Goddo supiido yuu! Burakku emparaa !!!

Nanga Fakir (and I am sure fellow Japanophile Bejin Hakumei is with him in this) awaits Japan's coming back to life - the land of gojiras, samurais, anime, manga, seppuku, gomi, harakiri, the insane J-pop culture, kamikaze, Takeshi Kitano, Takeshi Miike, robots, ninjas, cosplay, otakus, hikkikomoris, an army of kawaii gyaru chans, gore films, Boris, Mono and everything that is awesome about our shitty, shitty world right now.

Zetsuboushita! Serious, hardcore zetsuboushita!

...

Nippon Banzai !

बकैती !

Those who've known Nanga Fakir are well aware of his almost obsessive, bordering-on-the-creepy, hero worship of SatyaVrat.

Now the august company of The Hindu joins him. (Link: Join the rationalists online or over chai.)

The link above is The Hindu's profile of that mysterious master belletrist, gonzo-street-fighting-philosopher-on-the-loose, who's vowed to hound the dark forces of ignorance and irrationality, corner them, capture them and then bijli dance them to death.

...

Too bad he doesn't blog more often - despite promises to himself of maintaining a one-post-a-fortnight schedule.

Perhaps this is his way of telling us that he is also human. What a relief! And yet, what a disappointment.

Vignettes

मिस्राजी अपनी धुन के पक्के थे. उनके समूचे व्यक्तित्व से हमेशा एक वीभत्स-सा आत्मविश्वास टपकता रहता था - ठीक उसी प्रकार का, जैसा एक उज्जड, अनपढ़, अल्हड़, बेतकल्लुफ कूपमंडूकता से उत्पन्न हो सकता है.

और फिर मिस्राजी वो काम करते हुए पाए गए जिसकी पूरे गाँव में किसी को उम्मीद न थी...

Debug this bitches!

/* The अटरिया.c program */

#include(stdio.h)

void main()
{

do

{
गुटर गुटर ... [टूँग तादुंदुंग!];
गुटर गुटर ... [टूँग तादुंदुंग!];
गुटर गुटर ... [टूँग तादुंदुंग!];
गुटर गुटर ... ;
} while ('sanity lasts') ;

printf("Bappi Lahiri is the latest avatar of Vishnu\n");

}

From Sweden Pradesh, With Love

The great Jabberwock reviews it here.

The humble Nanga Fakir reposts.

Do yourself a favor and click on the image for a larger size.

Then read carefully.



...

Sounds so fucking awesome!

All About Bombay

(Warning: Very long post.)

Sacred Games is a big, fat, bloated, monster of a book. Subject matters include stuff about Bombay, more stuff about Bombay; and then some more stuff about Bombay.

Indian writing in English has mostly been about grand family sagas (cf. Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy), political allegories (Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children), political allegories with a healthy dose of family saga (Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things), deeply felt, sensitive-human-angle pieces (Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance), stuff about Bombay (Rohinton Mistry's ouevre); and of course the ones about ordinary Indian people going about their everyday business written in a language they don't speak (the ordinary Indians that is; the extraordinary ones long ago switched to the master race's preferred mode of communication) (R K Narayan's and Mulk Raj Anand's ouevre). (The savagely funny and biting English, August is the oddball in this sense. All hail Upamanyu Chatterjee!)

It is in this sense that Vikram Chandra's book is so thoroughly, so refreshingly brilliant.

Lest the irreverent tone of the last paragraph suggest that Nanga Fakir has a low opinion of the aforementioned books and its authors, be assured that he totally hearts most of these works and these books form the backbone of the heavy reading NF did in his initial phases of addiction. But he now thinks them more like the mildly addictive semi-gateway drugs that marked the beginning of his lifelong addiction to reading - hence the smug, self satisfied, dismissive tone.



