Mile Sur Mera Tomorrow? Fail

I woke up today, did my morning ablutions (Freshen teeth, Refresh Twitter) and quickly realized from a cursory glance at my browser that India Inc. had rebooted, reprised, refreshed, renewed and re-engineered Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. As the unauthor of the unauthorized uncut undocumentary on version 1.0, I was more than looking forward to find out if this new one was a case of “Empire Strikes Back” or Windows Vista.

But it had to wait, because I had a quiz prelims to participate in and fail to qualify. Anantha and Aditya, having seen the video before they came to the quiz, seemed a little dazed and confused, as if they had fought the Battle of Evermore on the misty mountain hops. I asked them how the new version was. Anantha, for some reason, could only incomprehensibly utter a few words. Like “Salman Khan”. And for some reason “Cut banian” as well. It did not make any sense. “Mile Sur” and banians are not the fondest of bedmates. But I decided to wait and find out more once the ritual of not qualifying was done with.

I then had a heavy lunch featuring a main course of Oil with a modest side of Channa and Bhatura. With a stomach mildly peeved at the lunchtime assault, I settled down to watch MSMT 2.0. The title said “Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”, and I had some misgivings at that point. Why did Anantha call it MSMT 2.0 then? Nothing with the 2.0 suffix can be any good for anybody. Web 2.0 is a good example.

But I set aside all these thoughts, cleared my mind, opened my consciousness, and just before hitting play, I thought I’ll shave, but it turns out, there was no need to

Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara is EPIC BLADE. Way more blader than Anand‘s Max-100. This 16 minute Bollygasm will put blade like a Kiwi farmer on a sheep during shearing season. It’s a showy, shallow, cringe-worthy, slow-tempo, un-coordinated and unwatchable piece of crystalline Crappium Craptide wrapped in crapé paper.

Am I being uncharitable? Am I being, as Vir Sanghvi calls us, “elite”? Perhaps. To be fair, this new version does have its good bits, but the overall execution is um..literally an execution by hanging of everything that India represents. It is Indiawood, not India, that is presented in this video. Actor after actor, hamming to the point where pigs might have gone extinct, lip sync their lines with all the originality of a Soni Playbox 360 from Richie Street.

PMSMT is a user interface without a backend database. A film actor, at least in India, is a cosmetic, steroid-pumped, six-packed, waxed, silicone enhanced front-end for a script-writer’s ideas, a cameraman’s vision, a music director’s genius, a writer’s tale, a playback singer’s voice and a fashion designer’s art. India is not its film actors. We really are the people behind the scenes, and yet all we get in these 16 minutes are all hat and absolutely no cattle. If this is National Integration, the limits must have been 0 and 0. The area under the curves of Shilpa, Deepika and Priyanka is not India, or its sur. Leaving aside sad mathematical puns on a sadder video, did any of you notice any real integration, I mean, like people actually meeting and “milaoing”? No, of course not. Aamir wants his exclusive moment with the kids. Salman wants the other six-packers to stay away from his show-and-tell. SRK wants us to believe that he built the damn Worli Sea Link all by himself. They cleared Elliots beach so that Vikram could make love all by himself, to the Schmidt memorial. Sivamani wants us to believe that music is just about him, the percussionist, and Shahid Kapoor thinks he’s Robert Plant, without the band. Has there ever been a greater concentration of selfish, image-conscious, petty egos on display in the history of our country?

But let’s look at the video in detail. It starts with A R Rahman.

ARR tracing for us, his path on the Oscars' red carpet scale model

Continuum fingerboard? Really? The last time I heard something that sounded like this instrument was in my electronics lab back in college. It was called an Oscilloscope. Or perhaps you realized how much of an unmitigated disaster this was going to be so you decided to hold back on the good stuff. I don’t blame you. But later in the video, we have folks like Shahid Kapoor going all Robert-Planty and Freddie-Mercury on us without having a shred of singing talent. You sir, can sing, and all they let you do is play an oscilloscope. Sigh.

