Azhwarkadiyan Nambi and Eesaana Bhattar presumably had descendants. And perhaps they lived in the New Thanjavur Sector of the Pegasus Beta Settlement, and perhaps they went to the same school, and played on the same zero-gravity slide. Perhaps both grew up to be cyberpriests on interstellar spaceships. Perhaps they chilled out at the Galactic Spaceport bar. Wonder what sort of “I am better than you” arguments they had.

EB Jr: Iyers are better

AN Jr: No, Iyengars are better

EB Jr: Iyer sounds like Higher and that’s why we are better

AN Jr: Iyer sounds like Air and that’s exactly what you are full of.

EB Jr: We fly high like Iyerplanes while you still travel using yesterday’s IyenCars

AN Jr: At least we travel in Rolls Royce Iyencars while you suffer from Deep Vein Thrombosis in Economy class Iyerplanes

EB Jr: Iyengar sounds like I-Anger, and that describes you guys pretty well

AN Jr: Iyer sounds like I-Err, and that describes you guys even better

EB Jr: We are also Smartha than you.

AN Jr: Of course you aren’t. How can you be when you follow the Odd Waiter philosophy?

EB Jr: Your naamam looks like a V with an I in between, and reminds me of vi, that useless editor

AN Jr: vi is the best editor in the world, and I can do a s/r/ngar before you can apply your vibhuti

EB Jr: You call yourselves Why Snow White? Ignorance is built into your name

AN Jr: You call yourselves Say White. Painting everything white smacks of a lack of creativity.

EB Jr: Your C-rap (Carnatic Rap) star R.E.A. Goody sucks. His voice should be used as an alternative energy source by carpenters sawing wood.

AN Jr: Your C-rap star MD (Mad Durai) Money sucks even more. He hardly raps words. He keeps pulling out his item girl assistant (Kalpana Swara) to distract the crowd with her gyrations.

And so on.

Dear Reader, 

For some reason, the IPL T20 tournament reminded me of something I used to be passionate about many years ago. 

A decade ago, a game died, and there was sadly nobody to write a eulogy. This is a humble attempt to remember that great game, its classy origins and the treacherous road to its eventual demise.

The game was called Book Cricket. Those of you who are young (in other words, those of you who spell What as Wat  and Anyways as NEwez) may not be aware that such a game existed. But it did, and it held its own against fierce rivals such as Hand Cricket, French Cricket and the rather bowler-friendly One-bounce-out Cricket. 

The unique advantage Book Cricket had was its ability to fill up those dreadfully boring periods of time all of us are forced to waste in school classrooms, unlike the other games which required outdoor space and time. The classic version of this game a involved large, voluminous book (hereinafter referred to as The Book) being randomly opened and the last digit of the page number being scrutinized like Dickie Bird pondering over a leg-before decision. 2, 4 and 6 counted as they were, and 8 counted as 1 run. A page number ending in 0 was of course out. Games were nerve wracking as tomes were jerked open with adrenaline fuelled excitement with complex strategic manoeuvres being played out between opponents. 

There were the Openers (the ones who opened The Book first) and the Middle-Order (players who preferred opening The Book right down the middle, as if it had magical powers that kept the dreaded zero-ending page numbers away) and the annoying Accumulators (who would fold certain pages that end in a 6 and keep opening that very page till somebody realized that something was rotten in the state of CBSE pass mark). Games lasted 2 innings and the final innings was usually a spine tingling affair, and often some idiot would get over-excited and attract the attention of the teacher who was busy trying to force feed us “4 key factors that resulted in World War 1“. 

There were many choices for The Book, but my personal favourite was Wren and Martin. But with increased teacher vigilance, exam pressures and smaller books, the longer version of Book Cricket started to wane in popularity. Time suddenly became money and all that sort of thing, and Book Cricket had to evolve the OMI format - The One Minute International. Each team had 30 openings of The Book, and the highest scorer won. It had little of the finesse of the longer version with careful, well-thought out strategies being thrown to the dogs and unbridled aggression becoming more and more popular. The Book started taking a good amount of wear and tear as the slam-bang version of the game introduced a new brand of Openers, called Pinch-Tearers, who had the nasty habit of unleashing a high pressure separation of pages using their thumbs and index fingers in rapid succession.

