SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

It seemed like a case of spontaneous combustion, which I guess it was, after a manner of speaking. (Does it matter that it was a car, and not person that combusted? Although I think seeing a person combust would be super cool on some freaky level.)
One minute, four off-duty copy editors (and some non-journo friends) are ending the day with chai, cigarettes and conversation. The next minute, there’s a car on fire in the middle of the road.
Our first instinct (and this may explain why some people see journalists as shallow or apathetic), is to call a photographer…
“Think we should call one of them?” (Note that there’s no need to spell things out)
“Na… it’s just an empty car. Not newsworthy enough.”
“Maybe we should, anyway… It may explode… missing that would be bad…
(Internal debate for about a minute.)
“We should at least try calling. Maybe we could carry a 100-word copy in the city section.”
“Hmm…”
One of us (OOU) goes off to wake a rather grumpy photographer, who probably turned over and went right back to sleep after hanging up on us. (Can’t blame him, it was past 1 am, and we already had a copy of the next day’s paper, fresh off the presses. It would be stale news by the time we filed the copy, forget seeing it in print!)
“U think someone’s called the fire dept?”
“Probably”
“What if no one did? Think we should?”
“Na… the cops are here. They must have”
“I’m calling anyway”
“Whatever”
By this time, the cops had materialised, I thought for a minute, out of thin air. But they were probably lounging around one of the other tea-stalls that dot the area (I mean, who cares about security? The blasts happened like 15 days ago… and only killed 45-50 people... hardly newsworthy, rt?) About 9-10 of them try forming a human chain, to keep the traffic off the burning stretch.
OOU: Hello. Fire?
Fire Dept (FD): haa.. bolo..
OOU: gadi me aag lagi hai.. (there’s a car on fire)
FD: yours?
OOU: No
FD: ok… what car is it?
OOU: Honda City (How does it matter?)
FD: ok then, we’ll send someone
OOU: Ok (wonder if they’d have come if had been a Maruti 800 or something…)
While OOU was on the phone with the FD, the dormant reporter in the rest of us (ROU) woke up. (We all have a sleeping reporter… It’s that part of you that needs to have all the news, immediately, and first hand.)
The big question was do we approach the car? As strong as our journalistic senses were, it turned out that our collective instinct for self preservation was just as strong.
After a long drawn battle (which lasted about 4-5 minutes in real time), we gathered together and drew courage from that little piece of plastic called the press card. (People often think of reporters as super-brave, foolhardy, or just plain gluttons for punishment, but they’re just people with press cards… Mark my words: it’s all in the cards…)
While our battle raged on, some brave, if silly, souls managed to douse the fire with the help of a few well-aimed buckets of water. Except that it was an oil fire, and from where we were standing, we were watching the oil drip onto the road, bringing the flames with it. (Watching flames drip is rather trippy, btw.)
Suddenly, someone tells us that the two 20-something-women across the road are the owners of the car. So, inspired by the magic cards, OOU troops across to talk to said girls, and gets a car door slammed in her face for the effort.
At this point, we were speaking with the cops. They’d earlier told us they hadn’t been able to get through to the fire dept…(“Number nahi laga”…They’d tried once… What kind of morons stand watch near a burning car without making sure there’s a fire truck on its way?), and were now trying, rather stupidly, to hold off traffic with their bare hands.
When OOU suggested that they set up barricades (which were 10 mts away to begin with,) they hemmed and hawed till AOU (all of us) went over and dragged them into place ourselves.
Eventually, (about 20 minutes later) the fire truck showed up, (The fire station is about 2km away), and the cops took it easy(er). OOU decides the barricades can’t be seen from a distance, and so heads off to direct traffic, followed by another OOU. Soon, TOU (two of us) are signalling traffic and yelling at bus drivers, whose inner reporters were causing traffic to queue up.
When the fire truck drove off, we realised all that excitement had nothing to back it.. total downer. The owner of the car was being driven back home after watching a particularly pathetic Hindi movie, by himself (or so he claimed, thereby creating the mystery of the unidentified 20-somethings). The Honda City was taking a U-turn, around a circle at a popular intersection (It has to be popular if u have traffic jams at 1am), when the engine suddenly collapses. The driver tries to fire the ignition, and smoke starts spewing out of the engine, which then quickly catches fire.
Turns out, the car was CNG-powered, and a leak had caused a break in supply to the engine. When the driver turned the key again, spark met gas, and boom!
Ok, so I’m exaggerating. Sue me!
Truth is, the car was scorched and the road bore a few signs of the night’s excitement… But that was it… just an accident, as the cops and fire guys said. Not even an explosion. (The CNG cylinder was too far away from the engine, for any 'newsworthy' excitement.) The crowds went home, the fire guys back to the station, and the cops back to whatever it was they’d been doing to begin with. And AOU had one last cigarette for the night, put away our magic cards, and headed off, each to wherever s/he was headed.