Amitabh showing the Pakis that if he starts a new IPL team named 26 Eleveners, he will not take in any Pak players

Big B + Taj Mahal Hotel + 26/11 + Hip Hop = Bollyxploitation. Yeah, Ahan, one time, two time, two to da six to da one to da one, peace out yo

Ehsaan demonstrating the Ajay Devgan Guitar Pose

Ehsaan, you know, you could have played more than just that one Paki-pop song style chord, you know? Oh sorry, you weren’t plugged in. My bad. Never mind. And also, did the directors tell you that your piece was the big crescendo ending bit? Cos when I heard you guys, I thought the video was coming to an end.

This is where we start to see the first serious cracks appear in this already shaky edifice. The video is not synced with the audio, and anybody who was looking at the Sitar would be totally confused because Anoushka’s fingers would not be at the note that was currently playing. Am I being too nitpicky? No. In 1988, with a distinctly smaller budget, DD managed to produce something for the ages. In 2009, with Avatar technology, Bollywood can’t edit video to be in sync with audio.

As an old lady once asks cogently in this brilliant Petronas ad, what’s with all the chest thumping, Vikram? Do you have a cold, congestion or cough?

Dear Mahesh Babu. I know you are the only star in India to represent 3 major companies, Thums up, Univercell and Navaratna oil but seriously, what with the producers already having audio-video syncing problems, at least move your lips to the actual words that are being sung. I’m afraid, you have no future as a member of a boy band.

Shiv kumar sharma + overacting dude – Nice Stock footage of Kashmir while the both of you are seated in the vicinity of the Qutab minar. But wait. Is that Rohit Bal? Why is he buying spinach?

Pnjaabi folks – I’m very happy, very very happy that you chose to ignore Bhangra. Your decision is one of the highpoints of this presentation. And Gurdas Mann, love your voice.

Zakir hussan and co – Awesome as usual. Respect.

Bhupen Hazarika – Whoa? What happened to the sruthi?. Fine, I understand he is old, but Rahman, could you not have autotuned him?

Hmm. Let’s see. Camels and Solar energy. Very royal, very rajasthanically royal, I might add.What is this? Product placement?

Salman demonstrating what these kids are likely to do 20 years from now when they watch this video

While I had been watching in horror so far, it was only when Salman came on the scene that I went “What. The. Funny”. Dear Salman, those kids were hearing impaired, not blind. Wear some clothes man. This is not a product placement for Poombukar Banians.

Salman demonstrating the dangers of kids joining the IT industry and becoming zombies

Also, you need to return those jeans back to the store. There’s a hole in the bum area. Or were you giving us a hint? Now, if I was Jon Stewart, I’d call you over to Camera 2, but I’m not, so let me say, come on over to the next sentence. In your desire to show off your steroid-pumped, cut banian body along with some 20 kids, did you even stop to consider how cruel it is to make deaf kids mime about “Sur”? Could you have got 30 adult hearing impaired folks to smile and mime about a sense that they probably have never experienced in their lives? These are kids man. They are just excited to be around the Salman Khan. They don’t know that you shoot black buck for sport. They don’t understand the dark irony of smilingly miming about “Sur”. It’s like asking a blind man to write a 500 word essay describing the beauty of a Van Gogh painting. What? You were expecting us to go all “Awwww so cute, see Salman miming with deaf kids” were you? Well, I almost did, but now I think you will earn more karma shooting paraplegic deer with a submachine rifle from a jeep.

Ustad Rashid Khan – Thank you sir, for breaking the monotony from the Sindhu Bhairavi (a.k.a Amit Bhairavi )

Drums Maestro Drums Sivamani – Saar. Nalla Thanni adikkireenga

L Subramaniam family promotion segment – 2 violins. Equalizer setting on violin = 0

Deepika Padukone – “If I become president of the world, I’ll ban this particular pose from beauty pageants and send everyone with a plastic smile to concentration camps. I’ll also call myself Mother Teresa Mandela.”

And dear vocalist, what’s with the erotic, Silk smitha type rain song voice?

Amjad Ali Khan – Nice Sarod. Must be expensive no? Please be careful ok, especially on Air India

The Kerala checklist. Yesudas – tick. Elephend – tick. Kaikottikali – tick. Fishing nets – tick. Mamootty – tick. Rangoli – what? Fail. Pookkalam is what’s required.

Sigh. Juxtaposing Shiamak with Shobana is like adding aspartame to Chakka pradhaman. Fail. Epic Fail. If there was any justice in this world, Shiamak would join Shobana’s Dance school and be rejected for complete and utter lack of talent.

