Tea And Sympathy: Cal Chronicles 2

Second week in Cal, and things are already better. Much more interesting than the first one, in any case. For one, the Sherlock Holmes was a better one, The Speckled Band. To think of it, the tv series isn't really as great as it could have been. Of course, as a kid, it seemed fabulous, but parts of each episode do seem bland. I mean, Jeremy Brett is still intensely fascinating, and the title tune is haunting, but...um...well, maybe it would work better as a Sunday morning show- or even a Sunday evening show- than a Tuesday night show. The Speckled Band did have one great thing though- Dr Grimesby Roylott, scary as hell. I think what I'd like is some more darkness in the stories. So far its just been the lighter cases, not the really intriguing ones. I long for post-sundown foggy hansom chases, and flashing Colt .45s and blood-curdling eerieness. Ah! The modern youth I tell you.
Earlier that Tuesday, I got a better treat- a performance by the St Xavier's choir. Now, I will never profess to understanding what goes on in the making of a good choir, but I do know that I like a good one when I hear it. This one was fabulous. The harmonies were mostly spot on and sometimes the force of the singing really got you. The carols sounded exactly the way I had hoped they'd sound. Full credits to the guy playing the piano, and the arrangement of Xaviers' much loved prof Bertie. I love how these things just happen so unexpectedly in Cal. I was loafing about Park Street when my friend Dana called me up and asked if I wanted to go hear the choir. Her brother was one of the singers. Now, I wasn't even aware of such a thing here. Well, a nice surprise.
The days passed by in a daze. Met my ACJ friend Virat for lunch at Flury's (excellent Chicken Strogonoff) and then made a short trip to New Market to pick up some of Nahoums' legendary brownies as a Christmas gift for Suhrid and Payal. The good journo was in a rotten mood when I met him at his office, fuming at some beaureaucratic turd from the Planning Commission who'd dared be insolent with him! Had to help him down four pegs of gin in record time at 4 in the afternoon! Then, dunno why, I blithely got on the Metro and travelled a couple of stations the wrong way before switching tracks...
Lemme tell you about my friend Dr D. He first earned my gratitude by sheltering me for a couple of weeks in his Vasundhara Enclave apartment in Delhi when I was without a place to live. While there, he entertained me with a stream of excellent movies which made a cine fan out of me. As if that wasn't enough, he entertained me further by fleeing the city following some fuck-up in office (which involved angry, threatning Jats, go figure). This meant packing up all our stuff and slipping off to the railway station at 6 in the morning for him to catch a train at 4:30 in the evening! A very eventful day it was too. He earned my gratitude some more by carrying my books and cds back to Cal. Now, he has his defects- horrible English which he pigheadedly feels proud about being one of them- but I love him al the same. I messaged him cause I wanted to meet him and get my stuff back. He replied, "Am shifting to Dargeling (sic) tomorrow night. Meet me soon." The sentence threw me a little, but I recovered to realise that he couldn't possibly be shifting there for good. I went to his house the next day. The journey was short but interesting, taking me into little-known depths of Jadavpur. He has the habit of spending all the money he earns, which is a tidy bit, on books, cds and dvds. Quite a stupendous collection. His profligate philosophy is that if he can buy it, he won't burn it. Reprehensible case of wastefulness, but it means a lot of entertainment for reprehensible me. So when I got back home a couple of hours back, apart from a sackful of books, I had two Traffic Live dvds, two Traffic albums, a Thelonius Monk album and the George Harrison Concert For Bangladesh dvd...hmm. As you can imagine, he's well stocked.
What I needed was loads of sleep, but I could only get fitful snatches of it. This left me a lazy lout with a killer headache. This meant I missed my morning appointment with Virat. I had promised him that I would show him the sights and sounds of this fair city, like the museum and BBD Bag (where all the fab colonial palaces are). Hungover and bullshitting, it was the last thing on my mind. Afternoon came and went, with it a random Hepatitis A shot which my lunatic doctor of a father thought was good for me. I finally met Virat at sundown, skulking outside the British Council, Poor soul, I had wanted to ease his lonely soul, but booze had got the better of me. Had coffee, walked about, and went to his place at the YMCA on SN Banerjee Road. Man what a place to stay. Old Calcutta personified. My regard for the Markandeya (for such is his name) went through the roof. Its tough not to have friends in an alien place.
Anyways, was meeting Dana for SomePlace Else, as she had been working her ass off and I felt she needed some fun. Yeah, I'm the messiah of the work-oppressed. So this meant reacquainting myself with my old haunts at the Park. Some things don't change. Some P is one of them. Well, the silly cover-charge routine is gone, but that bunch of octogenarian noddy-heads, Hip Pocket still play "Classic Rock" in bland-out mode and the croud feels they have to appalaud it to be hip. So me, Virat and Dana hung around, got a table, and to keep it had to drink. Well, me and Virat did anyways. So Hip Pocket lumbered through some shit they called jazz, and was soon playing Doors and Scorpions. Then came the slap in the face. Oh yeah? the band seemed to say. You think we can't add stuff to our repertoire? Well, here's Linkin Park!
I died a little.
One of my oldest pals, Arj the energetic messiah of every down and out soul, showed up, as I knew he would, with two more old chestnuts from school, Kakeesh and Boy (not their real names, but real enough.) Things change, so while Kakeesh is set to marry, Boy's planning to open a Lebanese restuarant. A lot of bullshitting and some cigars later, Hip decided they need to sleep, so they played some more Rolling Stones. I was disgusted. Dana had had enough and wanted to go home. So I left Virat- who had become a part of the upholstery by then- in the care of nobody in particular and stepped out to see Dana to her car. Wham, wham wham!!! I meet people and places in the lobby whom I've not met in years, including a girl who I last met in a Presidency orgy. She had left before the orgy, but well, here she was 6 years on, asking me about jobs in Delhi!! Then other kids, juniors of mine from College and finally Rohan the Riddermark, a Chris Martin-Pete Townshend lookalike, my favourite guitar player and good friend. He was suitably rude, especially as I seemed too eagre to get people's numbers. Oh well, he asked me if I wanted to sing with his band who were going on after the sleepy fogeys. I said yeah. So we enter the cavern- smelling of beer and cigarettes- again, and I find Virat has vanished. Oh woe, what'll I tell his parents? But he was there somewhere, and I soon found him between a woman about to pass out and a man about to feel her up. I got to him before he could get traumatized and hauled him out. The bunch of wobbly knees also known as Hip Pocket were looking as if they needed some life support system to keep em up and duly retired. Rohan's band took to stage, with Malmshi the frontman, a dedicated bassist, a zen keyboard player, and Chotu the drummer. The are, a bit unfortunately, called Supersonics, and they play their own stuff. Whch is laudable, given the lounge-core old men who had preceded them. Supersonic were punky, their words couldn't be heard, Rohan was rocking as only he can- laconica morosa- and they kept getting electrocuted. While their songs sound the same, they are energetic...well, a ROCK band. I stood around and looked disdainful at their originals. What was funniest was that these guys have an awestruck fan-following of their own -the present college kids, who hover like proud parents, go "ooh aah" at Rohan's leads and hold on to harmonicas when they're not being used...Rohan has developed into a mean harp player as well...Soon enough they limbered up to play "their only cover" which turned out to be "I'm Free" by the Rolling Stones. While in the middle of the song, Rohan asked me to come up on stage. I was a bit embarassed but well, how can I be asked to perform and refuse? With the music muted, Rohan says, "I'd like to introduce an old friend of mine, Beq!", and he leads the band into the bouncy rhythm of "Sympathy For The Devil". What ensued was frenetic dancing (me), loud singing(me), wild cheering (a packed SomeP, with Hip Pocket induced dozers finally waking up), and a happy happy Rohan. By the time I started howling "Won'tcha tell me baybee, what's maai naaaime," the place was going wild, which meant an extended chorus, tearing my voice to shreds!!! Anyways, it ended in a stream of flashlights, and screams of encore...The song ended, and I did a Beatle bow, and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Supersonics!" Mamshi, clapping over his Gibson hollowbody, "Bibek!"
"No no. Beq." Rohan.
So ended my rockstar -in miniature performance.
I came off the stage in a barrage of back thumpings from enthusiastic revellers. The overawed kids, seemed overawed yet again, and some offered me their beers. Virat who had never seen anything like this in Delhi, was simply loving it.
Then a drunken hand grabbed me by the hair and a voice bawled, "Vivaaaash". Arj, of course.
A splendid time was had by all.

