A case of the fedups.

I've got a case of the fedups. I've been trying to stay all positive, even reading silly books like Eat, Pray, Love (excellent substitute for inducing vomit in my very personal, absolutely minority opinion) and wondering what's happening all around. Friends tell me I'm just crabby because I don't like the monsoon. Some say I am sadder about Michael Jackson's death than I realise. And some think I'm generally disgusted with the shambles of the world we are living in. Now this is all true. I mean seriously, between Facebooking each other, writing random rants like this one, following macrobiotic diets to no avail, wasting money on really bad books, watching inane drivel in a movie theatre, reading trumped-up news with terrible grammatical errors and generally naffing off, what's the real deal these days?

When I was in London, I heard the same rants from friends. When I was in Geneva, even the Swiss jumped about like a large red tropical ant had eaten its way through their skisuit and was chomping on a wealthy bum. While I am in Bombay, I realise that the most exciting thing that people were talking about was a shoddy bridge connecting two parts of the city, with the worst emergency provisions I've ever seen in a so-called developed city. And I mean just lighting. Forget about accidents. Better to jump into the water and pray to an unhearing god.

All we seem to do is hear, talk, see, listen, explain, bitch and verify the same old shit. Politicians are crooked from the House of Commons in England to every house in India. Celebrities are dying of cancer or drug abuse and their funerals are nothing but hammy, showy, badly directed cheap television where even children aren't spared. Corruption ranges from charging a battery for 88p to government contracts handed out to unworthy sons-in-law. Google and Microsoft are at war again, as if there aren't enough wars to keep us busy and in danger until 2050 at least. Recession tales have become competitive- who's more screwed, you or I? The news channel are still worried about who is dating whom and is that his long-lost daughter? Oh no, wait, that's just Woody Allen again.

In the middle of this white noise, I am wondering, are books the last refuge? Are they really? Or are they becoming the same monster? Publishers will only publish already published famous authors because in this scary economic situation, new authors aren't a safe bet? Or will a new author bring down the aristocracy by writing a 'popular' book with very little literary life to it and yet win an astonishing prize? Shall we just stick with the classics? And yet, I walk into bookstores untiringly, only to find that people are really just there for the coffee and brownies. They are only there to 'pick up a gift for my friend's kid's birthday party' or only there because a popular socialite is 'doing a reading' of a book they haven't even read.

As I said, a case of the fedups. Where nothing seems to be worth writing about or doing or listening to. And if you are going to come up with some homily about life is beautiful or some such similar crap, spare me. As I said before, self-help writers make me vomit. And since when has it been politically incorrect to correctly identify the absence of genuine inspiration as just that?

Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned rant about the mediocrity of mankind and the accuracy of Thoreau?

The voice of India

The voice of India has announced that the Congress has won. The UPA government led by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is to continue for another 5 years. More importantly, the vicious beast of communalism upon whose back the losing BJP was riding has been mercilessly crushed by the very people whom they tried to incite against the minorities.

India, whether rich or poor, educated or illiterate, has realised that the reins of power cannot be handed over to someone who wishes to take India back to the dark ages. Who wishes to murder in the name of God and then like a child point a finger and say - but he started it first.

There are no saints here. All the parties, winners and losers alike, have all been tarnished with the brush of corruption and greed. All we are able to do is choose between the lesser of the two evils. And hope that the good work continues and the bad work lessens. Either way, the government has a lot of promises to fulfil and a lot of begging bowls to fill.

My only hope is that our hope isn't snuffed out by the overconfidence and the arrogance of victory. My hope is that this government raises the bar of expectation and then supersedes it. My cynical, experienced side says I'm asking for too much. My hopeful side, the one that dragged its behind in a blistering sun to vote for them, says maybe, just maybe....

Interesting sidebar.... Every major TV channel that broadcasts in India constantly covered the last 24 hours of the election. Except CNN international. They gave it as much importance as a namby pamby interview of Musharraf by Fareed Zakaria. Is this the American approach to 'bonding with the world's largest democracy?' Or do they think that the American elections are the only ones worth covering? Shame on CNN International. The BBC on the other hand, did a smart thing. They made the coverage so scintillating and well-positioned that most Indian viewers were hard pressed to choose between popular Indian channels and the BBC.