Dear Aamir Khan Sir. Apropos of your bit in PMSMT, while I must say kudos to the yeoman service rendered by your indefatigable spirit, I must strongly lodge a protest against you for asking young children to accompany you to Khandala, where you propose to arrange for a high level meeting between Mr Sur and Mr Sur.

Sonu Nigam, who most certainly does not look like me, I believe, must have been told by the director that he will be singing solo for several Bollywidiots with no singing talent, for the rest of the video. Our man, due to the extra hair growth around his ear, heard it as “singing soul”, proceeded to listen to several CDs of R Kelly before letting loose. Whoever thought this style of singing was appropriate for MSMT must be made to listen to R Kelly’s discography.

PS: I do not look anything like Sonu in this video, contrary to popular speculation and baseless rumours on Twitter and  other “online portal”. My reputation has been seriously demeaned, defamed and threatens the ethical parameters under which I, a blogger, operate. I have no choice but to speak to my lawyer and file a lawsuit against Anantha. That is the only way we can come to a epicwin-epicwin situation.

Sonu douchebaggalogical singing + major front-of-mic overacting = facepalmmoment

Dear Shahid, Ima let you finish, but Sivaji in Mridanga Chakravarthy was the greatest ever overacting while playing a musical instrument. Ever.

Ranbir Kapoor – More R Kelly + Nightsuit

An finally. Shah Rukh, you *really* need to stop doing that wide-open-hands thing. Everybody else is doing it now, and damnit, if Amjad Khan was alive, he’d take those hands and spare us all.

And finally, after a Bollywood orgy, somebody goes – “Hey. We forgot the sportsmen, and after all these overactors, we’ve run out of budget to hire big guns like Tendulkar, Ganguly and co, so let’s go with sportsmen who’ll do it for free, yeah, like from all those obscure olympic sports where we occasionally win medals.

Thank you Bollywood, for telling us that Indian achievers are almost always celebrity children, and not people who are self made. Amitabh jr, Yesudas jr, Shivakumar jr, Shiv Kumar Sharma jr, Amjad Jrs, Rishi Kapoor jr and Padukone jr really encourage all of us towards the lofty desire of wanting to be adopted by celebrity parents. How else can you be successful eh?

And since the producers of this execrable mess have managed to take something that every Indian has good memories about and essentially unzipped their Bollywood designer jeans’ collective fly and let loose, they decided to include some inspiring Armed forces imagery at the end just so that they can be immune from criticism. Yeah. Wrap your sorry bodies with the flag and all will be forgiven eh?

No.

Epic FFFFUUUUUUUn

The internet is filled with memes, and some memes have this annoying habit of not going away, like the Hitler downfall meme for instance. Just when we all breathe a collective sigh of relief at its demise, some jerk wants to tell the world that Hitler was not amused at some trivial issue, and every social news site, Twitter update and blog post flogs this dead Nazi horse again.

But, making a Hitler video at least takes some effort, at least 30 minutes of editing a transcript/subtitle file, unlike a few other memes that are so ridiculously easy to do that the internet seems to never get over them. LOLCats are an example. Just when we think we’ve had enough, someone unleashes (in this case) some Arial on Feline, and we get

Ah well. One just cannot resist smiling at a Jabba reference, so ok, we keep heading over to Icanhascheezburger to get our daily LOLCat fix. But more so than enjoying memes, I always look for opportunities to localize them (I considered “desify” but for obvious reasons, the word “desi” will always be, till eternity, till kingdom come, associated with pornography thanks to him – Horny Indian Male).

I tried Lollucat, but quickly gave up because cats are not common pets in India at all. In fact, the only pets Indians know are plastic by nature and usually come bottle-shaped.

So my search continued for Indianizable internet memes. I came across the Archaic Rap meme. It’s an image-macro type meme where rap/pop song lyrics transcribed in archaic english are layered over Joseph Ducreux’ deliciously bizarre paintings from the 18th century. Since pictures speak 1K – 24 words and all that, this is what I’m talking about

Wondraful I thought. How about we take cheesy Bollywood lyrics and do something like this?

Nah. Just because we take a bowl, add a classical violinist, throw in a Ghatam player and season with a Bass guitarist and a drummer, we don’t necessarily get music. It’s sometimes called fusion, but it all seems a bit forced. French painter, archaic English and Bollywood songs seem a little too contrived.