But the advent of the computer and the internet dealt another blow to this game. Who wanted to be flipping pages when one could use the special six-hit button on Codemasters’ Brian Lara Cricket? The BCCI (Book Cricketers Council of India) tried desperate measures. They shorted the game even more. 5 page flips per team, and it was even branded as F5. It even encouraged the use of magazines such as Stardust and Filmfare as The Book, so that our players could additionally have the pleasure of staring at Kimi Katkar and Pooja Bedi when they opened a page. 

But the final death knell was sounded when companies was invited to advertise in The Book. Players now had to look at advertisements on the pages they opened. Page numbers started carrying subliminal brand messages, like 24 nutrients in Complan, 300 percent purity in Kalyani Covering Gold etc. The game became secondary, as players spent more and more time discussing the finer aspects of Kimi Katkar’s anatomy and becoming consumerist zombies staring at brand messages all day. 

The game then died. 

ps: I wrote this for the New Indian Express Saturday supplement called Zeitgeist this week. 

Dear Doctor,

Go get an X-Ray done

No no wait. First listen to me. I believe I am suffering from a new hitherto undiscovered syndrome.

Oh. Ok. Go get an MRI scan and a Feline Scan.

Can I at least describe my problem first?

Hmm. I’m not used to this sort of gross deviation from standard operating procedure. Ok. First promise me that that after you tell me your problem, you will go to Ssri Kaamalegshumi Scans in Pallavaram and get all your scans done. I don’t diagnose anything without them.

Ok. I promise. So here is my problem. I believe I’m suffering from Hypowebia

Eh?

It’s a troublesome mental condition that forces its victim too connect everything to the internet. At times it turns into a depression that comes from a constant state of regret that the availability of the internet earlier in human history could have changed the course of civilization. The disease consumes every bit my mental processing power (which is not exactly Core 2 Duo), as it uses several computation intensive algorithms to construct elaborate what-if fantasies involving crucial historical events and their hypothetical connection to the world wide web.

Go get all the scans done please.

No wait. Let me explain it to you. Have you head of Google Suggest?

Nopes.

Well, its a tool that presents search suggestions based on statistical analysis of others’ search patterns, such as the one shown below

Ah. I see. A Wisdom-of-Crowds view of America.

Oh yes. And very democratic. For instance,

So my mind is constantly thinking about how Google suggest could have had other interesting consequences. Perhaps religious people during Darwin’s time could have been persuaded to drop their foolish belief in

And perhaps Herr Adolf could have avoided disaster by trying this query

If the good Archduke had bothered to check Gavrilo Princip’s facebook profile on that fateful day, the world could have been spared World War 1

In fact it gets even worse. Some kid asked me what the Protestant Reformation was really about, and all I could think of was this:

Another kid asked me how the Mahabharatha was transmitted orally over the ages, and I said “The original guys subscribed to Vyasa’s podcast and recorded their own version of the podcast and reuploaded to iTunes. And so on. “

Another question was about how the original archaeological remains of Troy were found. And all I could say was that Schliemann conducted the excavation, but it was reported by diggers as being possibly inaccurate.

And what were my thoughts on Socrates’ speeches in the marketplace in Athens? “5 Insightful”

And why was Ulysses such a turning point in James Joyce’ literary career? That was when he moved from Blogspot to WordPress

And the sensitive question on the historical origin of the gender bias? The annoying American accented “You’ve got male”

I need help doc. I see the web everywhere.

