Indian in England » Musings

Dateline Hastinapur

Chindu Sreedharan — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:49:19 +0000

BEEN THINKING, a lot, about how the media narrate war — how war stories play out on front pages and television screens.

Been thinking, a lot, also about Epicretold – suppose, just suppose, there were newspapers then, the equivalents of The Times of India and The Sun and The New York Times and the BBC. How would they have narrated the Kurukshetra war and the events that led to it?

I guess my interest in such a narrative is driven in the main by my fascination with ‘war journalism’. It is not difficult to see war coverage as serialised storytelling: episode after episode of drama, over weeks and months and years, with conflict, escalation and resolution, the same major characters weaving in and out accompanied by the same minor actors – all coming together to form an overarching narrative, which, I dare say, pretty well follows the shape of Freytag’s pyramid.

Interesting to think, then, of how the Mahabharata can be told as news. Can the story be strung together as a series of media reports? Would such storytelling make sense to a reader, particularly one not familiar with the storyline? Would it help him/her create own narrative of that ‘reality’?

Solely in the spirit of experiment, here’s a take. I see this as appearing in an ‘international’ newspaper – call it what you will (and drop me a line if you come up with an interesting name):

Pandu family returns
King welcomes Kunti, sons with ‘open arms’

By Our Royal Correspondent

HASTINAPUR: The family of King Pandu, the renunciant royal who died in the Shatashringa forests in a mysterious accident last week, returned yesterday to a grand ceremony that spilled out on to the streets of the capital city.

The royal widow Kunti and her sons – Yudhishtira (7), Bhima (6), Arjuna (5) and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva (4) – were met at the city gates by Bhishma, the patron of the royal clan, and driven through the high street in a chariot drawn by seven horses at the head of a ceremonial procession.

Accompanied by a select group of palace officials and personal maids, Queen Gandhari welcomed Kunti at the palace gates.

“It is good to be in Hastinapur again,” Kunti said, wiping away tears. “My sons are finally back where they belong.”

At the palace, the family were taken straight to King Dhritarashtra for a private meeting. A palace official present on the occasion said the king was overcome with “tears of joy”.

“I welcome my brother’s family with open arms,” the king said in a statement released later. “This is their kingdom and I am glad they have returned. Now I have five more sons.”

While reports about the cause of Pandu’s death remain sketchy, palace sources confirmed that Madri, his second wife, had opted for the practice of Sati, stepping into his funeral pyre, as “befitting a princess and loving spouse”.

Pandu, though second in line to the Hastinapur kingdom, had ascended the throne 11 years ago, superseding his elder brother Dhritarashtra, who, owing to his blindness, had been deemed unfit by his elders. However, seven years ago, for reasons not yet clear, Pandu had renunciated the kingdom while on a hunting trip to the Shatashringa forests.

He had lived there since, fathering five sons – Yudhishtira, Bhima and Arjuna with Kunti, and Nakula and Sahadeva with the younger Madri.

The Kuru Kingdom, which lies north of the Vindhyas bordering Panchala, is one of the largest in the region, and has been traditionally ruled from Hastinapur, ‘the city of elephants’. Though under King Dhritarashtra the kingdom has seen relative stability and peace, his ability to rule has always been questioned. The king, born blind, is seen as ‘unfit to rule’ by many, including Bhishma, his grandfather. Queen Gandhari’s self-imposed blindness – since the day she found out her betrothed was blind, the former princess of Gandhara has chosen to wear a black blindfold – has not helped his case.

The death of King Pandu and the unexpected return of his family have brought a feeling of unrest in the palace. A highly-placed source, who did not want to be identified, said the king had to be persuaded by Bhishma to invite Kunti and sons to Hastinapur.

“The royal politics is likely to be murkier in the coming years,” the source said.

Treat this as the equivalent of an ‘establishing’ shot, the beginning of this narrative. The next take could be from a Hastinapur-based newspaper – a human interest story perhaps, on the five little boys, the Pandavas. And, yes, there could a political commentary or a news analysis, which would expand on the last quote of the report above.

Guess I will be back with more.

ALSO SEE: The End of Childhood

Image courtesy http://bit.ly/9azpHi

Beautiful, beautiful (?) me

Chindu Sreedharan — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:33:21 +0000

AM I beautiful? I will let you know in 48 hours.