My search continued, till my younger brother (no, not this one ) pointed out that the Rage meme was eminently localizable.

After all, aren’t we Indians generally the most pissed off people in the known universe? Aren’t we the noble, ancient and advanced civilization that, in its best, most well behaved mood, comments on rediff? And aren’t there enough things in India to go FFFFUUUUUUU about?

Yes.

But, I’ll leave contemporary Indian FFFFUUUUUUUs to all of you. I present here instead, the EPIC FFFFUUUUUUU (click on image to see larger version)

And the chap I believe deserves the most intense FFFFUUUUUUU

Contributions from readers

Bikerdude tells us of Mahabali’s rage

And Idlingintopgear feels Eklavya’s rage

Maxdavinci feels some rage at our Head of State

And Abhishek Upadhya switches from Arn00b only to find..

So folks, go for it. The template is here

Kumbakonam Degree Copy

Update: The video has been now been removed, and one hopes it will be back up with credits going to the original script writer

I saw this today

And then realized that our Lavanya Mohan had, in Nov 2008, deviously time-traveled to Jan 2010 and with immense patience, listened to and wrote down the dialogues in this video by Charukesh Sekar (co-written by Vichar Hari) and turned into a blogpost in the past and shamelessly attracted several adulatory comments thanks to the dialogue’s unquestionable wit.

Shame on you Lavanya.

Do you not know how hard it is to be creative in an era when creativity abounds like milk powder in Aavin milk? Did you not realize that even shady 1970s intrumental rock bands got caught for note-by-note plagiarism of Anand Milind’s classic “Akele hain” from QSQT? Or did you actually think that your readers would be so naive that they would fall for your time-traveling trick?

Wait. What?

You say they copied your blogpost word for word, syllable for syllable and slathered on top of it, some lame-ass overacting and released a slickly produced 8 minute video on youtube?

Yeah right. You expect us to believe that? Hardly sounds plausible. The only explanation that makes sense (and obeys all known laws of physics) is that you chanted some arcane Iyengar mantra and opened a time-portal to Jan 2010 early in the morning and quickly transcribed the dialogues and updated your blog, just before the 1st commenter, Shankar said “hehe goodness love this”

In addition to shameless time-traveling and ripping off Charukesh Sekar’s intellectual property, you have blasphemed his faith by retroactively changing all Iyer references to Iyengar references. Clearly, Charukesh‘ original future wish was for the title to hint at Aparna Sen’s “Mr & Mrs. Iyer”.

I must say that I have a very confused attitude towards plagiarism. I enjoy laughing at Anu Malik and Deva, both masters in the art of singing elaborate alaapanas to Alaipayudhe, but rarely go after folks who copy stuff from my blog and pass it off as their own. Once or twice, I did leave lighthearted comments about the strength of the Kumbakonam Degree Copy these plagiarists were drinking, but beyond that, I usually let it go, but if there’s one kind of plagiarism I cannot tolerate, it’s time traveling Iyengar girls copying from hardworking, amateur Iyer filmmaker boys in the future.

The quick Dan Brown foxes and jumps over lazy reader dogs

My first Dan Brown book was The Da Vinci Code, which when translated fully to English curiously becomes “The Of Vinci Code”. Of course, the incorrect juxtaposition of an article and a preposition wasn’t something that bothered me as I raced through what I thought was a throughly enjoyable story. The Da Vinci code was undeniably unputdownable, especially if one had little better to do.

But after Angels & Demons, Deception Point and Lost Symbol, I’ve come to realize that Dan Brown has a formula, a formula so precise and un-mysterious (unlike the plot elements in his books) that any one, with a little bit of time (and a broadband connection) on their hands, can write a Dan Brown novel.

We will now attempt a Dan Brown micro-novella using his formula.

What we need first is a simple story premise, something that can be expressed in a sentence or two. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will use this:

Robert Langdon has a crush on Lady Gaga but does not have the courage to friend her on Facebook. Will he eventually do it or will mysterious circumstances beyond his control thwart him? Will a global online conspiracy threaten the foundations of human society as we know it?

