On Ordinariness

Virender Sehwag's comments on Bangladesh's lack of ability at Test Cricket has, predictably, led to a lot of wailing and gnashing of the teeth. People have accused Sehwag's attitude to be bordering on arrogance and utterly lacking in political correctness, but then, that's the way Sehwag is. He has never refered to a spade as a digging device and probably does not know how to do it.

It is also hard to spot the flaw in Sehwag's argument. Bangladesh most definitely are not an extraordinary side. And their record, since being allowed to play test cricket is ordinary at best. Bangladesh are a guerrilla side. Successful with the odd ambush against giant teams but not having the artillery for a direct confrontation. Runs against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are still considered cheap amongst the international cricket cognoscenti. And its actually refreshing to see someone like Sehwag calling them out for what they really are.

This will obviously anger them. But it should push them to work harder, not start complaining about lack of respect. Respect has to be earned on the field.

Dil To Bachcha Hai Ji - A Gush

kis.ko pataa tha, pehlu mein rak.kha
dil aisa paa.ji bhi hoga
Hum to hamesha samajhte the koi
Hum jaisa haa.ji hi hoga
Haan yeh zor karey, kitna shor karey
Bewaja baatOn pe ain.wey gaur karey
Dilsa koiii... kameenaa nahin

Now that's what I am talking about. When Vishal Bharadwaj and Gulzar combine, they have a propensity for producing nuggets that are almost Wodehousian in their choice of words and metaphor. In this case the two have outdone themselves. The masterstroke in the above para is, of course, the use of "ain.wey" instead of the more pedestrian "yoon.hi".

Have been listening to the track non-stop for a full day now and the smile on my lips refuses to go away.

Great Song, Great Song.

Steig Larsson's Millennium

Spent the better part of the entire previous week devouring Steig Larsson's excellent Millennium trilogy. And at the end of it all there is a sense of contentment, of a finality and a feeling that all is right with the world, or Sweden at the very least.

The series is a staggering acheivement on several counts,which is all the more surprising because it breaks quite a few rules of genre crime fiction writing at several places. Larsson shows a tendency to employ digressions at key moments, which drag you away from the plot to explain, say, the backstory of a lesser character or completely unrelated trivia. It is also written in an extremely matter of fact style with very little embellishment (it could be because of the fact that the work is translated from Swedish). But these elements work perfectly in Millennium helping create a keen sense of anticipation in the reader at key moments only to suddenly whisk them away to a more mundane place leaving them gasping for breath.

What places Millennium a few notches above your standard issue crime thriller is the quality of its lead characters. Lisbeth Salander, it fiercely independent female protagonist, is an exasperatingly difficult person to deal with - she is more intelligent than everyone else around her, anti-social, a victim of horrific atrocities with a temparament that is liable to explode at the slightest hint of provocation. Mikael Blomkvist, is in many ways the exact opposite. He is a reluctant celebrity, a pathbreaking journalist with almost infinite patience and quite the ladies man. The promiscuity in general displayed by the characters, apart from the horrifying tales of misogyny, would be quite a shocker for the lay Indian reader. Not that India is in any way devoid of crimes against women, but the general impression of life in Scandinavian countries in our minds would probably be best described by high per-capita incomes, midnight suns and a sanitised lifestyle almost bordering on the boring.

Not since I read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell has a large work of fiction so consumed me (I tend to think of any book that goes beyond 500 pages as a large work of fiction.) I read the books in about five sittings with a strange nervous energy egging me on. Such was the lure of Lisbeth Salander and friends. My favorite book remains the first installment of the series- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for its leisurely depiction of the Scandinavian landscape, the weather and the lifestyle in addition to being a genuinely scary and disturbing crime investigation.

Highly recommended.

PS - Hat Tip to Jabberwock for the strong recommendation in his review. I would have steered clear of these books otherwise, especially given the corny titles.

On Dravid

A superb article on Rahul Dravid by Suresh Menon in Tehelka. This line sums up Dravid's ethos quite beautifully.

"While Tendulkar dominates through attack, Dravid lets his domination remain a secret between the bowler and himself"

Thoughts on Inglourious Basterds

Going into a QT film assures at least one thing - it will never be a staggeringly bad film. Which is not saying much but at least you know where you stand. Quentin Tarantino understands, and appreciates, badassery like few other directors do. Or to put it more accurately, Quentin's films and characters are more consistently badass than most other directors. My favorite bits in all his films are the digressions characters choose to take during key conversation pieces and how it all ends with almost poetic violence.

The opening scene in Inglourious Basterds is a classic instance of how to build up to a denoument which the audience already anticipates. From the moment the farmer hears the hum of the German motorbikes approaching you know serious evil is afoot and that people will die before the scene ends. But its the treatment of the scene that takes the breath away. And of course it helps if you have a character like Hans Landa to work with. Chrisopher Waltz approaches the character like a chemist would when performing a titration experiment. His affect on people around him (and the audience) is slow, assured, awe inspiring and eventually deadly.

Sylistically Inglourious Basterds is a departure from Kill Bill, infact almost its mirror image in the sense that KB was a series of set piece action sequences with sporadic bursts of dialogue where as IB is a series of conversation set pieces with intermittent spells of violence.

A nod especially to Melanie Laurent's Shoshanna who is hauntingly gorgeous in every frame she inhabits. The Basterds themselves were fun but, ironically, probably the weakest link in the film.