Of Fruitcakes and Seven Percent Solutions

You can't have the Christmas holiday season without the flavour of fruitcakes from New Market and brownies from Nahoum's. In fact I'm already salivating at the prospect. Ah, to see the shops on Park Street and in New Market drowning under a deluge of Christmas trees and stick candies, and Santas of all shapes and sizes. Ah. Totally missed the feeling last year in Delhi, doing a night shift...Christmas isn't as important to people over there still recovering from the rigours of Diwali partying. I can't say how much I'm looking forward to this.
On another note, History Channel is showing Sherlock Holmes with the incomparable Jeremy Brett in the title role! Ah, the joy of hearing the violins giving me the willies and the hansom cabs and the gaslight....I was a tiny little kid when they used to show the series on Doordarshan in the 80's. But, along with the title track, some images were forever ingrained in my soul. For example, the snake sliding down in the Speckled Band, or Holmes and Moriarty tumbling off the cliff at Reichenback Falls, or the wax models showing up against the glass windows in The Empty House? But I guess my favourite is the Sign Of Four. Who can forget that chase on the Thames? Or the jarwa pigmy with the poisonous arrows? Or the cocaine? What joy. Come to think of it, I've forgotten a lot of the episodes, and frankly, the series couldn't have come at a better time. What better way to be of good cheer?

Weekly Cal Review

This evening I complete a week in Cal! A week?! I mean, it seems just yesterday that I was forced into chatting with my co-passengers in Poorva just becasue I had run out of ways to be bored...yes the train was 3 hours late! Anyways, I'm less stunned with Cal this time around than May. Probably because it hasn't been able to come out with anything newly shocking in the past 6 months or so! But the occassional thig still throws me, like the Dhakuria overhead pedestrian passage. I still gwap at it. It just so doesn't belong there (not that anyone much uses it!) I mean, half the fun of crossing is to be blithely unconcerned about which mad cabbie or bus might be hurtling at you from where! Oh well. But among older haunts, I was saddened by the fact that the road from Jadavpur PS to JU hasn't changed a bit. The pavements seem like out of some post-holocaust movie, never mind the garbage.
One good fun thing that I did see was this dog show I went for yesterday. My first ever, I'm proud to say, and good fun. The first thing that strikes you are the variety of barks coming from everywhere. Despite the variety, they are all predominately friendly yelps - or, in the case of lost daschunds or spoilt labrador pups- yelps for love and affection from errant owners. Even the poor Dobermanns were primarily curious, not ravenously baying for blood as popular myth would have them be. But who can blame you for having a temper, if you spend hte best part of a lazy Saturday morning, trotting round and round in circles, and having your teeth looked at by crummy old men? I even saw a carefree dobermann. Yes, such things DO exist! This one was a blithe spirit with floppy ears who just wanted to have fun, not run around as if he were a conscript at some elite army barracks. As a result, he never looked straight, couldn't straighten his ears, didn't look ferocious, tried to run at the judge when he was supposed to be trotting around him like a shetland pony, and understandably, didn't win anything! Bu he did have fun I'm sure, more so than the other losers who won beer mugs(??) as prizes.
So that's been the sum toal of my life so far, apart from Suhrid's lil daughter Shreya, and a classic Bengal bandh!

A Board Or Two

I love board games. I miss boad games. So I was wondering what's out there. While nothing can beat the universal appeal of Monopoly, Battleships, Scotland Yard, Pictionary or even Ludo and Snakes and Ladders, here are some other new ones that are worthy successors of the old chestnuts!

Ticket To Ride:
This multi award-winning game was published in 2004 to wide acclaim and popularity. It is designed as an old world travel game. Up to 5 players choose "destination cards" showing two cities between which they have to travel. Every turn they choose "railway car" cards -and in some versions, "ferry", and "tunnel" cards as well. There are even "locomotive" wildcards. Each player has to build unique networks between the two main cities as they go along, capturing different stations in the process. No two players can share the same route. This calls for a lot of delicious strategising. There are other secret goals to meet, the ultimate prize going to whoever completes his journey first. Its a beautifully designed game, and comes in three different map versions- the United States, Europe and Germany. Its popularity has seen it get a computer gaming avatar as well.
Another game in this tradition: Age Of Steam

Tigris And Euphrates:
This is a much more complex game, taking over an hour to complete, and all the better for it. The premise is simple. You will have to compete with at least 2 other players to build communities on a map between the two rivers. Like many other board games, it is played with coloured tiles representing religion, trading, farming and people. Then there are playing tiles, catastrophe tiles and unification tiles. The objective is to develop a fully functioning ancient civilsation with a careful balance of the four main components. A lopsided civilisation will get you lesser points. The player with the biggest score wins. This is, though, only the tip of the iceberg. This wonderfully complicated game has entire websites dedicated to strategies. Like all modern European board games, it is beautifully designed.
Another game in this tradition: Civilization

BattleLore:
This one's for the fantasy enthusiasts. Combining elements of history and outright “Lord of The Rings”-like fantasy, each of the two players is given the command over a vast array of armies- human and supernatural- and mercenaries like the Iron Dwarves and other mythical creatures. The objective is to capture the banner of the competing player through a series of adventures. Each player has his own war council, made up of lore masters, wizards, clerics, and warriors. Each stage is governed by different possibilities, which lead to an unforeseeable outcome. The "Player Powers" depend on the success of the adventures. The battles are card driven, and the different sculpted creatures, and hundreds of plastic figures add to the fun. If your troops are brimming with confidence, you can ignore enemy threats, and bring in the archers to gain the upper hand in a hand-to-hand conflict. Epic fantasy on a tabletop!
Another game in this tradition: Commands And Colours.
-Bibek Bhattacharya

Vignettes

I
In the event of any postal threat that you may have recieved, I would advise you to go to the Sierra Madre mountains. There is a little sign there that says "Beware, here be rattlesnakes." But don't be despirited. A regular humdinger if there was one, and make no mistake its a sign that I put up myself, as a well respected and concientous protector of peace, it is my solemn duty to inform the misplaced postal bureau that only if one exercises one's imagination can the red letter day come calling. Man I'm drunk.

II
It was dark, and the rain hadn't let up. Maggie called about an hour back, saying the baby needed some food. Shit. What world is this, where I can't get an hour's peace, never mind a drink. Something moved at the end of the alley. Can't be a cat. Cats hate rain. And it was something bigger. There it is again. I can't see too good because of the fucking rain, and there's no light. I walk on, a little warily. You can't trust Boston alleys, even if you've grown up there. Them fucking Irish bastards.

III
It was a little late in the day for apologies. I wanted him, and I wanted him bad. I wanted to make him bleed, to smash my boots down on his stinky rotten face and twist my heels. I wanted to hear him scream and drown them out with my own. I wanted all the hurt to go rushing at him like a bullet..a bullet as big as a building. All the blood in the world cannot satisfy this stink. Why this anger? Why? Motherfucker.

IV
I wonder what those flowers are called. Mother never told me. Or maybe she did and I've forgotten. All those years ago.Wang Wei, "Idly I watch Cassiopa flowers fall." What are cassiopas? I always imagined them to be white. I always pictured Wang Wei at dusk or at dawn. Light and dark. The drifting song of the water chestnut pickers as they wander home. What is home? That could be my home, though I've never been to China. I imagine the people living in the forgotten hills. Wang Wei says that you can only get there by following the grove of peach tree blossoms. And that too only if the forgotten land wants you to enter.

V
Welcome to Xanadu Station on 102.5 Night Time Radio FM with me Beq B. Tonight I've got for you The Beatles and Bob Dylan, John Coltrane and Satchmo, Memphis Minnie and the Dixietown Five. I got 'em as I like 'em, without labels and fully fancy free. Tonight we got no themes, but what we got is hurt. Yes my friend, what hurts can't be bad. It reminds you of the reason you're living, and the reason why you can't chuck what you're doing out of the window and follow it. Tonight I got songs that hurt, that ache till you can't breathe; songs that hurt so much that you smile. Here's Skip James with Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.

VI
Ever been to Benaras? I was there once, long ago, when I was in college. There was a light on that town that I never saw again. Sort of like sepia, only deeper, if you know what I mean. Of course, I can never say for sure, as I can't name colours too well. But it was there all the same. And the river. Ah my friend the river was holiest river I ever saw. No no, of course I don't believe in all that, but the thought of the Ganga flowing past the steps of that city makes me close my eyes and sigh. You know what, my most tangible memory of the place is an imagined one. About a storm on the river, a wild apocalyptic storm that I never actually saw. Makes you wonder huh? Memories.