Stumbled across Richard Jinman’s post, The ugly face of social networking, about the site that caters only to beautiful people (he definitely is NOT beautiful), and I just couldn’t resist engaging in a bit of social comparison myself.

So on I logged to www.beautifulpeople.com and had a look around. This is what it is about:

BeautifulPeople.com is an exclusively beautiful community, founded for the purpose of creating personal and professional relationships.
…

BeautifulPeople is the first community of its kind. To become a member, applicants are required to be voted in by existing members of the opposite sex. Members rate all new applicants over a 48 hour period based on whether or not they find the applicant ‘beautiful’. Should applicants secure enough positive votes from members, they will be granted a full membership to the BeautifulPeople Network.

The vote is fair and democratic.

BeautifulPeople does not define beauty it simply gives an accurate representation of what society’s ideal of beauty is.

Applicants can upload a complimentary profile. They are able contact members while being rated thereby giving insight into the character behind the appearance.

BeautifulPeople simply removes the ‘first hurdle’ as every member is exactly that; ‘Beautiful’ as deemed so by their peers.

Since it is all about peer assessment, you get pleas on your profile page (and though my beauty is yet to be validated, I do get to vote). Sample these:

Hi sexy people… would appreciate it if you would rate me…

Visit me and vote… and I will do the same for you.

I have got a lovely bunch of coconuts… diddle diddledeee!

comon ladies what do you think.. rate my pics .. you could just make my day..

I have upped my pix. Now I wait, I wait.

Image courtesy: anotherart.ning.com

Harry Potter and the gayness of Voldemort

Chindu Sreedharan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:39:55 +0000

JUST realised, on reading Manohla Dargis’s excellent review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, that all is not almost over for us Potter fans.

The good news is that Half-Blood Prince is not the penultimate movie in the series. Deathly Hallows, the last of Rowling’s magnificent Hogwarts effort, will come to us in two parts. So people like me, who went to Half-Blood Prince feeling a bit low because there was only one more movie left to enjoy, can now look forward to two extravaganzas. Isn’t that grand?

That said, do you feel a bit stretched with each new movie, or is it just me? My enjoyment has been decreasing steadily for some time now — no, wait, not my enjoyment, but my after-enjoyment. I enjoyed Half-Blood Prince at the cinema, but I can’t honestly say I savoured it afterwards, the way I did The Philosopher’s Stone or The Order of Phoenix. This was not certainly the case with the books; each novel, I distinctly remember, gave me more — and lasting — pleasure than the one before.

Half-Blood Prince, however, is interesting for another reason. It opens up the possibility that Voldemort was gay. Or at least that he – pardon the pun – swung that way in his youth.

The 11-year-old Tom Riddle, played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin (this boy’s good, mark my words, stronger than Daniel Radcliffe will ever be), manages to look sinister and pretty at the same time. The scene with Horace Slughorn, where he extricates the secret of immorality from the teacher, is a study in silky smiles … and snaky seduction. Me, I came away with the distinct impression that there is more to Riddle’s power over Slughorn than the creepy charm of an oily introvert.

Nearly two years ago, Rowling had brought Dumbledore out of the closet, much to the chagrin of many. While that came as a surprise, Voldemort’s ‘gayness’ is more believable. If you think about it, Rowling has strewn enough ‘clues’ around. Voldemort’s orphanage past and his reclusiveness (possible that Riddle was sexually exploited and hence his withdrawal?), Dumbledore’s influences in his formative school days (the good professor was gay after all), the many servile male Death-Eaters Voldemort lorded over, the unrequited infatuation of Bellatrix, all could help Rowling write up Voldemort’s character that way, if she so chooses.

Guess we will need to wait till they work out Deathly Hallows. Maybe the scriptwriter will give Voldemort a line that goes, “When I was young, I knew a girl…” and Rowling will slip a note across to say,“Voldemort would never say that. He’s gay.”

If Dumbledore is, why not Voldemort?

Image courtesy: www.ratcreature.net

Why they want to marry Simon

Chindu Sreedharan — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:46:12 +0000

I bet you didn’t know this about Simon Cowell: he can do 50 one-handed push-ups.

