1. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
2. In the memo field of all your checks, write “for sexual favors.”
3. Specify that your drive-through order is “TO-GO.”
4. If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
5. Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
6. Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions “to keep them tuned up.”
7. Reply to everything someone says with “that’s what you think.”
8. Practice making fax and modem noises.
9. Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and “cc” them to your boss.
10. Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
11. Finish all your sentences with the words “in accordance with prophesy.”
12. Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears and grimacing.
13. Disassemble your pen and “accidentally” flip the ink cartridge across the room.
14. Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
15. Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you “like it that way.”
16. Staple pages in the middle of the page.
17. Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
18. Honk and wave to strangers.
19. Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints at the cash register.
20. TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
21. type only in lowercase.
22. dont use any punctuation either
23. Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
24. Repeat the following conversation a dozen times.
    “DO YOU HEAR THAT?”
    “What?”
    “Never mind, it’s gone now.”
25. As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
26. Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce “No, wait, I messed it up,” and repeat.
27. Ask people what gender they are.
28. While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
29. Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
30. Sing along at the opera.
31. Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn’t rhyme.
32. Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about “psychological profiles.”

Older than the Ganges by millions of years, flowing through the heart of India. Joins north and south India along its banks.

Rewa — the site of independent India’s greatest environmental struggle. It today flows through the mighty concrete of the Tehri and Subansiri, through waterless Plachimada and tigerless Ranthambore and through the divine forests of Niyamgiri.

Rewa. A new beginning.

http://www.youtube.com/v/89D-4-ztyIM?fs=1&hl=en_US

actually, everyday i think of things to put up but they have been sinking in the bog between work and laziness; between long, tight daily schedules and short twenty four hours; between excitement at finding something new and the repetitiveness of urban existence. when one is so bogged, what can one do about the blog?

but sometimes,  just sometimes, something happens which breaks this dull monotony; which is beyond fresh new ideas, the funny quirky experience, of happy productivity.

so the trick is to not let the regular routine, the daily grind get you.

Be positive. yes, that’s the blood group.

The last week of April was party time in Germany. Beer halls in Munich were packed with people drinking tall glasses of dark brew served by women dressed in dirndls, while men in leather shorts pumped out oompah music from battered brass instruments. The government of Bavaria declared a Beer Week to let tourists and residents sample from some of the state’s 40 breweries and 4,000 brands. The Germans were toasting the anniversary of an edict issued 493 years ago at the small town of Ingolstadt, some 30 km north of Munich.

On April 23, 1516 Bavarian co-rulers Wilhelm IV and Ludwig summoned a meeting of the Bavarian estate assembly. It was a noisy affair. The beer loving dukes had their eyes set on the perfect brew. By the end of the day they had stamped their seal on what is regarded as the world’s oldest food purity law: Reinheitstgebot or the Beer Purity Law.

The decree stipulated that only barley, hops, and water could be used to make the brew. Yeast had not yet been discovered. The intent of the feudal decree was to keep cheap—and often unhealthy ingredients—such as rushes, roots and a variety of fungi out of the German people’s favourite drink. Some of these herbs were downright poisonous, others induced hallucinations.

Monasteries and households were as culpable as feudal manors. But this was not always so. Beer became a staple monastic drink in the 9^th century when trade with Western Europe came to a halt. Deprived of wine supplies from France, the monks took to beer. They experimented with new techniques and ingredients and in the process, discovered the virtues of hops: the flower, a distant relative of cannabis, gave the liquor its bitter taste and also helped preserve it.

The Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen’s 12^th century treatise Physica sacra, contains the first written description of the healthful effects of hops in beer. Hildegard drank beer regularly and lived to be 81 years old, an incredible age for that time. Monastic rules framed by immigrant Irish priest, St Columban, regulated the consumption of the drink: drunkenness was forbidden and the monk who spilled beer had to stand still for an entire night.

But the food, drink and shelter the monks shared with dusty travellers soon became a commodity. Observance of ascetic rules began to take a back seat to the chores of providing for the itinerant customers. After a day of hard work in the monasteries’ fields, kitchens and breweries, many a monk found more solace in the merry company of his guests than in the austere regimen prescribed by an Irishman.