I know, I know. Not very Danbrownesque, you might interject, but bear with me. The true strength of his formula is that even this can be turned into a Dan Brown novel. What you need next is a grandiose moral/denouement. Da Vinci code told us the the kingdom of god was inside, not outside and that Mr. Of Nazareth changed diapers at some point in his life. Lost Symbol told us that the founding fathers hid the fundamental principles of democracy in the architecture of Washington DC, or something like that. The moral of our tale will be

The secret of the universe is to let go of shyness, and swim freely through the cosmic void, and most importantly, avoid Facebook and meet friends in real life.

Ok. Now we have the broad plot and a grandiosely lame moral. We’re doing well so far. Now, you might assume that we will move on to the story structure, but no. That is a triviality that can wait till later. The more important thing right now is the title of the novel and the cover art. That is what sells books at Walmart, not op-ed reviews in the New York Times. In our case, the choice is simple

Masonic Antisocial Network

It’s obvious really. After 5 books about the Illuminati and the Masons, it’s hard to find any more veiled references, so we can just cut straight to the chase. Of course, this is a Dan Brown story, so the title is not as simple as you think it is. Note the first letters of the words in the title. M.A.N. Man, which subtly hints at the moral of the tale - “You are the man. Be real. Get off Facebook”.

Now we get to the cover.

Just a couple of quick design observations. The A’s have their middle line removed, just like that, to give them an exotic touch. Also Note the 3 O’s lined up in a mystically straight line, with some smoke seeming to arise from the W. It will serve as a plot element and also provide many hours of puzzle solving entertainment to n00bs who believe Brown is the Cryptographic pwnz0r. It might also help spread a rumour on some sort of a viral promotion campaign website that there is a symbolic connection between the number of cells on that stained-glass image on the cover and the title of the next book, or something like that. Our brains are wired to detect patterns, even when there aren’t any, so feel free to be generous with utterly pointless symbolisms.

Right, we are done with the important bits now – the plot, the denouement and the title/cover, so we move on to the opening line. Very important in any Dan Brown book. Let’s review the opening lines of some of his earlier books:

• Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery – Da Vinci Code
• Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own – Angels & Demons
• Death, in this forsaken place, could come in countless forms. Geologist Charles Brophy had endured the savage splendor of this terrain for years, and yet nothing could prepare him for a fate as barbarous and unnatural as the one about to befall him - Deception Point

See the formula? There is usually death involved, some heavy duty action, and a curriculum vitae of the person dying. So let’s try ours now

Canny Chief Finance Officer Rene Franc, B.A (Oxford), C.F.A (Correspondence) was lying face down on his keyboard, which he knew was his own. Death was on its way, like a pizza delivery man snaking through the streets of Geneva, but nothing could prepare him for a fate as bizarre as the one about to befall him.

The key to a good Dan Brown opening line (or any sentence for that matter) is the juxtaposition of several elements that don’t go together, like a Greek Salad with Avial and Gongura Chutney. He achieves spectacular conciseness of prose by describing the dramatic death and a detailed curriculum vitae (including board exam results) of the person dying at the same time, much like an obituary in a newspaper. In fact, if Dan Brown had been Indian, he might have used “Attained Sivaloka Praapthi” instead of “died”.

Also, no sentence is complete without a misplaced simile or metaphor, so our choice of death arriving like a pizza delivery man is ideal. A few other choices we could have considered:

• Death hit him, like the thunderous slap of Mark McGwire’s bat (Note: If the chap was really hit by a baseball bat, this image would be suitable, but the unsuitability of a metaphor is what determines its use in a Dan Brown sentence)
• He felt his life ebbing away, like a receding wave on the shores of a desolate beach (Waves usually come back, which is why this metaphor is perfect for a Dan Brown opening. Note that the desolateness of the beach adds no further value to the sentence, which is exactly why it must be there)

We then continue to describe Rene’s death with a few more clumsy metaphors and epithets practically transferred to Mars.

As he lay, catatonic, floating between life and death like a log in a Canadian stream, his enfeebled mind reflected on what had just happened. The evening’s party had been one of those boring affairs, the kind he had begun to despise. After the usual pleasantries, he had excused himself to update his Facebook status. He had felt a tingling sensation when he logged in, but he put that down to the champagne he had consumed in not modest quantities downstairs. He noticed that Emmanuelle had poked him, so he decided to return the favour and poke her back. This online social game of poking reminded him of his childhood when he had played tag with his friends. He refreshed his browser just to see if there were any new updates, and that’s when he felt the jolt. At first, it seemed like a mechanical drill boring through the back of his head, making its way through his cerebrum like engineers digging the Channel tunnel. He had never had migraine and had a fit, lithe and athletic body toned by a rigorous daily workout and he hadnt visited the doctor in a long while.

