MJ...every song was so good...

I wouldn't have had this epiphany if I hadn't seen Dr. Chaudhry's awesome violation of MJ's Beat It. I settled down in my seat, gleefully waiting to hear the good doctor's latest musical blasphemy, when the jangling opening chords of Beat It coaxed some deep, deep memories.

Then it started. The beat. The freewheeling guitar riff, then the jagged progression, and suddenly, I wasn't hearing Dr. Chaudhry's abominable voice, but MJ begging his negro brethren to just beat it, beat it, beat it.

When we were kids, my brother and I heard only Michael Jackson. We didn't like any other foreign music. It took too much getting used to. We listened to all the Tamil songs, in those days they would release the casette before the movie, and we would buy MJ too. I remember throwing a tantrum in Bangalor and getting two MJ casettes for behaving like a spoilt brat.

Not a single song was bad in those casettes. You hear them even now, the Bad, Dangerous and Thriller albums. Every song is eminently worth hearing and most are unforgettable. Who can forget the way the first side of the Dangerous casette would start with Jam, that awesome song? And Jam wasn't even the title song.

Every song was good. Every song was fresh. As kids we didn't know that other albums had mediocre songs, remixes to buffer the weak second side, that more often than not the title song was a chartbuster, and thats it. As kids, we thought we got our value for money only when every song was good, which was the case only with MJ.

Can you imagine, for a moment, how great an achievement that is? Two TamBrahm kids, waking up listening to suprabhatham or the kandasashti kavacham. A vague folk-music tradition in school. Some weekly violin classes for me. The phenomenon of AR Rahman and the legend that was Ilaiyaraja. This was our musical background. MJ had no way to get in based on our previous liking, MJ had no way to draw on any ancient folk memories ingrained in us. Let me clarify. Listen to say, any song like naka muka. It relies on the fact that since childhood most Tamilians in Madras have heard the blank verse, atonal naka muka chants. Vijay Anthony merely needs to add a few chords and it becomes a vigourous song. MJ couldn't do that.

Or if you are AR Rahman. Set in a melody clear and lucid like glass, shifting carnatic rhythms. If you are Ilaiyaraja, depend heavily on rich melodies from carnatic music. If you are a carnatic singer, do not expect to lure children unless the parents have educated the taste.

I am sure something similar applies to every Indian, a mixture of folk, cinema and high culture music. MJ had nothing like that by which to appeal to us. Yet, we found each, each song good. How? I don't know.

I shut Chaudhry's latest act of innocent vandalism and opened MJ's Stranger in Moscow. It had been one of my favourite MJ songs, meditative, very moving, with its melody gliding over each syllable like a stream through pebbles. I thought I would find it cliched now. Nothing of that sort. The lyrics struck me this time (who among us can claim to understand foreign lyrics when they were kids?)

Kremlin's shadow is belittling me....
Stalin's tomb won't let me be.

I was surprised to see a small bunch of lyrics by Bob Dylan included in a poetry anthology I was reading. I was pretty shocked. I didn't find his lyrics too moving, I felt forced to appreciate something lauded by many scholars, plenty of normal US folk, and several others. But hey, I didn't buy Dylan's casettes as a kid. I wouldn't have liked him as a kid.

I think a lot of us will remember the same things about MJ's music, and sadly, the same things about his later life.

I listen mostly to jazz or western classical, or indian classical now. I can still listen to MJ, but somehow its not the same thing. Because unlike the other things I discovered, MJ didn't change me, his music just helped me have a great time. The other things changed me, and made me what I am, which unfortunately left out music like MJ's. But maybe that should change, because if MJ could do that kind of music, maybe its not so dumb after all. Was Earth Song dumb? Was Black or White lame? Was Jam uninspired? They were all so vigourous and so unbelievably, effortlessly good! I had to do no thinking. No listening twice, thrice until I had it figured out. No trying to appreciate a song because a friend was into it (this happens a lot with Jazz...where each song is dangerously easy to ignore, and dangerously easy to get addicted to).