Sacred Games is more crime fiction with literary ambitions. It's about gangwars in Bombay, the business of being criminals (bhaigiri), the police in their roles more as anti-criminals - criminals fighting on the good side - as disorganized as their counterparts, as skilled as their counterparts, as poor as their counterparts, as ordinary as their counterparts; as extraordinary as their counterparts. It's also the only (yes!) book NF has ever read that has people from RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) among its characters. The near absence of any mention of this shadowy Indian organization in contemporary discourse of any kind leads NF to suspect that they must be awfully good at their jobs. (But time and again, experts aver that it's the most lame and incompetent of intelligence agencies in the world and NF has on more than one occasion, detected a secret jealousy in such experts' pieces when they (unfavorably) compare RAW to the (mighty) Pakistani ISI.)¹

It also features 'insets' - a look into the past of the more minor characters - and uses these as an excuse to write about the partition, the Naxalite movement and espionage - both national and international. In particular, towards the end of the book (the final 150 pages or so) these insets tie all the not-so-tight ends together and give a supremely satisfying, complete reading experience. The great thing about the book is that the sheer, awesome power of storytelling wins the jaded reader over - no literary gimmicks needed at all!



And yes, how can one forget the use of language in the book! For long now, Indian writing in English has resorted to chutneyfication - peppering their otherwise impeccably crafted sentences with Hindi (mostly) words, thereby giving the impression of telling stories about foreign, exotic locales (nod to Salman Rushdie who championed this trend taking cues from (perhaps) R K Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand). Vikram Chandra does so with a vengeance! And one is tempted to conclude that this is done with a very specific agenda in mind - the very same 'take that' agenda that led Anurag Kashyap to make Dev D as a riposte to the soppy, melodramatic Devdas of Sanjay Leela; and Govind Nihalani to make Ardha Satya - a dark, brutal reply to the gritty, but ultimately very commercial Amitabh Bachchan launcher Zanjeer.

Criminals are referred to as apradhis, Bollywood songs are quoted at length without any attempt to explain their meaning/context in which they are relevant, people burn agarbattis (incense sticks), meet up in akhadas (Indian gymns), feel jealous over the presence of arabpatis (billionaires) in their midsts, stay away from badmash people (bad people). Ass, cunt, dick, sex etc. are unapologetically referred to by their Hindi appellations. And although generally NF is somewhat of a purist when it comes to language, he was totally won over by the savage agenda, raunchy jokes and the brilliant effect such language managed to produce. In fact, such was the frequency and pivotal-ness of this conscious use of Indian languages in the book that Nanga Fakir wonders if the others will not feel totally turned off/miss critical points while wading through the sea of prose. (A glossary of all Hindi/Marathi/other words used in the book is on the writer's website and runs over twenty pages!)

And to those snobbish lit-crit theory gurus who believe that great novels cannot emerge from the dirty hovels of crime fiction - take that and shove it up your gaand (ass)!

Vikram Chandra has made a lifelong fan out of Nanga Fakir. And you'd be one too if you give him a try.

BACK TO POST

1.

The following is a somewhat obscure joke NF came across many years ago and cannot resist throwing in at the first mention of ISI. As far as he remembers, it was first stated by a Pakistani journalist in one of the English dailies in Pakistan.

In the joke, the journalist goes on to aver that real intelligence agencies are almost invisible to all people - even to the public of their own countries. He then cites RAW and Mossad as the prime examples of such efficient organizations. Building on this theme, he suggests that the popular and very well known intelligence organizations, thus, are either very incompetent or merely decoys. Then comes the punchline - since ISI is so well known, it can't be a real intelligence agency at all. It must be a front put up by the Pakistani government. The real intelligence agency must be well hidden from all political discourse - even from the general public. Hence, he concludes with impeccable logic and a sudden, sharp force of clarity, that the real Pakistani intelligence agency must the Pakistani Agriculture Ministry!

The Take That Series Continues

On the rock scene in the Northeast; Shillong and on Bob Dylan jayanti - essential reading. (Link.)

All hail the Northeast - that last bastion of genuine yo-ness in our increasingly phony world of hipsters.

Take that you wannabe Bangies! Take that!