Stop surfing for 2 weeks. And 1 tablet of The Hindu Daily morning for curing Insomnia. And don’t forget Ssri Kaamalegshumi Scans

In Hyderabad, there is a legendary restaurant called Paradise and they serve what is arguably one of the best Biriyanis in this galactic sector. Now what does that have to do with the Indian Premier League T20 tournament? Actually, nothing. Also, in San Antonio, Texas, there is a Chinese restaurant named Golden Wok where you can choose vegetables of your choice from a bar and the chef will, in one quick burst of flame, burn your pickings into a homogeneous, gelatinous goo and with a beaming grin say “Have a nie day“, and serve it to you with a bowl of rice that does not quite smell of Madurai Malli. What does this have to do with T20 cricket? Actually, nothing either. But you see, the delicate taste of a Biriyani comes from slow cooking and a careful selection of spices, unlike Wok-fried Vegetable Goo from San Antonio, which tastes exactly like Wok-Fried Vegetable Goo from Denver, because as the saying goes, “Contempt (for patient cooking) breeds Familiarity (of taste)”. It is very hard to achieve subtlety of taste in Americanized Chinese fast food. And what does that have to do with T20?

Nothing, actually.

You see, I find it hard to write authoritative, hard-hitting, thought-provoking essays on the fine game of Cricket (like this) because of the minor matter of qualifications. The only reason I made it to cricket teams in the past was to make up numbers (Dei, we are 10 and we need a fieldsman at deep fine leg), and I am a slow-medium pace batsman and a right-handed bowler who could, for most part, manage to deliver the red cherry 22 yards without it needing to bounce twice.

So instead, I will write about the BUSINESS of cricket. Many years ago, it used to be the business of CRICKET, and Kerry Packer made it the BUSINESS of CRICKET, but with the IPL, cricket has simply lost its uppercase. Not that I don’t enjoy T20. I do like Wok-fried vegetable goo once in a while.

Back to the subject at hand, there are 3 stages in sports-capitalism

1. Exponentia, where a sudden surge in popularity of a particular sport makes hay for a lot of people
2. After a while, the big boys take over and pull no stops to squeeze money out of everywhere, such as from unearthly ticket prices, pay-per-view TV channels, advertising and merchandizing. Robber Baronia.
3. Once, all the cash cows have been milked, there is no choice but to sedate the cow and milk harder. We then have IPL T20. Adbominalia

The Laws of Adbominalia

• Ads start once the 6th ball of an over (even if it is a no-ball) has been delivered.
• Ads finish only when the bowler has started his run up for the first ball of the subsequent over
• Upwards of 50% of the screen is frequently taken over by animated ads. With sound. Louder than the commentators’ voices
• There are animated, hyponosis-inducing ads on the boundary signboards.
• Cricketers will soon resemble Formula One drivers in terms of being high-density real-estate for brand names

But then hey, what gives me solace is the fact that I can still take refuge in the ad-less world of cricket commentary. I can still relax in the familiar cliches of Ravi Shastri, the soul-deadening boredom of Arun Lal or the sweet Carribean twang of Ian Bishop. Right? Right?

No.

Robin Jackman cannot say “Success” any more. It has to be “Citi Moment of success“
Ranjit Fernando cannot say “Six” any more. It is “DLF Super Six“.

Holy Arranged Matrimony! it’s now brand names embedded into commentary. So what else is possible now?

He gave it the Parryware Kitchen sink
He is an Aachi Masala seasoned campaigner
India are AUE Motoring along now.
He has smashed that past LIC Extra Cover
Gilette Razor edged, and taken
That was a Sri Krishna sweetly timed shot.

But it does open up interesting possibilities. For one, I would like our commentators to start getting cheeky and say things like

Ganguly’s batting has been Citi sub-prime. Wink wink.
Rahul’s technique is completely bug free. Must be all the Pepsi. Wink wink.

Update: If you also are suppressing an irresistable desire to strangle a certain pug with a sock, please sign this now.

Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster,

I have a confession to make. Over the years, I have logged an untold number of person-hours LOL-ing, ROFL-ing, ROFLOL-ing, taking mobile cam shots and showing to friends and ROFL-ing together at unintentionally funny spellings in Indian restaurant menus. And since we are talking about food, I thought it might be appropriate to invoke thy holy noodly presence and share my thoughts with you.

I used to think that I was part of a small clique of above-average spellers who found vicious joy in laughing at spelling gaffes, but when I see whole blogs dedicated to them, newspaper sections (with photographs no less), I feel my mirth dissolving like sugar cubes into already over-sweet tea.