His music will live forever because children will listen to it easily. Adults will not. Adults won't because they will contextualise it, see in it traces of Western Classical Masters, or just go on to the next fad (I don't even know who the current rock star is). But I bet you, give a kid a casette of Dangerous, and he'll be hooked.

RIP MJ. Your music is truly immortal.

Monsoon

Sir, listen sir, sir listen sir. Yes sir. Commercial filim only. Singapore machan tries to correct figure in Mumbai monsoon, and monsoon train corrects him instead. No fighting in the train sir. Don’t happen sir, Bombay people too good for that. Opening scene saar-

Juhu beach. Fine and sunny afternoon. Figure, sir. Hero talking sir, hand putting sir. No, figure is not minding sir. Figure show him both east and west Bombay, two horns of the shore. Sea underbelly and figure belly … no sir, no exposing, just match cut sir. Alai payudhe (Waves Prance!) song will be good sir, but classical feel will be too much. Item number later sir. Figure become female now sir, so she is calling friend-ok? Hero sees sea belly, all wrinkles and foamy sir and spits. Oh figure talking sir, so she doesn’t see. Hero says: ‘I think I’ll get back. Don’t worry, I’ll manage. But from Juhu to Thane… god. Ya I know you do it all the time, I am laughing it off eh? I’ll wait till Suraj takes you, I mean takes over. Quit grinning’ So then figure and he go to bhel puri stall. Saar, not café coffee day saar, more open air shots and …ok sir, later café coffee day. Promise. No, I am not feeling control. Controlled, controlled, sorry.

Then rain. Rain rain rain sir. Item number now sir, in mind of hero. Then abrupt bhel puri shot and other couples, behind other couples suraj sir. For figure’s face now extra lighting, and big smile she gives. Oh to Suraj sir, way figures do all the times. Figure looks like wet ripe tomato fruit because of rain and Suraj. Hero puts mokkai for some time and exit.

Rain shot sir. Kurosawa roshomon inspiration sir, thank you sir, thank you. Auto and all not coming, hero crumbling in rain. Hero tries going back to beach from road…steps sliding into sand sir, and votha! Ommalla wind and rain like shrew’s bite, full sideways. Hero gives a gilli smile now. No other figure sir! Hero finds auto, along with two others. Share auto and when Andheri station they reach, hero has no change, Bombay boys let him go without his fare share. Hero again goes gilli.

Train pretty empty and hero pretty full of train and life in genral, super music. Gets off at Dadar. In Dadar platform people as many as beach sand. Hero in platform four and ask for platform one, when another Bombay boy shows him. Train come. People POUNCE! Alai Payudhe music samma comedy now sir. Remix of course. People go inside, hang outside, roof, car gaps, everywhere. Hero not so gilli now and curses figure. Bombay boy tells him to take to Parel and catch it where people are less. Hero thanks Bombay boy, but the din mutes him.

In Parel they get off and public is less. But near the train there is as many. Train arrives. Public ready. Train stops. JOOT! Hero with thousand other heroes. Oye hero! Chal hat, gaadi bharela hai, andhar nahi aanekha abhi! (oye hero! Move it, train’s full, don’t come inside now!) Hero doesn’t come inside. Don’t stay outside either, hanging on to train with five other people. Feels his time has come and puts smile, but shivering, shivering with fear and monsoon. Then five other people come in next station and jam him inside.