A First Class Mook

A healthy start to the day. As Mister Kosher from the far away Firangi pani lodge was going over his morning options, it suddenly dawned upon him that the easiest way to the laundromat is through the kitchen. A holistic hostelier if there ever was one, Mister K happily nonced up the ladder to the buzzard-me-timbers and took down his coattail which he then proceeded to dangle from his ear like a neanderthal antenna of the soul. Ah the kitchen, he remembered. But the way to the kitchen is hard and its difficult for the righteous man to pick his way through the gravelly shite that lurks in the hearts of men. So he curved up the pantry way, took a sharp right from the bottle of Sherry and took three steps back over the upholstery and hey presto! He was in the kitchen. The kitchen was wearing its usual morning face, which is the same as its evening and night faces, but different fropm its lunchtime face. Never one to mess with the natural order of things, Mister K hit the mountain of pans like a hurricane in winter and blasted a way to the laundromat. But what's the use of a way to the laundromat if there isn't one at the end of the road? So he took off his coattail, attached a few rubber bands to the hook and stretched it to the nearest kettle snout. Now taut, he started thrumming on the vibrating rubber a curious melody of bass notes and higher, rising falling, till all the utensils were singing that same music of the spheres and vaguely cuboid life forms. Finally, as if magic, the first faint shapes of the laundromat began to throb into focus. Maybe if Mister K had been intent on this marvellous phenomenon, he would have continued till the event had reached fruition, but now his nostrils were tickled with the most delicious aroma of pan-fried chicken dancing in warm honey down from Mook's Corner. Needless to say the thrumming stopped. And then there was siilence. No, not really. There was the sound of Mister K carefully camouflaging the way to the laundromat with casually placed items of everyday kitchen-ware. There was also the sound of Mister K tiptoeing his way out the kitchen and through the rose alley and finally into the roling meadow called Mook's Head on Mook's Hill. Ah yes, there was Mook, a happy jumping presence in the hazy noon day sun. garnishing the chicken with love and care and doing an occassional happy jig whenever he thought of the mmmmm creation ending up in his gullet. Mister K decided to make his presence known. He was never one for sneaking up on food when he could stride to it.

Hallo there young Mook, he said, what's cooking by the brook?

Oh Great Mook, gasped young Mook, by the book, isn't that the lanky frame of Mister K dashing this way?

Surprised but eager to show off his new cook-book souped-up schtook, young Mook of Mook's Head on Mook's hill elaborately bowed and inwardly vowed that Mister K would not leave this day without uttering wow at the remarkable chicken that he'd been cooking this wide day.

What ho there Young Mook? Is that a delicious chicken I smell old fruit?

Oh yes Mister K, I dare say, a little something to pass this lazy day, said Mook.

Ah, capital, young fellow, it looks too good to eat, by my jowls, exclaimed the devious Mister K with a slight twitch of his snickered whiskers.

Too good to eat? Exclaimed the surprised Mook, who looked even more like a Mook when he was surprised. But my dear Mister K, as I live today, I say this chicken is for the pallette.

And of many hues too, cried the notorious K and pirouetted around on tippy-toes. The fried yellow here, and that honey red there. Ah my master artisan, what a veritable feast of the senses hast thou made!

A surprised young Mook gave way to a pleased-as-a-peach Mook. Words wouldn't come to his mouth even if he had sallowed an entire book. Thank you dear Mister K, its nothing really. Would you care for a bite?

A bite? Screamed an enraged Mister K. Oh to take a bite out of this most precious creation would be a sacrilege akin to eating all of it. No dear young Mook, what would your other Mooking relatives say? You don't want to be the black Mook in the family book would you? I tell you dear boy, this is a work of art and it deserves to be shown to all the humble parishioners of this county. Tell you what, said the mischievous Mister K, I know an Under Assistant East Coat Agent who'll be overjoyed to get it shown at the MeeRakow Institute Of Distinguished Feasts. Give me this chicken this instant and I guarantee you immortality.

Young Mook could already see himself rising to the top of the Mook pile. Why, maybe coming generations would gaze with awe on this spot and say, Now look here me hearties, for that is the very spot where young Mook authored his swan song!

Our story is near an end. It ends as you all imagine....a happy lunch for the noncing Mister K of Firangi Pani lodge and the shaming of poor unfortunate young Mook. For what its worth, story of this great Mookery became a happy bedtime story and a cautionary tale about gullible Mooks, and long afterwards, people would gaze with awe at Mook's Head on Mook's Hill and say, by my grand mam (may Heaven bless her breeches) , isn't that the selfsame spot where young Mook met his denouement!

Understandibly, not many people know of the Laundromat. A healthy start to the day for Mister Kosher.

The Band

Another time, another band. A swing band, a country band, a blues band. But also a rock band? I dunno really. In case you're wondering, I'm reffering to my new band. And a cool band at that. It bops, rocks and shuffles. It plays songs about going back to the womb and plays major songs like Minor Swing. It hopes to play songs on drunkenness, and songs about feeling good, and neurotic songs about the story of a man of constant sorrow. Its a good feeling all right, especially when melancholic little 2-5-1 minor sketches etch out a movie soundtrack in the dead of the night and neighbours howl to hear the preacherman saying, "You gotta move, you gotta move. Cause when the Lord gets ready, you gotta move." When the only defence left is to blame it all on the whiskey.
I like the eclectic mix. A blues stylist, a jazz prof, a busy virtuoso and a charlatan CAN make music together, as we prove everytime that we possibly can. Let me introduce some members of the band.

O'Neil: Goes by many names, mostly shifting. Has been called many things in the past, the Fertility God not being the least of them. He likes a bottle-neck and one suspects has a weakness for raucousness...at least on the record. Off it, he's enthusiastic but overworked, probably grits his teeth privately, and unfortunately calls people "babu" affectionately. Enough said.

The Prof: Ever wanted to know about the aeolian cadences of Stephane Grappelli's gay violin when he played the Moonlight Sonata in the buff? Yes? Then don't go to the Prof. Cause the Prof will take deep thought and say, "You see, that was a top forty hit." What you could approach the Prof with are intricate problems like the best way to play Eb7 6th in the seventh cycle of a true tour-de-force.Or a piece-de-resistance? Don't ask me. The Prof's waiting for queries such as these with his mp3's and dvd's and a band in the box called Pandora.

Obbligato Virtuoso: Ever wanted to know what sound a deep sea excavatory machine on the bed of the Mississipi would make? Come to Obbligato, and he'll wobble some mandolin legatos in your direction while you were absently humming Dark Hollow.
Running Obbligato eaves dropped: "I have a sexy mandolin." "Beethoven was a bugeoise sentimentalist." "I like long flutes." "Did you ever think that the unconcious doesn't need the mirror stage to recognise a buxom girl when it sees on?" (The last one isn't true, but you can't say where his mind might wander to.)

Charlatan: I whistle, I sing, I bandanna, I bling. I disaggree wholeheartedly till I'm agreeing against myself. I write a song filched from another song filched from another song filched from Gershwin. I'm his 85th cousin twice removed. I want to sing Aguas De Marco, cause I don't know any better, and it would be even better if I could segue it into Grateful When You're Dead. Say yeah yeah yeah someone, or I'll be deeply umbraged.

So there you have it, a motley of many coloured hues, dusty from all the earthy songs we do. A phenomenon of a foothistory, a postmodern pachyderm. But who cares? Its great fun!!

A Cavalry Charge

I recently saw a m0vie with a fantastic cavalry charge...yes cavalry charge. Remember the fascination that warlords of all shapes, sizes, hues and ideologies had for men on horses leading the line? Wasn't too long back either. In these days of stealth bombing and collateral damages, sweaty men riding frothing horses while waving a sword seems impossibly quaint. But as a scene from a movie made it vividly clear, they were as deadly as napalm bombings, and in their own way, perhaps more human.
Understandably, it is a fantasy. Peter Jackson's humungous, kill'em by the millions epic Lord Of The Rings-Return Of the King. The cavalry charge I refer to is the great ride of the Rohirrim in the shadow of Minas Tirith. The men of Gondor have been all but vanquished by the bloodyminded assault of the orcs and the assorted Nazgul. The demented Steward of Gondor, Denethor, is about to set fire to his own son, thinking all is lost. Gandalf the wizard is reduced to giving homilies to Pippin the hobbit that dying is not a bad thing after all, when it is heard, the horn of the Riders Of Rohan, come to beleagured Gondor's aid at last. Thanks to the MASSIVE animation used in the film, what we get is a long line of impressively arrayed Teutonic horsemen overlooking the slaughter of the men of the West. The orcs are enjoying themselves and the Nazgul are picking off the odd warrior here and there. King Theoden of Rohan is horrified by the carnage he sees. But then he steels himself and gears up for the final pep talk. Unlike your typical Braveheart-style harangue, where you feel like taking off Mel Gibson's Kilt just cause he looks so pompous, King Theoden's message is pretty simple. Here we are, and this is the last cavalry charge we're ever gonna do. So might as well fuck 'em. This is pretty grim kamikaze stuff, and his scream of "Ride Ride!" is as chilling as they could get. He leads the charge himself, on his white horse, at first ambling, then breaking into a brisk trot and finally into a no-holds barred assault. The orc-army is vaster than the Rohirrims, but the sheer momentum of the charge quails the orc-heart. And believe me dearies. When the Riders sweep through the ranks of the yelping orcs, it creates the strongest moment of the entire film, maybe of the entire Trilogy. Tolkien's book was always about the grim Teutonic fatality which lies at the heart of the Icelandic Eddas, the Norse myths and the Old English sagas. These were untamed and wild people that he was talking about, and never mind the nobility and the impressive genealogy of the charecters, during war you were supposed to go insane. A truly grand moment in the film, which made me a fan of cavalry charges.
Somebody in some book I read recently said that we are rapidly falling into the world of the impersonal. And cavalry charges were as personal as personal could be.