[Incidentally, this story is based on actual events that took place between 1 and 2 am on August 11, 2008, and is being carried as a 70-word copy in the August 12 edition of a local newspaper. I was trying to prove a coupla points:
1.You CAN pad a 70-word copy to make a 1000-word copy.
2.This was a 70-word story because no one died or was injured.
3.This is my blog and I can say what the hell I want. (Unlike in a newspaper, where this would be called ‘editorialising’)
4.I wanted to.
5. HAH!]

It's very interesting how almost everything we learn goes against something else they tried teaching us. Every book I read, every idea someone shares with me, every theory.. whether it is how the world came into being, or whether ancient civilizations really did have access to alien technology (I'm typing this from India, using technology that's not homegrown.. alien? I wonder) Or if it is something much simpler, like should I allow myself to be offended and get angry.. how much narcissism is too much...
The part of me that interacts with (not necessarily always understands/agrees with) those of a scientific bent hears that anger, for instance, is a natural instinct.. something that evolved to take natural fear and convert it into something that could maybe help keep me alive.. the part of me that interacts with (but, again, not necessarily always understands/agrees with) those of a more spiritual bent, hears that anger raises my negative energy, keeps me tied to my earthly limitations. So, which is it? am i supposed to feel angry, or not? on one hand, not being angry would make me passive aggressive, and on the other, it could raise my spiritual levels and take me to paradise on earth.. hmmm.. tough choice, innit? which is why my motto is go with the flow (waaaaay different from go with the herd, btw) which again leads me to the question.. how much CAN i trust my intuition.. how much of what I think is intuition, really is, well, intuition (wheee! three intuitions in one sentence..uh oh.. make that 4) How much of that is just plain conditioning?

And coming back to the question about Narcissism, there's always just one answer to that.. (I don't care if u you don't agree... that's your prerogative)
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH NARCISSISM.

How to improve India’s performance at the Olympics

1. Include events such as gulli-danda, marbles, bullock-cart racing and belching

2. Disallow participation from countries which have won a total of five medals in any of the previous Olympic games

3. Allow the use of artificial stimulants (especially for the livestock in the bullock-cart races, that too, only for Indian participants)

4. Discontinue events such as all athletics, swimming, gymnastics, water polo, hockey and basketball, in which India has no hope of winning

5. Appoint politicians to the organising committee, to make fixing events easier

6. Put India into a pool comprising, India, Mozambique, Eithiopia, Afghanistan and Nepal, with the other pool consisting of just India

(This is the short version.. pl feel free to add ur own suggestions in the comments section)

and since i'm pretty much bent on makin' yer trip as well.. ensoy.. It's John Coltrane's Afro Blue.. heaven's got this man, i tells youse..



And, if we have the Trane, can Mr Miles Davis be far behind?
here's the supremely soulful "Yesterdays"



For those of who don't quite follow the trajectory of usually twisted thought waves.. this isn't rocket science...
Trane was part of the Miles Davis quintet... much before he headed off to form first a quartet and then, later, a quintet...more ejukeshun leita!watch this space..

(but not too hard, u bozo!)

I'm tripping on Dizzy G. Pl send me any more that you might find...

Culture, history, and the lack thereof (or, random musings at dawn)


I'd like to discover India. Does that sound strange? I know I've lived here all of my life.. but how much do i know about it? I sometimes think I'd like to see the world... the people, the cultures, the history... then I ask myself how I could ever hope for something that big, when I haven't seen my own back yard.. It's so easy to believe in, and slot people into, stereotypes.. (Don't we all?) but can human nature, much less mother nature be slotted that easily?

