Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Love at First Sight

And every weekend night
When I first saw Glee , it was love at first sight. The premiere did all the right things: it was funny, irreverent, quirky and, most importantly, featured an ass-kicking rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” And I'm a believer!
A friend of mine says that Glee is like ' any bad boyfriend'. Glee infuriates and then woos him back again, never allowing him to make a clean break and end the relationship.
 GLEE is the new comedy show (staring Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Jessalyn Gilsig, Jane Lynch, Jayma Mays, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Matthew Morrison, Amber Riley, Mark Salling, Jenna Ushkowitz) shown on Star World in India. It tells the story of a high school Glee Club and the day to day trials of it members and tutors.

The show is shrill and simplistic one moment and heartfelt and complex the next. And it’s pretty tough to find any television show that features musical performances (something I love in any medium). And all the songs I love, old and new: some of the favourites that got me screaming with ecstasy: Proud Mary - done on wheelchairs!, You've got a Friend and many more.

The Cover of the 'Rolling Stone'

In the issue: Glee creator Ryan Murphy, who previously helmed Nip/Tuck, explains the show’s double-edged appeal: “It’s about there being great joy to being different, and great pain.” Twenty-three-year-old Lea Michele, the Broadway talent who plays Rachel, tells Hedegaard about her tattoos, and Cory Monteith, who portrays jock Finn, owns up to a few childhood arrests for offenses that “didn’t hurt people.” Dianna Argon (slippery cheerleader Quinn) describes what it was like joining the cast late and falling victim to Monteith’s fart pranks, and 19-year-old Chris Colfer, who bravely plays gay teen Kurt, opens up about his own painful youth and his never-changing voice. “You know that forget-and-forgive bullshit? No, no, no, no, not for me,” he says of channeling childhood traumas into creative energy. “You take that grudge and let that grudge fester, and then you use it.”


My favourite Character

Great Singing, and its all about diversity. The wonderfully flamboyant Kurt joins the football team as a kicker, in an effort to hide his homosexuality from his father. Before trying out, he announces to the coach that he will be “auditioning for the role of kicker.” I love Kurt
The heart-warming moment of one episode comes when Kurt admits to his father that he is gay. We expect him to be furious based on his alpha-male persona, but instead, he says he’s not totally in love with the idea, but he still loves Kurt just as much.  "Are you sure you're sure ?" "I've known I was gay ever since I was five." Aw. I love Kurt.
And an episode later, when his father gets a hate call 'Your son's a fag', you can see he almost can't handle it, but he tells his son "No coward's going to push us around" and later, when Kurt 'throws' the Diva face-off, just because he doesn't want his father to get hurt ...there's a lump in your throat when he says to his Dad  'I've been facing  this all my life, I can handle it, but you can't". And his Dad says "You're like your mother, she was always the strong one ..."

If You're not watching Glee, you're missing out on something good.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Philanthropist

This man from the Musahar community, gave away his only bit of land for a government school building.


The self-effacing Harikesh Rawat has made a contribution to the cause of elementary education that is a rare example of philanthropy. He gave away the tiny piece of land he had, his only possession, so that a government school could be built to enable the children of his habitation with access to education. The Primary School Indira Awas, Kariya in Bihar's Gopalganj district,  is built on this land. It's not much of a school, some stones held together with plaster, a dash of paint, but it's right next to the basti

Harikesh belongs to the traditionally landless Musahar [literally: rat eater] caste.



“I don’t have any land now,” he says, “I did this five years ago so that the Dalit kids would be able to have a school within the habitation, to stop them dropping out before they reaches the fifth class.”



Forty six year old Harikesh completed his secondary school in 1984 and went on to earn his living as a skilled mason. His income until recently was an average of Rs 250 a day on city construction sites. He’s given that up for a time to serve his community as a Tola Sevak. [ A kind of nanny in  a goverment of Bihar programme. See my earlier post for an explanation] Why give up an occupation that fetched him around five thousand rupees a month for one that pays practically nothing? Why not leave it for a younger man to handle?



The answer comes for the people, young and old, who are present. “He has given his land to build a school. Who else can be more interested in our children’s welfare? Can there be a better person to see that the our kids are on the right track?” they say. Harikesh has been TS for since 2009.



“One of my sons is in Ladakh, working for the Border Roads. I put all my sons in school, but they didn’t complete their education, because of the circumstances at the time. There is much more hope that these children will make it to secondary school. Now schools provide a midday meal. There are uniforms supplied. And for the Mahadalit children who join the Utthan programme, there are learning materials and a place to study that their parents cannot afford. I am a tola sevak  because I want to play a role in this. Also, in my neighbourhood, I am, in a way, a community leader.”



Unfortunately, say the people of the habitation, the teachers assigned to the primary school are irregular, the headmaster is prejudiced against the lower castes and flaunts his political connections. The VSS is dominated by the headmaster here, they say. The neighbourhood expressed their fear. They said, ‘if we raise issues or file a complaint, the powerful vested interests, file false reports in police stations and terrorise us.’