For Bejin Hakumei

Books read in the past year (Jan '10 - Jan '11):

1) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
2) Kyaap - Manohar Shyam Joshi
3) Neuromancer - William Gibson (reread)
4) The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris
5) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M Pirsig (reread)
6) The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant
7) The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
8) Logicomix - Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou
9) Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace
10) Love Creeps - Amanda Fillipachi
11) Girl With Curious Hair - David Foster Wallace
12) The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
13) The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
14) Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace (reread)
15) Anathem - Neal Stephenson
16) Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
17) Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang
18) The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolaño
19) Freedom - Jonathan Franzen
20) White Noise - Don DeLillo
21) Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
22) The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reread)
23) Maximum City - Suketu Mehta

Currently on the playlist:

1) Sacred Games - Vikram Chandra
2) The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Advertisement

A wonderful review of Kuru Kuru Swaaha - probably the greatest literary work NF has ever read. Consider it an exhortation to read this unfairly, impossibly, obscenely brilliant book.

Take that redux

Lucknow has become obscenely beautiful. So much so that it hurts the eyes. So much so that it's a blot on the consistently impeccable third world, poorest-nation-in-the-world credentials of India.

Just plain unfair!

Take that you Dilliwallahs! Take that!

Bildungsroman

Udaan is a fantastic film. A coming of age adventure not just for the protagonist but also for Ronit Roy - from his weak, floundering beginnings in obscure flicks like Jaan Tere Naam (remember its undeniably catchy title song - "ये अक्खा इंडिया जानता है हम तुम पे मरता है/दिल क्या चीज़ है जानम अपनी जान तेरे नाम करता है." (translated as:"This, the whole India knows that I('ll) die for you/What is the heart O love! I pledge my life to you.")?), to his stardom in the saas-bahu sagas of Balaji Telefilms to Udaan in which he reinvents himself as the impossibly strict, tyrannical, borderline psychotic father and gives a brilliant, bravura performance.

Bravo!

The Croak of Rana Tigrina

Om Dar-ba-dar is the arbitest film NF's ever seen. Period. He very, very humbly posits that he didn't understand any-fucking-thing in the movie. Total overhead transmission.

Take that you David Lynches, you Luis Bunuels, you Andrzej Żuławskis. Yes take that! The mother of all supremely arbit films was made in India.

The film is shoddily made, the voice dubbing is horrible, the production standards are of dubious quality, that NFDC produced it, is cause for concern for the taxpayers, the plot is totally nonsensical, the scenes are crazily funny at times and the dialogues seem to be out of a random word generating machine.

No Smoking is just a very slick urban cousin and is just a couple of decades too late. Anurag Kashyap, take that, you too!

Kamal Swaroop's balls are bigger than Pamela Anderson's boobs.

Rather than spill more digital ink, NF'll direct you to read this fantastic review. Do read it and do see the film for a very rustic, very Indian kind of mindfuck.

Pandora's Box

#1: Pandora's music classification system is totally brilliant.
#2: ...
#1: So I create this Kumar Gandharva station right?
#2: <*nods*>
#1: And it totally gets what I like in Hindustani classical. It's so cool that an AI knows what you'll want based on what you want. It categorized my preference for Kumar Gandharva on the basis of his insane skills in improvisation, his transcending of musical gharanas, his favoring of vilambit laya over drut laya and went on to play Mallikarjun Mansur, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahab and Ustad Amir Khan.

<*#1 gets a little overpowered by emotion*>

#0: Man, that is so punk rock!

On Pedantry and Antfucking

B: You see that Japanese girl over there?
NF: Uh huh...
B: She's very hot.
NF: ...
B: You don't seem to agree.
NF: I don't think she's hot. But I think she's very cool though.
B: Oh but you have to be cool to be hot.
NF: Yes. Necessary but not sufficient.

दुबे कौन कुमति तोहे लागी?

(टाइटल काशीनाथ सिंह की कहानी "पाणे कौन कुमति तोहे लागी?" से चुराया गया है.)

...

दुबेजी लम्पट नगर के उभरते हुए पंडों में से एक माने जाते हैं. उम्र भले ही बीस/पचीस की हो, लेकिन अपनी पैनी सोच, विद्वता, हाज़िरजवाबी और सबसे गौरतलब - अपनी आधुनिकता के कारण वे लम्पट नगर के धार्मिक, ज़रा-प्रौढ़, मध्यवर्गीय तबके के विशिष्ट सत्यनारायण-भगवान-कथा-संचालक माने जाते हैं.