Ten stops to thane, forty five minutes. Getting entrance on other side of train for the platform, same time. Hero makes pilgrimage, with another tapori with no life. Guy makes fun of everything. Drunk on monsoon and taadi. Never pay fare for ten years! Laughs. Don’t touch me in all the wrong places, brothers, not that kind of guy! All laugh. Hero hanging on and his sleeve slides down, and his fleshy white arm tapori sees. Tapori looks all lusty and everybody starts grinning at hero. Hero joins in the fun and brushes tapori’s cheek. I ain’t also that kind of guy. I know I know, but couldn’t handle the white flesh brother. Everybody stick closer than couples in midnight masala. Everybody laughing, adjusting, enjoying tapori’s jokes. Don’t squeeze me lads, squeeze the wife back home. If she comes back tonight that is. Hero knows no figure to squeeze and looks sad. Tapori ask him why. My maal is not at home man, with Suraj. Love failure everybody hear about and talk it over and decide Suraj is as lousy and fat as kallu mama (black uncle). Hero gets off at Thane station with jeans lower than black uncle’s. Rap music comedy now sir.

Hero feels for his wallet.

But sir that is masala, doesn’t happen always.

Hijras

If horses, carts, and palanquins borne by slaves stumbled into startling sights, a motorbike is just as good, though considerably recalcitrant when broken down. Especially when stuck within the damn sight and its awesome fear. Now why did I have to learn driving then? Why didn’t I remember that Neutral is essential if the bike shouldn’t be neutral to your frenzied kicks? And why is development in Bombay so squalid and berserk?

West of a magnificent suburban colony in Thane, Mumbai, and in the funereal side of midnight, linger hijras (eunuchs) for husbands back from night duty. Walk past the Mulund Check Point (the entrance to Mumbai from Thane and further north) and you get to their …chawl….but…chawl is too lavish for a four by four square defined by a few rags, like those card houses one built while young. The rags double as clothes. I looked at the vague distance with my bike heading for the sludgy moonless sky, still going on and on, and me holding on and trying to hold it back, and finally I managed.

They stood or slouched, freelancing lust.

Never stop a bike when you expect to see hijras start up like so many disturbed fiends at the sight of you. Their painted faces and strong, healthy arms repulsed me. A few seconds later I made out their cheeks and elbows. Not a single grin, no slumping maleness. The bike slowly, cumbrously tilted earthward. Crash. Panicking, I hove from the bars, the shin could wait, but the hijras were too fast for me. They were plunging toward me even before I fell, and of course they were going to castrate me. It was all very dull and predictable.

Rude voices asking me if anything was wrong, grating hands dusting me, I took care to look dazed, so that there would be some pity. Then it struck me that they had no scalpels. I exhaled, and felt the adrenaline pump. Thinking about it made it slow down. For one small second, a great, fundamental revulsion sucked my muscles dry and brittle and stiff with the grace that a male has. That got me sane again. I don’t quite know what I did then, but the circle of hijras looked mildly hostile, with no real menace. I smiled, and that generally works. Thaynks, Thaynks, I said, shaking my head like a Tanjore Doll. I drank in the pungent sight.

Finally some brow muscles bunched back and I had a face again. I grinned, begging forgiveness for the insult that I had just spat at them with just my face. I declared lifelong services, like all good Indians do. One of them held my wrist, and a good deal of that service was done, far as I was concerned, in the second I didn’t jerk my arm back.

Haan? (yeah?) I asked, letting my arm go slack.

Hamko help karega? ( help us: tapori, Bombay slang.) No letting go off the wrist yet.

Avanayen kekara? (why ask him? Tamil). The distraction got me my arm back.

Ho, ho, tyachya thond bagithla ka? (got a look at his face? Marathi)

Nahi, theek lagtha hai. (looks fine, back to Hindi again)

Understanding each other across different languages makes for a strong, healthy hijra community, engaging in prostitution, scare tactics; and even dancing in ages now rotten away.

A polyglot always gets an immediate laugh with his trick, and I rustled the languages around a bit. ‘kya chahiye? Enna kelunga, mala bhai nahi vatthe, haan mein theek hoon.’ (What is needed? Ask me? I am not afraid).

