Unlike many others, I run alone. There is nothing monkish about it. It might be the contrary actually. It is just that I start later than monks who wake up at 5 am to run. Apart from having someone who sets pace, not sure what running with a partner does. Anyway we are not exactly chatting away while running. Running with someone also entails that your times match with the partner which again is not an easy job. So for all those who have running buddies, congratulations, but I will pass. 

  An Ode to Elegance As we know it is easiest to learn languages as a child. I learnt tennis (as a viewer) much ahead of cricket. We got our first TV in May 1980, a Dyanora B/W. A few weeks later, I happened to see the greatest tennis match before 2008, between a certain Bjorg and McEnroe on the trusted Doordarshan. I still have vague memories of my dad oohing-aahing at critical moments. Cricket followed much later — not until the 1983 cricket world cup. Those initial years of tennis watching took shape of proper fandom when a 17 year lad emerged on the scene in 1985. You can carbon-date a person if they say their favourite sportsperson growing up was Becker. The burst of energy, the vibrancy, the power literally shocked and excited the establishment and the young ones simultaneously, which is a tough thing to do. Sticking posters on walls, staying up late, tracking records etc became a full time extra-curricular activity. Becker slowly faded away at the age of 24–25...

Dear Mr. Pahlaj Nihalani and other Censor Board Members, I went to see La La Land today, as the Adult rating really got me excited. I would give up my voting right to see Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in an “A” movie. However I was shocked to find that there was nothing to sate my appetite. Nothing, nada, shunya. I am going to file a RTI application to see what made you give this an A rating. I sat through 130 minutes of a elegant, old fashioned, beautifully shot, romantic movie. Romance, wtf, where is the gratuitous sex that the rating promised. None, not even with sheets cautiously covering offending parts. Okay, probably my expectations were misplaced, atleast some nudity would have sufficed, my hopes were belied there too. There is more nudity on Big Boss or the streets of Bangalore where men freely grope and molest women. Now what do we have left, let’s go with abuses. I could have lived with a liberal use of the F word, something approaching 5% of Wolf of Wall ...

It has been a long time since I have written a review, atleast on the group list. I thought with the considerable hype around Slumdog Millionaire, I should write a first day first show review. The Story The story is quite simple and must be familiar to people following the endless news coverage. It is about a kid from the slums, Jamal Malik, who is on the verge of winning Rs2 crores in Kaun Banega Crorepati. As he is just one question away from the final prize, he is whisked off to the police station overnight to be questioned if he has been cheating. He is subject to some heavy torture by the police, played by Saurabh Shukla and Irrfan Khan. Then he reveals how he has been able to answer each question as it corresponds to an event in his life. His brother, Salim and childhood love Latika, are with him on and off through his life and Jamal’s quest for Latika through brothels and gangsters dens becomes his obsession. He is finally released by the police and he goes on to win the prize a...

There was a time I used to read all the Booker prize winners, from 1997 to 2003 – I read 6 out of the 7 winners; only missing out on the 2001 winner – True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey. Of late though, the awards have become pretty mediocre, at least by the reviews I have read of them, and more importantly, their impact. I have seen a steady deterioration since 2004, when they awarded the Booker to Alan Hollinghurst’s “The line of Beauty” over David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas”. The selection was universally panned at that time. I did not read the former but read the latter and was bowled over by the sheer literary inventiveness of Mitchell. Post 2003, most of the books were apparently very dull and eminently forgettable and probably have been. Even Kiran Desai’s “Inheritance of Loss” was supposedly a very weak winner. On the whole, most of the Booker winners I have read have really impressed me and I would gladly re-read many of them and have actually re-read like “God of...