Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

God Particles by Thomas Lux is his eleventh book of poetry. His verses contain rather striking and unusual images that disturb or amuse at first and then coalesce into feelings more lasting than the initial reaction. Look at some of the titles in this collection: “Hitler’s slippers,” “Sleep ambulance,” “Stink eye,” “Gravy boat goes over the waterfall,” “Jesus’ baby teeth,” “Apology to my neighbors for beheading their duck,” “The deathwatch beetle,” “Sex after funerals,” “Toad on golf tee,” and the title poem, “God particles.”

Saurav Ganguly is out of the one day cricket team. I suppose a golden duck is enough to throw him out of the reckoning, though age and agility have been touted as the underlying reasons. I wish we were as strict with the non-performers in government offices. I wish we followed the policy of sacking politicians on age and non-performance basis. There is no fool proof method of ensuring that senile leaders don’t win election.

“Sir, for five dollars per hour only, I’ll sleep for you. I don’t need to know what you do with your extra waking hours sir, and I will keep my sleep secret,” says a yawning Ram to a caller from Unites States.

Ram opened his sleep BPO in the sleepy nineties. People who laughed at him back them, were caught napping when the Y2K boom came. Ram had hired a team of five hundred sleepers by then. The company has grown like Kumbhkaran by now, and is voted as the best company to work for by the entire employee world.

What was Madhuri doing in Aaja Nachle? It might require more soul searching than NRI Madhuri Dixit can afford. I suppose the writer and director of the movie could answer the question. But had they, rather HE, had raised the question at the onset, Madhuri wouldn’t have been there. She wouldn’t have flown in to give interviews on Karan Johar Koffee show or judge and dance in Nach Baliye. Maybe after the movie was made, Madhuri could have been edited out.

Lost Illusions by Balzac is one of the most famous novels out of the ninety two he wrote in his lifetime and maybe also among a million his admirers have written in 175 years since his first novel was published.

I have admired enough poets, story tellers, essayists, photographers on Dud Sea Scrawls to suggest that we must, yes we must, publish an anthology called Dud Sea Scrawls. (I itch to call it Dud Sea Scrawls: Vol 1)

We can have each writer submit five posts from dud sea scrawls that they wish us to consider. A three hundred page anthology will be a great way to go. So now lets say we keep 1/4th for poetry, 1/2 for fiction and 1/2 for essays/reviews. We can play with actual numbers and figures later. There are many things that must be worked out.

1) Editors for each section.

Tendulkar has missed six centuries in this year, after crossing the score of ninety. Today, it was another instance where a drinks break dented the set batsman’s concentration. It was just enough for him to be out in the over that followed it. The jinx is in the drinks maybe. Tendulkar was playing beautifully today and also the other day, when he failed to cross the thresh hold. Tantalizingly close and yet not there!

Time and Materials: Poems, 1997-2005 by Robert Hass is his first collection of poems to emerge in past ten years. Hass is a familiar name in the contemporary world of poetry. He has been awarded National Book Critics Circle Award twice, and was the poet laureate of the US from 1995-1997. He is a professor at University of Berkeley and is presently a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He has co-translated the work of Nobel-winner, Czeslaw Milosz. The present book has lapped up a National Book Awards nomination, and received rave reviews from the poets and journalists alike.

Lines of Grey is a project of social change through photography conceptualized and cultivated by Suchitra Vijayan. The idea is to provide cameras to the children, enabling them to capture their world in pictures. The concept is similar to the award winning documentary film “Born in Brothels”, where children of the red-light district in Calcutta recorded moments of their lives through cameras handed out to them. Using the donations from friends and volunteers around the world, Suchitra supplied disposable cameras them to the street children in Tanzania.

Ganesha Goes to Lunch by Kamla K. Kapur is a collection of twenty four stories drawn from the oral tradition of mythical tales in India. The stories are retold in contemporary language, and maintain the essential structure and characteristics of the folklores. Kamla’s choice of stories ranges from tales about why Ganesha has elephant’s trunk, to the marriage of Shiv-Parvati to the creation of Brahma and universe. The story of the friendship of Sudama and Krishna is retold as is the tale of Vishwamitra-Vashisht rivalry.

What she lacked in looks, she supplied with her taste. Bold like a mushroom growing on a garden track, she called for attention at places where none of her kind could venture. Spilling skin like cracked shells of peanut, she sashayed through the malls, the local trains and poorest sections of the city. Her boots cover more legs than her skirts. Her shirts tested the bulging ability of eyes that followed her like dogs wagging tongues and tails. She was protected by her own wantonness. Her beauty was not of a well-designed nose or a nicely chiseled body.