So I have made a list, and I would like all well-to-do, middle-class, urban, lucky-enough-to-have-gone-to-a-school, rich, college-educated, white-collar, blog-writing, net-surfing, mall-hopping, multiplex-ing, over-consuming, car-driving, polluting folks of India (like me) to ROFL, LOL, ROFLOL for one last time, and then, stop finding this so funny.

I realize that humour is either intentional, or the outcome of embarrassing pomposity exhibited by the high and mighty, and not a result of a struggling man who left his village to run a “Chaines” joint out of a ramshackle van struggling to communicate what he’s trying to sell in an illogical, unphonetic language he has never been taught in his life.

Thank you for your patient hearing, Oh Noodly one. I will do Abhishekam with Arabiatta sauce as penance for my shameless elitism over the years.

Startup Sundaramoorthy and Venture Venkatakrishnan meet up at Barista, Besant Nagar over some coffee. Actually make that Latte with carcinogenic artifical sweeteners. And they discuss some very disturbing Internet stats.

SS: Did you know that 60% of Facebook users are women?
VV: Yes. And over 55% of MySpace users as well?
SS: The Indian Blogosphere is also overwhelmingly dominated by women. A look at any comment thread in the Indian Web will convince you of that.
VV: Apart from rediff of course.
SS: Oh yes, that reminds me. Did you see the latest stats from the Gabtun of Web Analytics - Chinna Counter?
VV: No. Is he good?
SS: Oh yeah. He is the absolute authority on desi web stats. And this is what he had to say about Indian men on the web.

VV: Sad. What happened to those good old days of the All Male Web. Web 2.0 seems to be all about 2.0 chromosomes, of the X variety specifically.
SS: We must do something about it. We must restore a sense of balance to the Indian Web. We must buy up some land in the valley between Trisulam hill and St Thomas Mount and startup some Web companies that bring the machismo back to the web.
VV: What do you have in mind?
SS: Pigg.

VV: Pigg?
SS: Yes. Pigg.mc actually. An exclusively male social platform where men can share, discuss and vote up ideas on how to restore male hegemony on the Indian blogosphere.
VV: Awesome. What else?
SS: I used to be a Flickr user, but now there are too many women there. They and their enhanced visual sensitivities, passing judgement on my weak reds, insubstantial beiges, poor shadows and anaemic contrast. Bah. I have always wanted an all-male Photosharing app where real men can post photos without all this critical commentary from women, where we can also privately share images of item girls we secretly love.
VV: Yeah.
SS: So I propose

VV: I’m in. I’d angel fund mattr.com even in my sleep.
SS: Im not done yet. Have you ever had to change the channel when a particularly raunchy song featuring your favourite actress played on TV, just to maintain a personal image of being a morally upright citizen who deplores the objectification of women in Kollywood?
VV: Many a time.
SS: Of course, you could watch it on later on youtube in the private, but personally, I can’t stand all the rest of junk I have to wade through there. So I propose an exclusive social video site dedicated to songs we cannot watch with the family.

VV: Could you pass me the telescope please?
SS: What ever for?
VV: You have gone so far away that even my laser surgery enhanced 20/20 eyesight cannot spot you without some optical help.
SS: And we shouldn’t forget cricket. As the city with the largest cricket lovers to Indian national team cricketers ratio, I believe we need a space to meet up, socialize and rant about all these years of TN-bias in the BCCI. Where I can rip apart vetthuparties such as Arun Lal, Vikram Rathore and David Johnson, who got selected while Sridharan Sharath was always given a miss.

VV: Absolutely required.
SS: And finally, we need to do something about the village folk of our state. I envision a social platform, where rural machismo is on central display. I’m talking Kaavadi, extreme piercing, Jalli kattu and of course, walking on coals.
VV: And what are you going to call that one?
SS: My personal favourite is walking on coals, and even more importantly, I can’t seem to conjure up a suitable pun using the other ones, so I’m planning to call this one

The phrase “Notoriously hard” is not something that is usually associated with the city of Chennai. Most aspects of this city (except the weather) tend to attract adjectives of a genteel nature (like genteel for example).