Seems the man does push-ups twice a day on his knuckles. First thing in the morning, last thing at night.

Seems also he challenged one of the contestants on the US show he judges — no less than a Navy SEAL, mind — to a one-handed push-up duel. And beat him silly.

Apparently, the SEAL collapsed after 20 push-ups (must have been one bad SEAL, that), while friend Simon went for another 30.

Fifty push-ups by a man of 49? That is pretty good, especially one-handed ones. I now begin to understand why some of my sinfully young friends want to marry Mr Cowell pronto.

Good luck to them… and meanwhile, do educate yourself with this Demand Five episode on YouTube, Simon Cowell: Where did it all go right?

PS: Bet you didn’t know his middle name was ‘Philip’ either, now didya?

Image: courtesy www.drawmyface.co.uk/images/caricatures/simon-cowell-sketch2.jpg

Kiss, kiss, the English way

Chindu Sreedharan — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:14:07 +0000

FOR a people who are painfully private, the English are pretty public when it comes to kissing.

There they would be walking down the road, upper lip stiff and at the ready, when suddenly romance overcomes them. The next thing you know, they have grabbed hold of their partner and are kissing the life out of him/her. If there is no partner handy, they might even go for the nearest person available, which I think is the correct way to go about such things.

What I am talking here is not the feathery kisses you read about in books. This is romance with muscles. This is hardcore, thirst-quenching, soul-searching, dementorish stuff, which makes energetic drunkards of couples and blocks the traffic.

It really does. Block the traffic, I mean. Only last week I saw a girl going hell for leather at her boy. The boy was driving on the Holdenhurst road with half a hand — the rest being agreeably engaged — towards the ASDA roundabout in Bournemouth. The girl increased her assault and the car screeched to a halt at the circle. And though the way was clear, they stayed there for the next few minutes. I craned my neck to see inside — just so I could report on it accurately, you understand — and the two cars behind waited patiently for them to finish.

Now don’t think this happens only with the youth. Even the middle-aged and the old succumb to it, though, fortunately, the very old stick to holding hands and grinning goofily at each other.

Like with the youth, the elders get an extra kick if they have an audience for their kiss-and-gos. Everyone’s favourite place is any sort of queue, just as they are next in line. Once quite late at night, an ASDA cashier and I waited a long time for a couple to finish their business. Being English, the cashier looked away, but I kept a close watch on the kissers just in case they needed any sort of assistance.

Personally I find all this most entertaining. This is partly because I am from India and mostly because I am me. Unlike the English, Indians are undoubtedly a much excitable people, who normally blurt out things. An Indian, if he doesn’t like something, would say, ‘This is utter crap,’ whereas an Englishman would say, ‘Smashing! How wonderful!’

Despite such unreserved expressions, Indians — and here’s the irony — clam up when it comes to kissing. If they want to kiss, they go home, lock the door, pull down the blinds, check again if the door is locked and the blinds down, look over their shoulder, then kiss. Then they will open the door and put up the blinds and pretend they haven’t kissed, for fear the kiss police of a certain nationalist party will arrest them.

This all goes to prove things are exactly the opposite of what they appear to be — that within every Englishman there beats a heart of pure passion.

Image: courtesy actingwhite.blogspot.com

Where dogs don’t bark

Chindu Sreedharan — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:36:22 +0000

PARTICULARLY telling on the English way of life was my friend Deepa’s comment the other day (actually she quoted her friend, but never mind):

“Yaar, these people, they not only keep their children quiet, but they even manage to keep their dogs quiet! You’ll never have a dog barking at you on the streets! Amazing!”

It really is, isn’t it?

PS (for my uninitiated English friends): ‘Yaar’ is the Hindi equivalent of your ‘mate’.

Who but the English

Chindu Sreedharan — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:48:33 +0000

THE English are possibly the most stiff-lipped bunch ever to sip beer and watch football, but one thing you cannot accuse them of is lacking a sense of humour. Their humour, like the rest of them, is very English – splendidly deadpan.

Bill Bryson tells of his meeting with a bearded Englishman stuck in the London Underground. Mr Beard’s response to Bryson’s query on how long he’s been in the tube was, “Well, let’s just say when I got here I was cleanshaven.”

