It’s maintenance day today. That doesn’t mean there is no post today. You can’t even doubt that because you’re reading it. I was working on introducing the ’subscription by email’ thingy which took me some time. (I’ve removed it temporarily because IE did not like it, will fix it tomorrow). Now what you can do is to add your email in the invisible text box on the sidebar. No amount of crying ‘I’m only human’ would help, you need confirm that you’re indeed a human by verifying your email address. That’s it, everyday, the posts will arrive in your inbox. Personally, I’m not a big fan of email subscriptions. The one thing they completely curb is the beauty of interactions and discussions.

Now what’s going to happen is people sign up with their email address so that they don’t have to type www.vjkrishna.com and check for the posts. This would mean that the comments and interaction in the blog would reduce. I’m not pleased with that. Blogs should be market of views and opinions, not just of the blog author, also that of every reader. But then, why am I spending time in setting this up? Because, it would help you. It sure helps the readership of the blog articles. It is a trade off between 10 readers of which 4 could comment regularly and 100 readers of which 10 could comment regularly.

My advice to you is to subscribe by email if that’s the best you can do. Whether you read the blog from your mailbox or from the web, do leave your comment. That’s certainly easier than writing a blog, isn’t it? When I read something, I might feel ‘hey, that’s good’ or ‘wow, that’s cool’ or ‘oh! this sucks’ or ‘the guy’s clueless’ or whatever. All that I need to do is to just type these feelings in the comment box. As simple as that. If you can substantiate your feelings, that sets up nicely for another round of discussion.

I want to tell about few other things that might not have caught your eye. Look at the top menu bar. You know all about HOME. Then you got ABOUT. That’s where I boast about myself and make you feel inferior. That’s my bit. And then, you see a link for ARCHIVES. On clicking that you’ll see the list of all posts ever posted on this blog. It is also nicely arranged by every month. It shows you the post title and the number of comments in each post. In the menu bar, next to archives, you see COMMENTS. Going into that, you’ll see the excerpts of the last 20 comments posted in this blog. You can click and go to the comment to read it fully.

After comments, you have CONTACT. That’s where you see the contact form. That’s the one you need to use when you want to give me an award or something like that. Type in the details there, your message gets delivered to my email box directly. After that, you see the GRAVATARS. I feel sorry for the ones that don’t use gravatars. It’s simple, free and it’s fun. I don’t think you need more reasons to use gravatars. Yes, you may not know how to set it up but that’s why you have this link in the menu.

To all new bloggers, now that’s your lesson on how to write an article when you have nothing to write

Pardon my ignorance. Yesterday was the first time I heard about ‘Flash Fiction’. This is also known as sudden fiction, micro fiction, post card fiction etc. Normally flash fiction are short stories told under a 1000 words. There are variations. Some expect flash fictions to be under 750 words. There is also a version that says flash fiction should be less than 100 words.

Ernst Hemingway wrote this famous shortest story: “For sale: baby shoes. never worn.” This is about a poor parent who is yet to recover from the disaster of their miscarriage. Imagine the emotional impact created by just 6 words. Reminds me of how much we waste words. Flash fiction is about using less descriptions and adjectives and fillers but still coming up with the same impact.

Here is my attempt at a micro-fiction.

I’m on my bike, waiting for the traffic signal. I should take a right. If I take a left I’ll save 20 minutes but I saw the ‘no entry’ sign on the road. Should I take the long right or the short left? The signal’s goes green. The biker ahead of me takes the left defying the ‘no entry’ signal. That’s my motivation. I take the left folliwing him. From nowhere comes the traffic police and stops me. He tells me “you’re not supposed to enter this road, didn’t you see the sign?”. I say, “sorry sir, the guy before me just took this road”. He says “but he didn’t get caught”.

I guess all zen stories would classify as micro fictions. Little fish in the ocean asking its mom: ‘where is this thing called ocean?’. Zen stories always say it with fewer words but carry a lot of depth. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s possible to create that impact with more words. More words might only kill it.

Four monks decided to meditate silently without speaking for two weeks. By nightfall on the first day, the candle began to flicker and then went out. The first monk said, “Oh, no! The candle is out.” The second monk said, “Aren’t we not suppose to talk?” The third monk said, “Why must you two break the silence?” The fourth monk laughed and said, “Ha! I’m the only one who didn’t speak.”

