Catch-22 and The Emperor's New Clothes

I wrote a 'paper' on Catch-22 just over a month ago. It won a (negligible) prize at this Paper Presentation contest we had at college during Litmus, the English Department fest.

Now here's the deal:

a. I wrote this for a lark
b. I had not been able to finish Catch-22 ever before, having started to read it at least thrice. It was a challenge.
c. I wanted to see just how much I can use my faffing skills, to pusk faffdom to its utmost limit: that was the goal.

Apparently I achieved it too.

The only one who seemed to see through me was SC.

SC was congratulating all the 'winners' after the results came out, but she didn't say a word to me. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, now, but I think she didn't know what to make of my 'paper'. To acknowledge that it was just a hoax would have been out of the question, right? I mean the Establishment can't do that, can it? But then it was obviously (well, to me, at least!) not a serious academic effort. I should have thought it was obvious to everyone else too. Anyway, you never know with SC.

It struck me that there were enough phonies^ in that room to say, "Jolly good, old chap, impeccacable delivery, it was rather intriguing the way you grappled with these ideas". Well not exactly that, but that drift.

For god's sake, my 'paper' was called

Yossarian and Murphy: The Greatest Conspiracy (Theorists) of our Time Or Which came first? The Conspiracy or the Theorists?

I would have had a good laugh, given the presenter a friendly pat on the back, and said a person who tries to pass this off as a Paper should try for the Ignobel instead.

It's quite scary how far the ole faffin' can take you. Remember Stephen Glass? Oh boy.

//This post has been written in a rather perfunctory manner due to constant net connectivity problems and the fact that this machine keeps rebooting of its own accord, this rudely breaks the train of thought; perhaps I shall edit it later, but I doubt it. In any case, as I told a friend, I have just shelved this piece away for future amusement value and plan never to write like this again. *fingers crossed behind back*//

//Oh, I remembered now what I was going to say. Baba once wrote an article to the Lucknow city supplement of either Hindustan Times or The Times of India, I forget which. It was titled "My Girlfriend is a Handbag". No kidding. It was to see if they would actually run something which sounded so patently stupid. Guess what? They did! And with a picture of a handbag and everything. All it said was that guys think their girlfriends are just fancy accessories to show off, nothing more subversive than that! but isn't it incredible what rot people will print?

This whole thing reminds me of that episode in the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night

//

^ Yes, yes, Caulfield's got a Holden me!

Janpath opens out at Godin!