Well, the drama is almost over. It'll be back to murky business come Monday morning. Lord help us all.

M for Music. M for Manooghi Hi.

I am not, repeat NOT, a big believer in 'fusion' music or 'fusion' anything. I am hopelessly old-fashioned with my music and I don't like adulteration in any form. Don't mistake this for me not knowing my music. I'm happy to say I know music and it knows me and we have a deep and meaningful relationship that has not been interrupted for 36 years. And then a few months ago, along came this upstart called Manooghi Hi, who challenged my ideas about global music and wagged a mongrel finger and said: Hey, listen here and suspend your prejudices. Or you're not worth the paper you write on. My first instinct was to ask the upstart to leave and go back to my Chet Baker but like an obstinate child, it pulled out its bag of tricks, undeterred and played.

I am not, repeat NOT, easily impressed. In fact, trying to impress me will have the opposite effect and I was about to warn the upstart about this when I heard something.

And I saw Buddha here
And I met Jesus there
And I heard Hendrix there
And I felt Shiva there
And I touched Gandhi there
And Andy Warhol there
He just didn't care
He was in his underwear

I am not, repeat NOT, immune to clever poetry. Especially if it smacks of Miss Dorothy Parker and offends the general ignorant populace. As the cheeky little offender continued to play unbidden, I found my tongue clapped to the roof of my mouth while the lead singer twisted the sinews of urban poesie to curl around the belly of a raga and throw itself shamelessly naked upon the flat back of the tabla before being delicately stomped on by the piano and finally disappearing into the mist of a final rising violin's note.

I'm an elevator
Where everyone pretends to be alone
I'm a hotel
Where everyone pretends to be at home

I am not, repeat NOT, easily fooled by ideas stolen from T.S. Eliot but I am astounded when they are strung like offerings around the Hindu goddess Kali's neck and hang there in perfect harmony like pearls embedded in skulls.

I am not, repeat NOT, immune to the beauty of various pure languages. When I heard English, Hindi, Bengali, Persian and Tamil slide in and out of songs without losing the shimmering thread and balance between lyric and melody, even though metre was unconventionally seduced, I was an espresso short of being completely mesmerised.

I am not, repeat NOT, interested in namby pamby praise or advertising. Probably why I'm unemployable. So in the spirit of full disclosure, Mehnaz, the lead singer, is a friend. If you call being overly critical of every last full stop and comma of her work, friendship. She will attest to this with a painful smile. The rest of the Seattle-based band are strangers to me.

I am not, repeat NOT, going to tell you how great Manooghi Hi is. I would rather credit you with a brain and ears. If you're certain that you are strong enough and open enough to deal with the volcanic inner core of their lyricism, then log on to their site and listen. www.manooghihi.com.

I am not, repeat NOT, going to admit I'm a shameless groupie.

When pigs fly

Between worrying about washing our hands a million times till they begin to resemble a butcher's hands and trying to procure the latest vaccine against the H1N1 virus (swine flu to you philistines) we have once again succeeded in absolving our collective conscience about the world's real problems. I don't mean to disparage the latest news of the day. If the WHO says it's going to be a pandemic, let us immediately stop worrying about anything but clean handkerchiefs. However, what about the real pandemics? Injustice, the Taliban's gun-toting versions of the law, the world gone mad in Sri Lanka, the children in the soup kitchens in the richest country in the world and daily rape and massacre in several nations in Africa? Surely that's equally important and should have gone up to a level 6 way before a few people and a few pigs started to die?

Even more hilarious, there are websites and news channels warning Europe, particularly the UK, that this summer could see more deaths, when temperatures climb into the unbearable range of 32 degrees Centigrade. Are we for real? Do we all exist on the same planet or has the EU decided that it's going to blindly follow Mr. Berlusconi's philosophy of I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass about anything?

