Stone Temple Pilots

As we were going through the old CD collection, a CD of the "Stone Temple Pilots" was spotted. They were a popular rock band in the early nineties. Popular for a very short time, but they had one single that I liked and hence the CD in the collection.

At that time, it was my opinion that,

Amitabh Bachchan : Mithun Chakraborthy :: Pearl Jam : Stone Temple Pilots

Anyways, this post as usual, is going to steer away from the opening paragraph. To a different world, a different time and place!

The very first time the name of this group was mentioned, and we (Myself, my friends Sedat Alkoy and Indradev Samajdar, may god find them happy wherever they are!) were watching the group perform live on one of the late night shows, it remined me of a different type of Stone Temple Pilots, and for some weird reason, that memory came back! Now we are going deep into my brain, for this is a flashback of a flashback, something not attempted, even in K. Balachandar movies!

Once upon a time, in a land far away, was a custom called Pradhosham. Every 15 days, the entire family would assemble at the Kapaleeshwarar temple in Mylapore and watch the idol of lord Shiva (on his silver bull) being carried around the temple three times, with a short break after each round. The temple would be "standing room only", and the oldies and the kids will go hours in advance to reserve vantage positions to see the prayers during the breaks.

Think of it as stadium seating where the half time show is viewed best!

My brother and me, would have our own agenda when going to the temple. While grandpa would be busy choosing a safe view point for grandma, we would go do our thing. We would watch and chase the peacocks behind the "punnaivana naathar", chase each other around the entire temple, put vennai to the hanuman on one of the pillars outside the Kapaleeshwar sannidhi, and last but not the least, chase each other on the stone elephants in the hall facing the subramanya deity! It was by far our favorite activity.

We would race across fantasy lands, throw in some Mahabaratha lingo learnt recently from grandma and beat the elephant on the head to go faster, faster! We would hog the elephants as much as we could till grandpa would dislodge us to give the the other waiting kids a chance.

The beauty of the pradhosham, is that if you pray to Lord Shiva over that narrow 90 minute window every fifteen days, he would forgive you for all your sins and grant you all your wishes! The other beauty of the pradhosham is that as soon as the final deepa aaradhanai is done, the crowd disperses within 10 minutes! The ladies disappeared to feed their family while the men had to go around the Mylapore tank and bargain with the vegetable vendors to buy veggies for the next days menu! The gaslit lamps, the crude weighing scales which made the bargaining moot, the cows that would be running the backlane between the open stalls for the discarded vegetables, the smells, the visuals... someone needs to come up with a software that can take the image in your head and convert it to .jpg and upload to blogger! Better, make that a request for video upload directly to youtube.

Where were we? Ah, the rapidly dispersing post pradosham crowd! You see, grandpa was a very patient man and he loves us dearly! That said, he would let us play on the elephants for an extra half hour. This would be followed by a request for drinking Kalimark goli soda outside the temple and he would yield. Then we would make our way to the Ambika Appalam Depot and buy :

1 piece Palkhoa each (wrapped in a translucent butter paper)
1 bag of kara sevai
1 bag of ribbon pakoda

and we would start the long trek back home. Occasionally I would roll and the floor and throw a tantrum outside the book store near Leo coffee for the latest issue of Chandamama and grandpa would buy me that too!

Every India trip over the last fifteen years has included a Pradosham, call it an old habit, a prayer for shiva or whatever. Except this trip!

We went to the temple one evening, to stand under the same Dakshinamurthy who was in some ways instrumental in me marrying San, while my brother pointed out the real Dakshinamurthy shining high and bright over the Madras sky!

Jr. is now about the same age as my brother was when we enjoyed piloting the stone elephants. She really enjoyed it. The little one will have to wait a couple of years, and then we can have the next generation race all over again!

San tells me that I live in the past when we visit India, and it is true. When you spend less than a month out of twelve in India, one does tend to live in the past, look for those connections, grab for roots, all in the hopes of refreshing the DRAM's in your head!

All said and done, it is great to go back to this temple, anytime, any day, be it Pradosham or otherwise, and take a look at those elephants!

I can be eight years old again!

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Tough Girls in pink

Now that a whole week has gone by, after coming back from India, the house has returned to a routine, especially with Grandmas arrival today. It is a full house again, with Daddy and the four women who shape his daily life.

