For those of you who don’t know, I trip on Google Reader.

Multiple reasons. To start with, there were a lot of things I missed out on by virtue of ignorance, while at NITK. So I subscribe left right and center to anything that aggregates together information about opportunities.  And then there was this time when I wanted to improve my domain knowledge on things like Knowledge Discovery and Text Mining and Machine Learning and Data Mining and Image Processing and Software Engineering and… you get the picture, so I subscribed indiscriminately to a lot of blogs that write extensively on these topics. There was also a time during the holidays when I stumbled on a gazillion blogs, found them all wonderful, and subscribed to them all. And I feel I don’t follow movies and music fervently enough, so there are some entertainment blogs that keep me informed of things in that arena. There was a time during my professional life when I would reach office absurdly early, and there began my subscribing to quizzing blogs, so that I could get my daily dose of trivia before I began work, or during my lunch break. And political blogs. What would life be without them. There are also photoblogs and photography blogs which I subscribed to in an initial enthu, and starmark various posts to implement them whenever I can. Then there are those zillion-feeds-a-day blogs like Freakonomics or MentalFloss.

And initially, the Recommended Feeds section was a huuuuge hit with me. It gave me access to so many good feeds I might have otherwise skipped.

And shared items. Some or the other person who I follow is always jobless. And finds time to discover a million new blogs and share all the (mostly good) things they find there.

I never felt the need to prune my reading list over the past year. I had atleast an hour-long commute to work every day and found that catching up on my feeds from my mobile was the best way to spend that hour. I routinely found myself craving for more, during those times in traffic jams.

But now, I don’t obsessively compulsively refresh my Reader every few minutes… there is hardly any time for that. Right now. I find it quite a burden to bring my Unread count to zero. And the number of feeds that pile up if I don’t log in for a day or two is really, really scary. It’s only in three figures, though.

I don’t particularly like marking things as Read. Especially because the things I subscribe to are interesting, worthy of respect, even.

“Unsubscribe. Easy!”, you might say. No, it is not that easy. Now I mightn’t have time to read all that I ask for, but there will definitely come a time, say winter break, or some point in time, I KNOW, when I’ll look woefully at my empty account and wonder what used to take so much of my time. It has happened in the past.

And I did try unsubscribing from some feeds. But most of those were feeds from blogs whose owners had long quit updating, feeds from blogs of events which happened rather long back, and feeds which I generally do not find very useful.

But there’s this seemingly irrational reasoning in my head that I should read feed X because it’s good for me, it’ll help me grow as a person. And that makes me avoid unsubscribing based on like/don’t like  or goodWriting/badWriting.

So what do I want? An application that magically transfers all the information data I subscribe to and transmits it to my head. While I’m sleeping.

More (or less) realisitically, I just want some sort of a recommender system that tells me which of the two-hundred unread feeds right now do I absolutely have to read, and which ones I can safely mark as hell.Or atleast some sort of a ranking system.

And I came across this article which voiced all the concerns I had! (Through Reader, of course ). Great, people are already on the job.

Till Google listens to that and comes up with some system like that, or until someone attempts to come up with such a system, I’m stuck with 135 feeds most of which post regularly. So what do I do?

Logik suggested crowdsourcing once. I’ll-share-good-stuff-from-TechCrunch-you-share-from-mentalFloss-and-greatBong. But is it really reliable? And how do we evolve some similar system? Any thoughts?

And I really don’t want to trim down this part of my life. Fact remains that these nice reads do definitely keep me on my toes, keep me informed, give me good fodder for conversation, are useful in many ways…. and heck, it’s convenient. It’s also nice to have something good to fall back on when you don’t have anything else to do.  All I ask is for more convenience.

PS: There might be some to whom my concerns might seem alien. “You’re a computer addict”, they might say. Heck, do I call you an ‘air addict’ or ‘water addict’, or… ‘rice addict’…. or ‘Sunday Mass addict’? If I’m on my laptop the whole day, it doesn’t mean I’m a computer ‘addict’. While I’m logged on, I’m also networking, keeping in touch with friends, reading novels, going through tutorials, looking up recipes, watching movies, making jokes, reading the news. I don’t ask you “Why are you alwaaaaaayyys standing up or sitting down?”, do I?