Howl

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Writings, one of the 20th Century’s most influential books of poetry completes 50 years in print this year. And while Ginsberg is not around to perform it any more, the poem’s technique and message continues to find new followers and continuous relevance.

Published by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights press in 1956, the poem shot to fame after an article on the San Francisco poetry scene in the New York Book Review declared Howl to be “the most remarkable poem” of the entire body of poetry coming out of the West Coast. This same article resulted in a landmark obscenity trial in 1957. That year, copies of the book were seized and charges of obscenity were brought against Ferlinghetti . The resultant trial proved to be a landmark in the history of American censorship laws and practice. The staid, conservative political and social climate deemed many passages in the book- which freely references drugs and sex- as obscene and unsuitable for public consumption.

To defend the book, literary experts testified on its merits, both as a literary text and as a social document. In addition to that, the book was strongly supported by the American Civil Liberties Union. Ferlinghetti won the case, and along with Ginsberg, escaped possible imprisonment after the presiding judge ruled in favour of the poem for its “redeeming social importance.” And thus, a legend was born.

The literary world’s introduction to Ginsberg’s first volume of poetry, Howl, especially the title poem, was a revelation. On October 6 1955, Ginsberg organised a group reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco along with other poets in or associated with the Beat circle: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac. Passing around jugs of wine bought by Kerouac, the audience was treated to the first performance of Howl. As Jack Kerouac described it,

“Anyway I followed the whole gang of howling poets to the reading at Gallery Six (Six Gallery) that night, which was, among other important things, the night of the birth of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Everyone was there. It was a mad night. And I was the one who got things jumping by going around collecting dimes and quarters from the rather stiff audience standing around in the gallery and coming back with three huge gallon jugs of California Burgundy and getting them all piffed so that by eleven o'clock when Alvah Goldbrook (Ginsberg) was reading his, wailing poem "Wail" (Howl) drunk with arms outspread everybody was yelling "Go! Go! Go!" (like a jam session) and old Rheinhold Cacoethes (Kenneth Rexroth) the father of the Frisco poetry scene was wiping tears in gladness.”[1]

Howl began on a note of extremes. The words did not wait to jump up and take the reader deep in to the experiences of the radical Beat generation in the heart of conservative America in the shadow of Senator McCarthy’s witch-hunt of communists, and the ever-present threat of war. Yet, it was as much a personal document as it was a call for social change, “…the first blow for freedom” as Ginsberg himself called it.

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by

madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn

looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly

connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow- eyed and high sat

smoking in the supernatural darkness of

cold- water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,”[2]

The rolling, muscular cadences of the long line does not let go, nor does it offer any respite. However, it does vary its pace, allow for a draw of breath, before blowing again, like a jazz saxophonist. The world described by the poem is a blistering vision of intense emotions and turmoil, of movement and of violence. The full prophetic message of the poem follows a process of condensing chaos into a closed space and then making it explode upon the senses and thus altering perception.

This contraction and jumps in space and time are what Ginsberg refers to as “ellipsis”- a way of presenting images as they flash through the mind. Thus you have the densely packed images in vivid cinematic detail that remove the voice of the author from the lines and help create a democratic area of reception where the images get translated according to the perception of the reader,

“…Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery

dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops,

storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon

blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree

vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn…”[3]

Thus all action is condensed into one white- hot moment producing and reproducing the same tropes through the repetition of words and lines and themes. This in turn, produces its own unique meanings.

The treatment of homoeroticism in the poem is fairly graphic. To Ginsberg, this was only a matter of taking Walt Whitman’s idea of democratic love to its logical conclusion. Ginsberg was himself homosexual and in Howl he describes the agony and ecstasy of the experience,

“who howled on their knees in the subway and were

dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly

motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,

who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,

the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,

who balled in the morning in the evenings in rose

gardens and the grass of public parks and

cemeteries scattering their semen freely to

whomever come who may.”[4]

Even in all this self- referential action, strong allusions are constantly made to the terror and tyranny of the totalitarian American dream and its threat to destabilise all that he considers is the natural, the unmediated. Even the unabashed sexuality of many of the experiences are tempered with reminders of the wider social prudery,

“…who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate

the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar

the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb

the one eyed shrew that does nothing but

sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden

threads on the craftsman’s loom…”[5]

The poem goes into the prophetic mode only towards the end when Ginsberg screams of the loss of those madmen angels to the “sphinx of cement and aluminium” which “bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination…” The mad, loveless “Moloch” of repression; whose mind is “pure machinery”, blood of “running money… whose fingers are ten armies”; the spectre is the embodiment of all that is enslaving and castrating. Moloch is the mythical equivalent of Blake’s “Nobodaddy”, a fearful, jealous god, devouring the imagination- and by extension, the organic and political self- of man with his “granite cocks” and “monstrous bombs”. Moloch is Ginsberg’s metaphor of industrial America and in this vision America is an immovable stultified, all- consuming behemoth. The “madmen angels”…

“…saw it all, the wild eyes!

The holy yells! They bade farewell!

They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving!

Carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!”[6]

Howl continues to be- along with Jack Kerouac’s On The Road- hugely popular with over a million copies in print. The relevance of Ginsberg’s vision has not faded with time, nor has his influence. Whether its Bob Dylan’s lyrics or the rap of New Journalism, Howl’s long line and social comment find echoes even today. Since his death in 1997, history has seen America take a step back towards the paranoia and conservatism of the Fifties, and as the ‘War Against Communism’ of that decade finds its eerie echo in the ‘War Against Terror’, Howl continues to find a sustained resonance in its depiction of a mad world fighting its own demons.

-Bibek Bhattacharya

13.09.2006

---

[1] Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, New York: Penguin Books, 1993. pp. 10.

[2]Allen Ginsberg, Howl and other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Press, 1956. pp. 9.

[3]ibid. pp. 10.

[4]ibid. pp. 13.

[5] ibid. pp 24.

[6]Allen Ginsberg, Howl and other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Press, 1956. pp 25.

Choo

And here it is finally folks. My jab at consistent typing. I'm starting a serialised novel. Don't ask me what its about 'cause I dunno. I'm just gonna rap and ramble and see what I can come up with. A writing exercise if you please. When I take a break I'll be listening to Theme Time Radio with Your Host Bob Dylan. And so here it goes...

Net Wonders

To someone who doesn't really investigate the internet beyond the usual avenues- read me- sudden discoveries are the toast of life. Temporary residence at me friend Sathe's house and the lack of anything to do, has engendered the copious use- and abuse- of the internet. So when I'm not downloading songs like a madman (the entire new Bob Dylan album and Paul McCartney's latest for example), I keep stumbling across things which warm the cockles of my heart. The greatest joy has been afforded by my chance discovery of www.youtube.com. Like most things, its discover came by way of Wikipedia. A couple of days ago, while reading up on Kula Shaker, I came across a link to YouTube for some live appearance of the band or the other. Imagine my joy at finding a site where you can watch music videos, ads, live performances, blah blah blah.
So I watched a few George Harriso vids. Then some Beatles. Then Stones, Byrds, Who, Kinks, Kylie Minogue 'Agent Provocateur' lingerie ads. Ah the joy. I even signed up and downloaded videos and made a playlist and uploaded them.
Now I'm investigating the newly-launched Google video. Same concept, just more streamlined and corporatised. For this same reason, the quality of the videos are better...but the content is nowhere near as mindblowing as YouTube. Where else would you find, 15 different videos of The Who performing "My Generation", from 1965 to 2006! Or the Stones's 1967 Ed Sullivan show performance where they had to change the lyric of "Let's Spend The Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". Or the studio film of the Beatles miming to "Rain" for Top Of The Pops? Fragulous I say. I'm smitten. I even have my own playlist called The Velvet Rope on the site!!!
A minor aside. Those interested in the urban myth of Paul McCartney dying in 1966 in a motorcycle crash, check out the fab Wikipedia write-up on the subject. Entire books have been written on the subject, one as recently as last year. Its too vast to explain in a paragraph. You'll find the article here
Once you've done that, check out this link. It'll lead to really fab download. A cultural artefact I daresay, in which the Dark Knight meets the Fab Four.