It was only when he tried getting up that he realized that something was seriously wrong. He couldn’t move! Panic rising at the base of his spine, his eyes opened wide as the drilling sensation in his brain unleashed unimaginable pain.

The last thing he saw before he passed out was the latest update on his Facebook news feed. Superpoked by Sugar Mountain.

Note the use of italics. Use italics for dramatic effect and at the end of every chapter or scene.

Now step back, relax and spend some time building the character profile of Robert Langdon. This time, curriculum vitae details must be blended with detailed product descriptions. Don’t forget the casually thrown-in references to desirable physical characteristics. Most people in his books are elegantly middle-aged and always physically stunning.

Renowned Symbologist Robert Langdon, B.A(History), M.Sc (Masonry and Illumination technology) rested his supple, athletic 50 year old well-toned posterior on the state-of-the-art Herman Miller Aeron chair as he logged on to Gmail on his 24 inch Apple iMac (with a 3 year AppleCare protection plan). His thoughts were on the girl he had seen on Youtube a few days back, performing a catchy tune called “Just Dance” which had struck him particularly because of the richness of symbolism inherent in the lyrics. Not many modern day pop songs make veiled references to the Illuminati, he had thought then

You got that? Educational qualifications, qualifiers for qualifications (‘renowned’) plus detailed gadget and gizmo references. And Italics. Now, let’s build the story. 3 simple rules – symbolism, symbolism and symbolism. If you have trouble thinking in symbols and connections, here’s a tip. Any two seemingly unrelated concepts can be connected with 5 minutes of research on Wikipedia. Like this.

He had been piqued and wanted to learn more about this Lady Gaga. With a name derived from Freddie Mercury’s “Radio Gaga”, the Masonic influence was obvious. Too obvious. Queen, the Lady monarch, not Freddie’s band, came from a family of Masons and  Freddie himself was a rockstar and therefore “illuminating”. Marconi, the inventor of radio had also been a Mason. And he, Robert Langdon, was going gaga over the lissome girl whose throaty voice sang “Just Dance”. This rich tapestry of  symbolism rang through his Harvard educated mind like carillon bells and he found himself  harbouring a strange desire – to add Lady Gaga as a friend on Facebook.

By the way, feel free to consider anyone a Mason. Now we get to the meat of the story.

He logged on to Facebook, and was mildly surprised to find that his good friend and Mason, Rene Franc, had been friended by Lady Gaga, and he made a mental note to ask him to introduce him to her. Despite years of teaching, Langdon was still shy around women. His keen eye for detail also noticed something odd – Rene had been superpoked by someone named Sugar Mountain and that was the last entry in his activity feed. That was odd. Rene was addicted to Facebook, even more so than his account books.

Dan Brown humour, bi4tche5.

Now we break the news. Indulge in some nostalgia.

He tabbed-over to Google news, and his eyes stopped at something that made him go cold. “Rene Franc dies from massive brain aneurysm at his home”, screamed the headline. Rene was a good friend and had over the years, passed on several insider tips on buying shares and staying away from one Mr Madoff. They had gone on a teenage trip to Amsterdam, and even tripped out together there.

Dan Brown wordplay y’all.

Now dont forget clumsy similes. And throw in some more veiled hinting at symbolism.

He was struck with sadness, like an oncoming train. He stood up from his 24 inch Apple iMac and staggered towards the balcony and stared into the night sky. He saw the belt of Orion, its 3 stars in a line. He composed himself, and walked back to his desk when his iPhone 3GS rang to the ringtone of “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga. He was in no frame of mind to take calls, but something niggling in a corner of his mind made him take it.

Now introduce the chick angle. Angels & Demons had the physicist chick and Da Vinci Code had Miss Jesus, Jr, so this time, we have Emmanuelle, a name chosen deliberately for its ability to evoke imagery of vaguely Frenchy B-movie heroines. We also slip into dialogue mode.