I never had the patience for reading fictions. I can’t say the same about Flash fictions. It would take me hardly two minutes to read a short flash fiction. I think it is an interesting challenge to try telling a story in less than 100 words. Make an attempt. Will be interesting.

“Anyone can cook” says master chef Gusteau in the movie Ratatouille. What he means is anyone can become a cook. A good cook can come from anywhere. All that you need is passion to cook. Writing is no different. In fact, writing is not so difficult and demanding as cooking. I’ve never tried cooking. As a law-abiding person, I don’t think I’d ever do. But I write. With the growth of internet, everyone is a writer. See, I’m a writer. If you own a blog and start writing about random stuff you are a writer too.

I hear people saying “I don’t have time”. I’d say you don’t need time. All it takes for a decent post is 20 mins. That’s because, you don’t think as you write. Think of a writable topic and keep thinking about what you can write and start organising your thoughts mentally. All this you can do when you’re driving or walking. How long you want to mentally construct the post is up to you. After you’re done with you thought process, when you sit down to write/type, it’s not going to take you more than 20 minutes.

And then, one can say “I’m technologically challenged”. See, I know nothing about my car. I can drive it. I simply don’t understand how it works and I don’t think I need to know that. I never understood how electricity works but that never stopped me consuming power that makes people wonder if it’s a factory over here. Just simply use it. Setting up a blog takes a few minutes. And then it’s just you and your blog. You write and publish. And you keep doing it. There is no need for any special knowledge.

“I don’t think I’m a good writer”. I’m confident that I’m a good writer (you might have a different opinion). I wasn’t able to say this a year back. I own another blog too where I have written about 700 posts. Like other things, writing improves with practice. It’s not like I write something and about 100 million people read and say ‘you’re such a loser’. The fact is, when you start writing you’ll have a very small audience and readership grows with time. It’s ok, if we write poorly. Everybody can talk but does everyone talk well? It’s an art, isn’t it? It can improve with time.

Write about what? All that you need as a writer is some ideas/concepts/topics to write about. To be honest, in a blog like this, I can write about anything. Let me take my eyes off my laptop. What do I see? I see my television. I can write about television, its impact, the programmes I love etc. I turn my head I look at my sofa. I can write about furniture. How we never had any furniture at home once and accumulated all this now. I turn to my right, I see my balcony. If a balcony cannot inspire you to write, what will? It’s not at all difficult to write especially if you don’t restrict yourself to a shell.

What if I write? Writing is fun. It truly is. You need to experience it to feel it. You’re the creator. It makes you more confident, it can make you think better, it can get you good friends, it can get you money or even a career, if you so wish.

This is one of the best pieces I’ve ever come across on the net:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Whoever thought of this, hats off to him!

Back in my high school days, we were made to believe that if we didn’t learn typewriting and/or shorthand, we wouldn’t have a career. To be honest, even when I was in the last year of my school I had little idea of where my career would be. Anyway, we guys used to flock the institutes to learn shorthand and typewriting. Most guys from boys’ school went to these institutes also because that’s where it is co-ed. The fact that you could write love letters in shorthand excited one and all. Typewriting and shorthand were considered as special skills. Some could type 60 words per minute and some wouldn’t even be able to push the keys hard enough to see the ink on paper. You can guess where I would have fallen.

I was a complete failure at typewriting. I did join the typewriting classes but it did not even last a week. I decided to drop out because of two reasons. One, I thought it was a bit too clerical for my liking. I came to a conclusion that my typewriting ability or the lack of it would never have an impact on my career. Two, as you’ve found out by now, I couldn’t type. As simple as that. The typewriter was such a hard mechanical device that lacked style and sophistication. I thought it was an everlasting symbol of industrial revolution. I was way too gentle for that. I just couldn’t do it. That’s not to say I’m not dexterous. I’m a console addict, can beat you to death in an xbox game. Typewriter was not my thing.

