly to promote the thought of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who fought to bring the black brothers out of darkness, never existed. Malcolm's views, his articulate and cogent presentations, got him lot of press and he became a leading Minister in the Nation of Islam, second only to the Head. But along the way, his success breeds enemies and he notices it all too late. Malcolm marries and has children - but sadly towards the end of his life one realises he has almost nothing to leave for his children except a huge legacy which he was not aware of.

The Nation of Islam and Malcolm split over a seemingly minor error - making Malcolm believe that it was just an excuse to silence his voice and to cut his wings. He however submits to it. But his house is attacked, he gets death threats. Malcolm breaks away after he finds out about Elijah Muhammad's own adulterous flings - something which he condemned publicly - and starts his own mosque in New York. A visit to Mecca opens his eyes to a wider world view and he returns a much more mature and committed Muslim. After achieving so much in just a short span of forty years Malcolm X aka El Hajj Malik El Shabazz was assasinated as he prepared to speak to a group of people in his mosque.

If there is one thing that Malcolm X saw through, it was that one could not merely ask for the justice one wants; one has to assume it. If you ask they may give or not, or they may say they will give and give only some. Malcolm knew what was done, what the black man suffered and was not prepared to wait any longer. He saw no reason why the black man should still be kept out, discriminated against, kept in control through employment, religion, culture. He was quick to see how the Jews and the others made money off the blacks and lined their pockets. He saw how the blacks were never really allowed to integrate. he saw how blacks themselves seemed to have no sense of self-esteem after all that was done to them. He saw that their history was described in a single paragraph in schools. he experienced how nigger was a word so often used that he thought it was his name.

The white man versus black man, yellow man, brown man story continues. How peaceful cultures were invaded and torn apart by the white man who then built a system to exploit the owners of the land and continue to do so is no different today than it was half a century ago. Malcolm X might not have survived the forty years if he was alive today with even more bigoted thinkers aiming to rule or ruling by dint of economic power. One thing is for sure though - one cannot expect justice from those who denied it. One must bring one's own judgement to it and live that life. One must break free of all controls because the controls are made by those who wish to control you anyway.

Malcolm X was much loved. He is a charismatic leader, a person who was gentle and yet angry. As they do with all honest people, it was easy to misrepresent Malcolm X as the hatemonger when in fact all he wanted was to claim justice. The US Government released a stamp in his honor in 1998. He existed in the times of Martin Luther King, though his views were different.

I loved the book. I am deeply in awe of the man and his courage and his talent. Like I said, Denzel Washington does not look a patch on the intense original. Its worth watching his interviews on youtube just to see his preparedness and his knowledge and conviction. I am so glad I read this book - and Roots. I wonder why I haven't read them till now. Anyway better late than never. Thanks Abhishek.

Anjali - A Thougthful Anniversary Gift

So we expect a card, a gift or mostly just a smile and a hug on your anniversary from your child. Most times they don't remember or even if they do, this is about how much participation you can expect. Anjali has her own views on what she will participate in and what she won't and I was not too sure of her participation in something like our wedding anniversary (something that even we don't participate in enthusiastically).

Naturally I was pretty surprised when she asked that we both sit down together soon as she woke up. Now that is a big thing because we are constantly headed in opposite directions. Anyway, we did as we were told and then she asked us to close our eyes and we did. Then when we opened our eyes there was this old picture of the three of us, mounted on a board with the sign of a heart enclosing it. Then there was a card (which showed a likeness of me giving flowers to Shobhs) with a long note inside about what we mean to her.

But what prompted me to write this piece is the presence of two five hundred rupee notes inside the card. At the end of the note were instructions to us to spend the money on ourselves - with a gentle hint about how we normally seem not to (spend) on ourselves. Now this was money that she saved up in her little tin box - stuff she gets from her various well wishers and uncles and aunts on her little achievements. I remember her taking the key to the tin box from her secret hiding place the day before.

It was a touching gesture. I told her I will spend - but could she take her money back? She was firm. No. This is my gift for you.

I thanked her and yes, that extra money did help finance a fine lunch for Shobhs and me in a fine restaurant. I never imagined kids could think like that and finance their parents on their anniversaries. I certainly never thought I could. In fact even now I think twice about financing my own anniversary, forget someone else's. A nice lesson for me in thoughtfulness, love, in abundant thinking and in giving. It's wonderful to see, especially for me who finds it so difficult to think like that.

Thanks Anjali. It might just change my attitude a wee bit.

The Danish Girl - Movie Review

Einar Wegenar (Eddie Redmayne) and Gerda Wegenar (Alicia Vikander) are an artist couple in Copenhagen from 1920. One day Gerda asks Einar to stand in for a female model. Einar discovers that he actually feels better as a woman. His desire to be a woman takes over and he gives up painting, because to him, being a woman is a greater need. Gerda does not know how to handle this change, especially since her new series of Einar's portraits (where he poses as Lili, dressed in a woman's clothes) are getting to be popular. Einar prefers to dress as a woman in bed, even at parties and actually even picks up a boyfriend at a party. Alarmed they meet doctors who treat Einar's condition as schizophrenic or as dangerous.

The story is about one of the first sex change operations. Einar, now Lili, finally does go through a lot of pain to change her sex and finally dies but not before feeling a sense of coming home. Gerda is with her throughout. It's very sensitively shown, beautifully enacted. But if you don't like being patient or understanding of boys or men who want to be girls, you might not like it. If you however, understand someone else's pain that they cannot really express normally, you might.