Harikesh has a different opinion. “The midday meal is fairly regular. If the officers of the Bihar education department and others come for monitoring regularly, most of the problems will be sorted out. Proper checks and balances could be put in place without favouring the empowered people, then things will improve.

“I am hopeful. Even if the Tola Sevak programme is closed down. People will continue to send their kids to school and demand the benefits for their children.”

Monday, July 19, 2010

Beating the Sambodhi Retreat

[The Igloo: one room and bath cottage - airconditioning was fine - 24 hour service despite Bodh gaya's errtic power supply]

The Sambodhi Resort, the local yokels of Bodh Gaya will tell you, with a sense of awe, has been put up by Bhojpuri actor Manoj Tiwari. It ‘s an awfully kitschy place, and you would probably forgive the man [or his architect, if he had one] for overdoing things, if only the service had been half as decent as the other, rather ordinary hotels, in Bihar’s number one spot for Buddhist tourism.


If you intend to put up at the ‘resort’, as I did, then here’s a list of things you might have to put up with. My ‘hut’ was 301, a sort of igloo shaped structure, comfortably air-conditioned, and fairly neat at first glance. A 29 inch LCD TV set with tataSky service, a mini-bar if only stocked with mineral water, and the bathroom reasonably clean, except for the creepy crawlies that let themselves in from the garden outside. So far, so good. Considering that the igloo hut comes @ Rs 4,000 a night!
[Faulty plumbing] 

First jolt: the toilet didn’t flush. Second jolt: the flush mechanism was stuck, Third jolt: you try to turn on a tap and find that the fancy lever comes off in your hand. So you send for housekeeping. While Housekeeping takes its time to get to igloo 301, you discover that the usual ‘complimentary’ toiletry stuff is kept on a ledge, and that the little plastic bottles look used (which they are). [I’m not going to bore you with the nit-picking details, but let’s say I recently stayed at a middle range hotel in Darbhanga, (Bihar) and paid less that Rs 1,000 a night and they had a better sense of quality]. Anyway, while waiting for Housekeeping to make its appearance, you discover that the bathroom doesn’t have a single towel rack, or any sort of contraption that one can hang clothes on. There are no shelves or storage spaces, so one has to plonk one’s toothbrush in a glass tumbler and prop it up on the ledge.
[no egronomics, no planning, no design, dehati style: note the old bottles, the comb with no wrapper, etc.]

Housekeeping finally makes its appearance 25 minutes after you’ve made the call, and when they leave, the flush works stiffly, the tap knobs are placed back in their sockets, so that they come off in your hands the next time you use the basin, and the little plastic bottles with ‘body lotion’ and something that looks like oil, have been … not replaced, but refilled (!)
[and finally... room service!]

Room service moves at the pace of the legendary snail. Telephone room service. Wait ten minutes. Boy in ill-fitting uniform appears. Send him back for a menu. Wait another ten minutes. Place an order: one lemon tea, one cold drink, two plates of pakoras. Twenty minutes later, house phone rings. Room service tells you that, the only thing that’s available is Coke. You shrug, okay bring it over. Then room service tells you that the only thing available is a two litre bottle of coke. You tell them, forget it. It’s now seven thirty five. You placed the order at six fifteen. The clock inches towards eight pm. At seven fifty five you’re about to pick up the phone and give room service bloody hell. The door opens at that moment. One lemon tea and two plates of pakoras, delivered after an hour and a half. Pay the bill. Two hundred and ten rupees.
[exteriors are kitschy in the extreme, but colourful]
At ten PM you discover that you’re not going to be able to watch your favourite serial on Star World. Nor can you watch NDTV 24X7. He reason: the fancy TV and TataSky will stubbornly show the basic Hindi and local programmes. No English channels. ‘You have subscribed for the ‘popular pack’. These channels are not available, says the TataSky legend. You thrust a middle finger in its face, and switch off in disgust. It dawns on you. This so-called resort is for Bhojpuri types only, else, they expect their foreign guests [if they have any] to take a crash course in the local lingo!
[The retreat has a swimming pool, a 'gym' and a riverfront.. all gaudily constructed, but not built to last. The place is falling apart already]
Ten minutes later, you’re in for another ‘surprise’. The mini-bar isn’t cool, it doesn’t work. It’s a glorified storage cupboard. The ice-trays hold water. And the mineral water bottles – they are actually refilled with tap water. You’re too tired to complain. You switch on your laptop and watch videos on BBC. The next morning, Room service will perform a jig in front of the mini-bar. To no effect. He will mutter that it’s not working, and will slink out of the room. Anyway, you have a session of the conference to prepare for and that will keep you busy for the day.

It’s time to leave for Patna, 6 pm. Out of curiosity, you open the mini-bar. It’s as dead as ever. Housekeeping never got around to fixing it!