They led me inside the foursquare, into a recess veiled by a piece from the rag/wall, with a computer that had conked, a battered Dell. It was given by some hijra up Bhandup side, and was to be returned soon. It was like some philosopher’s stone for hijras, containing a database of all homosexuals in the city. They needed that information pretty badly for blackmail reasons. I offered to get it repaired. Least I could do. They nodded. Just in case, I asked them why they weren’t getting it done by some professional. They (sigh) knew about hackers and didn’t want the info misused. Why couldn’t I be a hacker? They were taking a chance, used to it. This was getting all dull and predictable.

I repaired it, and got to know some of them personally. They were quite interesting, but that’s another story.

Pandey

Not that I am much of an explorer, but a Rickshaw wallah who is caught between the devilish Neta and the deep sea of English is surely worth pointing out. And so it was that I met Ram Naik Pandey.

12 o clock off Vartak Nagar, and there was nothing worth riding except the whores. And they got you off, not anywhere. And my belly was full of booze juice. A walk. Long, poetic, only a big trench coat and a tiny cigarette was..... shit. No cigarette. cigarettes! and it was 12:00! This alley, that alley, corner over there, corner over here, but nope. No little kiosk with fellers perched on knife edge planes. I had no friend in the world, and the piles of rotten bananas, rice, paper, dog-shit, cow-dung, rubble - puffed its underbelly at me. See something long enough, and you start classifying it, hence the several names of Garbage, and the several names of God, in India. But where was I? No pondering cigarette. Thank god there were some at home.

Then Pandey. One last try at a rickshaw. After that I walk it. The sodium vapour lamps were on anyways. And who was gonna rape me? But Pandey had other ideas. Hands on the bars, neck on the rickshaw flap, head the size of a fist. The moustache twitched. 'Soddhachal' I managed. The eye squinted. 'Arey Siddhachal' 'Kya, seedha chaloon?' 'Arey nahi yaar....Sidhddhdhdhachal. got it?' Yeah. Point being seedha chal means go straight... ah fuck it whats the point, the jokes gone.
So I bunch up in the rickshaw, leaning out once in a while to get the Yeoor hill's brush stroke on the blue night. Woah bhai kaise ho? Haaan theek hoon yaar.

It was December, right, so I dissolved in lovely cold wind. Twelve midnight was biting my lips. I grinned widely, snuggling into the Rickshaw's side and scissoring my legs on the seat. It is called sukh aasan or something. Relax aasan? Damn its slipped.
Upvan lake filled itself out in my eyes as we raced past the best stretch in Thane district for hitting hundred on the bike. My friend skid there and was never the same again. Remembering it whacked my brain back and I felt ever so slightly sick. Now or never, be firm in these matters Karthik. Puke....vomit......retch. Pandey looked back and I snarled at him to keep on the road.
When we finally got back to the garden entrance of my apartment, a gul-mohar glared at me in the vapour lamplight. Pandey started saddling me on his shoulders, but I was good by now. ‘Thank you, saab.’

He went on for a solid five minutes about his duties, I tried to catch it all before I realized it was Hindi and of no use for me. I gathered it was all he could do, to do ‘sampark’ with people in need for a ride, however late.

I don’t quite know how the conversation got to his children, but I think I reminded him of his elder son or something. Then he told me about his younger son. This was getting to be weird. He wanted advice from a good high society fellow. High society – thane? Lol. I gave it a shot, though how he asked advice of a drunk….

Basically, his son was in an Hindi medium school and had admission in an English medium convent. Problem was donations. Another scratch was his brothers in law (they had made one wide move from U.P, Pandey and co). The brothers went into distinguished positions in dirty politics, while Pandey preferred an autorickshaw. Now, to get his son into the school, he wanted money. The brothers had it. But, the brothers wanted the kid to join them once he had whiskers. But, Pandey wanted his son in English precisely so that he would never, ever have to go near his out-laws. So, what should he do? I took an admiring look at this paradox.