पण्डे भले हों, लेकिन पुराणपंथी और दकियानूसी वे कतई नहीं हैं. बड़ी ही खुली सोच है दुबेजी की. उनकी कथाओं-के-बीच-छुपी-हुई आध्यात्मिक/लोकज्ञान-वर्धक सूक्तियां (जो विशेषतः अपने तीसरे दशक की चौखट पर खड़ी महिलाओं में आश्चर्यजनक रूप से लोकप्रिय हैं) अक्सर अंग्रेजी फिल्मों, पाश्चात्य संगीत और उत्तर-आधुनिक साहित्य से प्रेरित होती हैं. अपने बिचारे यजमान भले ही इनके स्रोत से अपरिचित हों, यह अज्ञान उनके रसास्वादन के रास्ते नहीं आता है. अपने इन्हीं सब गुणों के कारण लम्पट नगर में दुबेजी की बड़ी पूछ है. आप ही बताइए, दुनिया में कितने पण्डे आपको मिलेंगे जो धोती-कुरता-गमछा धारण करते हों और ब्लैक सैबथ के हेवी मेटल पर हेडबैंगिंग करते हों? (उनके साथी पण्डे इनकी इस आदत को "मुंड-कम्पन" का नाम देते हैं.)

ओह! और आपको यह बताना तो हम भूल ही गए कि दुबेजी अपने घोंघा बसंत के स्कूली सहपाठी, पड़ोसी, घनिष्ठ मित्र थे (घोंघा भइया भी अपने बचपन में लम्पट नगर के निवासी थे).

खैर, इन सब बातों को जाने दीजिये. फिलहाल हम दुबेजी को लम्पट नगर के पहले लैंडमार्क-पुस्तक-भवन में प्रवेश करते देख रहे हैं. अपने धोती-कुरते-गमछे-हलकी-दाढ़ी में बड़े ही सुदर्शन लगते हैं हमारे दुबेजी! और वह काली छतरी, काले बूट और मैचिंग ज़ुराबें तो क्या खूब ही फबती हैं उनपर!

पहला आधा घंटा दुबेजी साहित्य सेक्शन में ग़र्क करते हैं. कामू और सार्त्र के गहन अध्ययन से उत्पन्न बोझिलता से मुक्त होने के लिए वे कुछ हल्का पढ़ते हैं और हास्य-व्यंग्य की विधा में सिद्धहस्त लेखकों की शरण में कुछ समय व्यतीत करते हैं. टॉम रोबिन्स, क्रिस्टोफर मूर, गैरी श्टेन्गार्ट आजकल उनके प्रिय व्यंग्यकार चल रहे हैं. वे अपने आप से वादा करते हैं कि श्टेन्गार्ट की "सुपर सैड ट्रू लव स्टोरी" ज़रूर खरीदेंगे, और आगे बढ़ जाते हैं.

खैर, अगला पड़ाव म्यूजिक सेक्शन.

एक लड़की बोस हेड फ़ोन लगाये म्यूजिक सेक्शन में कुछ सुनती हुई दिखाई देती है. लम्बे, काले बाल, घुटनों पर हलकी सी फटी जींस; एक लम्बी, ढीली, गहरे गले वाली टी शर्ट (उसके साइज़ से ज़रा बड़ी सी - "शायद उसके बड़े भाई की होगी" - दुबेजी आशापूर्वक सोचते हैं) जिसपर आयरन मेडेन के मैस्कट "एड्डी" की वीभत्स तस्वीर चिपकी हुई है. लड़की के हाथ हेड फ़ोन पर हैं और उसका सिर हल्का-हल्का झूमता सा दिख रहा है.