And no, I don’t wear glasses.

I was watching some Youtube clip of Ocean’s Eleven, and the next one on the playlist was A Little Less Conversation with clips from the movie. And the next related one was the Elvis vs JXL version of A Little Less Conversation.

And sadly, the next one wasn’t the MTV India version of the same thing.

Yes, there was one.

I think this came out in 2001 or 2002. MTV used to make their own videos of popular international hits. I don’t distinctly remember any others apart from this one, though. It had a shadow of Jailhouse Rock in it… the setting was a prison with the cells arranged like it was in the original video. Cyrus Broacha was the jailor, and there were several inmates. All with their own dance styles.

One I remember was Kareena (lookalike, obviously) in her red You are my Sonia costume [Oh What The Hell, all I can find is a low-quality Youtube video of the song, and NO shots whatsoever on Google Image Search for Kareena in that costume. Was it really from some other era or what?]. Another was a pair of Chandramukhis doing a mujra just like Madhuri in Devdas, only, twice as fast. I think there was a Hrithik too, doing his famous step from Ek Pal Ka Jeena.

I think this video was more vivid and colourful than the original. Maybe it was the rather in-your-face popcul references that did it… the original showed dance styles, not personalities or caricatures.

Thing is, I’m not able to find a video of that. I haven’t tried really hard, though. If you’re able to locate it somewhere, please, pretty please share it with me. And it’s really worth the hunt… it’s a damn fine video, one of the best to come out of MTV. It’s pretty cool and slick for a parody.

So what are you waiting for? Go memory-lane tripping! And get back to me.

I entered the United States mentally prepared for things that would surprise me. But oh well, I still end up shocked, surprised, all that jazz.

First, about Americans. All I knew of them was that Indians worked rather hard in American companies. If something had to be done, it HAD to be done, even if it was 2 am on a Saturday morning. I don’t yet know if that’s a misconception, but here’s what I know: Everyone, EVERYONE without fail just clears off the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology building at 5 pm sharp. And the place wears a deserted look on weekends. DESERTED. Yeah, there might be exceptions, but the place is tombish as the evening wears on.

And then about geekdom. I thought they were the bottom rung of society, etc. But then, I see Tshirts that say “Talk nerdy to me”, and “I Love My Geek”. And a few other things besides… geeks are the cool guys here, or so it seems to me in gradschool. But not that much geeky joking around. Not here, atleast. I thought I cracked the least geekiest jokes, while I was at NITK, atleast when you compare me to a SaiO or folks from Tronix ‘08, but a post-doc with a double PhD from two continents and several other geek qualifications besides told me of late that I crack the nerdiest jokes he’s ever heard. ‘Plenty more where I come from’, I said.

And mad scientists. I attend classes taught by one of them. Contrary to popular perception, they are the most sociable people, some of the funniest I’ve met. And they have the best sort of communication skills I’ve ever come across. Even the most complicated equations take on a pleasing face when they are teaching you about those. They’ll talk to you for ages about their research and it won’t be boring in the least. Even if it has nothing to do with what you’re interested in.And if you don’t understand something, you can ask a million times. Oh, their awesome patience.

And the utter lack of hierarchical barriers. Getting back to the aforementioned Institute which is deserted at 5 PM… I found that out the hard way. On my second day in the place, I had been staring at my monitor for two hours and stepped out for a breather at 4:55 PM. I came back at 5:02, to find everyone gone, and the lab locked up. My things were inside, inclusive of wallet, mobile, laptop, keys…. and the whole place seemed to be deserted. I was told by someone to go up to the top floors, where the folks with keys were. And they were the only ones with keys, apparently….. this place was out of reach of Campus Security too. And hurry, because everyone leaves at five. I did so. I barged into the first open door and disturbed a man having a no doubt well-deserved peaceful cupcake. I blabbed something about my situation and he cross-checked whether I really did belong there. And then came down three floors to open the door for me. And waited till I had cleaned out my stuff. “Thanks!”, I said, “What do you do ’round here?”

“Oh, just Assistant Director”.