I wasn’t even close to a solution, but I spoke on the merits of English medium, in Hindi, dusting, excavating every word. Loans? Can’t realistically pay it off. Um….scholarship? He would check. I gave him ten rupees extra to get the kid started.. He told me to take his number down – I mean, rickshaw number, and call him if I ever needed some muscle.

He offered other things, but I just kept remembering Vasant off the tea shop nearby who offered drugs he never did himself.

An apology and a correction.

I shouldn't have given into the impulse of writing about Cricket (cricket is a sport, Cricket is India's philosophy) I have made an error regarding Gilchrist. Seems he is one among that endangered species called 'walkers'. Sorry, Gilli. Shouldn't have called you a bitch.
That apart, this test match has yielded another bit of priceless. Ricky it seems wants his team to be loved. We all need a little bit of love, all of us just need looooove! Spare some to Ricky? I vote we send him a big, pink Card, with a big, pink Heart, and a 'Looking forward to decent conduct from you' kinda caption.
Or else Ricky can go to Acerbics Anonymous. The club is for people who would belong in AA, sadly, they don't have the excuse of Alcoholism, they are just sober and slovenly, not drunk and disorderly. The basic precept is almost the same.
God grant me the serenity
to not bitch about the things I cannot change,
courage to keep my mouth shut and change the things I can,
and enough sense to know the difference.

'Bun-kor', 'Maa-ki' and Ricky

We can all agree that everybody, every one of us, hates Australia. We also agree that its become worse ever since that slut (potta in Tamil, as my dad keeps calling himi) Ricky Ponting became the captain. Ricky is Australia. He is fast as a rat, his chubby cheeks make him look like a white monkey, we feel curiously unfulfilled if he doesn't do something infuriatingly racist every match.
The Sydney match is cricket through and through. Its worth making a film on, considering the material is already there. When Bhajji was accused and indicted for racist sledging and banned of all things, Tendulkar messages Pawar about Bhajji. Now that becomes a big deal, to the extent that Prem Panicker, Anil Dharker, and several others cite it frantically as proof of Bhajji's innocence. Tendulkar (sigh, doesn't this always happen!) denies it. Sheesh.
We loafers have this little nook with benches and adhrak chai next to our colony. Its a cool, little store, with stray dogs and chickens getting into scraps around there. I was going there with Shreyas and naturally Marathi Manoos bhai was talking about the situation. This was a few days before, mind you, when we were all just bitching about the ridiculous d-umpiring. Bun-kor it seems was a bastard, according to the moustachioed bhai, Bun-kor being Bucknor.
Only one article in TOI got it right. To lose after a fight is fine. To give those pigs the Aussies their record, can be, well, put up with. To get this feeling that umpiring is a farce is understandable. To let two effortless, almost liquid centuries go utterly waste is ok, records are still there for Sachin and VVS. Getting the plug rudely pulled out of Ganguly's valiantly stylish and aggressive 50 of 51 by a lousy decision and even lousier decision making process is, (Control, Uday, Control!) fine! I mean, who asks Ricky? Not even his wife. Benson must be having a thing for Ricky's butt.
BUT, TO BE LABELLED RACIST AFTER ALL THIS SHIT HIT THE FUCKING SKY, LET ALONE THE CEILING, IS UH-UHN, FUCKAS!
It was one of the few, few test matches I actually delighted in watching. Every time I was waiting for Indian batsmen to clamp down, look clumsy. All right, Dravid cannot look clumsy, but he did clamp down, but every body, even Ishant Sharma, played their shots. In the first innings, they broke all the rules. In the second, they still looked damn tough. Ganguly's 50 was impudence, elegance, perseverance.
But to get back to Bhajji and Monkey, and Symonds. I heard from my bro that Symonds and Hayden, both thick friends, both meaty, have this innocent, lovely pasttime to spend the long Australian summer days. Its almost so cute ya!. They go out with kitchen knifes and slaughter boars. Way I see it, Bhajji must have called him Kasai. Whatever he called him, anybody who gets past a choked, squeaky silence with Symonds-kasai deserves a Gallantry Award. But, that apart, brave or not, Bhajji doesn't seem to have called him anything. And when in doubt, if its Australia, do not linger in doubt. Australia started it. Symonds started it. Ricky is always at it. Gilchrist is another bitch. Hayden is scary. McGrath could play a Nazi. Brett Lee is (whew!) fine.
TOI is en-soing this bit of yellow like no paper can. One rumour is delightful. Seems Bhajji said 'Teri Maa-ki....' which a Symonds, naturally innocent of any Hindi, construed as Monkey.
In the end, its worthwhile remembering Kumble's anguished, Greek face at the end of the match. Its always weird (for me at least) when a game makes a grown man choke in international broadcast, but thats precisely what poor Anil was doing. Gavaskar tells him with great sympathy, that he is a great ambassador. Slater (another porcupine, now that I remember) tells him the same thing, but carefully edges out of the Australia debate. Just why do these Australians turn into Brits when on TV and poor white trash on the field?

