I recently completed the autobiography of the British humorist Stephen Fry titled "Moab is my washpot" and saying that it is one of the most satisfying if not the most interesting books ever to have come under my purview would not be an exaggeration.

Stephen Fry, as most people would be unaware of given our obsessions with all things American, is an extremely brilliant comedian from England. His quick wit is as admirable as his exquisite command over the English language. His encyclopedic knowledge as astonishing as his polymathic disposition, and his relentless success matched only by his depression-ridden personal life. He represents the last of the dying breed of public personalities we associate the term intellectual with and for all his mindboggling genius, his humility peering from behind the superb 'class' that veils it all makes every minute of his appearance a pleasure to the eyes, every syllable that he utters the most satisfying music of perfection, and every point that he analyzes an insightful study into incisive rationality.

The book is great not just because its so honest it hurts. Not even because he describes a life with twists and turns enough to encompass the existence of 5 ordinary individuals like me. The book is amazing because of the sheer pleasure of its language. Every sentence seems perfect. Every word as if chosen after considerable deliberation. Every punctuation has a story to tell, a weight to support. Even the font changes size to drive home the author's point. Words dance and sway in a perfectly choreographed sequence of linguistic acrobatics and every sentence merges so fluidly in the following sentence that you almost do not want to pause at the full stop. Latin merges with French and Spanish and Greek and gobbledygook to spice up the already formidable English. And from behind it all, the sweet and sour memories of an eventful past emerge with the clarity of a dew laden mountain bush against a misty background. Its one of the few books in which the subject matter did not matter all that much, not to me at least. If you will permit me the slight leeway, I would like to compare the charm of the book with music. Not music as in Beethoven's moonlight sonata. But music as in the sound of the grand Piano. Its beauty is akin to the primal attractions of color as opposed to a painting. Its both a privilege and an exhilarating experience witnessing the potentialities of language I never thought existed. Its continuity is numbing and hypnotic. Its flow... well I could go on and on.

Let me take this opportunity for elaborating on a slight diversion. As Wilde would probably have said, though in an infinitely more articulate way, "There are far too many geniuses in the world". I mean look around you. The world is festooned with the likes of them. Running around soccer fields and tennis courts, banging away their lives on the Piano and the guitar from the age of 2, spewing barely intelligible equation in dimensions too obscure to even comprehend, scaling mountains, jumping from cliffs and planes and probably moon, painting the Monalisa in Microsoft Paint. They have come to infest the world in such huge numbers, it has become an ungainly sight. So what makes these geniuses different to me than say Fry or Watterson ? I think it has to do with one's class and principles. Its in one's world view and his rationality, in the way he treats others and in how he stands for the principles he professes. It has something to do with that slightly snobbish idea of elitism. Not material elitism but intellectual elitism. The courage to say, in plain words, how mentally constrained and emotionally prejudiced our lot is. Such brilliance doesn't raise his voice like Carlin does. It merely shakes his head and keeps quiet with the sort of dignity an army commander might have while sitting with a bunch of buffoons from the Parliament. And I see these qualities in both Fry and Watterson and to a big extent, Dylan. Its not just their genius which impresses me. Its their rationality and courage and the will to defy the mores of the society for the love of their art.

You know how things go sometimes. We go about our daily lives, waking up early, having our 3 meals a day, pretending that we are making a difference. You know, the usual stuff. But once in a while, when reading a piece of avant-garde literature or while listening to someone particularly blasphemous, we come across a sentence radical enough to-simply-reckon with. Still, being the selfish self-centered specie that we are, we seldom realize that in this politically correct world that flinches everytime an African American is referred to as black, an infinitive was split right under our noses.

A split infinitive is the linguistic equivalent of the Danish cartoons. It doesn't quite generate the same amount of gasps as if you were to publicly dismiss holocaust as a hoax, but it has drawn boundaries in the English speaking world in a way few other constructs have. At this point, those who are not familiar with the concept might be wondering as to what the hell I am blathering about. I will tell you what I am blathering about.

According to Wikipedia, "A split infinitive or cleft infinitive is an English-language grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb or other adverbial, comes between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of a verb.".

In other words, if you have just made out with the wife of an English language purist who has just wandered into the room and happens to be armed with a 7.62 mm AK-47 automatic assault rifle, here is what you should say:
"I am sorry. It was a mistake to kiss her passionately."
rather than:
"I am sorry. It was a mistake to passionately kiss her."
Might just save you.

I must say that I understand the principal objection of the English orthodoxy against such reckless splitting. I understand that a split infinitive lacks the fluidity of Strauss's waltz and it fails to generate the sustained excitement akin to the active exhaust of an automatic turbocharged V-10 but it has the endearment of imperfection. Its like the noise of a high performance motorcycle engine which gasps for breath everytime you shift up. The discontinuity has its own charm.