But then, the overwhelming social equality or whatever gets to me. We’ve come a long, long way since John and Yoko sang “A very Merry Christmas / For Black and for White / For Yellow and Red Ones / Let’s stop all the fight”. No allusions to perceived skin colours. No shortforms of people’s countries of origin – those have already been used during WWII and hence been given rather negative connotations. And lighter shades are more common than darker ones. And all you Dalit Leaders who talk about affirmative action and social justice…. just live here for ten days and then talk.

And for some strange reason, all the evangelists are South Korean. All the churches I’ve seen are, too.

And there’s this one-toothed old black lady at the same spot on campus every day getting people to sign petitions to make weed legal and taxable.

Did someone say the Nano would increase pollution? Hell, they haven’t done a comparative study of the USA and India. It naturally comes to me to hoard every single scrap of paper I find, and at the end of six months, parcel them off to the raddiwalla. Here, you shred and throw. And what’s with the leaf-blowers? This post sums it all up for me. Oh, and how many eucalyptus trees! In the middle of the desert! Isn’t it common knowledge that eucalyptus depletes the water table?

And the houses don’t optimize on sunlight.. it’s the way they are constructed. If I want to use my walk-in closet or the bathroom, I need to turn on the light. Even if it is blindingly bright outside. And all the doors/windows face only one way. No cross-ventilation whatsoever. Oh man….

Every single building, device and vehicle here seems to be built for an emergency. The first thing that hit me were the doors (literally). You pull the door to go into a building. So that when there’s a disaster, you can push the door (which is more natural) to get out. Every single time I approached a door initially, my head would fill with images of a hundred screaming people pushing Bren Hall’s main door and spilling out.

I mentioned my blog in passing to one of my non-Indian friends, and he asked for the URL. I gave it to him… but couldn’t help thinking WHAT he would understand from this page. All the lingo I use, all the references I give on this blog…. they seem so localized. That’s just a realization… I’m not complaining.

A Happy Kannada Rajyotsava to everyone.

And something I’ve been wanting to embed on a blogpost from a long time.. here you go:

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I suppose I am about to embark on another music exploring extravaganza. All thanks to DC++. And Its about time I compiled a list of songs which are, or atleast find compelling.

1. Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now: Found her after my cousin remarked that Big Yellow Taxi is her original and not Counting Crows. Beautiful lyrics. Deep emotions.

2. Sugar Hill Gangs’ Rapper’s Delight: Best one i’ve heard.

3. Elvis Presley’s Rubberneckin’: Just love the initial music and his complacence and the way he sings. Loved it so much that I never used to allow soaringhieghts to pick her phone when it was her ringtone.

4. Shaggy’s Chica Bonita: Well, flirtatious lyrics. Spanish Guitar. Everything said.

5. Safri Duo’s Samba Adagio: and Played Alive: Heavenly beats

6.  The Temptations, My girl

7. Simon and Garfunkel’s 50 ways to leave your lover: Crazy bitch

8. Rolling Stone’s Sympathy for the Devil: Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name; Whats puzzling you is the nature of my game.

9. Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose

10. Bob Dylan’s version: Mr. Tambourine Man ad It aint me babe.

11. I suppose I simply can’t pick any of the Beatles song. The super heroes who sum up life. (ok that was a bit over board ) More on them later.

This is, i suppose is a very small list compared to the the number of songs I listen to. But well …

I have computer. ( I mean who doesnt?) .

Ive had it for too long. Id like to think of it as my alter ego. A very silent one at that. Who knows my expressions when im reading something on it. Watching a movie, listening to music. It also exactly knows what my expressions are when im chatting with somebody, or even when im talking because im always in front of it. It also knows when im crying, when im sad when im happy or even angry. It is sort of my extended self.

The idiotic thing also knows how disorganised I am, yet how I can mine things through it. It also knows what I use a lot and what I dont use at all. I have carried it through a lot of things and and it has still managed to survive the occasional rough handling.

It is idiotically slow, and very prehistoric piece of equipment.

Now I think its dying. A very slow death.

I would like it to know that it is something that I have cherished having. I also want to thank it for being with me through thick and thin remaining faithfully by my side and silently watching me over. It is one of those really precious friends.

I will keep it till its last breath and maybe never give it away.

Wrote this ages ago. I’m clearing up old drafts now. Deleting the ones that lead nowhere, and trying to publish the rest. Bear with me.