For instance, Mumbai is a happening city, where events tend to fall from the sky like they were dropped from a B1 bomber while Chennai is more of an occurring city, where events float down from the sky, attached to parachutes. You know what I mean right? When one says happens, eyes bulge out of their sockets, blood pressure rises and adrenaline flows like the Brahmaputra in spate, while occurs is spoken in a tone that is the aural equivalent of idli from Murugan Idli store.

Taking another example, Bangalore’s metaphorical IT knife is bleeding edge while Chennai’s is more useful for the application of butter on bread.

But there is an aspect of Chennai that can accurately be described as notoriously hard.

It’s finding a house to rent.

One would think that should be straightforward, right? I mean, if you are willing to pay the rent demanded and are not wearing a T-shirt that says Weed will Weed will Rock You, it should really be easy, right?

No.

Us desis love taxonomies, and some elderly house-owning Tambram gentlemen are no different. I suppose every group has its own equivalent of this, but I am only going to write about what I am familiar with. We love slotting people into neat, nicely defined shelves of caste, sub-caste, district, taluk, veda-chapter, alma mater, language and soap-serial preferences. In fact, we have such highly evolved, multi-dimensional classification mechanisms for people that one suspects that Carolus Linnaeus possibly had an Indian connection.

But caste is a bad word in TN. So bad that we have to say *beep* instead. Let him who is without sin *beep* the first stone. Doctor, My arm is broken. Do I need a *beep*. Be a good citizen and *beep* your vote. And so on. So asking somebody what caste they belong to is a strict no no. In the past however, ones bramness was visible for everyone to see and hear. The names were unmistakeable (Venkatarama Iyer, Sabesa Iyer, Ramanuja Iyengar etc), the facial make up (Naamam/Vibhooti), and the lack of upper body garments usually revealed the advanced back-scratching mechanism called Poonal. But engineering college rules, office dress codes and Hollywood have conspired to make young people today look homogeneous, thus making it a complex chore to figure out if a prospective renter is tambram.

Let me give you a hypothetical example of a conversation (or is that an example of a hypothetical conversation?) between me, my wife and an elderly gentleman who was inspecting us for suitability while we were doing the same to his house. And assume that I had this device that could, at the press of a button, cause people to speak their thoughts, thus making public for the first time,  The Mental Algorithm for the Conversational Determination of Tambramness, OR as his thoughts put it rather bluntly - How to determine Tambramness without letting an interested party know that you are a biased bigot.

And needless to say, I was trying my best to obfuscate my origins just to test the strength of his algorithm.

Note: Normally unspoken thoughts are shown in italics

You see saar. My two sons are in the States, and I am in charge of taking care of the flats that they have built. Now, they are also planning to come back to India any time because my grand children are growing up in a culture that it too diverse for our liking. So it is my solemn duty to see to that their flats are kept in good condition. Let me be frank with you. I only want to rent the house to Tambrams.

So sir, what do you do? And what’s with the long hair? Wife also bob-cut. Hmm. Artist-o? Or worse, hippie artist-o?

Working for a large IT company sir.

Oh. Appaadi (Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Not an artist. Service sector. Then there is a good probability. Good good. Nowadays everybody is in IT no? And your father?

He has a business of his own.

Oh. Very good. Oh dammit. Businessman aa? Had he said retired manager in Indian Overseas Bank, I could have confirmed Tambramness, but now I have to dig more. And what about the french beard? Oru velai Muslimo? You see, our clan deity (kula deivam) is Vaitheeswaran Koil. What about yours?

I am an atheist.

Oh. Atheist a? Karmam karmam. Anyway, this is going nowhere. Let me at least find out if he is vegetarian, because my traditions only allow extreme cruelty to flora and not fauna. This is a very lucky house sir. All my children got educated here and went on to do their higher studies in the States. So it will be very lucky for you also. Only one small problem. Some non-vegetarians have moved into the flat nearby and every weekend they cook fish and I cannot stand the smell. Hmm. Let me watch for his reaction. Will he empathize with my dislike for all fried forms of aquatic life?