Meanwhile, I was always crazy about shorthand. There was something special about shorthand. That was like learning a new language. A language only a handful would know. In a way, it was also a code language. It’s fun to write stuff that not all mortals can understand. For some reason that I don’t remember, I never joined the shorthand classes. But I had this shorthand book that was picked up in a platform shop. I tried to learn it myself. It needed a lot of patience than I had expected. I could not graduate beyond cat, mat and rat.

About 15 years later, both typewriting and shorthand seem like a dying skill. There are not many institutes and not many willing to learn. Sometime in the last few years, I’ve learnt to type. I’m not the fastest typer (I hate the word ‘typist’) but I not a rabbit either. Typing with the computer keyboard gives me a lot of pleasure than with the typewriter. In terms of convenience, the computer keyboard is only a million times better. Flat keyboards with soft touch key pads. Also thank God for backspace, copy, paste and all that stuff. The most important thing is again the sophistication I was talking about. The other plus I see is that, with the keyboard, I can see and read what I type. The pleasure of admiring your own creation. With typewriter, the paper is arrested inside the metal frames and I feel like I’m punishing the paper with hammering hits. It’s like canning the paper and if you’re poor at writing, it’s even worse, pity the paper. I know there are people who still love the typewriter. As an invention, it is just brilliant and its design is absolutely original. In terms of usage, I think it’s slowly moving to the museums.

I still have the fascination towards shorthand. It will always be in the list of things that I always wanted to do but never did. One of the less obscene things in the list. I think shorthand has already gone out of fashion and business. Dictaphones have completely eliminated the need for learning this not-so-easy skill which requires constant practice to stay upto speed. With dictaphones, you just have to switch it on and you don’t have to go to institutes to learn how to switch it on. I don’t know if anyone still learns or practices shorthand. It’s a pity that shorthand is disappearing. There is something romantic about it.

I’m not sure if all those experts in typewriting and shorthand still stand to benefit from their skill. I know most of those institutes turned into computer education centres. At least the typewriting/shorthand institutes charged less. I’m not sad that these are going out of existence. I’m just amazed at the pace of technological development that has rendered these ‘once-career-defining’ skills to something useless in a matter of 10 to 15 years. I’m just 30 and certain things that I’ve seen and experienced back then now would look like a scene from those black and white movies. Can I say mobiles that we use now may go out of existence (or develop into something else) in another 15 years?

I need to review Slumdog Millionaire, now. As an Indian blogger who has seen the movie, I don’t want to be the only one not to have reviewed this movie. We’ve heard all the arguments for and against the movie. Before I get to that, let me make one thing clear. It’s one hell of a movie. Superb screenplay, lovely cinematography and top class music. I just loved it. I enjoyed this movie so much that I’ve watched it three times. As a movie, it is truly an enjoyable movie. It’s a feel-good movie some elements of masala in it. Unless you have very strong sentiments against the movie, it is quite difficult not to like this movie. The movie is doing good worldwide because the ‘very strong sentiments’ are all from some of Indian viewers. In the eyes of the global audience, it is a very entertaining, wholesome movie experience.

To say that this is a Westerner’s portrayal of India is the worst you can do to this film. That also shows complete lack of understanding for movie as an art form. This movie would not have been as interesting if the hero Jamal (cut the protagonist crap, it’s hero in the Indian movies) had not had the slum beginnings. And I must appreciate Danny Boyle’s portrayal of slums. He did not show the slums so we can pity them. The focus was always on the characters and never on the slum by itself. With the slums as the background, lasting feelings or images could easily have been sorrow, pain, despair etc. Whereas the overwhelming feeling of the film was fun, adventure and joy. This is not because Jamal wins the prize and the girl. The sense of adventure and joy was spread throughout the time scale of the life of Jamal and his brother Salim. The guys are shown to have fun, be very enterprising and take on the life. If this was the Westerner’s portrayal of India – that no matter where they are, they’re mighty spirited people who never give up – thank you Danny!

