The residue of an emotional upheaval is always a dot in time -- unworded jumbled up thoughts, thoughts driven by so many acquired logics, time frames that cannot be revisited. All that can be gathered from a stream of continnuum can perhaps be arranged in words. All in that dot.

Media has triggered so much change, that if you pause between an overwhelming onsaught of information, you see so much has changed. There's a crossing of sensibilities that's put the cultures in transition, and what better mirror than cinema. It says way too much about the way we are. The lingo, the dressing, the evolution or the stagnation, the pelvic thrusts, the gender stereotypes, the male oriented scripts, the changing quotients of beauty, the commercialisation of art, cultural migration as in a shift from tollywood to bollywood to sandalwood. It begs a close look, for there's alesson even in a Presh Rawal movie that's insults the audience with absulute crassiness and crudity of it all, yet becomes a box office favourite, Aaj Tak with its super spiced small-time happenings turned to breaking news. There's got to be a reason why so many kids seem to be falling into pits these days, and how rescuing those children is protrayed as heroic. I'd met an autodriver once who had saved a kid from dying. She was supposed to be nominated for the president's award, but for the police constable who'd asked for a Rs 5,000 bribe. she says she thought that was the funniest thing, because in every indian village everyone saves someone every other day. So that's what mainstream media seems to have become, in search for people they can placate as heroes, celebrate trivility and not get down to the kind of reporting that takes you into the dirt, gets you dirty, makes you think and act. But media is a mirror and 'we' are responsible. If any of us cares at all, and I quote an incredible lady, "we got to demand a meaningful media or boycott it.' The question is if we are ready to break the habit, we, the weilders of remote controlled convenience.

the world's a full circle

Life has a way of reminding you that the stories are long and the world's really small I chanced upon this interesting looking lady driving the auto the other day while asking for directions; also the day when we had our edit meeting and i kindda blurted out that I d like to do this story on women auto drivers in Bangalore..but as it turned out I had no clue about the woman with the red bindi and khakhi dress...not even her auto number. Well nonetheless I went to the traffic police office in Shvajinagar (where all auto guys get their display cards done), who by the way, had absolutely no documentation by gender-- progressive-- maybe. But in this case that meant I had to look up approx one lakh names, and since names like Manju, Gulab, Lakshmi, Sowmya, with a combination of surnames could be a man or a woman, and the addresses next to most of these pockets of the city you never knew existed, it was a safe bet (though admittedly insane) to flip through another lakh of stamp-sized pictures just to seperate the husk from the grain. But then again, the traffic commisioner's office was a quiet , passive space, two floors above the rest of the city, drawing some sweet evening sun and a pre-drizzle breeze, so no complaints....part of the job you'd say. Well i had four names by the end of it, and a hope I'd find them. Well after days of sitting on it, one really overworked day, I said lets do a city scan on those four I had.. and i zeroed in on one soumya keshava....went to the given address...couldn't find it, asked everyone about it, was at it for one-and-a-half hours and finally gave up. But right as i got on to the main road I had a van "intercept" my auto with these 4 burly suspiscious looking men who demandingly questioned me on why I was looking for the address, who I was, where did I get it and I plainly said..the police station.That poor that shot in the air-Soumyta Keshawa-was the man in front of me! who'd lost sleep over somebody who had came looking for him at this unholy hour, insistent as hell, got his friends along... and what a waste......But that was quite the stuff of a big loud laugh..occupational hazards you'd say. Then I finally called a friend up , who I remembered had interviewed a lady auto driver long ago and fixed a day with her......and whaddya know, Lakshmi 'was' the lady with the bindi, in khaki I'd crossed the other day

`Rangzen'

Yesterday at MG Road, Bangalore, the Tibetans were sitting with lit candles, together for freedom...the Tibetan word is `rangzen'....and it felt like they as a community were alone, asking for what was theirs, and for nobody else was it immediate, something that would move them to realign their choices. Maybe because we were handed down our freedom in 47.
Now Tibet is like this politically and economically weak nation(the idea of it for some of us) that can't help itself in the face of the big economic power China is. Niether is their representative Dalai Lama asking for complete autonomy...there's such a conflict here....that of philosophy and a political will, for it's people. But in Dalai Lama's case, it's going to be nothing but `middle path', a force that doesn't have takers even among his own people becuase it has got them nothing till now.
The totally conflicting narratives that emerge from Dharamshala and China, and no direct reporting from Tibet (thanks to China) leaves you questioning which side is right, what is true and what the history was.But then again what if we `did' know what was true, the internationall community is still calling it China's internal affair and respecting it's sovereignity. What would any of us do if we were sufficiently convinced that China is a coloniser. Till then, one can only hope and pray and wait for tomorrow's news and track down developments and have opinions.
The latest I heard was China's statement that the Nobel Peace Prize winning Lama has hijacked the Olympics to negotiate freedom, that he and his clique(also read terrorists) have planned this `bloodbath' where the leader himself says he'll quit if violence is pursued any more. And there I was at some five star hotel foyer the other day disputing what my brother said, "history is biased, it's someone's version of what transpired."

My guitar plays for `Rangzen' though.

I finally came upon more than just my name....its an inevitability for someone ready to play by the rules. You go along with the system (quite wilfully at that), at the same time exalting rebellion, both in a way, stemming from a drive to self aggrandise. "What am I here for," one of those seekers of the ultimate, just sticks around neglected.

There's a certain numbing quality to inanities...self indulgent, not discordant at all...almost like plopping onto a huge bean bag. Its just a whole lotta morning sun on your back...how did we get this far fussing over almost everything? I trace it back to inanities, and more inanities and the utter senselessness brought on by words falling all over like drunk lil buggers--extremely interesting, honest and spontaneous.
Coz u try and u try to answer timebound questions, fetch urself a neat answer that makes you fell great about yourself, and its too late...you've taken yourself way too seriously. and what for...another exacting question you dont intend to answer but without answering which you go under.
And as it goes, you see, the imposed question is the threat...it sets something ticking. But, if you let it countdown to zero, you'd wince and it would be like one of those hindi movies where the guy whirls that one bullet in a case meant for six , and it just goes "click". Whats the worst case scenario.
Bite the inane, it cud be anything...everything you never asked for but so wanted.

Anger and agression, we are asked to look at it as a virtue, as the way to move on. I am fed ip of hearing the ``we want to give something to the uth, something they will like.'' from the mouths of these non-young editors--or maybe they think they are still teenagers among the others, all in touch with what the youth wants. It was ironic that our 50 plus editor tells us all 20 some that we need to be more young and ` hip'.

Thats what that generation is stuck with. The idea that youngsters want easily digestible, light on the head, suger coated pop stuff, or some such. I mean look at the news channels today, you put on one and u are glued, withouta a thought, caught into the blurry of some kindda propaganda....a kind of hypnotic draw that soaps have. Crime tops the chart. It's all about the packaging in the news industry, the content has become secondary and mainstream is after all mainstream...how does it concern a very large poplatio grappling with a whole different set of issues that are left with the NGOs to tackle. They don't concern the mainstream.

News only reflects the face of Urban India..vidarbha has to have a spate of suicides, North East brutal Human rights violations and Nandigram violence for them to find any news space.

Coming back to the point, the world on the whole is becoming a market where you target selectively and for now its the IT, youth, crime ruling the roost.

For the like of us who enter media with some lofty ideas of change or som larger than life thing, are left to realign priorities with the corporate plan to survive the mainstream struggle...or worse write about fashion, food, and like our editor puts it ``pretty young things' on page...therein he says, lies the truth.

A truth created, floated, promoted and assimilated day in and day out in the tabloid and crazy media culture.