Like most normal people, there are a lot of things that put me off. Some things more than the others. I guess most of these are common. Just that, in me, these things cause chronic changes in facial expressions, tone of voice, and at the extreme, have me walking out of the place silently, and at another extreme, have me screaming the place down.

• Gender wars. I’ve had enough of these over the past one year. Quite thoroughly, too. While it might be a big use in breaking the ice with the opposite sex, the arguments are all stupid, easily refuted (unless you’re a stubborn, thickheaded doofus), and the next person who says “I can’t understand women”, or “All men are like that only” gets a socking from me. For God’s sake, it’s just your damn social ineptness, not any fundamental characteristic of either gender that prevents you from understanding a person of the opposite sex. And I really felt like smashing the TV a zillion times when Hum Tum was on. I watched just to see how much I could tolerate.
• Pseudo-Bangalorean-ness. I’ve lived in this city all my life. I like a lot of things about it. I hate a lot of things about it. But then, it’s home. It’s where my permanent address is, will be. It’s something I take for granted. So it sort of pisses me off when I read of “idlis as soft and white as a Mysore Mallige” or “Masala dosas so crisp, they would give the news in Indian Express a complex”. In nostalgic stream-of-consciousness-reminisces, fine. Not in food reviews. Gah. And the eternal question. “”Where have Bangalore’s sparrows gone?”. Probably the same place as the sparrows in other metros. It’s not a city-specific problem. And they would probably be more numerous in Bangalore  if you and your ilk didn’t zip around in your Alto having the aforementioned idlis at Veena Idli Stores Malleshwaram for breakfast, the melt-in-mouth Bisi Bele Bath at MTR for lunch, the aforementioned Masala Dosa for a snack at Ganesh Darshan, Jayanagar, before topping it off with dinner and a tipple at Pecos. Just one more time I hear Swalpa Adjusht Maadi, I’ll probably try increasing your Kannada vocab by teaching you other phrases commonly heard outside spirit stores in the Kalasipalya area.
• Too many LOLs over IM. Honestly, if you laughed that much in real life, you’d beat Mr. YMN Murthy of Jayanagar Laughter Club fame. And he laughs for the therapeutic properties, like increasing circulation, clearing airways, increasing endorphin levels. Which typing LOL, ROFL, ROFLOL, ROFLMAO, LMAO won’t do.
• Star bloggers. Nothing personal. But doesn’t it feel weird getting a few dozen comments all saying “First!”? I generally find that the level of discussion at these blogs tends to be ke-rap. But then, you pander to the lowest common denominator, that’s what you get.
• Pseudosecularists. Needs no further elaboration if you read my blog.
• Dirty kitchens. I’m too used to my mother’s and her mother’s kitchens. Anything below that golden standard, and I feel like picking up some Vim, a scrub, some rags, a broom and a mop. This, coming from me who tries to run when Amma calls me to help in the kitchen.
• Negative people. There are some people I know who can NEVER say anything good about anyone. That girl who studies well almost always does well because she cheats. That goodlooking boy out there is always a Don Juan-ish swine. That artsy kid there comes from a depressing family, that’s why he draws… to get away from the pain. The girl holding her boyfriend close is always a protective witch who’s really insecure about her relationship. That divorcee is so successful because she charmed her way up. There’s absolutely nothing in the world that can’t be repeated in a mocking tone. There’s absolutely nothing that can’t be parodied to make it look like something the dog threw up. Everyone is against them because the world is insecure about such a smart/beautiful/brilliant person, and everyone is frickin’ jealous. Either that, or they are so radical, so full of novel thoughts, so rebellious that the world can’t stand them, the descendants of Galileo, the suffragettes, Ramanujacharya and who else.
  There’s no point trying to change their world-view… they are ostriches with their heads stuck in the sand. Depressing. Keep away.
• “Modern” people. I knew of this girl who was considered by many to be fairly ‘modern’. She wore ‘modern’ clothes, her folks didn’t quite mind when she brought home rather ‘modern’ young men… the works. And she wasn’t allowed to play her musical instrument of choice at a place outside her religious spot of choice, under threat of it being separated from her forever. I’d rather be medieval. Or stone-age.
  It amuses me to listen to people say “these conservative ideas about sex and things are taking us back to the stone age”. Uhh… you didn’t have to wear conservative clothes in stone age, nor did you have to worry about social mores when sleeping around… is it such a bad thing, according to your er… ‘modern’ self?
• Swine Flu hype. I’ve already woken up crying from two nightmares about dying of some fatal fever. Just quit the damn thing, will you? I knew people in my ex-workplace who caught the ‘flu, and were back at work within the week.
• Evolutionary psychology. We haven’t stayed unevolved for 50k years. I think I’m rather removed from being a cavewoman. Don’t blame your brutish behaviour on the fact that you evolved from cavemen. Bulk of the arguments for gender wars come from here. That’s why I hate it all the more now.
• Self-Help. I think they aren’t exactly in the real world. There’s an entire post in this. I’ll write it sometime soon.
• People who don’t disagree. “I’ll have what you’re having” is fine when you don’t know to read the menu and are too embarrassed to admit it. But not because I’ll be offended otherwise. There’s nothing that directly implies that you and I can’t be friends if our stands on, let’s say, the best sort of music in the world, gay rights, football-vs-cricket, or hell, even political parties, are different, even at loggerheads. Be a real person, for godsake.