India kept her nerve, and won by eight runs. This headline is enough for certain people. It shuts them down, and it lets you start your day with happy relief of having watched a tense and thrilling encounter, and reached the triumph in style. The drama is in the detail. Tendulkar, for example, batted either circumspectly, (we can say that in retrospect), or maybe batted in fear of losing his spot at the top order. So did Ganguly maybe, for he is thrown of out equation quite easily these days.

{Each chapter is complete short story in itself. Present chapter narrated by Suryakant Tripathi, who sheds some light on his own childhood and life. Janki and Tripathi alternate as narrators}

(Suryakanth Tripathi)

In A Stranger in the Land, Daniel Cil Brecher creates an engaging narrative about the Israeli Nationalism. As a Jew who grew up in Germany and as a historian who worked in Israel, Brecher came face to face with anti-Semitism in Germany and chauvinistic nationalism in Israel. By incorporating personal experiences and contexts from Middle East conflict, he supplies an account that is at once personalized and representative of biases, prejudices and myths that Israelis have build to rationalize their relationship with Arabs and Arab States.

The odds were against us. The holy trinity of Dravid, Ganguly and Tendulkar were missing. Sehwag, Harbhajan and Pathan were making their comeback into the team. The Indian team came without anyone expecting them to get even to the semi-final. The end result is: Pathan has found his rhythm and is Man of the Match in the final. Rohit Sharma backs himself a day after he is dropped from the One day team, scores a Man of Match award, a fifty, a glorious run-out and follows it with great cameo today. RP Singh is the bowler of the tournament for me.

The semi-final is won, and this sets up a grand finale: the dream final of India and Pakistan! Given how India has never lost to Pakistan in a World Cup encounter, and how close Pakistan came to winning last week, leases the final a suspense and excitement which will make the wait for Monday intense.

New rockstars emerge when established ones have a sore throat, and back-up singers take the front stage. The crown prince of the game played yesterday, Yuvraj, was injured, and India were three down with just 33 on board. Messages screamed “the great Indian collapse ” has arrived. Rohit Sharma and Dhoni stuck to the task. A friend queried: “Do you know anything of this dude?

EACH CHAPTER IS A SHORT STORY IN ITSELF>

(Suryakant Tripathi)

I was telling you about Janki and Mansoor story. They call it my greatest hit. As if a case is a song. Maybe it is.

कल का कलंक
आज का चिंतन
कल का स्वपन
मैं था,
मैं हूँ .

क्यों विरोध करती हो
मेरे बावलेपन का
अबोध नहीं मेरी सोच
सरल है -

इच्छाओं से त्रसित
वासना से सिंचित
धरती-सी
अभी सूखी है,

पर कुछ समय दो
इस तृष्णा की तृप्ति के उपरांत

He was almost caught, but our kid Piyush went over the rope. Then the ball went higher and higher and higher and in a span of five balls Yuvraj had conceded five sixes. Thankfully, it was the last over of England Innings. Dravid could have opted for Agarkar, but no sir, he had more faith in Yuvraj. Since Yuvraj is a part time bowler, so I guess we will forgive him. The fact of the matter is that Dimitri could have scaled any bowler. So I guess Agarkar will be all smiles tonight for escaping unscathed, as a mere spectator.

dosto (friends)

I continue my experiments with prose. I am posting a new series titled Janki and Mansoor.
It is an exercise in multiple narratives. It will be served episodically for next few months.

I am posting first three parts together here.

For chapter wise updates, read here: http://viveksharmaiitd.blogspot.com/search/label/Janki%20and%20Mansoor

Prologue

Indian cricket, like a typical Bollywood movie, has all kinds of masala associated with it. Be it the affair of Sangeeta Bijlani with Mohammad Azharuddin, or the reports of Nagma luring Saurav Ganguly or Kim Sharma showing attraction for Yuvraj Singh, we savor the gossip about the cricketers lives as much (or maybe more) than we savor real matches. The whole Indian political system, with its flaws: corruption, reservation, quota and regionalism are exhibited at the expense of national team.

I watch and follow cricket more intently than anything on earth, including women, stock prices, experimental data, mathematical equations and poems. Hence I must contribute to the word of cricket by writing about it. I started my life as prose writer on internet with a comic take on how physics can be taught using cricket, but that was in 2002, and I have not written a word ever since.

देखता हूँ आइना जब भी,
कोई चेहरा नज़र नहीं आता
कोई पहचानता नहीं आजकल मुझको,
कोई मुझसा नज़र नहीं आता

गुमनाम नहीं होना था मुझे
और न ही अतीत में समाना था
पर खोजता हूँ तो आजकल में
मेरा वजूद नज़र नहीं आता

प्रीत की पहली नज़म मेरी लिखी हुई

(I cannot figure out how to format italics and paragraphs breaks simultaneously. Bo hoo! Can't this be made simpler?) Read the story here: http://viveksharmaiitd.blogspot.com/2007/08/you-killed-alex-short-story_08.html