Pot Pourri

What is it with Paul McCartney and grass? The weed has such a hold on him that even today, some 42 years after he probably smoked up for the first time, he continues to espouse it. Even the man who had allegedly rolled it for the Fabs in 1964 seems to have given up the joys of the weed. And though Paul's ouvre or his appeal will never be on the counter-culture scale of Dylan's, none can accuse him of being a conservative or a sell-out either. Important as his music has been, its those little quirks about him that still endears him to the young turks and makes him a godfather and not a grandfather. Let me try to put this into some perspective.
Paul was late to the scene in the 60's. Lennon and Harrison beat him to mind-expanders. But once he got there, he fell in love for life. First grass and then acid. It was Paul who actually wrote that famous ode to pot- 'Got To Get You Into My Life'. And again, it was he who went public with acid first in '68. In between, The Beatles were the biggest name to sign a landmark petition to legalise and de-criminalise marijuana. Well, those were the days, and it seemed natural that the fabs would be involved neck-deep.
What's intriguing is that despite McCartney's long creative slide since the demise of the group , and his percieved 'square'ness among hip circles, his fondness for the radical smoke of choice never wavered. He ambitiously, and injudiciously, planted cannabis plants inj his Arizona ranch, only to be busted. Then in 1980, he was arrested in Tokyo airport for carrying grass on his person. Following that particular peak, no more was heard of his fondness of the weed. Linda being as much part of the 60's set as Paul, it seemed unlikely that she would do something as square as banning the dope. Come to think of it...vegetarianism, peace, love and grass...sounds familiar, doesn't it? Only, McCartney wrote 'Silly Love Songs' to make the point where he had written 'Here There And Everywhere' before. Just a slight decline in standards, not in faith. Then, after a long lack of any news on McCartney's smoking habits, comes this big one in 1997.
The recently knighted McCartney, in the wake of the immense successful Beatles Anthology and the acclaimed solo album Flaming Pie, goes and marks the 30th anniversary of the Summer Of Love by saying that he still thinks cannabis should be legalised, at least decriminalised! Furore furore everywhere! A knight of the British Empire? Unthinkable! Simplify man!
But all things must pass. Around 2000, McCartney falls in love with Heather Mills. Heather is no hippy, and so McCartney has to choose between love and the drag. He opts for love, and makes an announcement about it. Why not? Such long relationships don't just end, and that too without fanfare. As is his wont, McCartney's pot references have been missing for some time now...but Heather Mills too is gone...now, erm, matey...could I have a drag? After all, his latest album does have a sweet song about, ahem, English tea...

A minor aside. When McCartney quit, it caused many around the world to shed a tear or two. Message boards on countless green sites were full of heated discussions about whether this was right, or whether Heather was jealous or if Paul had a supplier or grew it himself. If he grew it, then, as one punter said, the plant should be procured and put o good use. After all, as he said, he would be honoured to smoke the leaf from the plant that supplied Macca's tokes... here's the link:
boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=49112

Monkey

If a great town was known for its sound, would the ruhing heebeejeebies come and steal whatever little fruit from the town orchards. A ponderous question it is, and one that deserves as little attention as can be given it. On the other hand was a monkey who hated mistakes. His was a hard life, trying to be perfect and hustling the right people to better his lot in the order of things. Not that he really objected to any objectification that came his way. After all, it got him grants and entry to select parties where he could avoid making mistakes and wear a beard just to be sure. One day he decided to go abroad to better his lot and lay the foundation for future wealth. Who wouldn't want a little bit of money for a tail comb. So he wrote books of fantasy and gave exams in a/c trees. Alcohol he touched but only so.
In the red corner was the marmeluke counterpart of the Syrian flagstaff who said he came from a house of infidels that did not know. But then if your lot is to be stuck on mountain peaks with the best of them, then you might pine for donkey's tails.
Cheerio and good luck.

My Favourite Things

There's something about the way that John Coltrane plays the saxophone. The way he holds the melody to "My Favourite Things" so beautifully in the first few bars, you are just not prepared when he launches into those mindblowing improvisations where he blows the tune all over the place, hooting, shrieking, bending notes beyond their breaking point. Yet, in the blink of an eye he's back with another soothing passage, the sax muscular yet sensual, carrying you away in a wave of winking genius.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing, waiting for the rain to fall. Its been threatening for some hours now but I don't think that it'll actually come. But the overcast sky and the occasional gust of rushing wind seems to be the perfect setting for the master to wave his wand.

Why, a blog!

After months of fits and starts, finally there's rain. Its been pouring since yesterday, and happily there seem to be no signs of the clouds letting up. I was wandering the streets of south Delhi looking for a place to go, and all I got was sweet showers. On days like these, it seems hard to imagine that the sun exists. And what joy. Big fat drops, splattering all, visibility nil. If you're in an auto, all that you can do is to maneouver the best you can so that some fucker in a car doesn't splash you.
But anyways, it was the driving rain that finally forced me to find shelter in my good old C R Park internet parlour. Now that I'm here, and have checked my non-existant mail, I guess I'll update my poor blog. Its sad to watch a blog fall into disrepair. After a while, you sign in and wonder what to write about. Mostly you can't be bothered. When you CAN, you try and write something...some sad story or the other...and you publish. Then you check it and find out that its horrible and full of grammatical and spelling mistakes. So you feel inadequate and delete it...and its sometime before you look at your blog again.
Yesterday, I spent a most weird day at the railway station. Due to unforseen circumstances, me and my friend Dhruba reached the station at 8 am. His train, incidentally was at 4 :30 pm!! Don't ask why. That'll be another story.

Through a glass shimmeringly

When bad things happen, they sometimes decide to squeeze in as much as they can within a very short spell of time. How else can I explain the fact that I've stepped on and broken both my glasses in the last 7 days? STEPPED ON for chrissakes! I mean what kind of a nerd steps on his own glasses. and on both occasions, I was perfectly awake and sober...
Anyway, that has left me looking at the world as if its a Monet painting...all colour and shimmer and indistinct shapes...don't ask why I can't get either of them fixed. Well, I live in a bit of hellhole called Vasundhara Enclave, far away from anywhere. Going to town acquires a totally different connotation when you're here. So yes, I'll do it one of these days, but meanwhile, the days continue to shimmer!

Blue Room

Blue Room

Smoke and mirrors
Summertime’s at an end
In this blue room with your pictures
My cold eyes stare and wait

Is this your perfume
Or is this your face?
A blue room with your pictures
And an ocean of regret

A mix of rhythms
The tune is blowing down
A blue room with your pictures
And a young man blowing

Where do you go to my lovely
When the night comes to an end?
A blue room and pictures
Are all that remains.

- Bibek Bhattacharya

21.08.2006

Hour Of The Wolf

Another post from the hour before dawn, from the hour of the wolf, when monsters creep out of our nightmares, when most people die, and children are born. This day began long ago, and much was said today, but in the vacousness of an empty day, nothing was really said. Did we all dream different versions of the same dream or do we really believe that our love speaks like thunder and cool summer rain in a grove of old banyans?
I don't know. Maybe you only understand these things in retrospect....to inspect by looking back. Who hasn't had the nightmare when he is walking down an endless corridor that twists and turns? Every second you believe that the shuffling beast following you is just around the corner, about to show itself and destroy your sanity with its appearance. You quicken your steps and try to escape it. You are safe till you see it. But there's no true escape. Only waking, and a postponement of vision. If you ever see it, and not wake up, you are either in a story or somewhere terrible. Is retrospection like that? Is sanity really that fragile, is reality real?
You might allege I dwell in cliches. But who has ever explained them? One man's fears are another man's comedy. But we talk and talk and talk. But do we talk so that we may get a response? Who is this other who responds? Is our speech just a means to itself? An endless mantra, signifying nothing? A succession of lovers, but no love?
I don't know.

A Hard Day's Review

A superb review of the movie by the legendary Robert Ebert

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Roger Ebert / October 27, 1996

When it opened in September, 1964, ``A Hard Day's Night'' was a problematic entry in a disreputable form, the rock 'n' roll musical. The Beatles were already a publicity phenomenon (70 million viewers watched them on ``The Ed Sullivan Show''), but they were not yet cultural icons. Many critics attended the movie and prepared to condescend, but the movie could not be dismissed: It was so joyous and original that even the early reviews acknowledged it as something special. After more than three decades, it has not aged and is not dated; it stands outside its time, its genre and even rock. It is one of the great life-affirming landmarks of the movies.

In 1964, what we think of as ``The '60s'' had not yet really emerged from the embers of the 1950s. Perhaps this was the movie that sounded the first note of the new decade--the opening chord on George Harrison's new 12-string guitar. The film was so influential in its androgynous imagery that untold thousands of young men walked into the theater with short haircuts, and their hair started growing during the movie and didn't get cut again until the 1970s.

It was clear from the outset that ``A Hard Day's Night'' was in a different category from the rock musicals that had starred Elvis and his imitators. It was smart, it was irreverent, it didn't take itself seriously, and it was shot and edited by Richard Lester in an electrifying black-and-white, semi-documentary style that seemed to follow the boys during a day in their lives. And it was charged with the personalities of the Beatles, whose one-liners dismissed the very process of stardom they were undergoing. ``Are you a mod or a rocker?'' Ringo is asked at a press conference. ``I'm a mocker,'' he says.

Musically, the Beatles represented a liberating breakthrough just when the original rock impetus from the 1950s was growing thin. The film is wall to wall with great songs, including ``I Should Have Known Better,'' ``Can't Buy Me Love,'' ``I Wanna Be Your Man,'' ``All My Loving,'' ``Happy Just to Dance With You,'' ``She Loves You,'' and others, including the title song, inspired by a remark dropped by Starr and written overnight by Lennon and McCartney.