“My name is Emmanuelle, and I need your help”, a dusky voice tinged with panic announced in a lilting french accent

Yep. In the Dan Brown world, people don’t announce, voices do.

“My friend Rene has died”.

“I know. I am sorry”, said Robert.

“I need your help, because I have proof that Rene was murdered!”.

Italics. Never forget them. Now that we have the basic framework in place, we can spare the readers a couple of hundred pages of bumbling prose and cut straight to the action.

Langdon, a claustrophobe, took the Queen Elizabeth to Southhampton and flew into Geneva by Ryanair. He was meeting with Tim Berners Lee, a well known Mason and suspected to be a member of the Illuminati as well. Emmanuelle had indicated that their journey must with start with him. Tim didn’t mince any words.

“The Masons built the foundations of the internet”, he declared.

“I knew that. It makes sense. Masonry, foundation, cement, plumbing…”, said Langdon.

“But Sugar Mountain is threatening to destroy it”

“What did you just say?”

“Sugar Mountain”

“Who is Sugar Mountain?”

“I dont know. Ive been trying to find out..”

“Perhaps, it’s a code of some sort”

“I’ve had my best cryptographer friends look at it, and they have no clue. It’s an enigma”

“Wait..what did you just say?”

“Enigma”

“The German Cypher machine?”

“Yes”

“And German for Sugar Mountain is approximately Zucker Berg. That’s it. Sugar Mountain is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook”

“It makes sense. The Masons built the internet, and Zuckerberg is threatening to destroy it using Facebook”

“And he is going around killing Masons with superpoke!”

Ok. Don’t forget the italics. Now we’ve had enough dialogue. In general, quite a lot of plot revealing happens when Langdon is thinking, not talking. We also need to throw in a few images.

Langdon sat in the high speed train from Geneva to Paris where he was meeting up with Emmanuelle. His mind was reeling from the  the horrific nature of the conspiracy that lay spreadeagled before him. Sugar Mountain. Zucker Berg. Why had he not realized that before? That avatar of his, with the 3 O’s in a slanted line should have tipped him off. The 2 O’s of Google represented knowledge and wisdom. The 3 O’s of Sugar Mountain’s avatar represented the 3 eyes of Shiva. Destruction. It all made sense now. Sugar Mountain’s Facebook feed had even featured a LOLcat with the text “Im in ur internetz, unbuilding”

He opened his Macbook Air, and logged on to Facebook and to his surprise, this image stared back at him

Bad Concrete. The realization that dawned on him, like the sun in the arctic summer, was chilling. Concrete. Masons. Bad. Sugar Mountain was going to superpoke all Masons! He knew what he had to do.

Yeah yeah. We could keep going for another 100 pages. Take your pick from trans-atlantic flights with claustrophobia references, dark alleyways of European capitals, the occasional Catehdral and museum, and because of the specific nature of our tale, throw in a few CERN and WWW references and bring the tale to where it needs to be just before the climax. So now, let’s just get to the conclusion and be done with this.

Langdon quickly sent an email to all the Masons he knew and implored them to do something right away. He told them that it will save their lives, and their souls from the diabolical clutches of Sugar Mountain.

The Web 2.0 suicide machine.

The cosmic truth, he had realized was staring him in the face right from the beginning. He had almost fallen into the same trap Rene had, trying to friend people on Facebook instead of meeting them in real life. Emmanuelle, he realized, was the real Lady Gaga of his life.

We can even throw in a little epilogue

Robert Langdon and Emmanuelle were watching LOLcats when this email arrived. It was from someone named Geoffrey K. Pullum, apparently a professor at the University of Edinburgh. It had an image attachment. He opened it. And smiled.

“What is it? It looks like Brown”, said Emmanuelle.

“It is. But it’s an ambigram. Look at it horizontally and vertically flipped”

“Hahahaha. Sucks.”, announced Emmanuelle’s voice.

The End

References

1. This post is inspired in large by Geoffrey K Pullum’s Language Log post from 2004 - http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html

Top Technology Trends That Transformed Tamilnadu This Tecade

The first decade of the new millennium has come to an end. As a reader, you are typically presented with a whole cornucopia of ‘Best/ Worst of the Decade’ features on every Tom’s newspaper, Dick’s magazine and Harry’s Pottery website. ‘Top 10’, ‘Five most important’, ‘20 greatest hits’. And so on. If the feature is not a list of some sort, it is probably a retrospective where people who believe that bullet points and pictures are for noobs (The Hindu, for e.g), write lengthy paragraphs that meander about the decade like a Dr Who, flitting between subjects, space and time.