Like it always happens with movies, the value of positive and negative publicity is almost the same. All the controversies have certainly made the movie a bit more popular. I still don’t understand why Indian slums should not be shown in a movie. It’s more shameful to have them than to show them. Over the last 60 years, the slums in Mumbai have grown to be the largest in Asia, one of the few Asian records that China did not pip India. Remember, slums have only grown. That’s a harsh reality. The India of outsourced processes, internet reach and mobile market is still not the real truth. The last couple of decades of urban prosperity has not done much to our literacy rate and the poverty line. That’s the truth. Why get so defensive about it, especially when the movie is not at all about the negatives. Isn’t it strange that politicians have not come out against the depiction of Indian slums in this movie? They won’t because they had/have a responsibility to eradicate slums and they’re not doing much about it. If we had shown the energy that we show against such movie directors and pub-going women towards the politicians, we would have less reasons to complain. Tired of seeing people barking up the wrong tree.

When Lagaan made it to the Oscars, I don’t remember anyone making so much noise. In my eyes, Lagaan was more shameful because it showed the Indian bunch as some illiterate bodies in an obscure village, who acted stupid, silly and emotional. None of the villagers were keen about putting up a fight except one man who leads them to an unbelievable charge against the well-mannered, smart, disciplined English. Some of the villager characters existed in the movie just for comedic elements. All they did were stupid, funny things that you’d not expect normal human beings to do. The movie completely undermined the Indians so that the hero can be a hero while you’re having fun watching the movie. Lagaan was made for the Indian audience and when it made to the Oscars, it was so unfortunate that the whole world got to see how ‘we’ projected ‘our’ illiterate silly Indians against the learned British. SM has not done more damage to the image of India than Lagaan did. Isn’t it hypocrisy of the highest order that Slumdog is being pilloried while Lagaan was not? If the same SM was directed by some RGV or Mani Ratnam, we’d have gone bonkers. The pseudo-nationalists always need some reason to knock down anything that’s not Indian.

SM is not the perfect movie. It has its faults. It has its perceived plot holes and all that. Actually I don’t mind that. The movie ‘Life is beautiful’ was not the perfect movie, in terms of factual accuracy and hole-free plot. But no movie has ever moved me than ‘Life is beautiful’ did. In just about 15 or 20 minutes into the movie SM, you’d realise that looking for perfection would only spoil your movie experience. If you look at this movie very critically, I pity you because you missed the fun. Superb casting, great acting by the younger actors, Rahman’s music, most lively camera work, smart direction, mementoesque screenplay with a bollywood-like ending. It’s got it all.

My favourite part of the movie is this. Jamal is on the final question for 2 crore rupees. He doesn’t know the answer and he has the last life line that is phone-a-friend. He calls his brother’s number and he is pleasantly surprised that Latika (Jamal’s love) picks up the call. That’s the first time he gets to speak to her after many months of forced separation. Upon the show host’s insistence, he asks the final question to Latika. She thinks hard but she doesn’t appear to know the answer. Show host says ‘just 15 seconds more’ for the call. Jamal, instead of asking if she knows the answer, asks her “where are you” and she replies “I’m safe”. For me, that sums up the movie. You should watch to appreciate this fully.

In another couple of weeks we’d have known if SM gets the Oscars. I don’t think that Oscars are the paramount, supreme awards that are given out in the film industry. Some of my favourite films which have been the best of that year, never went on to win the Oscar thereby substantiating my belief. Oscars are an American award given to American films and some foreign language films, all from the American standards of film making plus their understanding of world culture. But what Oscars can give you unbelievable publicity, reach and acceptance. For that reason, it helps to win the Oscars. I don’t quite think that the movie would win the award, despite the Warner Bros connection. I really really hope that Rahman wins it. He deserves this award. To get nominated twice in a category that has three nominations means he’s the odds-on favourite to win it.

As many have noted, SM was not Rahman’s best ever. And that’s not to undermine his music in SM, but just to show the high standards he has maintained all through his career, right from his debut. At least 20 to 30 times in his career, I have thought that ‘this is it, this is his best’. Yesterday, I was listening to his ‘Newyork nagaram’ song which still blows me away. The man’s a genius and he deserves global recognition and acclaim.  His ‘O Saya . .’ in Slumdog Millionaire is a very unique score. My bet is that it would win the Oscars.

All these international awards do have some subtle business angle to them. All those Indian girls won the Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss Asia-Oceania and all that not just because they were stunningly beautiful but also that western cosmetic industry had to tap the Indian market. And boy, didn’t they do well! An Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire would start a long season of foreign investment in Indian movie industry. With a humble budget of $15m (most of the hollywood actors get more than that per film) Slumdog Millionaire has amassed $130m. In the current economic conditions which other investment would give as much?