And then there's poor Obama. Trying to balance his speeches between the economy, money to a rogue 'India-obsessed' Pakistan and the swine flu. While Joe Biden tells everyone that he wouldn't let his family get on a plane. (Nice job, Joe. Whenever you start talking, we either fall asleep or gag.) In the meanwhile, every major news network is sending out journalists and interns and sons of the Vice-President of the network to hunt down anybody that either has a cold, shakes hands with someone who has a cold, looks like a pig, eats a pig, kills a pig or does things with a pig that are illegal in most countries. Because of course that takes precedence over the nine-year old child that's been beheaded in the Congo for trying to rescue his mother from being gangraped.

Not to mention a half-hour telecast of Britain's withdrawal from Iraq. No disrespect to the boys in the forces, they've been nothing but great for the most part- but where was Tony Blair? Did he not want to supervise the last of his handiwork? Or was he chuckling in some backroom of some mansion with his buddy George, while trying to shoot pheasants down with microwave popcorn? How about the other side of that telecast? Where Iraqis lay dying? With no idea of how to run their lives and their country now? With the question uppermost in their minds; you made this giant mess and now you're leaving us with the pieces? Is this going to be Britain's legacy to Iraq? Like the mess they made with the mandate in Palestine all those years ago? Well done, indeed. Oh sorry, no time to probe into that because we're back with the lovely honeymooners who've returned with duty free Taliskers and the swine flu.

Even the elections in India, technically the most populous democracy in the world, were overshadowed in part by the swine flu. Because of course, that's what is killing India. Not the ineffectual politicians, apathy and communalism.

At least now we know- Pigs can fly.

Deliver us from Evil. Amen.

Certain people should come with a warning label like food products or chemicals- Warning: Totally and utterly dangerous, do not let within a 100 miles of you. The Pope is one of them. I was following the story of his current run through Africa when he landed at Cameroon and made the most ridiculous statement imaginable- Condoms could make the African AIDS crisis worse.

Yes, you heard right. He said that. I saw it. I heard it. I read it. I'm not going to bore you with the statistics on HIV and AIDS in the world. There are over a billion sites on the Internet if you are interested. What I'm concerned about is this: There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics around the world, give or take a few hundred thousand. And they think it is okay to accept this man, no wait- this IDIOT, as their spiritual leader and guide? This blundering fool who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to deepen a very serious, downright critical crisis by talking through his arse?

Sexual abstinence and fidelity- this is his counsel. What planet is the man from? The Vatican has long been criticised across the world for its positively archaic and utterly unrealistic, thoroughly stupid views on this matter and here he comes along, traipsing into a continent that is crumbling under the weight of this crisis and tells them without a single moment's hesitation that "The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS."

Failsafe? Traditional teachings? Is he barking mad or does he have an agenda? Either way, it makes him a sinner and a criminal. What about that, pontiff? You think disseminating information that could directly lead to an action that causes death by AIDS is permissible? Why isn't this man being tried in a court of law? Does idiocy fall under crimes punishable by law?

In places like Africa and India where the AIDS crisis festers on a minute-by-minute basis, where the number of deaths are increasing instead of decreasing and where the majority of the population is illiterate and are driven by religious leaders and religious practice, there can be no greater damage than the damage caused by these so-called moral guardians of faith. Whether it is the Pope or the Hindu religious leaders or the Islamic fundamentalists, when a common man relies on them to steer his life towards salvation, the only thing that's going to happen is that he's going to find himself up shitcreek without a paddle.

If there is a god, may he strike all of these holier-than-thou wankers dead and save the rest of us from them.

UFO- Unmarried Freaky Object.

2009 has been a wonderfully quirky year so far. I decided intentionally that I would develop a quirk. Apparently it makes you more lovable/admired in an Emma Thompson kind of way. So I decided that I would randomly volunteer one piece of information to acquaintances/friends/relatives in the course of a conversation, which I would normally consider myself well-mannered enough not to. In early January, I'd been vaguely toying with the idea of a proper exercise schedule and began running outdoors for a couple of weeks. People who ran past me or alongside me or around me in circles, decided to stop for a friendly chat. Now in India, this can be a many-headed dragon. It can be as innocuous as 'hi, haven't seen you before/seen you here a couple of times now, are you new?' or it can be 'hey I know you from x's party and I was wondering if you're interested in meeting my newly single brother who has no hair but makes a lot of money?' or 'hello young lady, are you back in India and why haven't you called us?' or 'ooh, look, that's the bitch who broke my best friend's brother-in-law's heart.' You get the picture.