To celebrate, we decided to get matching fake tattoos! A friend of mine had given me these Harley Davidson stick on's, just the day before we left for India. We had promised the kids that we will put the tattoos in the airport and have some fun while waiting for the plane. Although we spent more than half a day at the airport (more on that later), we did not use the tattoo because daddy forgot to take them and put them in his pocket!

So, we did the tattoo thing on our return, and took pictures. The girls look all tough and giggly, now that we have matching eagles!

Considering that daddy does not even know how to ride a motorbike (having graduated from bicycle directly to the four wheelers) and his only experience on a two wheeler being limited to four sessions of scooter coaching class in the desolate Boat Club road, from his Chitappa almost two decades ago, this is as close to a Harley as he gets!

Now, we talked about the girls, and being tough! What has pink got to do with it? The answer lies in the next picture! Behold, the tough girl, wrapped in pink...

In case you are wondering "Why the happiness radiating from her face?", it is because she has been given a new "blankie" aka security blanket. After our bitter "blankie" or "thuni" experiences with Jr. growing up, we decided to get not one but two blankets for the little one. On second thought, we should have gotten a dozen!

I do not know if as a child, I had a security blanket which had to be within 2 feet of me at all times, which was a necessity for me to smell and touch before I could go to sleep. I vividly remember some of my mom's sarees and was probably holding her saree while sleeping, but nothing like this phenomena we see in the US of A.

People who are used to seeing me, probably think I have started some political party which goes by a "Pink" thundu! PTMK, that's me, Pink Thundu munetra katchi! Look at every photograph of me taken anywhere from Disneyland to weddings to just around the house and you can spot me with the pink blanket on my shoulder, irrespective of wheather the kid also happens to be on my shoulder or not!

In short, daddy is nothing but a blanket depot of sorts for the little girls. Jr. graduated from the little pink blanket to a larger full size "poobie" (Pooh Bear blanket shortened to poobie by her!). Although she doesn't go with it everywhere, she still sleeps with it at home and takes it on long trips in the van, if she plans to sleep on the ride!

The little one is still dependent on "thuni" for her every breath! As fate would have it, there was a typhoon in HongKong the day we were supposed to leave for India and our flight got cancelled, rerouted etc. etc. Long story short, in all the hoopla we forgot to take both "thunis"to India. One was still drying at home. That left us with one blanket for the entire 13 days.

"Madras is hot. I can wash the thing and dry it on the terrace while she is playing! Don't worry!", I told a worried San., and kept that promise too! Although smeared with kumkum, turmeric, coffee, boost, etc. from the wedding and the ranganathan street floor, mylapore tank bus stop, etc. from our local trips, the blanket was holding up rather well till day 10 of the trip. Then it happened!

Within thirty seconds after reaching the Meenambakkam airport, there was so much activity because some guy had parked his car at a 18 degree angle to the pavement, as opposed to the customary 17 and this had jammed traffic all the way to the entrance. There was a frantic search for the second car following us and while my brother and me went in different directions, the sleepy little one, had dropped her "thuni" from my shoulders. We were glad to get inside the airport and just as we were about to wave goodbye to my brother, the little one chipped in "my thuni?!".

The whole airport whizzed past me and San in slow motion. I could see her lips moving, but could not hear the words! They might have said something like "All you have to do was guard that stupid blanket and you failed! Where did you drop it? In the car? or at home? Where?". I muttered something like "It was there on me when I got in the car". She either dropped it outside or in the car!". The rest of the conversations were immaterial.

We knew our return trip was going to be to rerouted to San Franciso, via Hellkong!

And it was! We were so happy to come home to the backup blankie. We will spare you the details of the return. The story does not end there! Considering that there is no immediate plan to graduate her from the little thuni to something like "poobie" and also considering we don't have the energy to go through a "blankie weening" process, we decided to search and get two additional blankies.

One has to remember that any two feet by four piece of cloth can be purchased as a "receiving blanket" from the local Toys'r'us, Walmart or Target, but they cannot become a "thuni"! There is a careful ageing process that goes with transforming an ordinary cloth into a security blanket.