(No reaction) Oh. (I also secretly indicate to my wife that asking which fish they were cooking, Seer fish or Matthi, might not be appropriate at this point)

It is completely torn I say (Kizhinchidhu). Let’s try the beverage test. Before you see the house, what would you like to drink? Tea or Coffee?

Coffee please.

Good. Coffee sounds promising. Filter (good) or Nescafe (not good)?

Double Decaf Hazelnut Latte sprinkled with cinnamon?

The End.

ps: Here is a business idea for an entrepreneur. The Chennai Training Institute for Bram-Masquerading for House Renting Purposes. Royalties accepted in cash, kind, credit card and sodexho passes. Also, do read this post on “Brahmins-only” rental policies in Chennai by Maami.

Darkness descends.

The Imperial March plays. With a slight twist. And 2 extra sangathis to boot.

Junior Jigubugu Vaadhiar: What an unexpected pleasure, mama. What brings you here unannounced?

Darth Vaadhiar: Spare me the pleasantries. I am here to get this homam back on schedule. I was doing my extended morning Sandhi, that makes me strong in the force

Junior Jigubugu Vaadhiar : You and your extended Sandhi. We have to keep with the times and these practices of yours are archaic. For one, I would never do an extended Sandhi because my mobile phone will ring, and hey check out my new ringtone -  “Iyer Ground” by UB40 (Unemployed Brahmins of 40 South Mada St), the seminal street band from Mylapore.

The lyrics go

Every hour and every day, I am drinking more,
without which in this Chennai sun, I’ll burn to the core.

Unless I know the vedas, I’m not going around
digging deeper into some Iyer ground.

Darth Vaadhiar : (using the force to cause Jigubugu vaadhiar’s poonal (sacred thread) to coil around his neck and elevate him from his seat, asphyxiating him like a hangman’s victim) I find your lack of faith…..disturbing.

JJV : That’s your problem Vaadhiar. Times are changing and you still think you can throttle people with their sacred threads and force them to observe rituals for which we don’t even seem to have convincing sounding reasons any more. If we are to survive in this century, we have to reinvent ourselves. Look at what we have become. Impoverished, low end contract workers who never moved up the value chain or from the 200 sq ft cubby hole we call home in North Mada street.

Realize it Darth. We have a fundamentally flawed business model in a target market that’s increasingly changing its attitude towards religion. We need to move away from peddling low end homam, marriage, tarpanam services and sri-sri-ize our core philosophy.

Darth Vaadhiar : And what (Sounds of heavy breathing) is that?

JJV: We need to go New Age. We are still Old Skool.

Darth Vaadhiar: Are you telling me that we need to freestyle rap our mantras? Wear Rudraksha Bling? I will not cheapen myself. (Sounds of heavy breathing).

JJV: No No. Thats not what I meant. I don’t think you understand the sri-sri-fication of religion thats going on. Let me explain. Religion has always been the toll free helpline that gives answers to life’s difficult questions, such as “Why is this happening to me?“, or “Will Arasi die in the next 3 episodes?” etc. And our past tactic of diverting people’s minds by the constant enforcement of mind numbing ritual has worked well, but is way past its time now. People don’t blindly accept ritual without a rational explanation, and hey, rationalism was never our strength eh? Look at all the New Age gurus. They make billions by providing what seems to me to be common sense answers cloaked in a thin veil of ancient wisdom to the current crop of urban problems - stress, information overload and soap serials.

That’s where we need to be Darth.

Our metaphorical business tyre is being punctured while you are bicycling to your next Ganapathi Homam. In the words of Friedman, today’s world is flat, but our tyres shouldn’t be. Some of our brethren seem to have understood this and have diversified into organizing Veda chanting classes and Horoscope exchange meets, but that’s not enough. Our job is outsourceable. In a very cynical sense, our skills are nothing more than memorization followed by obfuscatory diction. I’m afraid T-Series could release mantras, DRM free, on iTunes and we are done. And when one web-savvy vaadhiar uploads DIY videos of all rituals to Youtube, we might as well join a computer course and get into the Indian IT industry. Like every one else.

