Spaghetti...

It took me a month to come back and be able to write something here. And it is because there is so much that i have been procrastinating over the days, i call this post 'Spaghetti'. The tipping point, apart from my growing aggravation on my newly acquired habit of a prolonged vacational procrastination, is the recent spate of events and little happenstances that will form the strands of this course.

In my recent cursory travel through the Southern Part of India, i vividly recollect the re-realization that we are not a nation at all. We infact are a salad that has been tossed by a master chef. Mixing ingredients that are not necessarily complimentary. Nations have been defined by their language, their culture. But India with its chaotic vernacular, and a hundred dialects; is an aberration in the general scheme of things. There has been a lot of brouhaha over english corrupting our indian souls. But what experience says is that there is nothing like an Indian soul. There is a Bihari Soul, a Bengali Soul, a Punjabi Soul, A Pahaadi soul, a Thamizh soul, a Malayali soul; with a common thread, a streak that may become visible at times of grave consequences, an Indo-Pak match, a Kargil War. And it is this streak that is the remnant of an Indian Soul. What experience also says is that, where nothing seems to actually tie us together. The alien language that English is cried out to be, is a great unifier. And it is the uniformity of this spaghetti strand that inspite of the many ways of pronouncing "Sir" across our state borders. We all know what is being spoken. I negotiated with an autowallah in Chennai, who did not know hindi or english ( i ofcourse could not make a head or tail out of Tamil apart from a few rudimentary words) , and i used english deliberately broken and colored with the Tamilian accent. Succesfully.

In another spaghetti string 21 kilometers long, yesterday Delhi ran. It is a matter of conjecture that what percentage of Delhi is the number 20,000+ that participated. But we are not talking about numbers here. We are talking about the spirit that makes a marathon. The Delhi Run is Asia's richest marathon, and Delhi is only the second city in the world besides London to have the insytument to turn the inertia of people into momentum, to have a marathon this size. But apart from the celebration of human stamina and endurance, the coming together of people of all nationalities, creed, color, age and sex to come and participate in the most primitive of human sport, (besides the worlds favorite sport) and the triumph of the fastest human meter after meter pan kilometers; a marathon the size of Delhi Run is a great revenue generator. Is it a media ploy, a BIG HOARY advertisement, that gobbles up newsprint and public attention? We see the social kinetics of a marathon, what we are unaware of is the economics of it. But since what matters is that people came, and ran and then went back home with a comfort in their hearts, that they were there for Delhi. We can excuse companies from making an Archies or Hallmark out of human proclivity for emotion. It is the age of commoditization afterall. Package is the product.

The flavor of the month, the oregano was the IIPM in locked heads with the freedom of expression. And in the onslaught and mudslinging, in between the flashes of heroic integrity and meritorial probity; rises the question of the laws governing the blogdom. Jug Suraiya in his Jugular Vein this Sunday in the Sunday Times of India, talks about Brand Inequity. It is the power of the words to distance the buyer from the product. And IIPM is a packager par excellence. Its gleaming buildings that they mysteriously called towers, though they are inevitably dwarfed by the neighboring constructs. Its mercedes driving students, xeroxed from the foreign campuses, though poor contrast and resolution. And its cosmopolitan culture that is as conspicous as the Loud Bhangra being belted from the open windows from one of its denizens. IIPM has been a consistent marketer pulling throngs to its gates. And when there are so many many fests that happen every month with unfailing frequency, no wonder those in search of a "corporate" lifestyle are spellbound. Thus IIPM goes on. Their own home production had fore-warned Rok sako toh rok lo.

Every spaghetti has its sauce, the gravy that makes the strands stick. And this gravy is what flavors the entire preparation. Its the clash of ideas that colors this sauce. While, We, the people season it. And when every idea conceived is shaken together with the will to bring it to fruition, sprinkled with the myriad day-to-day cheese, warmed by human perception, and served in the receptacle of the mind. The delicacy is warm and ready.

Bon Appetit.