I want to travel. and by that I mean truly travel. I want to live among the locals. I want to BE a local. that's someone I've never been. I want a culture to call my own. I hear you laughing.. "you're Indian," you say... "you have culture.." sure my country has a rich and varied history, and since you can't have history without acquiring some culture, you must be right, rt?

Except than I am not my country. I do not "belong" anywhere or any when.. I want to know the history behind a place... not the kind they taught in school. I want to know about the men and women behind the legends... the people who became the heroes. those who built the monuments to time... and not just the ones who commissioned them.. I want to know those who toiled in the summer and in the monsoons.. those who, possibly, did not want the monuments built, but were forced to anyway... those who, discovered and loved these relics before the Archaeological Survey of India began to charge an entry fee... Those who lived and loved among the monuments to others dead, but not forgotten... the other places they saw... the grounds they walked.. the thoughts they thought.

I want to know what the ghoonghat-clad women of ancient Rajasthan would have thought of their bare-breasted sisters in the territories that became Kerala... What the Mughal men with their courtesans thought of the Dravidian priests and their devdasis... What the French in India thought of the English in India? More importantly, what the Europeans thought of the Indians... did they ever get beyond the "hmm..these guys could make us rich" phase...? How did palates accustomed to pièces montèes, and potato and meat stew react when they met dum aloo, sambhar and the aptly named gun powder? Did everyone get a round what we so euphemistically call Delhi belly today?

We've all heard stories about how the invaders — "they" ruined the lives of the locals "the us" and ransacked our culture? How come I've never heard of an Indian version of Pochahontas? I refuse to believe it never happened.. Maybe there was.. and maybe, the anonymous Pocahontas from the sub-continent (I'd like to think she was dravidian) refused to move to England, to be paraded as a "tamable native".. insisting, instead, that her John Rolfe take over the responsibilities of gruhasthashrama and, thereby, of her extended family! Maybe that killed him... imagine having to plan (and fund) weddings for all those younger siblings and cousins....and having to remember who's who among your wife's cousin's cousin's in-laws... (most definitely not for the faint-hearted!) And may be she then married some wealthy old man her father approved of, (of course no self respecting pop would've approved of some "Firang" back in the 18th century.. or that's what I've been told... doesn't help that the same people who tell me this are the ones who insist all Anglo-Indians are of Royal blood — more or less, anyway..) had a ton of sons (of course she didn't have daughters.. no self-respecting mother-of-sons ever does, does she? in any history... in any country and in any culture? Pardon my ignorance, but did Achilles have a sister? and would Thetis have dunked her in the Styx to make her invulnerable??) and died of old age, syphilis, boredom or child birth... and basically faded into the non-existence that seems to mark the lives of women in this part of the ancient world.

I've always found it strange that, in India, some courtesans are remembered better than queens... (Kinda ironic that a system that insists that women behave in a particular manner rewards the few who don't... but that's a topic for another day)... yet it's fascinating. The country is such a kaleidescope of cultures and of people, And when you haven't been born into one of the many available options, that choosing is hard. And not knowing your own, or your neighbor's, history makes it that much harder.. I hear u laughing again... "What idiot has to choose cultures?" All I can say is having a culture seems important to me... It gives you a norm.. and if you don't have a clear cut idea of what is acceptable and what isn't... It gets that much harder to decide if you are a conformist or a rebel... And maybe it's because I have stayed as far away as I could from my own...

(Lord knows well-intentioned folks have driven me nuts with their "OhmyGawdourcrapdoesn'tstink! We'renotthesedirtyIndians" brand of BS, and I'm proud to say I've returned the favour — "Youstinkmorecozyou'reneitherherenorthere" or "Howcanyoucallsomeplaceneitheryounoryourgrandparentshaveeverbeen,'home'?" doesn't make you very popular in the community, trust me)

So I want to learn. I want to know the history of the land. From before some of my ancestors left their potato farms in the land of clovers to wander among the sugarcane fields in the land of the idli... I want to hear the songs in the rocks... of the coal that once was a forest... I want to hear the stories of centuries past... I want sepia-toned memories awash with colour... I don't want to study culture and history... I want to live it..

"She's perfect for you, Man, there's got to be somebody for me."
I want to be Bob Dylan

People expect more from me than I have to give them.