यह देखना काफी आसान है कि लड़की ज़रा भी बन-ठन के नहीं आई है. और यह देखना उससे भी ज़्यादा आसान है कि उसे बन-ठन के आने कि कोई ज़रुरत नहीं है. उसके पूरे व्यक्तित्व से एक अलसाई मादकता टपक रही है; एक लापरवाह, लापता सी नैसर्गिक खूबसूरती, जो ज़रा चढ़ी-चढ़ी, उबासी भरी आँखों से आपको देखती है और बेबस सा कर देती है. सैद्धांतिक/दार्शनिक तौर पर दुबेजी इस प्रकार की सुन्दरता से भली-भांति परिचित हैं. यह खूबसूरती एक अजब प्रकार के वैभव से उत्पन्न होती है जिसकी व्याख्या करना ज़रा मुश्किल होगा. इस ख़ास प्रकार की खूबसूरती में धन के माध्यम से खरीदी हुई एक अलग-ही प्रकार की अत्याधुनिक/उत्तराधुनिक शिक्षा से उपजी साहित्य-संगीत-कला-रसास्वादन की क्षमता, बोरियत से भरी हुई बड़ी बड़ी गोल आँखें और आम खूबसूरती के पैमानों के लिए एक अनूठी हेय दृष्टि आरक्षित होती है. खैर, इसकी व्याख्या दरअसल समय खराब करने सरीखा है इसलिए इसे फिलहाल ज़रा रहने ही दीजिये.

गहन आकर्षण से खिंचे हुए दुबेजी अचानक से अपने आप को इस लड़की के समक्ष पाते हैं.

लड़की की बोझिल, अलसाई हुई आँखें धीरे धीरे खुलती हैं और अपने हलके हलके झूमते हुए सिर के ठीक सामने एक सत्रहवीं सदी के नमूने को पाती हैं. एक तीखी टेढ़ी-सी मुस्कान उसके चेहरे पर फैल जाती है. दुबेजी अपने जीवन में पहली बार अपनी धोती में हलचल महसूस करते हैं और एक दबी हुई झल्लाहट से जेब के अभाव को कोसते हैं.

और एक टांग ज़रा पीछे किये, एक हाथ कमर पर डाले, अपने खुद की एक टेढ़ी मुस्कान से उस लड़की का प्रतिकार करते हुए दुबेजी कहते हैं:

"सप बेब ! हाओज़ इट गोइंग?"

A la Ra...

Isn't New Sincerity merely second order cynicism - cynical people feeling cynical about cynicism?

The Solution of a Zen Kōan

Q. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

A. One tight slapping.

...

Can't believe the following was not discovered earlier!

The Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic.

In order to incentivize you further:

(Click to see bigger image)

The Truth Behind Amputation:



Disturbing Image:



WISE - Women in Science and Engineering:



The Grand Design:



Superman's Dilemma:



And of course, The folly of Man:

Not so trivia-l?

Scene: The Café. The Instrumental Variables in a pre-match huddle.

...

NF: These quizmasters are from the Psychology department.
Shishir: Yeah?
Nick: You bet your sorry ass they'll have us answer questions like "Who in 1956 wrote the seminal paper 'Mindfuck'"?
Shishir: He he he...
NF: Just to piss them off, to every question they ask, we should answer 'Freud'.
Shishir: Make that 'Freud' or 'Your mom'.
Nick: He he he...
NF: He he...
Shishir: <*reclines back*> Both of which are very Freudian.
NF: Or Fraud-ian?

...

Lexical jokes just don't crossover well into verbal domains.

Let the Healing Begin

While reading Stories of your life and Others Nanga Fakir was reminded of Greg Egan and in particular, of the story collection Luminous. This is tall praise indeed for the remarkable Ted Chiang who's admitted to being inspired by Egan. (For the uninitiated, Greg Egan is probably among the most brilliant talents in the contemporary science fiction world. In particular, the short story Reasons to be Cheerful by Egan is one of the best short stories NF has ever read - all genres, all time periods, all langugages included.)

Ted Chiang is not what you'd call a prolific writer. In over twenty years of writing career, he's written only a handful of short stories, but nearly all of them have met with overwhelming critical acclaim and have been showered with literary prizes left, right and center. Indeed, a small body of output need not detract from the artistic merit of the creator in any way. Examples of Indian Ocean, Rohinton Mistry, Andrei Tarkovsky, William H Gass, Terence Mallick come almost immediately to mind.