That’s just some of my pet peeves. There are more, as you might already know, or will find out.

I wrote this rather long back. I’m just clearing old drafts now. Deleting the ones that led nowhere, publishing the rest. Bear with me.

I watched Nadodigal a few weeks back. I don’t recommend it. Painful to watch. Even worse music.

But everyone seemed to be lauding it for its ‘realism’. Yeah, I was one of them, too, while watching the movie.

The language they use seems authentic. The smallTown-ness seems so too. The character sketches seem so too somewhat, at some level.

But what bothered me a bit was the clothes.

One of the two leading ladies wears quite uh… realistic salwar-kameezes in the scenes when she’s at college. And in the scenes at home, she wears loose striped tshirts with skirts.

Which made me wonder… how much should art imitate life and how much should be vice versa?

It’s fine when Sadhna cut became a trend, when Yuva skirts were the latest, even SRK’s ‘Cool’ chain is fine… but when art imitates life, which life promptly imitates back, doesn’t it make things bleaker than it already is?

Like what would life be if the loose striped older-and-much-bigger bro’s tshirts and mismatched skirts became a trend? Sure, it might have a chic avatar which would quickly be adopted everywhere, like Boyfriend Jeans, but heck, at the end of the day, it’s just bad taste.

There’d be no sparkle, no break from the mundaneness of reality. Now NITK Lingo, if shown in a film, would probably appeal to folks from other corners of the country where they talk proper. But to us, it’s just “Eww man, he can’t even put DASA lingo properly”. And god save the country if everyone started adding -ax and -esh to phrases. It’s okay in college. Tolerable. But if magnified on a large-enough scale, it can easily be painmax.

This sort of life-imitates-art-imitates-life thing can work well if the stuff imitated in the first place is different enough, diverse enough, cool enough. Like Denim… it was just workers’ clothes to begin with. But as we become more and more homogenized, and can know enough about any culture we want at the click of a button, like just look at any damn college blog for NIT and IIT lingo, there’s not much novelty value. Everything’s just another stereotype. We’re so inundated with information these days that we cannot get back the wonder we had at anything new… like how speaking Mumbaiyya suddenly became cool after RGV’s Satya came out. Plus, our lives and thoughts are so influenced by the Media these days that there’s nothing to imitate that isn’t already there in some form in public memory.

Like once upon a time, MTV with their superstar lookalikes was so cool. These guys who looked like Dev Anand, Hrithik, SRK, Ganguly, and parodied every damn thing. But now they are part of our er.. ‘culture’, and now we can as easily have a parody of people who parody superstars. And subsequent levels of indirection. While there can be innovation in these subsequent levels, like you see in re-re-remixes, it can’t be as good as coming up with original stuff.

Move over Madhur Bhandarkar. We want Manmohan Desai.

PS: I just wanted an alliteration. I don’t think Mr. Bhandarkar is all about realism… it strikes me more as a weird voyeurism.