Isn’t that classic? My own favourite, though, is the one I saw on BBC South the other day. There was a bit of rain this side, and the sea had done some damage to a few coastal villas. So there was this stocky, oldish gent standing in front of his house, his arm around his stocky wife, and telling the camera how it is to wake up in the morning and find most of your garden has vanished. This is what he said, more or less:

“I think it was about six in the morning when we heard a rumble. I looked out and I thought, oh, that’s nice, the view has improved. So I walked to the window and found the garden has been freshly landscaped as well.”

Who but the English could say that, hey?

Englishman, oh Englishman

Chindu Sreedharan — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:37:49 +0000

THE ENGLISH are possibly the most stiff-lipped bunch ever to sip beer and watch football, but one thing you cannot accuse them of is lacking a sense of humour. Their humour, like the rest of them, is very English – splendidly deadpan.

Isn’t that classic? My own favourite, though, is the one I saw on BBC South the other day. There was a bit of rain this side, and the sea had done some damage to a few coastal villas. So there was this stocky, oldish gent standing in front of his house, his arm around his stocky wife, and telling the camera how it is to wake up in the morning and find most of your garden has vanished. This is what he said, more or less:

Who but the English could say that, hey?

Bless Rooney’s little foot!

Chindu Sreedharan — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 10:26:42 +0000

THE English have the most charming of all national pastimes. Honestly, can you imagine anything better than swaggering to the pub, swigging beer, swearing at the screen, then getting your nose busted by anyone willing to throw a punch?

Getting your nose busted is an integral part of the fun. Till Wayne Rooney accidentally stepped on Ricardo Carvalho’s balls the other day (“Terribly sorry, old chap, but I do wish you wouldn’t leave them lying around”), everyone sprouted one. A busted nose, I mean, not balls, though I suspect some people have those too. Lads unfortunate enough not to have a found a willing partner to do the busting just stuck a band-aid on their noses.

This was because it was disgraceful to walk around with an unbust nose. It was as bad as not displaying the English flag from some part of your person or property. Since the English flag is very much like the Red Cross one, and since everybody displayed it everywhere, it looked like the Red Cross had taken over England. Thank goodness the Queen’s got her country back now.

As I was saying, the English have a unique way of amusing themselves. I find this way quite amusing. But some people don’t. They call it ‘hooliganism’. Twits. This is not hooliganism, but an extremely creative form of recreation, which, due to its sophistication, is only appreciated by the highly intelligent. It is the only one I know that provides muscular, cardiovascular, larynxical and renal workout to the participant.

Wish the World Cup came around more often.

How to survive the English

Chindu Sreedharan — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 02:16:29 +0000

I HAVE survived the English for three long winters without – I hope – any permanent damage. I think that makes me something of an expert on them.

This interesting point was brought home when I appeared on an Internet chat for rediff.com this week (note to my Bournemouth University bosses: I did a good ‘plug’ and you owe me one). My audience was Indian students looking to study abroad and their deeply concerned parents, all eager to hear about my English experience. Most of their queries were on how to survive here, and I found myself thinking deeply about the varioustechniques I employed – which was when, rather like Archimedes, I jumped up, struck my forehead, and shouted “Eureka!”

But that alone would not have got me to blog. The deciding factor was the worrisome intelligence that 10 “young, energetic minds of Indian journalism”, sponosored by the British Council under the Chevening scholarship programme, were headed for my university. Knowing fully well the peril they would walk once they arrived, not to mention the risks the unwitting English would run by having them around, here are a few tips, lest one harm the other…

IN India it is silly to say ‘please’. In England it is silly not to.

No Englishman – or woman – will entertain your request without it; in fact, should you be fool enough to forget the magic word, an Englishman is required by law to put you to painful public death before sundown, or, at the very least, pull himself to maximum height, stare down his nose, and say, with the coldness of an Arctic winter, “I beg your pardon, sir!”

It is common to have five pleases in a four-word sentence. It is expected of you. So, please, start your sentence with a please; end it with another, please.

If hedging was an Olympic sport, the English would win it every single time.