Science Fiction can be of many varieties. Look for example at William Gibson. His stories are terse, prose somewhat minimalistic and themes mostly sociological - how science/technology permeates societies, how the street finds its own uses for things, about the evolution of the common sphere where technology and human society intersect and the evolution of artificial intelligence and how the aforementioned process parallels human evolution. Another example is Neal Stephenson who writes sprawling, interminable novels (both Cryptonomicon and Anathem are close to a thousand pages with the former being his magnum opus and the latter a not-so-satisfying experience) which deal with his preoccupation with overly grandiose themes - philosophy, mathematics, technology and economics with complex storylines that integrate these disparate thematic influences into one unified whole. Philip K Dick focused on metaphysical themes and his not very lit and sometimes outright pulpy literary output was characterized by simple but thought provoking plotlines, twist endings, druggy atmospherics and obsession with pop culture, advertising and paranoia. Asimov and his cohorts were technological utopians - J G Ballard - the exact opposite.

Ted Chiang's fiction however, is not grandiose, or with a hidden agenda of its own. It is in fact deceptive in its utter, utter simplicity and straightforwardness. His best stories are nothing but thought experiments - not very clever or convoluted or look-at-me-how-smart-I-am type. And his stories have a component that is very, very rare in science fiction - indeed in most genre fiction (which is why even mediocre, run-of-the-mill literary fiction writers turn up their noses at genre fiction) - that of a lively, throbbing, understated but readily identifiable human connection in its simple, unobtrusive, unassuming, even self-effacing, turning-attention-away-from-itself prose.

The best stories in his collection are Hell is the absence of God, Liking what you see: A documentary and the eponymous Story of your Life. There are some very deep issues explored in these stories from a remarkably fresh, wonderfully new perspective. NF is tempted to include blurbish introduction to these stories but realizes the spoiler potential of this exercise and so decides to refrain from the same. Nevertheless, he recommends all and sundry to indulge in this edification program and follow the writer; and to those who're not shy from trying their own hand at writing science fiction, there's probably no other writer whose stories will make you think harder and from whom you'll learn more fruitfully than Chiang.

In Which Ghongha Gives it Those Ones

Scene: A not-so-swanky, not-so-jam-packed restaurant. Ordinary people sit, eat, talk and go about their ordinary, day-to-day, somewhat shallow lives.

#1: It's been a while, knowing you, being with you.

<*#0 eyes #1 with a faint amusement*>

#1: Perhaps I am not putting this well. Perhaps words are not meant to capture this well. Perhaps even the tiniest range of emotions can't be expressed in hopelessly limited constructs such as language.

#0: <*A little baffled*> What are you talking about?

#1: The fact that I love you? that (subliminally perhaps) I've been in love with you the moment I set my eyes upon you, that you complete me, that knowing you is knowing what Plato referred to as what it was to find your other half as it exists out there in the world, the finding of which and eventual communion with which is what gives meaning and purpose to a life otherwise so full of misery, suffering, shallowness and pain.

<*#0's (rather lovely one might add) cheeks are suffused with a deep blush. Intensely self conscious, she tries to fight the giant grin that's stretching her lips from ear to ear.*>

#1: Will you marry me?

<*#0 contracts into herself. A barely audible "yes" escapes her luscious lips. Gently, she holds #1's hand and gives him a look full of affection - a moment/instant/freeze-frame for which all humans in the world would gladly sacrifice a limb or two. #1 will later recount this scene and recall the thin, watery film stretched across #0's eyes, about to attain critical mass and fall off, float across those cheeks as a million dollar dewdrop tear.*>

#1 stands up and addresses the small restaurant crowd.

#1: Guys, I am extremely happy to let you know that the greatest woman on earth has just consented to marry me!

<*Cries, claps and cheers all around*>

#17: Whoa!
#19: Way to go man!
#13 (to #11): Ah it's so touching! Reminds me of our time.

Date: Oh this is so romantic!
Ghongha Basant: He he he...
Date: What are you smirking at?
Ghongha: Another divorce in the making?