In what would put the making of Jason Bourne to shame, this 2x4 cloth goes through 3 washes in a washer/ dryer per week over a couple of years, gets spit on, mothers milk/formula/whole milk/chocolate milk/ovaltine leaked on, peed on in the car seat at times during a rare scientific phenomena called the "midway diaper shift", extensively vomited on, dragged and dropped in places that range from normal parking lots in local shops and malls, to exotic locations like National parks, village temples, paddy fields, australian beaches, not to mention trampled on by the adults feet, elder sisters bicyle, tricycle etc. It has even occasionally been run over by the minivan!

It aquires a unique smell, faded color and texture over time. It also aquires some superpowers. The little one can "possibly" hold one end of the blankie while being perched on daddys hip, drop the other end on the floor, swirl it around, then pick it up and get some kind of idea of the nuances of the floor. It is like that Johnsons bud with fluid which tells the CSI investigator, "This is blood, alright!". Such are the qualities of the "thuni"!

Although she posed happily with the new blanket, she disowned it after 20 minutes!

One has to come up with a rapid ageing process now that matches the performance of the natural process. This is something along the lines of making artificial diamonds that match the color, carat, cut and clarity of a natural diamond.

Even the scientist in me is not ready to take up that challenge, because I know the little one can detect that the % Ranganathan Street platform is off by 0.001% on the new blankie compared to the old one! So why bother?

I can only dream of having a crowd chanting, "Pink Thalapathi Mandaveli Sundar...."

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Rocking on with life

Yeah, the title is a giveaway!

Saw the Hindi movie "Rock On" last night with the cousins. A movie with a difference about four guys from a college rock band, going their separate ways, then reuniting after a decade for a concert. There seem to be more and more of these beat movies coming out from Bollywood recently. Kudos to these guys!

This movie will probably strike a "chord" with guys/gals in the mid thirties, who went to colleges 10-15 years ago, with college cultural festivals, where there would be a rock concert competition of sorts!

This post is not a review of the movie. It is more about the nuances of the film and a possible "genre" and its appeal.

If you are not a rock music fan and the subtle or open references to Metallica, Enter Sandman, Beatles, Lennon, McCartney, Ono, Green day, Deep purple etc., do not ring any bells, do not be alarmed. You will experience the movie, as a window to a "world" that is mesmerizing! Music, at the end of the day is a really, really powerful medium, that cuts across boundaries, rather large boundaries.

If you grew up listenting to rock music, this movie provides more than a refreshing look at music, rock, concerts, group dynamics, the experience of attending a rock concert! To top things off, if you happened to dedicate your Ph.D. thesis to Bob Dylan, the way "Rock On" has songs that fit hindi words into hard rock, at places, with a folk ballad style, will just bring tears to your eyes.

The nostalgia alone, will be worth this movie. You have to hand it to the director, music directors and the actors. They are able to hit long dormant neurons, and revive them, just by touching your subconsious in one too many places. Take for example the focus on the tattoo in the back of one of the groups lead singer's neck, or the Bille Joe Armstrong look alike, who strums his guitar in similar fashion from one of the competing groups in the final contest!

Farhan Aktar was fantastic. Arjun Rampal was even better. Have never seen such a controlled acting performance from him. They even mimic Freddie and May in some shots where they both share the microphone on stage. You can hear "smoke on the water", slowed down to a barely recognizable tempo in the background! They have condensed, and fed rock music to the masses, within the space of a movie. Very nicely done!

The thing I liked most was how they picturized the audience in a rock concert. At the end of the day, the question from a non rock fan would be "why go to a concert and hear the same thing that you heard over and over again in the music CD?". The answer lies, in the audience. To this day, I cannot forget the tens of thousands of people, with lighters and candles moving their hands across, in a Pink Floyd concert in Philadelphia, in 1994. To sum up that experience:

I was there!!!

After watching the movie, we came home and are now revisiting my 200 strong CD collection from my college days, which have been moved from one apartment to another, one home to the next for the last 15 years! We have not really played anything from that collection, at least after our first daughter was born. Finally feel vindicated for refusing to sell that collection over all these years.

Every one of those CD's has a history and it makes me remember places, people, crowds, songs, and more importantly myself!

Rock on, woke up a dormant part of me, much like it did for the protogonist in the movie.

ps. Spent an hour searching for the Pink Floyd concert ticket stub in my old shoebox. Could not find it! Way too many memorabilia in that box....dangerous memorabilia! The location of the shoe box within the house, was classified information in itself, now it is out in the open. Much fun will be had, over the coming days with the contents of the shoe box.

pps. San's rock music education has begun!

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