Can a ritual ceremony force you to grow up? by you, of course, i mean anyone who isn't me.. cuz gettin me to grow up would take a lot more than a ceremony, rt? rt? actually, i think the answer'd depend on who u asked...

Sometimes, u get things you wanted... but then you're left wondering why u wanted them in the first place...

i like this song

Check these out.. Top 10 international destinations for broke Indian travellers, put together solely on the basis of currency conversion rates that I happened to come across...
10. Iceland: 500 Krona = Rs325
09. Jamaica: 500 Dollars = Rs276
08. Sri Lanka: 500 Rupees = Rs176
07. Slovenia: 500 Tolar = Rs108
06. Yemen: 500 Rials = Rs99
05. Guyana: 500 Dollars = Rs97
04. South Korea: 500 Won = Rs21.56
03. Somalia: 500 Shillings = Rs14.23
02. Zambia: 500 Kwacha = Rs5.12
01. Turkmenistan: 500 Manat = Rs3.81


oh, and FYI, 1 CYP (Cyprus Pound) = Rs 96.38 (or, Rs500=CYP5.17...just in case anyone was beginning to gloat[:D])

This is sort of popped into my head while i was rereading an old post.. First draft so please be kind..

My muse is out 2

He stepped out of the closet
Straight into my head,
A swirl of pink and violet
While others looked on,
a mix of confusion and dread

He flits in and out, between my ears
Prancing about most outlandishly
He knows every hope, every wish, every fear
And when I struggle to make sense
He helps me out, by arming me

With a word here and an image there
He knows that he's indispensible—
A lance-bearer from yesteryear
And if my thoughts aren't all together
Still makes me seem knowledgable

I'm not like the others, he once told me
I told him it really was ok
It wasn't a catastrophe
And when I'm lost for poetry,
I'm quite glad my muse is gay

The original's here
http://zephkeyes.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2006-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=48 in case you interested..

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Milady the Right Reverend Ulibak-The Great the Excited of Lower Slaughter Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Resplendent in her madisaar pattu,
The girl of only iruvatti-aaru
Looks down at her feet with no shoes
Red designs making maps with no clues
She's got the nadaswaram blues!

The maapillai sits in his yellow veshti
Yearly-morning cold makes him want to pee
shivering slightly, deep thoughts does he muse:
From now, his life he has to plan in irendoos
He's got the nadaswaram blues!

"Maatikitaan" the mridangam announces
Through the frills and the flounces
While unknown relatives sit there and snooze
It's a good thing, they won't get any booze
For they got the nadaswaram blues...

*dedicated to a friend of mine.. thx for the inspiration!

Glossary of possibly foreign terms:
madisaar pattu : 9-yard silk sari, traditionally worn by Tamil Brahmin brides
iruvatti-aaru: 26
nadaswaram: a musical intrument that resembles a flute, commonly the main piece played at Tamilian weddings
maapillai: groom (or guy gettin hitched at said wedding)
veshti: fancy lungi (A cloth, often of brightly colored silk or cotton, that is used as a piece of clothing, especially the traditional skirtlike garment of India, Pakistan, and Myanmar, says Answers.com)
irendoo(s): twos
Maatikitaan: hindi translation:"pakda gaya"; English equivalent: trapped. cornered..u get the picture(also refers to the beats played on the mridanagam at weddings)
mridangam: South Indian drum, the other main piece played at weddings

It's been so long, I think I've forgotten how to do it
What once felt like the most natural thing in the world, is now an effort.
I thought it was like riding a bike -
Once you learn, you're not supposed to forget.
But I have forgotten to write. Somehow.

Maybe its just all the blue, but I think this pic of the London Eye at night is one of the nicer pix i've come across all week.

credit to Andrew Hasson of Bloomberg News.

The law of the chain of events proposes that s/he who is charged with finishing the last leg of the process, will sit idle till half an hour before deadline and tehn scramble as said deadline whooshes past, amid angry glares from his/her superiors.
ZK

Been at my desk four hours now, and haven't had a thing to do. Hope i can stand the excitement till then

Highlight of my day: Finding a 100-buck note hidden away in the backpocket of my jeans.

Today I learned what the first sardine in the tin feels like.