The Beatles were obviously not housebroken. The American rock stars who preceded them had been trained by their managers; Presley dutifully answered interview questions like a good boy. The Beatles had a clone look--matching hair and clothes--but they belied it with the individuality of their dialogue, and there was no doubt which one was John, Paul, George and Ringo. The original version of Alun Owen's Oscar-nominated screenplay supplied them with short one-liners (in case they couldn't act), but they were naturals, and new material was written to exploit that. They were the real thing.

The most powerful quality evoked by ``A Hard Day's Night'' is liberation. The long hair was just the superficial sign of that. An underlying theme is the difficulty establishment types have in getting the Beatles to follow orders. (For ``establishment,'' read uptight conventional middle-class 1950s values.) Although their manager (Norman Rossington) tries to control them and their TV director (Victor Spinetti) goes berserk because of their improvisations during a live TV broadcast, they act according to the way they feel.

When Ringo grows thoughtful, he wanders away from the studio, and a recording session has to wait until he returns. When the boys are freed from their ``job,'' they run like children in an open field, and it is possible that scene (during ``Can't Buy Me Love'') snowballed into all the love-ins, be-ins and happenings in the park of the later '60s. The notion of doing your own thing lurks within every scene.

When a film is strikingly original, its influence shapes so many others that you sometimes can't see the newness in the first one. Godard's jump cuts in ``Breathless'' (1960) turned up in every TV ad. Truffaut's freeze frame at the end of ``The 400 Blows'' (1959) became a cliche. Richard Lester's innovations in ``A Hard Day's Night'' have become familiar; because the style, the subject and the stars are so suited to one another, the movie hasn't become dated. It's filled with the exhilaration of four musicians who were having fun and creating at the top of their form and knew it.

Movies were tamer in 1964. Big Hollywood productions used crews of 100 people and Mitchell cameras the size of motorcycles. Directors used the traditional grammar of master shot, alternating closeups, insert shots, re-establishing shots, dissolves and fades. Actors were placed in careful compositions. But the cat was already out of the bag; directors like John Cassavetes had started making movies that played like dramas but looked like documentaries. They used light 16mm cameras, hand-held shots, messy compositions that looked like they might have been snatched during moments of real life.

That was the tradition Lester drew on. In 1959 he'd directed "The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film," starring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan among others: It was hand-held, anarchic, goofy, and contains the same spirit that infects "A Hard Day's Night." Lester had shot documentaries and TV commercials, could work quick and dirty, and knew he had to, because his budget was $500,000 for ``A Hard Day's Night.''

In his opening sequence, which shows the Beatles mobbed at a station as they try to board a train, Lester achieves an incredible energy level: We feel the hysteria of the fans and the excitement of the Beatles, intercut with the title song (the first time movie titles had done that), implying that the songs and the adulation were sides of the same coin. Other scenes borrow the same documentary look; a lot feels improvised, although only a few scenes actually were.

Lester did not invent the techniques used in ``A Hard Day's Night,'' but he brought them together into a grammar so persuasive that he influenced many other films. Today when we watch TV and see quick cutting, hand-held cameras, interviews conducted on the run with moving targets, quickly intercut snatches of dialogue, music under documentary action and all the other trademarks of the modern style, we are looking at the children of ``A Hard Day's Night.''

The film is so tightly cut, there's hardly a down moment, but even with so many riches, it's easy to pick the best scene: The concert footage as the Beatles sing ``She Loves You.'' This is one of the most sustained orgasmic sequences in the movies. As the Beatles perform, Lester shows them clearly having a lot of fun--grinning as they sing--and then intercuts them with quick shots of the audience, mostly girls, who scream without pause for the entire length of the song, cry, jump up and down, call out the names of their favorites, and create a frenzy so passionate that it still, after all these years, has the power to excite. (My favorite audience member is the tearful young blond, beside herself with ecstasy, tears running down her cheeks, crying out ``George!'')

The innocence of the Beatles and ``A Hard Day's Night'' was of course not to last. Ahead was the crushing pressure of being the most popular musical group of all time, and the dalliance with the mystic east, and the breakup, and the druggy fallout from the '60s, and the death of John Lennon. The Beatles would go through a long summer, a disillusioned fall, a tragic winter. But, oh, what a lovely springtime. And it's all in a movie.

John: John Lennon Paul: Paul McCartney George: George Harrison Ringo: Ringo Starr Grandfather: Wilfrid Brambell Norm: Norman Rossington TV Director: Victor Spinetti

Feline Mind Games

I just left my house. My first own real house. I loved it. Dunno why exactly. Perhaps it was the balcony. Possibly. It was a wonderful balcony...to sit and watch the cats, or read a book. Ah, those winter days I spent there! I think I was reading Moby Dick then. Yeah. I lay luxuriously in my armchair-part of a set of two that me and Rudder bought from a kabariwallah on the roadside. My feet were up on a cane stool. I had my phone beside me and the cigarettes. For once Psycho the cat was behaving himself, sleeping his fat ass in the sun. He was following a patch of sunlight like a drunk and yawning shamelessly. Me, I was lost in Ishmael's adventures and in the nature of the three mates of the Questod and watching the shadows lengthen.
The sun would on the wane but it'd be warm enough. Sometimes I'd stare at Psycho for so long that he'd open his eyes a crack and look at me. He lay purring in his sleep. Occasionally he would raise his head, squint at me sleepily, decide that I was too far away to touch him and sighing contentedly- I imagine- go back to sleep.
And so it would get to 4 and I'd feel like having some tea. Psycho would start up at the sound of the chair scraping the floor. I'd go in, make myself a large mug of tea- I like loads of tea- get the bourbon biscuits and go back to the chair. The greedy fucker would look on expectantly, sleep forgotten. 'Damn it,' he would think, 'he is having those uninteresting things again. These humans have no taste.' Then he'd get up, arch his back, stretch his legs- and retractable claws- yawn like a maniac and twitch his tail. Then he'd decide that the house needed investigating. So he'd creep past my chair- primed to run like crazy if I so much as sneezed- and go up to the balcony door. Look in, look at me, swish tail, look in again, give me a final look and stalk in. He'd go to the kitchen door and find it bolted. 'What cruelty,' he would think. A minute later I'd see him coming out, looking at me with a mixture of disgust and apprehension. Creep by me again. I'd make some sound just to see him jump up and hurry to his 'safe' porch on the wall. Back there, he would curl up again.
Me, I'd forget all about Captain Ahab and take a nap.

Down in the valley

Down in the valley a woodfire burns
Clouds scatter in the dawn
Give me some tea then, and breathe in the air
You can see the world from here
-Bibek Bhattacharya

War

Anthony and Cleopatra sail down the Nile
In Empire's vast shadow
Lamps are lit, libations prepared
A heifer is bled
Under a full moon
Caesar's camp glitters like a jewel
The divine Augustus cut off from pleasure
lusts in the sand
The Sphinx keeps its secret
The goatherd's hands tremble
-Bibek Bhattacharya

Rain

Rain,
In hollow roads, whistling away
A slow tune
Water drips down window panes
Alone
I know what it is
A word, like a raindrop
Washing off colours
And the painting flows colours
Rain
Undoing smoke, untying knots
Farewell friend
In your loneliness
I find comfort
Repeat
Your mistakes, mine too
And we grin foolishly
Awkward, embarrassed
We walk out
Rain
Its still there, in a corner
Like a face glimpsed in time
Like a dream
On the threshold of waking
La Giaconda just smiled
I’ll see you around.
- Bibek Bhattacharya

Canupus

Shoot me down two stars
One red, the other flashing colours in the night
Get them down to the hill I am on
To light up Shayri’s face
Her lips are a red no wine can match
Her scent goes to my head like a true shaft
Her body against mine glisteningly slides
My hand lost in her hair
Or cradling her fawn breasts
I breathe on her nipples, rest my lips on one
A little pressure, her eyes close
And her mouth closes as she sighs
A veil of night
Her eyelashes gently part to let the sunshine out

Hands like blue velvet on my back
Her mouth on my shoulder, white teeth glisten n the dark
A wincing pain warms me and I press her to me
Those eyes wide with mischief

She is the Queen of Sheba
When my face travels the smooth expanse of her taut belly
Tantalising fingers
She pulls out my peace of mind
And soothes my soul, a serenity
Oh, to revel in her being
To sing her song from this mountaintop
The moon will blush and hide her face
To see the stars dance in Shayri’s eyes

Our dance goes on in this embrace
She gives me the life to celebrate
This is her night, the night of velvet touches

So shoot me two stars
One red, the other flashing colours in the night
For her eyes to adorn.