The Vetalam.

The Vetalam is also called the Baital in the north, but as I am south Indian, and eat thayir saadam and (don't) chant the Sandhyavandhanam, I quite prefer Vetalam. I was tucked in the roots of a rain tree when I knew he/she/it was there. I went cold. All things are full of Vetalam now. Drawing my breath in to warm my stale white face, I begged mercy. But would it be merciful of him to stay, or go? It was night.
'Wipe the vomit off. Wake up or throw up, you'll have to answer me.' I thanked him for invading just my ear, he would have been the last thing I saw if he had shown himself. 'Yes, what are the rules?'
'A story I'll tell, you'll end it. A story I'll tell, and you'll define it. A story I'll tell, and you'll escape me or die.' If you fail at any question, your brain will become sludge.
Picking my ugly, brain ridden face up to the coiled boughs, I answered them.
'Two prisoners, locked for the two crimes, one lesser, one greater, face the executioner. They haven't signed their artwork, a murder, preceded by a kidnapping, but the police have caught them. They need a confession without proof. They go about it with the prisoner's dilemma.'
'Tell one to testify against the other, tell the other to testify against the one.'
'Yes. But they keep their honour, but do not gain their freedom. How'. I closed my eyes, and wished everyone well, and heard the frogs and cicadas. When I opened them, the moon was blanketed in a rainbow, the tropical corona. It's fresh coldness froze the sludge for a moment. I knew.
'They both accept the lesser crime, exonerating the other. They cancel each other out, but keep their honour, and lose their freedom. The opposite of the Dilemma.'
'Good.' The world was mine!
'Next' and it was lost.
'A temple on a hill, to which devotees flocked with humility and greed, is invaded by a ghost. It kills everyone, except for babies and animals. Even the priest's incantations and the devotees' entreaties make it only stronger. What was the ghost's power?'
'I........cannot know...its a ghost! A reason for a scream?'
'A trick for an imp' I cradled myself in the raintree's boughs, sprayed with water and leaves. As good a spot to die as any other. I felt my nerves tingle with death.But the legend of the Vetalam struck me. Vikramaditya could not speak, for then the Vetalam would flee.........
'The ghost gets its flesh and life from men's voices, and what better place than a temple for that!'
'I will grant it. I wanted men's lies.' 'Oh....the story's fresh now, that makes it memorable.'
My third, because I wish to eat your mind.
'A boy was suddenly assaulted by the Vetalam who asked him two riddles, that he managed to answer. The third task was to ask a riddle the Vetalam could not answer. What did the boy ask?'
Well, I thought, the boy would just ask the Vetalam for mercy? But he already had. Then what? A riddle that a riddle itself could not answer. What could it be? I knew it, and rubbed my hair against the trunk, in exhaustion.
'Vetalam, I am lying now. True or False?'
With that, the Vetalam left me. He has rid me of all hope, and all words, like blood back into a wound. I wish him back, though he is half Muse and half Skull.