Slumdog Millionaire is the new entrant in my list of my favourite films (I plan to review each of them here, over a period of time). You can say all you want, the one thing SM accomplishes is to remind us the magic of cinema. Roman Polanski said “Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater“. I know some porns will achieve that, but as far as I know that’s the most crisp definition of a good cinema. Slumdog Millionaire does just that.

I’m not challenging you, I’m just pondering here. How easy is it to commit the perfect murder? Every time I see the news about someone getting convicted for a murder, I wonder why they thought they wouldn’t get caught. I’m talking about those well-planned murders here. It is generally said that it is impossible to commit a perfect murder – the one where the killer leaves no evidences or witnesses. That’s why I wonder why they commit all these murders. How can they be so confident that they have committed the perfect murder and they cannot be caught?

Or may be, the perfect murder is possible, after all? Even the much-hailed LAPD has a murder case that is unresolved for 70 years! I don’t know what percentage of murders actually get solved. May be we can call all those unsolved murders as perfect ones. But then, just because the case is not closed may not mean that the case is unresolved. A case moy not be closed for various reasons, of which unable to solve the murder could be one. A murder is still a very unsophisticated crime. It is in most cases, a man to man thing. Whereas, forensic science has gone leaps and bounds over the last few decades. Man still kills man for the same reasons, using the same weapons, in the same locations, but the ways and means to solve the murder through forensic methods are ’state-of-the science’.

‘Dial M for Murder’ is one of my most favourite films. It is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best ever. The movie is all about a man’s attempt to commit a perfect murder. He hires a stranger so a motive cannot be established. The job is to kill his wife. The scene where the husband talks to convince the paid-killer that his plan would work, is one of the best scenes I’ve seen in movies. As you’d expect, it fails because the protagonist is after all, a human. Despite weaving a well-explained fool-proof master plan, few things don’t go as planned which results in the assassin getting killed by accident. In further investigation, which is also excellently explained, the intelligent police officer solves the crime. The screenplay sets a benchmark for mystery/thriller movies. As with any Hitchcock movie, you gotta observe very well or watch it a few times to fully appreciate Hitchcock’s genius.

Why can’t be there a perfect murder? Quite difficult. There are always some clues which are there to see. One, there would be a motive. For every murder, you might zero in on to the ones who could have a motive. Two, it’s nearly impossible for the murderer to leave no evidences or witnesses behind. Forensic experts are way too sophisticated to keep scratching their heads. With an half-an-inch hair, they can probably tell you what you had for dinner last night. Three, it’s hard to fool all the people all the time. Humans are humans. No matter what, even the coldest of hearts will beat faster when lie, when they sense that they are being closed in.

The only way to commit a perfect murder would be like this. Someone from say, Delhi goes to say Kanpur. And this guy picks up some random person at home, murders him and returns to Delhi like nothing happened and continues to live his life. There is no motive here. Unless he has left any glaring clues, it’s hard to trace this guy back to Delhi because there is no reason, there is no motive. If you wonder why someone has to do this, believe me, there are all types of people in this world. Some psychopaths kill people for no reason. Those can be caught only in action. It’s hard to investigate their crime because even the evidences are of little help as there would no motive that can trace back to them. In another Hitchcock classic ‘Strangers on a Train’, two strangers meet in a train and develop a conversation. One man offers to kill the other man’s wife, while the other guy offers to kill this man’s brother. By trading murders, they can commit ‘motiveless’ murders, while they can have a perfect alibi.

Remember, there is only so much the law enforcement can handle. At any given point of time they may not be able to efficiently work on more than a certain number of cases. The resources, human and technical, will be limited to a certain extent. There’s going to be prioritisation there too. If it’s between the murder of a 20-year old BPO employee or a 80-year old street dweller, you know which catches the eye of the media and hence the demands the time of the police.

So, I’d conclude that perfect murders are always possible. It’s just that they don’t get caught. If they get caught, that wasn’t a perfect one. Easy to conclude, isn’t it?