Of Quakes, Whacking, Centennial Lectures and Bike Music

Its been a madly interesting day (Please note lack of sarcasm). I woke up one hour later than an ungodly one to see appa off. As always I came back up and wanted to promptly fall off to sleep. But there is this sinister thing making this sinister noise in my room - a wasp!

If it's not enough that I'm fairly scared of wasps and their sting, the attempted study of EM Forster's incessant use of an incredibly cryptic wasp analogy in 'Passage to India' last year has made me loathe these wonderful insects. (NB: Some years back - if I accurately recall the footage, it was when I was studying what an asymptote was - I filmed a wasp eating a fly..fascinating)

So I use yesterday's Economic Times and much to amma's astonishment, one whack and wasp is dead. Rememebr the whacking day episode on The Simpsons when Marge gets turned on by Homer's practising how to whack snakes - I figure if I can just get to a place like Springfield, I can show off my wasp whacking skills with an Economic Times and woo my brides-to-be.... hmmm..

So after a mournful funeral that lasts the flight of a dead wasp's body hurtling 13 floors to the earth, I go back to sleep. I wake up 45 minutes later and observe another wasp flitting around my tubelight.

Flashback - About 2 weeks ago, I killed a wasp which was trying to find an appropriate place in my room to procreate and raise its herd. Within the next 5 minutes, there were about a dozen wasps trying to get into my room..scary..god bless the man who invented windows.

In no mood to revisit those unpleasant times, I did what I would always do. I picked up the TOI and whacked the wasp. A few whacks later it was dead and another mournful funeral followed. I then proceed to the drawing room and find wasp no. 3 for today hovering around the tubelight. (the actual word that came to mind was mandarao-ing - Hinglish, for the uninformed) In a feat of great bravery and courage (Remember, I haven't had my morning coffee yet) I pick up the nearest paper - a Bombay Times edition - and whack the wasp. And then keep whacking for a couple of minutes till a funeral may be arranged.

Moral of this extensive story - An ET is more useful than a TOI, which in turn is more useful than a BT.

I'm told there was an earthquake in Maharashtra yesterday. Amma called me a few minutes after it took place and put forth the question which any concerned mother would in the cirumstances..very excitedly, I may add - "So did you feel it?" It seems the male members of my family are relatively immune to detecting seismic activity. (Go somewhere else seismologists - maybe John Travolta can help out - remember Phenomenon?)
Anyway - the key thing is that the TOI front page came up with some pathetic headline ridiculing the fact that people ran down their buildings after the quake.

I don't get it - when an earthquake hits - do TOI editors sit and wait for the building to collapse, if at all, when they're still in it, or would they be the first ones on the street with hi-fives all around when it does collapse and gives them an extended break? I am yet to understand the journos mind.. I plan to never try to either.

I don't enjoy centennial lectures. I've now listened to two from two very distinguished ladies and they've rambled and read and communicated with an audience of 300+ as effectively as a non-slapstick Swahili speaking stand-up comedian in Moscow would. I also find that spontaneity is not a word that is retained in their vocabulary during these lectures just as attentiveness ceases to be one in mine.
The next centennial lecture I attend must necessarily be given by Ram Jethmalani who spoke for 30 minutes impromptu at the DMH inaugural. Today's speaker was given less than 3 months. The organisers were very apologetic about the short time given. Mr. Jethmalani incidentally (and this is not my fault) found out that he had to speak when he read a news clipping in the morning which said that he would deliver the Inaugural Address in the evening.
This in no way means that I expect either Romila Thapar or Kapila Vatsyayan to speak as well as Ram Jethmalani. But I certainly do not expect them to communicate through sentences with 4 sub-clauses in them nor read out a piece of literary work that will occupy a rather large portion of one of EPW's upcoming editions.

The events of the day, and in particular the unavoidable loss to wasp life in Bombay, all put me in a very low mood. Pantera's rendition of their original "Fucking Hostile" played on my iPod loud enough to be heard by the neighbouring car when on my bike, while narrowly avoiding getting totalled at high speeds, quickly lifted my spirits. (Don't worry anna - the bike is yours and the manouveres are exaggerated. All to try and impress my female readers - do permit me some literary license)

I find the experience of playing my music at exceedingly loud levels when on 'my' bike extremely refreshing. The reason being I can't hear a thing except the music. There comes onto my face this lovely ignorant smile when the cabby behind me is honking and screaming his lungs out for me to get going after the signal has turned green. It's a whole new world when I'm on the bike and with my iPod on. I recommend it for anyone who listens to loud music, owns/temporarily possesses (like me) a bike and an iPod/walkman and has sufficient confidence that he/she will earn enough by the age of 35 to be able to afford hearing aids.

Going down Marine Drive at a very sedate 40 kmh.. one of my favourite Nirvana songs came on - "France's Farmer will have her Revenge on Seattle". Here's the punch line in the chorus that really got me thinking the first time I heard it:

"I miss the comfort in being sad"

May depressed, suicidal, genius heroin addicts like Kurt Cobain who gave us this awesome music be blessed.