S and I have known each other ever since we can remember. We were in school together, from kindergarten to tenth. We grew up together, more or less… went through ego battles together, began sighting guys together, joked together in the middle benches (not the backbench… teachers wise up to it pretty much) whenever I could manage it (my height made sure the teachers always put me in the front bench)…. and then we lost touch in the middle, during our engineering. And got back in touch just as I was leaving for Irvine…. for which I’ll be forever thankful. It turns out we turned out  more similar than we ever thought we’d be, having quite a few aspects of our lives turn out very similar, including our job profiles, and heck, we even started on our first jobs on the same day! And… we also complete each others’ sentences now, can totally understand what the other person says…

The best bit was not meeting up for the first time in four years and feeling not a day had passed since we met last. The best bit was that we ran into two of our school teachers when we met. One of them was the much-chronicled-on-this-blog Naughty Nallu, who treated us just like we were two errant schoolgirls giggling in the middle benches, and not at all like two adults…. somehow, the more things change, the more they remain the same

So now that the background has been established that we are in regular touch, let’s get to business.

More background.

We also had another classmate, who also studied with us from first to tenth. I’ll call her Pink for reasons I’ll explain later. She was the class darling, as well as the class hottie. S and I killed many trees just by making lists of the many boys who had approached us about how to win this girl’s heart. Every damn teacher hated our class, and every damn teacher thought the only redeeming feature of our class was Pink.

Being together for so many years, your differences start becoming insignificant. You get used to Pink’s total lack of interests in books outside of schoolwork. You get used to her primness and properness. You all have fun together, that’s all you end up keeping in mind.

And then school was out; we kept in touch on and off after that. We more or less lost touch with Pink, though she was just a click away. We rather joked about her in her absence…. I have no idea why we began doing that.

One of those is why I call her Pink here. We had a get-together after AIEEE. She was wearing a pink top, and brown jeans. And then a while later, we watched Main Hoon Na. She was wearing a pink top, and brown jeans. A year or so later, we had a class reunion.She was wearing…. you get the drift.  And then one of us met her at an intercollegiate fest. No prizes for guessing what she wore there. Basically, this was during all the very few times we met after school. Hence the inside joke, and the silent chuckle whenever she was mentioned.

A month or so back, another friend told me Pink was engaged. My first reaction was “Was she wea..”, when I was promptly cut off by that friend who dismissed my doubts and said, no, she was wearing a dark-coloured saree for the occasion.

S told me a common friend of hers and Pink’s told her that Pink got married yesterday. I just was beginning to think about her wardrobe, when S brought my attention to the fact that both of us hadn’t been invited. When the common friend (who had been invited, hopefully?) asked, she was apparently told by Pink, “Jana jaassti aagtaare“. There would be wayyyy too many people at her wedding if she had called S.

Oh, dear dear S… what are you, an amoeba that splits to form too many people when given enough food? And keeps consuming more and more and make more and more people?

And Pink, do you not remember all the occasions we fended off valiant young men intent on winning your hand? The times when we played throwball? The times you sucked up to teachers and we didn’t laugh? The times when we agreed that you had been sinned against even when it was so clear you had sinned? All the maths we did together? All the games we used to invent together to rid the monotony of a meaningless class? All the outings you used to plan so painstakingly?

I don’t care if you’ve forgotten us. School was a long time ago, and we all move on. You need not invite us if you don’t think we aren’t important enough to be there. We knew each other long ago, and priorities have changed since then, and we acknowledge that. And it’s not like we are all that free to take a break and come off to whichever faroff place your wedding is being held at. This is not about us. But er… jana jaasti? Isn’t that a bit cheap? At your wedding, of all days? Especially when we _know_ you don’t have a restricted guest list or any such.

S and I were wavering between choosing to invite her or not for our respective weddings when they happen, when I remembered one tiny memory that put things in perspective for us.

“Not much has changed”, I said. “Remember the time she used to write with your pen in class because she didn’t want her ink to get over?”

And Pink, we both heartily wish you a very happy married life.

Right now, I want to write a long long post, just so I put a bunch of thoughts that have been running continuously in my mind for quite some time. One thing to clear my mind, to see things more clearly.  Another just because I feel like writing something.

There are just too many things going on, none that would, say, bring a smile on your face or something to that end. But some do bring one on mine . I don’t even want to write cryptically, being the fiercely private person that I am.

Kindly Excuse.

Maybe I should go and sleep now. My brain will form the necessary connections and give me the result when I wake up

Anyway! Here is to the fun, interesting, and rejuvenating week that was!