My Quest for the Elusive Curio is under way. Meanwhile, I spy a softie guy just outside Regal. 5 bucks. It says 'Strawberry' and 'Vanilla'. So I ask for one, saying 'vanilla'. The guy takes out a cone and has it poised under the orifice (why that word, blech!), then suddenly says, "Madam, Vanilla Strawberry mixed hai, chalega?" To which I nod. It tastes only of ice anyway, so I don't mind. I nearly run into a bunch of very Italian(bodylanguage)-sounding although I am too short and too preoccupied to notice their faces. Accha, then am walkingwalkingwalking and spot an SBI atm, the numbers of which you can really never have enough of. And when I stop there I realise I am at Godin! I go in, with trepidation and look around (read "I yearn for you tragically".)There is one firang there having a sitar looked at by two people. Then there is a (very Bengali) Gentleman at the counter. I ask, rueing it even as I do, "Do you mind if I try out some of the pianos?" The Gentleman looks at me with a mixture of pity, disdain and pure astonishment (now this is some look!) and says something to the effect of "Yes! As a matter of fact, I do!" (which should be accompanied by a large dose of le aire d'indignation*) But of course, I don't remmber verbatim, as I was distracted by that expression. Priceless. And shame, the feeling of feeling two foot small. Anyway, it was a No. Then I tried saying my school was interested in ordering a piano, etc. etc. Spiel. He said if I waited fifteen minutes I could speak to the Manager. I slunk off. Meanwhile, I exit and see some two un.kal jis walking down, and engaged in some apparently highly riveting discussion. I ask, "Excuse me, Scindia House ke liye kidhar se jaana hai?" (And make mental note that 'kidhar' is a Bombay word, not a Delhi word. Khair,) One asks, "Bus se jaana hai ki paidal?" Funny question. As it happens, I have to go there on foot and catch a bus at Scindia House. I explain this confusedly. "Kyun?" (Kyun, what? I wonder. It seems show the same on face, since reply comes,) "Kaunsi bus pakadni hai?" "M-13." "Accha, accha, tab theek hai." The other one takes charge. Busily says I can go from (and points back to where would retrace my steps. The route I would have taken too). But then adds that it is better to go from (and points to straight ahead, into what dawns on me, is Janpath's right angled offshoot: it's back end). Says I will run into charsis on the other route. (Inexplicably, I smile to myself at his squirmishness when he lets that slip). Then he paraphrases with difficulty, substituting some words equivalent to 'bad men'. I go down Janpath. Do not make a pitstop this time at one of my favourite places in the city, that little cubbyhole book-shack which is sometimes camouflaged by clothes. ( Had asked the old guy there last time where the books all came from; he was vague. Continue to find weird stuff there. And histories in the fly-leafs **. I like him. ) As it were, the Quest for the Elusive Curio is still on. (* no, this is NOT real French, for godssake! ** yaar, sometimes '-leaves' is just plain WRONG) // This Godin page i've linked to just makes me feel strange. Elitists! I exclaim. But I also stand in reverence. And understand why Appa didn't let me even ask last time we were there. Yes, sometimes parents do know. I also make mental note to find excuse to go to GeGe's place soon, and play her piano.

Trillions Apart

I weep when I hear John Lennon sing,
And I wept when George Harrison died.
I took out dad’s old tapes and listened to GH play Here Comes the Sun alone
And I cried.
I walked across Abbey Road.

I weep when I hear my mother’s old house in Gole Market has been demolished years ago.
I weep when my grandfather tells me of his days in Kalpathy, at Annamalai, in Cuttack, in Srinagar and in Sudan.

I wept when I read the stories my grandmother wrote in Tamil, in English
and were published after she died;
Stories about ourselves.

I jump for joy when I realise I live in the place that gave birth to Golgappa, Puchka, Panipuri and Batasha.
And laugh when I realise further that they are all the same thing
and delicious all.

I walked through the pines that rise on one side and fall on the other side of the road
in Ranikhet in the Kumaon hills.

I picked up pebbles from the bottom of Kempty Falls in Mussoorie
And sand from underneath my feet at Kanyakumari.

I have between the pages of my books
Maple from Toronto and Silver Oak from Lansdowne in Uttaranchal.

I walked barefoot on Eleko Beach;
that rests, on one side, on Lagos
and on the other, on the Atlantic.

I touched the Eiffel Tower at the foot because I could not afford to take the lift to the top.
I always put a coin in the guitar-case of a busker.

I fell asleep in Hyde Park,
The bright sun on my face
and the boys playing football - or is it soccer? -
teams of Shirts and No-Shirts.

Whenever I drive through Rajpath I crane my neck out of the auto-rickshaw
to see Parliament House on one side and IndiaGate on the other.
I get goosepimples whenever I hear the National Anthem
of India
of Nigeria.

Is Delhi - where I study - my home?
Or is Lucknow - where I live -?
Is Lagos - where I grew up - my hometown
Or is it Hyderabad - where I was born?

Am I an Indian?
A Palakkad Iyer?
Am I a traveller
Or just lost?

I belong everywhere
And so I belong nowhere.

Who am I?
Or can I never hope to answer that
while I sing
in Tamil, in English, in Hindi, in Spanish, in French, in Arabic, in Assamese, in Gujarati, in Bengali, in Italian and in every language singable.

I search for languages unknown
That everyone will understand
But no one can claim

And I search.