Champagne and culture

Last night, my Dad and I gave a dinner party for my nephew who's off to Bangalore to become a master of tooth extraction, brace-fixing and other orthodontal work, which is bound to make my sister run like a hare the next time she sees him (she hates/fears dentists to an unreasonable degree). Also in attendance were my cousin and his lovely wife, two of the nicest people I know. We thought we'd mark the occasion by cracking open a bottle of champagne and drinking to my nephew's future glittering career. My Dad and I were quite thrilled about getting to drink champagne (we tend to be thrilled anytime we get near C2H5OH). Its such a celebratory drink, dont you think? While my cousins and nephew were very pleased by the appearance of the champagne their reaction was rather more subdued. My cousin's wife doesnt drink actually, but she's way too nice to be a spoilsport so she manfully gulped her portion down. My nephew had just one glass and then said his alcohol tolerance was rather low so he didnt want more. Only my cousin had a second glass and even he said he preferred something sweeter. If it werent for the champagne I'd have felt rather flat.
There is something to be said for the West and its general gushiness and appreciation of the efforts taken by hosts. It may be exagerrated but it definitely makes one feel gratified. Guess this is just a cultural thing. Why is it so difficult for me to understand my own culture?

The Lord and the giggling schoolgirls

I never thought I would ever witness a scene where a 60+ gentleman reduced whole gaggles of schoolgirls into giggling wrecks. But Lord Archer managed this somewhat questionable feat. But I'm getting ahead of my story (probably because as the man himself would say I've not been blessed with god-given storytelling talent. I can play the violin though.)
Last saturday evening found me at the Nungambakkam branch of Landmark (incidentally my favourite branch; my 'local' in fact) for the Jeffrey Archer signing session. Otherwise titled 'How I Made Millions Writing Mostly Pot-boiler Paperbacks and Hope to Make Some More in New Emerging Markets Like India'. But I shouldnt be mean. Lord Archer was punctual, witty, entertaining and more than a little smug. There must have been about 150 people all told at Landmark that day and from the minute he entered, he has us eating out of the palm of his hand. He spoke about why he took up writing (financial difficulties), how he slowly learned about the way publishing works (his latest book went through 17 drafts), the trouble he had promoting his book in America, how he writes (his day seems to be a time-and-motion study, alternating between two hours of work and two hours of play), his fabulous homes in Cambridgeshire. London and Majorca and his latest discovery - RK Narayan. Now to those schoolgirls. The audience strangely enough seemed to be composed almost entirely of school/college students and older (60+) people. Hardly anyone my age. And for some reason these schoolgirls seemed to find him adorable. He would hardly finish a sentence before a chorus of 'so cute!' assailed my ears. Maybe this is their compensation for lack of rock concerts and other such entertainments in Madras. Anyway, after the talk there was a Q&A session, which produced astonishing gems like 'Your characters are so well drawn. Where do you get the inspiration for them?' and 'Have you ever based any of your characters on Indian politicians?'. There's no accounting for people's though processes.
After this, Lord Archer asked us to form an orderly 'sensible' queue and approach him with the title page of the book open (so as to save him time). I didnt feel up to braving the schoolgirls, so I quietly slipped away to find a cool corner (the airconditioning in Landmark being unable to deal with the adulatory throng).
My sister says 'Prisoner of Birth' is quite good. So maybe those 17 drafts and 1000 hours did pay off for Jeffrey Archer after all.

Does Landmark want to be a departmental store?