Being in a relatively quiet place where the police diary reads like “Resident reported suspicious person. Officer found suspicion unfounded” or “Caller reported loud music. Officer advised residents to keep it down”…. no, hang on, that has nothing to do with what I was going to say.

Being in a place where there is considerable excitement on Dan Brown’s latest, Chetan Bhagat’s latest goes rather unnoticed. Thankfully, I read Kosu’s post on it, and apparently it’s about TamBrahm girl marrying Punju guy and the culture clashes that ensue.

Yeah, whatever, it’s Chetan Bhagat.

But I couldn’t really ignore it. Because one of the culture clashes is that the guy is used to a boisterous lunch table, while it is deathly quiet in the girl’s house at mealtimes.

Mr. Bhagat hopes to impress upon the reader about the clash between the boisterous culture of the Northwest of India and the mild, quiet, disciplined nature of folks from the Southeast.

Uh? Silent TamBrahms? Mr. Bhagat, you haven’t met me, or had lunch with my largelySouthIndian gang whose bantering resounds through the cafeteria. Heck, you haven’t even met my Appa’s Perima who manages to singlehandedly talk to us about absolutely nothing for fortyfive minutes on STD, and still give us something to laugh about. Or my Peripa who feels like his audio is on fastforward. Or my numerous cousins coming over for a Sunday evening. Or my Iyengar neighbor’s sister dropping by. Or attended my Akka’s wedding. Or.. hell, walked around my neighborhood in Irvine where the loudest voices come from the resident Tams. Oh hell, have you ever gone into a restaurant in Thanjavur? Or the streets of Kumbakonam? Or any damn meal at any Tambrahm household where folks will routinely dissect the ‘kirket’ scene, the impending nuclear war, relevance of Gandhi in today’s world, the latest movies, all at 4x volume and 8x speed.

You haven’t gone to some random tourist spot in Britain where all of a sudden the quiet atmosphere was broken by excited shrieks from the children, loud words of caution from the mother, grandmother, father, and lots of laughing at blade jokes by the rest. You haven’t ever been around in that intermediate period between breakfast and lunch at Arvind Anna’s wedding where all the oldies get together to put blade – offer commentary while reading The Hindu, Indian Express, Deccan Herald, Asian Age, Vijay Times and god alone knows which other magazine.

You haven’t even done basic research… talk to any Pankaja aunty on the streets of Bangalore and she will tell you about how she has no peace ever since some rather loud Kongas moved next door. She’ll delight you with details of how the mother shouts for the son, shouts at the son, and how everyone expresses their joys and sorrows at max volume.

I don’t know about the loudness, or the relative loudness of Pnjaabi folk, but all the Pnjaabis I’ve come across have been soft-spoken, and I have never in real life witnessed spontaneous Balle Balles or Shava Shavas, or any of the loudness Bollywood so loves portraying. I do know, however, that the most talkative people I’ve known are all TamBrahms.

This is just another of those playing-to-the-gallery acts that Mr. Bhagat is so known for…  taking some popular perception and playing it up to a high level… hell, IITians and NITians have a richer extra-curricular life than most of the rest, and still Bhagat dares to say in his first novel that IITians have no life. Similarly this one about silent TamBrahms.

Or maybe, maybe Mr. Bhagat should talk to both my northIndian roommates, one from NITK and another from gradschool, both of who are quiet as mice, and both of who took time adjusting to ze TamBrahm volume, speed of speech, and sense of humour. Or maybe to Prof. Welling, who is Dutch and who finds it easier to understand what one Mr. Amanpreet Singh says better than what I say… and routinely asks me to repeat myself and speak more slowly.

And… tailpiece: Ambujam maami’s excited voice resounded in the neighborhood for forty-five minutes. When she stepped out of her house looking pleasantly happy, Pankaja aunty accosted her. “I was talking to my niece. She’s in New York!”, Ambujam maami said, excited. “Oh, long distance call”, Pankaja aunty observed. “Next time, Ambujam,”, she said, “Use a telephone”.

PS: I seem to have totally forgotten the tenet of ‘Show, don’t tell’ in this post. It reads really amateurish thanks to that. But no time. Code needs to be written. Do comment, though.