Bibek Bhattacharya

Landour Part III

There's something weirdly endearing about rain in the hills. For one, it isn't as boring as in the plains. The clouds creep up slowly and ultimately engulf you. They caress the skin with a cool softness that just cannot be compared to anything. You know that its going to rain when you can't see two feet ahead of you. The ghostly whiteness closes around you till you feel as if you are walking through water. And then, without warning, it starts pouring, and if you're walking alone on a mountain road, then it seems as if you're adrift in a vaccuum with just the sound of the driving rain splashing on the rocks for company. You cover up the best you can and plod along, looking for a rocky overhang to take shelter under. As the cloud passes by, it thins and bits of vastness start peeking at you. A glimse of a valley here, a hilltop cottage there. At last it clears and you look around. It seems as if the mountains are steaming, the way they trail wisps of clouds.
This is exactly what happenned to us countless times in our jaunts...the heaviest being during a lonely walk doen the aptly named Camel's Back Road which bypasses Mussoorie town and out to Tehri Garhwal proper. And yes, we did find the rocky overhang. Strangely enough, I occupied myself during this cloudburst telling my friend the story of Oedipus. Don't ask. Stumbled upon a smoky old cemetery established in 1829 by vacationing Brits. The neighbour to this sight out of an Edgar Allen Poe story was a tea stall boasting pictures of India's very own vacationing stars. Like any other Garhwali, the nice men manning the stall offered us hot cups of sweet tea to help with the rain induced chills. They were hilariously discussing the pains of directing demanding, scowling tourists to this or that hillside temple. The question seemed to be, if it was a Shiv temple and also a Parvati temple and also a Hanuman temple, then what should it be known for? At least Gurdwaras are easy. Carried about like this. Braved the horrors of the Mall-rain and clouds seemed to have dampened the spirits of the Mallers not one bit- and searched for the Mussoorie Freemason lodge. Situated just above the Picture Palace bus stand, it's barred Gothic gates looked mysterious enough. Wondered if there was an initiatin in progress. Took up Ruskin Bond's casual invitation and forced ourselves on the old man. Was rewarded with great conversation- mostly about the art of writing essays and thoughts on his forthcoming memoirs. Frankly, I've never read much by him, but I was still awed. He's one of the greats after all. Wonder if he's a Freemason. Maybe not. His room is the cosiest little thing I've seen. Facing the Southeast on the road to Lal Tibba and painted a soothing burnt yellow to catch the morning sunlight, it consists of his writing desk- where he writes by hand- a schoolboy bunk with old trunks underneath and the odd potted plant. Full of pictures and cuttings, can't think of a better room for writing. His living room is full of books- mostly eminent Victorians. Found out that he's a great fan of Somerset Maugham. Not surprised then, when he called himself an essayist. He also confided that all his ghost stories were made up. Has a schoolboy's handwriting. I felt honoured to go through some of the rough drafts of his memoirs. The bit I read is about all the female nurses that he has ever encountered. Some were apparently blindingly beautiful. There's something about him which reminds me strongly of Gerald Durrell.
The long hike back from his place in the night, through the sepia tinted lights- because of the heavy fog- of Landour and Mussoorie and then to the eerie desolation of the road to our hotel has to be one of the highpoints. Could've dreamt up a hundred ghost stories just by walking by the ancient rockfaces and twisted trees with strange shapes. The night was a glimmer of ghostly grey and the hills seemed to be hiding a dozen phantoms behind every rock.

Landour Part II

And so...
Landour was just the tip of the iceberg. Walked up, leaving the town and all its attendant horrors far behind. After a few steep twists in the road, past the Tehri highway...a veritable fairy land of sal and pine forests!! Didn't know that I was approaching Lal Tibba- the highest point in the Mussoorie hills and also the houses of the who's who. Absolute peace and quiet, not a soul in sight, apart from the occassional Tavera bearing disgruntled looking tourists to Lal Tibba. And the bungalows! The location makes you jealous and the isolation makes you sigh. Now we really were in the hills, with just forests all around and the occassional century-old church hiding behind a canopy of pine trees. The only sound to disturb the peace would be that of a dog barking with the sheer joy of existance somewhere among the trees. Almost the entire area is private property- the various estates, the army, Doordarshan, etc. However, this also ensures a sense of splendid isolation. At every other turn, you come face to face with an unexpected bit of stray cloud. You stop, bow in greeting and let him glide over you witht a cold shiver. Believe me, ghosts have nothing on them. Lal Tibba itself is nothing in itself. Just an ugly observatory with "really powerful binoculars" mounted on top to view the greater Himalayas. Dunno why anybody would spend 25 bucks to peer into them when the entire area is under a white blanket. But one should never underestimate the stupidity of tourists. Us hikers actually got pitying looks from fat Delhi and Punjabi burghers in their Opel Astras as they made their disgruntled way up the slopes. The state govt could do much worse than banning the use of cars on these roads but I guess that'll never happen.
The actual highest point belongs to a beautiful early-19th century estate called Childer's Estate. Built by some homesick Scot in 1829, this beautiful retreat and its farmsteads belong to the Nahata family. Its called something suitably dumb now.
Made our way down to the horror of the Mussoorie Mall and to the Cambridge Book Depot, where Ruskin Bond was making his weekend visit to sign autographs for smitten kids, their proud parents and assorted Delhi socialites with fake American accents going "Oh Mr Bond, I adooooore your works. I read all your stories in my school books." And then they would proceed to get photographed with him en masse. There was even a proud parent who gave him an Enid Blyton book to sign wi\hich he signed, "With Best Wishes, Enid." Not that anybody noticed, in the frenzy. My friend was realising a lifelong ambition to meet him and spent a long time chatting with him. He sounded rueful enough about the sights and sounds of the Mall, and encouraged us to take walks outside the town and invited us over for tea to his place. Ah, celebrity! Dunno if we'll take it up. Would love to see his cottage though, hidden somewhere among the pines of Landour Cantonment.

Landour

Here's something for all you Musoorie nay-sayers. Though much of the mall is admittedly fucked up by Punjabi families in their Opel Astras and their bawling kids whom you want to murder- not to mention the Barista!!!- there are some really nice places if you only look. Right now I'm in a part of old Musoorie called Landour bazaar. Anyone who ever comes to this town, please visit. Nice walks, local people (!) and clouds surprising you at road corners. You could also try climbing to Gun Hill-and not taking the touristy cable car. Though once you do get to Gun Hill you'll only find wheedling shopkeepers and loud tourists....but the climb is worth it. Anyways, let me see some more, and I'll let you know.

Lucy's Wedding Day

Pepperland, full-sun day
As I look up from my rocking-horse pie and wander about, I see Johnnie Boy on the crest of the Natung-La hill with the sun in his eyes. He smiles as a tune floats down, "Day after day, alone on a hill, the man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still. Sucking on a sugar cube, I start to climb. Many hued creatures poke their heads out from behind stones shot through with colours and smile at me. Its Lucy's wedding day and the guests are busy fixing a hole in the sky letting the rain in. The only light comes from Johnnie Boy's eyes. Must be quite bright, I remember thinking. The garden east of the thunder is full of rain and Billy Shears leads the worthies to the canopy where the lemonade is being sold for one hit a miss.
I can't see Paulie, but I hear him singing somewhere with the frog chorus, "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go." I guess he's leading the horse fixers on a flag march. Rehearsals are necessary. After all, the wedding card had promised- "A Splendid Time Is Guaranteed For All".
Hari is romancing a gap-toothed fairy under the cinnamon bush. He kisses her hand, his beard flying in the wind. "What do you see when you turn off the lights?", somebody, maybe Mimi, shouts at him. "I can't tell you," he winks, "but I know its mine."
The hole fixed, the sun appears, skipping wheels of rhyme as the foggy ruins of time wash off its luminous sphere. There it goes, skidding across strawberry fields. A thin, dim figure chases it with a flashing stick. The slumping wedding rod weilded by Johnnie Boy, that's who, shouting through the freshly minted mint leaves.
But where be the master of ceremonies? He had said that he'd be found navigating his yellow submarine through the sea of holes if anyone cared.
"That's it!" exclaimed Eleanor exasperatedly. "He's feeling left out once again. What did you say to him this time Paul?". This she asks the young mustachioed gallant fiddling with a bagpipe beside her. "Well," said Paulie, "Rich wanted to go see Mr. Henderson ride a dragon to the Mumley tree and back and I said why not act your height and do sumersaults on solid ground? He got peeved and went off in a huff to his paramour Octopussyfooting saying that I'm always trying to be taller than him." Paulie then produced a bit of paper from behind Eleanor's left ear and and taking a long drag on the bazooka he was smoking, scribbled 'there are seven levels' on it. Winking slyly he looked at Elly and said, "You're a big mother, want to see my marguerites?" So faded the scene, among giggles.
A tinkling music slooshes through the hills surrounding Natung-La. Mr Henderson and his Fiery Frederick touche down in a swish of wings and a sniff of brimstone. He does a pirouette and and alights gracefully, a green hat in hand. "Hoom," he says, says he.
"Where be Rich, Manny?" asks Johnnie Boy through his nose, snorting away the bluebottle fly trying to find a suitable spot on his nose. "Oh, count your lucky Starrs," hoomed Henderson, "cause Richie has put his little tiff with Paulie and now wears it for a tail."
"He's trying to be big about it is he?" sniggered Paulie from under the giggling Elly.
"Far out," says Johnnie Boy and shakes a thought from his sleeve and looks at it with kaleidescope eyes. Just then Hari feels the ground move beneath him, and rolls off the lap of the fairy and lights a joint in one motion. As he exhales, the blue smoke clings to the mountain air and Rich appears, big nose and all, clothed in blue. He's reading the news.
WE BECOME NAKED, screams the headline, over a picture of Marianne and Margerie buttering up their hams.
"Where the hell you been Rich?" drawls Hari, serenely smoking. "Well," says Richie lugubriously, "the sea of holes turned out to be in Blackburn, Lancashire and being so far away from here, I had to worm-hole my way. I'm all smoky as a result." Someone tittered, maybe Paulie.
So everyone was together again at the Chemycal Wedding of Lucy and Cristian Rosencreutz. The lights were right, the sangria laced and the meat marinated. As the boys told cool jokes and the girls smoked bongs, a cheer went up in the vales. They all looked up.
Oh the marvel! Shimmering in white, riding an obsidian Olyphaunt, and ringing the wedding bell, there was Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