More than that, there is an urgent need to reassess our position in a world that is placing increasingly tighter restraints on political correctness. I yearn for the days when men were real men, when every "his" stood alone and the feminists had not woken up to the possibility of whiling away some time by protesting that a "his/her" is necessary for female uplifting, when they were still playing Buzkashi in Afghanistan and when infinitives were being split left right and center with gay abandon.

Anyways, I reckon that there is an urgent need to do something about it. I reckon, we form an activist group and we should fight for the rights of the split infinitive. People nowadays seem to be morally fighting for virtually everything under the sun. Under the umbrella organization I am proposing, we can fight for the rights of split infinitives and Lactobacillus bacteria. Yes thats right, I implore you all to not eat curd :).

Imagine.

Its a moonless night and you are sitting on the banks of a still lake. Alone. Your feet creating ripples on the surface of the water that dance and shimmer in the dark light of the stars. And your hands clutching the moist grass on the sides. All you can hear is the rustle of the leaves as the trees lining the bank sway ever so slightly. All you can see is their dark silhouettes against a darker background and their slight reflections far into the lake. All you can feel is utter aloofness. You look up to the sky and it dazzles in a brilliant arabesque of divine order. Millions of specks painted on the black backdrop. Each silently twinkling. Each helplessly cognizant of its own loneliness. Their combined luminescence failing to reverberate in your eyes as the dreariness of it all weighs on your eyelids and you are forced to look down at the lake again. And it has a deathly stillness to it. Like a deserted home in a middle of nowhere. Like an anachronistic gramophone that is shocked into muteness. Like the quiet reflection of a boisterous crowd.

The scene should have been beautiful but there is something wrong with it. And I cannot put my finger on the reason. Its like an unfinished painting that has nonetheless been framed in a hurry. The underlying sadness is both exquisite and slightly disconcerting. Its a metaphor for life I suppose. Not quite perfect but strangely beautiful nonetheless. And subdued at the same time. The aforementioned scene invites me. Almost sinfully. And I feel like putting down the baggage for a while and resting. With my head down on my bent knees. With the sensation of passing time reduced to the slight movements of my hair in the breeze. And all the excess energy manifesting itself in small motions of my right feet. Slowly caressing the dead water into unwelcome waves.

I am guessing it must be a quietly jovial day at the headquarters of Zee Telefilms when Subhash Chandra finally figured out how to mint the stupidity of millions of fanatic cricket lovers in gold. Alas, his plans with the Indian cricket leagues hit the greedy roadblocks of BCCI , but he had nevertheless shown the imagination strapped bunch of clowns at the hem of Indian cricket how to truly turn this beautiful game into a money making machine. Thus was born the Indian Premier League. And it sucked.

It sucks in the same way Britney Spear feels like molten iron is being poured into your ears. It sucks with the same foulness of a Garfield mocking your intelligence. And it sucks in precisely the same way an Ekta Kapoor feels like she has just installed a juicer-mixer-grinder in your skull which is working overtime at preparing a homogeneous concoction of your gray matter. And there is a reason why it sucks so much.
Warning: Politically incorrect content to follow:

The reason IPL (or T20) must necessarily be bad is because its so popular. Its catering to what Watterson called the Lowest Common Denominator of humanity. And the Lowest Common Denominator of humanity is a sorry mass of stupid homo sapiens. Their demand for non-complex, instant gratification has reduced music to the shambles it is in today. Their inability to appreciate anything even remotely sophisticated has led to the downfall of smart/sensible Television and Cinema. Our generation has seen the demise of the likes of Naseeruddin Shahs and it has forced the reasonably talented A.B. to dance to the tunes of talentless hacks like Himesh Reshammiya. We have witnessed the steady incursion of mediocrity in everything. Everything we have touched, has turned to dust. And we are happy. Because now it can be mass produced, cheaply, and efficiently. And it is just clever enough not to put us to sleep and just dumb enough to be universally palatable. Yes, we have achieved great audiences but we have lost the soul in our efforts. And the same is true for IPL or T20.

To put it mildly, the Twenty-20 format is a joke. The format is too heavily laden in the favor of the batsmen and kills any sort of competition between the bat and the ball. And the seeds of this were sown before T20 itself. The game of cricket began on the path of demise when the no-ball rules came into place. When the power-plays came into place. When the bouncers were prohibited. Suddenly with the bite taken out of a bowler's arsenal, we had stupid talentless freaks like Dhoni straddling around, waving their bats in inebriated frenzy and still managing to keep the scorekeepers busy. I would have loved to see the likes of such modern cricketers face the sweet music of 150 kmph deliveries aimed at their terror stricken eyes. Oh, how much I would have loved to see a few more broken bones and fractured rib-cages. That would have separated the boys from the men. But no, we had to go one step further and start this mind dump of a format called T20. And the last hopes of a game lover like me who just wants to see a level playing field were dashed by the money grubbing corporations.