In trying to put my new quirk to the test, I answered a few of these queries with 'I don't usually run but apparently my ovaries will shrink if I don't get enough exercise' or 'You know, I'm sorry I only date women over 40 who run the bank your brother makes lots of money in' or my favourite, 'I didn't want to call you because I have a secret crush on you and I didn't want our families to fall out because of it' or 'Yes I am the bitch who gave your brother syphillis, is he dead now?' But of course the problem was that people didn't see my Charlie Brooker side of it and I got strange looks and my family got concerned phone calls. In the end, everyone put it down to- oh well, she's 35 and isn't married, doesn't have a boyfriend and so this must be how the poor thing must amuse herself. After all, writers are a little crazy. Tsk Tsk.

Were we? Crazed because we wrote? Or crazed because we weren't married? Or crazed because we were living in a society obsessed with marriage and relationships? Right around this time, a very very dear friend of mine from California got engaged and I congratulated her and we talked about the ring and the wine in Napa and the recession on Wall Street. Following this, another friend in India got engaged and I congratulated her and she started telling me about how many single friends her fiance had and could she set me up with all of them? I was suddenly, her poor Bridget Jones-friend who needed help in this department.

Soon after that, I had friends visiting from London, then Sydney and now New York. In the course of all those conversations, I brought up this topic. Was it a real concern that I was still single? They looked at me, blinked a little bit and hesitatingly asked me if I thought it was a problem. I said no. They said okay, then, should we order another red or a white? But wait, I cried. What's wrong with me? I'm smart, I'm reasonably sexy, I speak six languages and I can ride a horse. Isn't it strange that I haven't been snapped up? Some jokes were made about turtles and the Venus flytrap and they all went back to the wine. Sydney said: Don't do it. See the world instead. London said: Oh date, sure. I don't know about this whole settling down thing. I mean how long does love really last? NY said: I'm in love. It's a blast. But you have a pretty good life even without it. Don't you think so?

Cut to a family gathering a week ago. Question: Oh why isn't she married? Answers: These globetrotting independent girls don't make good wives and men know that. She's too loud and opinionated. She's put on a little weight, hasn't she? She had a boyfriend abroad who broke her heart and now she's sworn off men. Maybe she doesn't like the men here. Maybe she doesn't like men. Oh I'm sure she has a different man in every city; she's just that type. She's an atheist. Except one relative who cheerfully answered: Yes, isn't it amazing! No wonder she's got such a fab life. (Thanks darling, you know who you are.)

It's March 2009. I exercise at home. I am going to be 36 in May. And I've just discovered that my single status gives a lot of people as much entertainment as it gives me. Hurrah! I knew it was going to be a good year!

Danny's Day

If you've read my previous post, then you'll understand this one better. I just saw Danny Boyle's interviews on various channels. Not once, not a single time, in any of those interviews, did he say or even allude to the fact that he was proud that this film came out of Britain or even to the fact that he was the visionary behind it and how he made the whole thing come together.

He talked about the wonderful screenplay, the words that mesmerised him, the people who helped him and kept him going and acknowledged that timing had a lot to do with the success of the film as well.

He honestly said he loved filming it here but wouldn't be able to live in Bombay. He expressed just enough gratitude to be sincere and stopped short of mindless sycophancy to the powers that be.

When will India have a Danny Boyle with the kind of quality, uncompromising work that he's done, the deep intelligence and the humility that stayed in the face of innumerable accolades? A. R. Rahman is probably the closest we have to that.

Take a leaf, all you overblown narcissistic directors of the Indian film industry who find it more important to polish your egos to shiny perfection rather than your movies.

Take a bow, Danny.