Yesterday, I paid a visit to the Landmark at Spencer's. Now this is my lease favourite branch of Landmark - I've always thought it somehow tacky and tasteless. But thats now the least of its problems. It more warehouse than shop. Enter on the ground floor and you're greeted by an avalanche of luggage, leather bags tucked tightly in next to one another, and a sea of files, notebooks, pens, pencil cases and other stationery-related products. All part of the Back-to-School campaign no doubt. I gave the entire floor a once-over and headed straight to the first floor. To more chaos. The poor books, supposedly the raison d'etre of Landmark have been shunted to about a quarter of the total floor space and told very strictly not to wander about making a nuisance of themselves. The rest of the floor is devoted to jewellery (the salesman yells 'Do you want diamonds, madam?'), perfumes/cosmetics, music, DVDs, glass items, other electrical consumer goods, tableware, bathroom accessories, bed linen and god knows whatever else I didnt venture to bump into (literally). Clearly, a re-think is required to bring some order to this chaos and make shopping pleasurable again.
Or maybe I really should give serious thought to my bookstore idea. Looks like there is a gap in the market after all.

India Mania

Michael Wood is a well-known historian and broadcaster who is quite a familiar presence on Indian TV screens. The first of his TV series that I saw was In Search of the Trojan War. That must have been when I was about 14. I cant pretend that I understood everything he said then but I did develop quite a crush on him (apparently he's been described as 'the thinking woman's crumpet'). That led to my reading some of his books - In Search of the Dark Ages, Legacy, In the Footsteps of Alexander, History of Western Art and so on. Which brings me now to Story of India. As all my friends know, I'm not a big fan of my country. I like it well enough but every day I am very aware of its myriad flaws and problems. But maybe I should try not to get put off by all that and instead try and see the bigger picture, which is what Michael Wood does. He seems to be blind to the poverty, caste and population problems and the superstition and prejudice which is all-pervasive in our society. Instead he takes the most romantic view possible of India and its history and culture. Which in a way is really maybe what India needs right now. The whole world and his wife knows about all our troubles. Perhaps its right that they also get to see whats beautiful and fabulous about India. Anyway, the reason I really like this series is that it focuses so much on South India. Most books, articles, programmes on India tend to think of North India as the country and the south as a sort of bit-player. For the first time I think, the South has been given a starring role. So much so that I think that most north Indians would actually find this rather educational. I'm sure there's a lot about South Indian history that they simply havent a clue about. And not does Michael Wood talk about the South for its history and monuments but he postively quivers with excitement because he can see that history is well and alive here. Our customs and traditions and in some ways our way of life today is a continuation of something that was begun thousands of years back. And this is especially remarkable considering that the whole world is gradually becoming homogenised culturally because of the influence of new technology and communication.
Anyway, enough said. Go and watch this programme!
Story of India, Discovery Channel, 8 PM wednesdays, repeated saturdays and sundays

Pythonesque

We in the office are indulging in various degrees of pythonesque behaviour. Pythonesque not as in Monty but as in Snake that swallows people whole. After a garganutan birthday lunch, all we want to do is to curl up in a cool, shady corner and go to sleep. But no. We've still got some doklas and a cake to get through. Not to mention respond to pesky emails and actually edit impenetrable technical documents. The life of an office drone isnt fun is it.

Trailer park

Last night I downloaded three trailers from Apple. Brideshead Revisited made me wish I'd stayed in ignorance about this new film version. While the actor who plays Charles has the requisite puppy-dog eyes and is easy to identify with, whoever plays Sebastian doesnt seem to have an ounce of the charm and charisma required for such a very important role. Julia isnt impressive either. So alas things dont look too good for this adaptation. Not that any theatre in Madras is ever going to bring this one home.

Mamma Mia and Incredible Hulk on the other hand seem very promising. I love how Meryl Streep really throws herself into any role, not matter how lightweight, with such enthusiasm and love. And as for IH, I'd watch anything with Ed Norton in it so I'm probably not the most objective person here.

Welcome to my world

Aunts, as Wodehouse often says, aren't gentlemen. But it turns out that uncles are. Egged on by one such very lovely uncle, I've decided to give this blogging thing another go. He tells me that I shouldnt write about work or friends or family. Just incidents. And my thoughts (such as they are) on anything and everything. So thats what I'm going to do. Or at least attempt to do.

So Polly, put the kettle on and we'll all have tea.