People would say, "So what ? its a hit". Well, obviously its a hit. That's what pains me really. Because while good art can still survive amidst mediocrity through individual efforts, a game as institutionalized as cricket will find it difficult to breathe when the institution itself is bent upon destroying it. And the public can hardly care less. As long as it has its share of crying Sreesanths and angry Harbhajans and dancing cheerleaders. That's another thing. Importing cheerleaders. Its just sad. I mean, I cannot care less about the moral police (I hate them) but this is not what cricket was meant to be. As inappropriate as cheerleaders are in cricket (from a historical perspective), importing them says a lot about us Indians. I really do not have words to describe how sad it makes me. Its like saying, the game is no more good enough. It has to be supported by sex. Because that's what it is. Sex. Cover up all you want but I would be damned if I do not see through it. The swinging balls are not good enough anymore. We need the swinging bellies. The unadulterated, honest cover drive doesn't appeal to us anymore. We need a bunch of Russian bimbos to get our adrenaline going. We need a complete soap opera on the field. We have even started terming the game as 'evening entertainment'. With all due respect: MY BLOODY FOOT !

My tendency to indulge in periodic episodes of obsessions saw me compulsively listening to the works of Bob Dylan and reading about his life and history. I have noticed that I do not tend to get impressed with the brilliance of music as much as its melody or the competence of its accompanying lyrics. The fact that a piece of music is complicated doesn't really impress me as much as a piece that sounds nice to hear. And if the music itself is spartan, then the lyrics have to be great to leave an impression. And this is where Bob Dylan rules so much. You have to listen to some of his earliest pieces to understand what I'm saying. And by early, I mean his piece from the early to mid sixties. The fact that he still composes music and remains the oldest person to have released a chartbuster ('Modern times' at age 65) just goes on to show that his creativity has not dimmed with age.

3 Nobel prize nominations for literature affirm his stature as a brilliant master of poetry in as clear a set of terms as is probably possible, although Dylan probably doesn't give a damn about the Nobel. He didn't give a damn when his song 'Like a Rolling stone' was voted the greatest song ever. He didn't give a damn when he was being hailed as a prophet, a messiah of change, as the revolutionary voice of his generation. He didn't seem to give a damn about what his fans thought of him. He didn't give a damn about the press or the government or the society. And he doesn't seem to give a damn now. And I like this quality in him. He has chosen to deal with the absurdity of the world with silence and detached contempt.

Coming to his lyrics, I must say, its probably the deepest I have seen in popular music. To say that I understand most of what he meant to say would be a simple confession of my stupidity and arrogance. So I won't do it. But what I do undertand is breathtaking in more ways then one. Consider the following lines from his song, 'Mr. Tambourine Man':

'Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.'

Its the most beautiful expression of freedom I have seen. Its simply divine. To analyze it would be doing injustice to the pure feeling permeating the words. Here some lines from his song, 'Its alright ma, I'm only bleeding':

'Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.'

Or his lines from another of his song:

'In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

The cloak and dagger dangles,
Madams light the candles.
In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.
Statues made of match sticks,
Crumble into one another,
My love winks, she does not bother,
She knows too much to argue or to judge.'

Dylan continues to produce songs and averages 100 concerts per year. His style of music seems to have changed. His priorities seem to be different now. His eyes look a bit tired but they still have that expression of amusement at how stupid the world around him really is. I was watching a press interview he gave in '65 and it was funny to see that smile of contempt. That muted, condescending expression. And I saw his interview from 2004 and I felt that not much has changed in either Dylan or the world in his eyes.

So we went on this motorcycle trip but I do not want to bore you with the dreary details. There is one experience that I would really like to share though. I am sure that experience would stay with me for a long time to come.

It was a beautiful mountainous road, perfectly paved, with the green hill on the side with blooming yellow flowers and the deep valley on the other. Several thousand feet down below, the rocky stream was visible and its quietness stood testimony to the brilliant depth. The sky was blue with patches of white fluffy clouds and the sun shone benignly over the black tarmac weaving through the exquisite wilderness. The road curved and dipped and rose and danced as it followed the contours of the terrain. And I had a motorcycle.