And why do I say Srisrification is the way to go? If there is one skill that has never ever been outsourced in our planet’s history, it is the application of common sense to tell people what they should already be knowing. It’s called consulting. And the billing rates have never fallen.

Darth Vaadhiar: (Sounds of heavy breathing) (More sounds of heavy breathing). I will think about this.

To be continued…..

Episode Glossary

Update: Corrections pointed out by the Rt Hon VS Srinivasa Sastry

Jigubugu - An adjective I heard from my maternal grandfather to describe tag along priests who would start strongly with Shuklaambara-dharam…, become generally hazy in the more complex mantras, and chime in strongly during the Namahas and Nivedayaamis.

Imperial March - The original Vader theme. Listen to it here. The Vaadhiar theme here features me on the violin and bass recorded on Garageband. Listen with headphones preferably and keep the volume low. I was too lazy to mix it properly.

UB40 and Higher ground - Here

Hello Everybody,

Howareyoufineaa?

Advance apologies for a generally rambling, pointless, rudderless, multi-topicked post on many things in general and nothing in particular. Since the seminal “How to attract blog readers and influence millions” told me that individual blog posts must be

• Focussed on a single theme like a sniper rifle on its target in order to be linkable - Blog aggregators (like Desipundit, Blogbharti etc) will have trouble writing summaries for your post if it deals with multiple, unrelated topics.
• Have a kickass start, six-pack middle and mind-blowing end in strangely reversed anatomical order.

I have decided to follow those rules religiously. So this post will deal with

• Holi,
• Concerts at Tambram weddings
• Fusion music

Friday was Holi, a spring festival where people throw coloured powders that symbolically contain Neem, Kumkum and Turmeric but really contain Lead Oxide, Copper Sulphate and Aluminium Bromide instead, on each other. Yet another fine example of the great Indian tradition of carrying forward the ritual meaning while leaving behind the rational significance of using real herbs to immunize people against the coming diseases of summer.

But hey, leaving aside the toxic chemical hazard, it is a festival of colours, a chromatic orgy of fun, games and bhang.

My friends in Delhi also inform me that it is also the one day when you can surreptitiously make physical contact with women without being accused of harassment or eve-teasing.

Do Holi colours also have subliminal psychological overtones? For e.g, does Rinku smear Bunty with a lot of green to suggest that she doesn’t quite appreciate his flirtatious overtures with Goldy? Or does Monty hint at his upcoming poor board-exam results by covering his father with red? I don’t know, but it’s an area that deserves some serious research funding.

And as somebody who knows a few design folks, all of whom suffer from an annual migraine at looking at the random, uncoordinated riot of colour that is Holi, I propose that we create a “Color safe Holi Zone” where there will be strict adherence to colour palettes such as

I can imagine conversations such as

Designer 1: Happy Holi (and attempts to smear a shade of bright green on Designer 2)

Designer 2: Hang on a minute. Is that #BCDD11? You’ve got to be kidding me. Did you even see the other colours on me? If you’ve got #E6FF0D I’m ok. Or even #D2FF00 for that matter, but #BCDD11 is a strict no no.

And on Sunday, I attended a wedding where the backdrop was provided by the bride and groom collecting gift tea sets from invitees and the background music was provided by Mandolin U Rajesh playing fusion music.

For the uninitiated, the definition of Carnatic Fusion music:

A genre of music where the brahmin carnatic notes steadfastly refuse to mix and harmonize with the non-brahmin western notes and instead, continue to live in the agrahaaram of the usual Raaga alaapanaas and kalpanaa swaraas while the rest of the band tries to figure out if Am and Dm go well with Natabhairavi.

But to be fair to U Rajesh, he is an incredible instrumentalist and it’s not really his fault. There were two problems there:

1. The is a difference between Carnatic and Western music that most musicians seem to completely ignore - Let me explain that with a graphic.

So, carnatic notes slide around on roller skates performing acrobatic pirouettes called Gamakam and Brigaa while the poor western ones are stuck with plain old legs. And in party where there are people who wear both plain old shoes and roller skates, I’d imagine that there will be quite a few unseemly collisions.