While there are columns galore on the subject of the top technology trends of the decade, and the greatest inventions of the past year and so on, nobody has explored the top technology trends that have radically, yet subtly changed life in Tamil Nadu. Things that we now take for granted but never accorded the pomp and fanfare that they deserved when they were introduced.

The Multifunction Mantra box

A truly game changing device that bought religious erudition to the masses, this low-cost device provided, at the press of a button, the voice of Bombay Sisters chanting the Mrityunjaya mantra (and many more) in glorious low fidelity. This path breaking invention rendered obsolete the need to be initiated and introduced to the mantras that (if one is of that religious persuasion) govern one’s entire life. This is the Douglas Adams’ Electric Monk for the Religious. In financial trouble? No worries. Just hit the Lakshmi Sthothram button and outsource your prayer to a low cost device. FC Kohli, the man who pioneered the Indian IT industry would have been proud. A closely related invention is the Gayatri Mantra door bell. If one has trouble meeting the stringent requirements of having to chant this a minimum 108 times a day, this doorbell is a lifesaver.

While the Mantrapod is not available yet, you can always buy the “Hindu ipod” here

The Kosubat – The citizens of Madras have always had an uneasy co-existence with mosquitos. The previous decade was spent being cheated by those unscrupulous companies that peddled “mosquito mats” that we later realized were literally what they were called, mats for the mosquitos to sit on and have a spot of evening tea.

Our anti-mosquito weaponry was severely limited at the start of this decade, with Tortoise coils being the only effective option. The problem with the smoke that these infernal coils generated was of that they didn’t do a good job of distinguishing between their need to suffocate mosquitos and simultaneously allow human sleepers to breathe. Redemption arrived eventually in the form of a tennis-bat shaped plastic framed weapon of mass-quito destruction, a metaphorical Hammer of Thor that vanquished these pesky critters with a wave of the hand. The Kosubat also made us all the Pol Pots of the mosquito universe. We actually have fun indulging in their genocide on a daily basis, watching them fry like popcorn between the high voltage metal strings of this lifesaving device.

ps: The term “Kosubat” was coined by Lavanya Mohan

The Share Auto – For many decades, the good citizens of this city were held ransom by autorickshaws that were hell bent on making largish dents in one’s life savings in exchange for a ride from Panagal Park to Pondy Bazaar. But then came the Share Auto, a box shaped, unstable moving object that could cram more people in than a Neutron star could cram atoms, and for a mere Rs. 15, transport the cost conscious Chennaiite from Loyola College to Avadi.

The Handheld Yagna Smoke Blowing Fan – For millennia, priests used handmade fans to blow smoke from yagnas. These fans were an extension of the priest’s hands and were expert at directing smoke straight into my eyes as I went about finding locations in my home where I wouldn’t go blind and suffocate to death. But by the middle of this decade, tech savvy priests, apart from flaunting Nokia N-Series smartphones, were also blowing smoke using miniature, battery operated fans. While it might not seem like much, this humble introduction of technology into day to day religious ritual was an inflection point, the moment when technology entered the temple. Booking archanas online, LED kutthuvalakkus, automatic beat-generation and bell-ringing machines at temples followed quickly after. Perhaps in a couple of years, my family priest’s junior assistant will carry a Kindle, loaded with mantra pdfs. Perhaps Indian guilds in World of Warcraft will conduct Ashwamedha Yagnas before going on quests.

This emerging aesthetic is…. Tampunk. Tampunk devices, to quote Sottai

• might be powered by fumes from sacrificial fires. Therefore, Tampunkers have to carry compressed cowdung cakes and igniters to
  generate necessary smoke.
• are always heavy, always ugly, with fantastically mismatched colour schemes
• Leopard print Earmuffs (as Karthik Krishnaswamy suggests)
• Uranium Powered Kosubats (DC powered for now)

So what else do you think defines the Tampunk genre?

Note: A shorter version of this piece appeared in the New Indian Express today