The monks began looking for newer elements of intoxication. And travelers took the knowledge home. The brew very often went wrong. The failure was usually blamed on women who brewed beer in households. Thousands of beer witches were burnt at the stake between the 14^th and 16^th centuries.

How could the feudal estates stay away from such frenzy? Control of breweries was one of the ways for a feudal lord to assert his authority. Many were keen to innovate as well. But none was as obsessed with the perfect brew as Wilhelm IV: his Tobbaco Council spent hours discussing beer everyday.

The Bavarian duke’s 1516 purity decree was not accepted instantly. The Protestant reformer Martin Luther who lived around the same time preferred the earthy brew of Northern Germany to the regulated Bavarian variety.

But the Reinheitsgebot did spread northwards to other German states and in 1919, the Free State of Bavaria it became the official law in all of the realm of the German Kaiser, with the addition of yeast as a basic ingredient and malted wheat as an allowable component in top-fermented beers.

But non-German brewers regarded the Reinheitsgebot as an impediment to free trade. In 1987, the European Court struck down the 1516 edict. Even now, however, a German beer brand is sure to carry either of the messages: Gebraut nach dem deutschen Reinheitsgebot or Gebraut nach dem Bayerischen Reinheitsgebot von 1516 (brewed according to the German Purity Law or the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516).

Commemorating the 16^th century edict began the year it was struck down.

Cheers!

If I am a communist today, much of that is due to his influence. He combined a deep socialist ethic, a militant resolve and a brilliance of tactics. He showed my young impressionable mind the possibility of being a deeply moral person without losing oneself to self-righteousness. Full of fun and humour, he rescued activism from middle class angst for me.

From him I heard about the peasants raiding food granary in Rampur (Bushahr) in the mid 1960. I heard how he first joined the police and then rebelled and ran away. How he courted and convinced Kiran chachi to be Devki Nandan’s consort. How he managed to survive murderous attacks on him organised by hotel owners, factory owners, etc. He lit my childhood with the brilliance of class struggle. It did not remain a dreary concept in the pages of unwieldy Progress Publications books, it was real and now.

Unfortunately, like many good communists, his relation with the organisation remained somewhat volatile. He was eventually removed from the party but remained a committed communist till his death. Yes, he passed away due to liver failure in March 2009. I was in Hyderabad when I heard the news and cried many silent tears. But also poured myself a stiff glass of scotch and toasted his life.

Recently I went to Shimla again my memories were revived. Kiran chachi showed me a note my father had written to be read out at his memorial service. My eyes welled over again as I read it. I reproduce it below.

== == == ==

The death of DN is indeed a very deep sorrow for me. He was my revolutionary friend, very close, warm and very concerned. A big personal loss. More. Our families have been very close to each other and they have been a great help in all our moments of need. It is really a collective loss for our family. We will never be able to forget. He will forever remain in our memories, a cherished remembrance.

Before he became a revolutionary, DN  was a rebel. Anyone who knows of the choice of his marriage to Kiran and how they got together will know that he always revolted against customs and conventions which are a dead weight in our lives. He has been a friendly, democratic father so unusual in our societies where the father is a stern, distant figure. He was also a very affectionate, indulgent grandfather. A nice human being indeed.

What I will never forget has been his revolutionary militant nature. Always with the exploited, toiling and oppressed people. His remarkable trade union activities  and the struggles he waged will always be a lesson for us. Of the many, I still vividly remember two militant strikes which he led and of which I too was a part.

The first was a strike of class IV employees in Himachal Pradesh University, which soon turned into a joint militant mass action of employees, teachers and students. It convulsed the political scene in the state. Also importantly, a large number of state committee members today in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) are a product of that struggle. That was its very important long term gain.

The other was the protracted strike struggle of the Hotel workers in the 1980s. It was the first, truly militant, working class movement in the new phase of left politics in Himachal Pradesh. Its true significance is that it laid the foundation of a strong, enduring CITU (trade union arm of the CPI(M)) and gave to us a large number of the present day CITU cadre. Furthermore, it went into building a lasting tradition of militant working class struggles, of which there are so many glorious instances till now and I hope this tradition grows in strength.

On my behalf and of my family, I salute my departed comrade DN. Long live his memory.

It is rare that one learns revolutionary tactics and gets the glow of personal warmth from the same person. That was DN.

Comrade, Friend and Admirer

Javeed Alam.