By ‘hedging’, I don’t mean the act of making hedges (the English are very good at that too), but what is crudely known as ‘beating around the bush’. The English are simply marvellous at it. They consider it the height of rudeness to come straight to the point, especially if they have a request of you, and need to prep themselves lavishly with ‘hmms’, ‘hahs’, and the weather. As a considerate fellow being, you must entertain this. You must grant them their time. They will make their point – usually within the year.

By the same token, resist the urge to make direct requests. If you want to borrow a pen from someone, it won’t do to yell across, “Mind if I use that for a minute?” Start with apologies. Say you are dreadfully sorry for making a nuisance of yourself. Apologise for polluting the air in the same room as the pen-owner. If the mood moves you, inform him you are deeply ashamed of being born, but had no choice in the matter. After five minutes or so in such vain, you may mention the pen in a meandering fashion:

“I was just wondering… um, in normal circumstances I wouldn’t evendream of asking you this, but, um, I find myself in a terrible situation today… of course, it is my own fault, and, um, it is really quite silly of me to bother you, I know, but in case you are not using that pen, er, if you can possibly spare it I mean, would you mind terribly if I borrowed it for a minute – only if you don’t need it.”

You must look suitably apologetic and embarrassed when you make this request. Also, do note the very last part of that sentence: you must, mustleave an honourable exit for the other.

Don’t tell an Englishman to shut up. He will drop dead with shock.

In India ‘Aw, shut up!’, ‘Buzz off’ ‘Drop dead’, ‘Get a life’, etc are considered essentials in any healthy conversation. In England, not.

Trouble with the English is, even in their rudeness they are polite. In India if you want to tell someone their work sucks, you would say (and here I quote my ex-editor-in-chief), “That’s utter crap, you prick. Rewrite it nowor I will have your balls for dinner!”

The correct way to put that sentiment across in England, however, is: “Excellent! This is very good work! Very good work indeed! But perhaps you could consider smoothening out the edges a bit? Oh, no, you don’t have to rewrite the whole piece! Just do the lead, and the bit in the middle, and the end, if you can possibly spare the time.”

Never jump a queue – and ensure you don’t start one accidentally.

The English are passionate about queuing. They derive immense pleasure from the exercise and are never more content than when they are in a long queue. Nowhere on earth will you see such perfect pieces of art, such warm links of well-spaced personal cubicles with a Daily Mail-reading Englishman or woman in the middle of each (never ‘bunch up’ and crowd the person in front; that’s sacrilege), wonderfully unhurried (never show your impatience; queuing is meant to pleasurable), and gracefully tailing into the wide grey yonder. Seriously, a lot of effort goes into it.

And the English will queue at the drop of the hat. An Englishman will be hurrying home, desperate for his cup of tea and buttered scone, when, lo, he sees you admiring a particularly attractive mannequin. This is where you have to be careful. If perchance you have placed yourself behind some other idiot like yourself, the Englishman will rub his hands gleefully. “Aha,” he will say to himself, “there’s a nice little queue there! Let me read the Mail and be happy and content again!”

By the time you turn around and realise your mistake, there will be a solid line all the way to Scotland.

Most Indians complain about how ‘cold’ the English are. This isn’t really true. The English aren’t cold, they are just not warm.

It isn’t in the English blood to be overtly friendly. In India five minutes after you meet a stranger it is quite common to invite him home for dinner. In England it will take a few years.

For one, an Englishman considers his house not just his castle, but, as social anthropologist Kate Fox puts it, “the embodiment of his privacy rules … his identity, his main status indicator and his prime obsession”. Naturally he’s careful about who he lets in.

Second, because the English cherish their privacy so much, it doesn’t occur to them you actually look forward to company. In fact, quite often, when you feel they are being ‘standoffish’, they are trying to respect your private space.

When this happens, you must not feel offended and call them ‘thanda ferangs’. You must forgive them – remember, they are only English – and show them the correct path by asking them home.

If an Englishman asks you, “Are you all right?”, do not worry. It’s not because you look sick, or your fly is open (though a discreet check is always advisable). Nor should you take it as an invitation to unburden all your troubles on him. It’s just his way of asking “How are you?”

Epilogue.

Should any of you feel compelled to accuse me of intellectual theft from the Hungarian humourist George Mikes, let me say it is not because I am not capable of originality. He just happened to get here first.