And that is usually what happens at most “fusion” concerts.

2. The whole thing about concerts at weddings: Picture this.

• Musical notes are are sent out from U Rajesh’ instrument go on a bold journey to the listener’s ear.
• Non-musical notes such as discussions about Soap serials, the birde’s saree, the quality of filter coffee, and the upcoming annual 22-yard Monsoon (the seasonal rain that arrives in Chennai as soon as an international cricket match is announced) form a loud, chaotic queue in front of the listener’ ear.
• Musical notes plead - “Please let us pay a visit to the Shrine of the Ear”
• Non-musical notes retort - “Get in the queue. We ain’t done yet”.
• So while the A minor scale and Natabhairavi wait in queue, a particularly nasty non-musical note whispers “Did you have dinner? Please have dinner before you go” into the listener’s ear.
• Listener leaves to go eat some food (and waste a lot), leaving behind disconsolate notes that wither and die a sad death

So I strongly urge people to stop these wanton deaths and instead, play a CD at weddings.

Remember Loo. Su. Mani and Pay. Mani?

They are lower rung party workers (and part-time poster designers) and have given their bodies to the soil and lives to their leader (Udal Mannukku, Uyir Thalaivarukku).

They recently had a discussion on the upcoming US elections, and I had the privilege to eavesdrop.

LSM: What brother ?(Ennannae?)

PM: I am well, brother. Thalaivar’s posters stuckaa?

LSM: Yes yes. From Ennore to Vandalur, our leader’s benevolent gaze confers bliss upon the city.

PM: Good good. Did you hear about the elections in America?

LSM: Yes yes. Some primary election is going on no?

PM: Yes. To choose who will run in the election in November.

LSM: Oh. For that also, election aa? Whatay waste of money ya. Why don’t they just choose a leader after the election? It’s not as if a single person runs the government right? So how does it matter who that nominal figurehead is?

PM: No no. America is different. They drive on the wrong side of the road and eat super-sized fries with diet Pepsi. They are different.

LSM: Oh. Appidi (like that). So what are the key election issues?

PM: Abortion

LSM: What? Why is a woman’s private decision a public matter?

PM: I don’t know. Something to do with a culture of life.

LSM: So scientists cannot throw away petri-dishes containing live bacteria in the lab?

PM: Yes.

LSM: Oho. And what else?

PM: Same sex marriages.

LSM: Oh. What is that?

PM: For e.g, 2 men getting married to each other.

LSM: So what’s the problem? Let them do that no? Doesn’t it save money on jewellery?

PM: I don’t know. Something to do with the sanctity of marriage.

LSM: Oh. As if they are putting marriage in a temple and doing abhishekham daily. Don’t most marriages in the US anyway end in divorces? So where is the sanctity really?

PM: I don’t know much about America but when I try to imagine a gay Tambram wedding, I can see a lot of potential administrative issues. For instance, what happens to the Kanya Dhaanam in a man-man marriage? Or all those mantras urging the couple to be fruitful and multiply? Will they now change it to “May you adopt many male children“? Which of the guys will go for the Kaasi Yatra? Will they both tie thaalis to each other?

LSM: Hmm. Complex issues.

PM: Yes. I have always wondered about one thing though. How do they do booth capturing in the US? Does it work the same way it does here?

LSM: No saar. In America, they don’t need to capture booths. They simply capture software. Specifically the one that powers these things.

PM: Oh I see. By the way, did you see the rediff.com article on the US elections?

LSM: Oh? There was a rediff article?

PM: Yeah. And as usual I just completely skipped reading the article and went straight for the comments section. That’s where all the profundity usually lies. See here. The wisdom of the crowds in action explaining the key issues in the US election.

LSM: Hmm. Profound indeed. So do you think Obama will win the nomination?

PM: He should, but it’s a tight race.

LSM: I feel Obama needs better posters. American graphic designers seem to lack the ability to deliver a punch.

PM: What do you have in mind?

LSM: This.