== == == ==

front row (from left): Bittu, Manjari, Sara, Mehmal. back row (from left): Aniket, Kiran chachi, Kapoor chacha, Bunty

Short and resonant with meanings, each time I touch the words in its verses it reclaims a new emotion in me. What more can one ask from a poem?

Well… one could ask for a good rendition in music. I looked up some sites on the net but left unsatisfied to sleep. Later today, thanks to a post on facebook, I realised I was looking at the wrong place.

Listen to Habib Wali Mohammed sing Bahadur Shah Zafar’s lagta nahin hai dil mera ujde dayaar mein…

This find has been so wonderful! I have Habib Wali Mohammed’s audio cassette with these ghazals but have never found digital copies. Now I can listen to, and share, some of the most mellifluous music I have heard…

In the ghazals linked to this one, do look out for yeh na thi humari qismat and na kisi ki aankh ka noor hoon, among others, which are also sung by the same artist.

Have a nice day. I am sure you will, however barren the city…

On Sunday night I came to Bombay for a week. It’s not as hot but much more humid. If in Hyderabad the dry hot wind roasts you in the day, it’s the steady trickle of sweat which marinades your entire body here.

I don’t like summer. If it has to be extreme of temperature, I would any day prefer winter with its snows, chilly winds, short and dark days. Since I don’t live in Shimla (anymore) I can’t escape summer. But between the dry heat of Hyderabad (or Delhi) and the humidity of Bombay or Calcutta, I somehow prefer (if that can at all be the word)  dry heat. Uncomfortable it may be but I can still be functional; in this humidity my body tends to slowly shut down. I sleep much more, I feel sleepy and without energy and lethargic (distinct from the normal laziness which defines me).

Some people find the dry heat unbearable, while others seem to agree with me.

Wonder what you prefer? Dry or Humid summer….

View This Poll

This small excerpt is from the Abdullah Hussein’s The Weary Generations, which is the English translation (by the author himself) of his well-knownUrdu novel, Udaas Naslein.  (This is from page 176 of the 2003, Peter Owen edition published from London).

He let go of Naim’s arm for a second, then grasped it again, “Ali is your brother, look after…” He wanted to go on but couldn’t utter the words. He looked at his son with dumb eyes, and tears trickled down his temples. One of his hands shot out and grabbed at his younger wife’s crotch under her waist-sheet, holding it tight. Lying thus on his back, Niaz Beg died quickly. The poor woman, her face red as a beetroot, struggled to free herself from her husband’s death-grip, finally succeeding after furiously pulling herself away, although she lost a small tuft of hair from her genital area that was wedged in the dead man’s fist. She uttered a cry, as much of grief as of physical pain, and joined the other woman in wailing over their widowhood.

Words fail me. I just had to share with you this inspired piece of literature.

“You want a harem?!!”

“Yes, and I will not take no for an answer; you have to have to have to buy it”.

I replied that I didn’t know you could buy harems and in fact, I’d always wanted a harem for myself too, so yes, we would get not just one but two. At which point my wife looked angrily at me and told me to stop day-dreaming if I didn’t want some belan-time (also known as “belan-tine”, “velan-time”, or lately, mispronounced as valentine) ….

ok ok… it didn’t really happen like this and i basically veered the story off to make it sound like a garden variety man-recounting-how-he-is-prisoner-of-wife joke which were very popular in the previous millennium. unless, of course, you still watch shows like the great indian laughter challenge, in which case they are still very popular.

To get back to Sara and my conversation, I looked at her dumb-founded. I actually had no idea what she meant, specially since it seemed obvious that she was not looking for a palaceful of sexual beings. So i learnt a new word that day. Rather, I learned how an old word had, yet again, been infused with new meaning and now “wanting a harem” merely meant desiring a particularly bulbous form of the shalwar (pyjama). Sara couldn’t believe that I didn’t know what a “harem” was and I didn’t want her to know what a “harem” meant, yet.

At the end of the shopping day, she did not get her “harem” and I did not get mine. Oh well, there I go again…

– — –
Sara’s finally managed to get her harem, as of today 04 May 2010. There was a small jig in it once we got home, though I did remark that it looked a little too big for her, only to be reminded that “too big” is not a relevant concept with this particular garment.
– — –