Summer Songs

i
The cats are sleeping
Face down, between their paws
One face twitches, a claw quivers
Chasing the mice of dreams
The other raises his lazy head
Stretches, yawns, mews for food
And curls up once again

ii
Not yet midday,
And the world is on fire
Heat blows down dusty streets
Spiralling dust storms colours the trees grey
Two men nod off beneath a tree
Two cows for company

iii
Send for me when the sun has set
And a moonlit breeze
Has released the scent of a thousand flowers
Send for me when the night is still and cool
Send for me and I will come

iv
My queen,
Your jewelled hand can soften
The beating of my wild heart
My queen,
Your wine drenched lips can cool
The burning of my thirsty soul
My queen,
Your dew laced breast can trace
The career of my desire
My queen,
The starlit breath of your love
Can tide over these dark nights

You Are So Beautiful

Billy Preston 1946-2006

Though he never sang it himself, this song that Billy Preston wrote for Joe Cocker in 1974, typifies the man. A tall, man with innocence in his eyes and a mean organ player, Billy passed away on June 6 this year from kidney failure. A man of rare talent and a lot of soul, his death robs us of yet another original, another genius. I felt I had to react to his passing...so here are some stories...
Billy was born in Houston, Texas in 1946. He began his career playing with gospel legends Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland, before becoming a fixture in Little Richard's touring band in the early Sixties.
The year was 1962. With the gradual ebbing of interest in rock'n'roll in the US, and the rise in the dubious breed of 'clean' acts like Bobby Gee, old stalwarts like Little Richard and Gene Vincent took to touring the rock'n'roll hotbeds in England and Germany. An entire generation of eager young Turks like the Beatles had been weaned on their music and there time was now. At such a juncture, a very interesting meeting took place between the old royalty and the new princes of rock'n'roll. Between October and November of that year, Little Richard was touring England. His posse of touring musicians included the young Jimi Hendrix and the even younger Billy Preston. Already a mean hand at the organ and a gospel veteran, he was only 15. The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein was busy promoting his young and talented hitmakers from Merseyside-including the top-twenty cracking Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers, who had just had a number 1- and got Little Richard on the bill. For some reasons, that did not materialise, but the planned when The Beatles returned to Hamburg for the fourth time that November.
Sharing the bill with rock's original wildman and resident god Richard was an awe-inspiring event for the Fab Four. They were very impressed with the small young Preston, who John Lennon later remembered as looking 'about ten then.' He and The Beatles-especially George Harrison- became buddies on the club circuit. They spent hours asking each other about the culture of the other. Thus did the man with the mighty organ meet the Fab Four.
The tour over, they went their separate ways, The Beatles to dizzying heights of fame and Preston back to doing session work. With time, his reputation grew, as did the chance to work in stellar company. After playing with several acts stateside he joined Ray Charles's band. Preston was well-known enough to issue two albums in the mid-Sixties- 1965's "The Most Exciting Album Ever" and "The Wildest Organ In Town" in 1966.
Fast forward to 1969. Ray Charles was touring England. George Harrison and Eric Clapton went to see the Soul legend's concert at the London Palladium. Harrison was struck by a tall gangling figure on stage playing the organ. He seemed familiar. Then Ray Charles introduced his young sideman on stage:
"Billy Preston! Since I heard Billy play, I don't play the organ any more. I leave it to him."
It was Preston, but several inches taller and not looking about ten. Harrison went up after the show and the two renewed their friendship and asked him to come visit The Beatles at work. At the time, in early 1969, The Beatles were in the middle of the tortured "Get Back" sessions. Having moved to the basement studio under their company Apple's Saville Row office, George's decision to bring in Preston to the sessions acted as a breath of fresh air. The cobwebs of boredom and disaffection were blown away at the appearance of this old friend, and the Fabs started behaving themselves. They started recording songs in earnest.
George- " He got on the electric piano, and straight awaythere was 100% improvement in the vibe of the room...in his innocence he got stuck in and gave an extra little kick to the band."
The most famous result of this collaboration- only the third, after Eric Clapton and Nicky Hopkins before him- is the Beatles's 1969 hit Get Back. Suddenly, Billy Preston was the 5th Beatle. He would go on to record on the rest of the "Let It Be" album and the follow-up "Abbey Road". The music he plays on Get Back is simple and like quicksilver. The song gallops on at a breakneck space. Then, Preston's electric piano slows down the pace of the song before galloping into a furious funk-heavy boogie woogie shakedown that flashes by before you can put your finger on it's brilliance. Every phrasing in the song is bookended by his piano riffs. Through his efforts he elevated the song. Get Back became the only Beatles single to name him on equal terms. It was The Beatles and Billy Preston. He plays a beautiful little solo bang in the middle of Paul McCartney's dirge drama, The Long And Winding Road. Till now hidden under producer Phil Spector's string arrangement, it can be heard on 2003's 'cleaned up' "Let It Be...Naked". The spooky organ parts on Abbey Road's I Want You (She's So Heavy) and the full out soul of Let It Be are proof of his fantastic ability. On that song, he plays a funereal organ that his audible just under McCartney's stately piano phrases and plays a lovely break bridging the second verse and Harrison's guitar solo. On Harrison's I Me Mine, again he provides a sparkling intro and anchors the space between the chorus and the next verse, leading a wistful tone to the song. His parts though, were never obstrusive, but lent a greater depth to the songs. His musicianship was nothing if not evocative.
Preston soon became a fixture on the heady London music scene. doing session work for the likes of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and The Who. He soon signed onto The Beatles' Apple label and in 69 his third album That's The Way God Planned It was released, produced by Harrison. Preston was now a star in his own right. Touring with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends- which included Clapton, Harrison- Preston recieved more acclaim. Harrison's gospel tinged My Sweet Lord owed a distinct debt to Preston.
Preston: "George asked me how to write a gospel song so I started playing some chord changes. Delaney and Bonnie started singing "Oh my God, Hallelujah" and George took it from there and wrote the verses."
He later covered the song in 1975 to great critical acclaim. A voice at once both gruff and silken, he interpreted the profound gospel underpinnings of the song again in 2002's Concert For George.
He ended 1971 as a headline act on Harrison's hugely successful Concert For Bangladesh.
From 1970 onwards, a lucrative collaboration started with the Stones. From Sticky Fingers, through to Black And Blue, Preston featured on all the album and as a supporting act on the Stones tours. He plays some stunning organ in classics like I Got The Blues and Shine A Light. The Stones's approach to gospel, as in blues, was purist and Preston fitted right in. Shine A Light is a great example of Preston's feel. He plays both the piano and the organ. With both instruments he lays down a solid base for the song. His organ weaves in and out of the verses. While Mick Jagger emotes and singers like Clydie King provides the soulful backing, Preston's piano alternates between the atately and the sprightly. And, need we say, unobstrusive all along. In an era of great rock organ players like Garth Hudson, Stevie Winwood and Ray Manzarek- to name a few- Preston held his own and became the best known. As in Get Back, Preston always added more quality to a good song and elevateed it to greatness. There's a wonderful vamped organ solo in I Got The Blues from Sticky Fingers. A plodding blues pastiche, Preston's mighty organ shrieks with an intensity that vividly captures the theme of sexual frustration.
The 70's were a good time for Preston. Apart from the Stones, he continued to produce songs and albums- including two chart toppers in 1973 and 1974. The song he wrote for Joe Cocker, You Are So Beautiful is a masterpiece. After struggling through the Eighties with cocaine and alcohol problems, he recovered in the Nineties to discover that he had become a legend- to people who knew a good thing when the heard it. Ever the ace sideman, he joined Clapton's touring band he recorded again with Ray Charles, most famously on the legend's last album. He also toured with Steve Winwood. Heartbroken at his best friend George Harrison's demise in 2001, Preston stole the show in Harrison's memorial concert at The Royal Albert Hall with brilliant versions of Isn't It A Pity and My Sweet Lord.
The man with the oversized Afro is no more and he leaves us all rueing the decay of youth and the death of humility. But, as he sang so memorably, "That's the way God planned it."