The curves were marked for speeds in the range of 30-40 miles but it would have been such a criminal waste if I had followed the guidelines. Do you know how it feels when your speedometer is reading 80 and you see the complete curve ahead ? You could brake and let the steam off but then you would have to be rational. And I hardly am. I downshifted a gear and turned the throttle to induce controlled acceleration and steadily started to lean. More and more. To the extent the my toes were centimeters away from the hard, unforgiving surface. And my face was probably a foot above the yellow line that separated the oncoming traffic. And I could see that yellow line moving past me. Faster and faster. Curving into the corner. Faster and faster. And the oncoming traffic was whizzing past me so close, I could smell the grunt of their tires. And it was all so quiet. Like an eternity soaked in vacuum. It was all so still. Like a painted bird on a painted ocean. And it was all so serene and pure. Like the smell of Rajnigandha and a foggy morning. At this point you don't really have half measures. A hesitation to lean could easily send you flying down the valley. An inclination to break could hurl you into the oncoming traffic. Everything has to work with clockwork precision. And I somehow managed to do it every single time.

I am not really proud of a lot of things but that memory certainly makes me happy. The feeling is hard to describe. Its the adrenaline rush associated with a gamble of such high stakes. Its the satisfaction at having played the game to your capacity and on life's own terms. And winning. Or at least putting up a respectable performance. It might be stupid in a lot of eyes but the emotion is difficult to explain to someone who has not experienced it firsthand. Its liberating. Its spiritual in some sense. It elevates you, if only for a few moments, above the pandering suffocation and all permeating stupidity and widespread randomness. For those few moments, nothing else matters.

There has been this story going around on the Rediff business section about a new electrically operated car that is being planned to be launched in India at a price of 99,000 rupees. The article, even by Rediff standards, seems short on journalistic integrity and appears to be nothing more than a blatant advertisement of an apparently substandard piece of crap. But the obvious amateurishness of the article doesn't take anything away from the fact that it's hilarious. Everytime I go on Rediff, there is a part of me wishing that it would still have that article so that I could go and have a good laugh at how completely stupid and self-unaware some people can be. And well, Rediff messageboards are always great fun if you wish to find more about how the bottom of the barrel in the IQ market thinks. Here is a photo of the abomination they are trying to pass off as a car:

I do not have words to describe it except maybe, 'You've got to be freaking out of your damn mind !'. I mean look at the bumper. It seems that the designer, not quite satisfied at using a crushed coke bottle for inspiration for the bumper, scratched his balding head, heaved a few discontented sighs, concluded that his creation is not radical enough, and went ahead and provided the car with the greatest idea he could come up with: heart shaped headlights. The car is named 'Tara Tiny'. Tara!. Mr. Tara Ganguly (entrepreneur par excellence) perhaps got inspired by Mr. Ford. He must be a happy man. In a world where the only people who are happy are either those who know precisely how good they are or those who do not know how much they suck, Mr. Ganguly definitely is a shining beacon of the latter category.

Rediff goes on to mention that the maximum speed of the car is 55 km/h which puts it somewhere in the middle of the speed spectrum punctuated by a snail on dope on one end and an energetic cyclist on the other. A few days ago the reported top speed was 45 but maybe Mr. Ganguly got a slight inferiority complex when he noticed that creatures of all kinds including cats and dogs and horses and donkeys and runners and kids and possibly some handicaps kicked his car's ass with a humiliating ease and a disconcerting regularity.

Shown above is another model from the company, unfortunately (personal reasons) named, 'Tara Titu'. I am not even going to start as to what is wrong with the design.

According to Rediff, the only thing that Mr. Ganguly finds wrong with his cars is the fact that they are left-hand drives as "they are meant for the markets in US, China and California,". Notice how Mr. Ganguly implies that California is a country. In a world struggling with the realities of a bipolar distribution of power between US and China, it takes an acute visionary like Mr. Ganguly to point out that all this while we have been ignoring the steady progress of California and lo and behold, here it is now, ready to indulge in some rampant ass-kickery. Move over India, give space Russia, California is the country that will provide the much needed multi-polarity in this world.

Rediff also mentions that Tara has a factory in Lucknow. I am from Lucknow. There is no factory. I am not saying that there 'happens' to be no such factory. I am saying that Lucknow cannot play host to any factory, atleast not a successful one. I mean look at me. I am a representative example Lucknowites. Our extremely slothful nature, a general ineptitude at things mechanical and a severe reluctance at getting off our asses makes us humungously unsuitable for sustaining a factory culture. On the one hand, I am unwilling to accept that the factory could be based in Lucknow, on the other, the photo shown below of the staff at 'Tara International' dwindles my resolve a bit:

I mean, I am not going to demean anyone, but these people do look like the best Lucknow could have offered. They have a distinctive look of confidence. The go-getter attitude, especially found in Lucknowites, that is so necessary in today's cut-throat competition. I think 'Tara International' is after all in good hands. And I stopped being sarcastic when I turned 20 :).