Sunday, December 30, 2012

The New Year Conundrum


When it comes to western 'new-age' celebrations such as New Years Eve and Valentine's Day, the whole world seems to split right-down the middle into two vociferous groups. On one side we have the Faithful who abide by the ceremonious nature of the event by plunging into parties and booze. On the other side, we have the Doubters who suspect these holidays to be Machiavellian schemes of corporates to sell you things that you will never need or do you any good.

As always, there is a third side. People like me who prefer to passively crib about these events while silently wishing for a better life in the days to come.

New Years is just around the corner now and Bangalore is decking herself up beautifully. From merry decorations on store-fronts to people hitting the shopping trails for last minute purchases of gym-wear for their New Year resolutions, Bangalore, the city of young believers, is a busy hub of activity. 

As I sit in an empty office wondering what to do on New Years Eve, I can't help but feel this sense of excitement within me. Why? I dont know. 

I do not expect life to be much different tomorrow as compared to today, just because it is a new year. But still, unbeknownst to me there is this ... hope. I am neither a glass-half-full nor empty person, I just see a glass of water as a glass of water. So I don't think I can dismiss this excitement as just optimism. So what is this phenomenon? This silent urge within us to expect the new year to bring great pleasures and adventures? This silent resolve we make within ourselves to make our lives better and more meaningful ? This maddening desire to make loud resolutions only to break them within a week? 

Time is a funny thing. It keeps going but we never notice it till its gone for good. I have always loved the idea of imagining time as a massive flow of water - sometimes as a river, sometimes as an ocean. It resembles a massive infinite river in its ceaseless journey towards an unknown, imaginary ocean while it resembles an ocean because time is infinite. Whether you subtract one year or thousands of years from it, time remains infinite. 

We never notice it when time flows past us in our everyday lives. Wasting one hour of a day is nothing big and all of us routinely do it. But somewhere down the line, each individual makes this call on 'how much time wasted' is 'wasted enough'. Just how much time should we have wasted to realize that time is valuable? Personally, its a day for me. At night, before hitting the bed, if I feel that I had not done anything productive that day, I tend to sleep a guilty sleep with plenty of nightmares. I know people who have a much lower and a much higher threshold for wasted-time. 

I think a New Year is like the cleaning of the slate to all our 'time-wasted' accounts. Irrespective of how much time we have wasted in the previous year, it allows us to throw that away from our minds just as we throw away one calender and get the next one. It allows us to relish the opportunity of spending the next 8760 hours better than the previous 8760 hours. Come to think of it, every New Year Resolution is just an inheritance of the basic resolve - 'Spend your time better'. 

New Years Eve is that momentous moment in the lives of 7 billion people who subconsciously reflect on the time wasted and take stock of the passage of this massive river that underpins our lives and consciousness. New Years Eve is a festival in dedication of time. Ever since the notion of time was recognized by Man's mind, we have needed this time to do some 'spring-cleaning' and prepare ourselves for a better future. 

This New Years, I promise myself just one thing - 'Spend my time better' 
Seems like a tougher resolution to break than something like 'Put your garbage out in the morning on time' :)

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Hinduism and Open Source

Well this is a really old article that I had read some time back but got to re-discover it today. Makes for an awesome read :)
Hinduism and Open Source

Coffee table take on reflections

I got a chance to meet a college friend today for coffee. As always, it is great fun to meet people you know and catch up :) Soon we were talking about things we did in college and things we want to do, now that we are out of it. She is very interested in education. It seems she had spent a large chunk of her final year teaching underprivileged children and she had employed some unusual tactics to get them interested. They were quite fascinating... One of her exercises was asking the students to record every emotion that they felt during the day. Even though this sounds like a ridiculously easy thing to do, upon careful thought, I realized that this was a potential mine-field! 

"How do I feel ?"

This is one of the eternal questions of life. Sure, you can substitute a mundane reply to this question eg after lunch, you can say you are feeling full or after running in the field all day, you are feeling tired etc. But feelings are not decided just by the activity or inactivity of the previous hours. I think feelings are more complex than just being the shadow of the world upon our minds. 

My friend had been teaching 9-12 year olds and I think that's the age that we start to inquire about things. For kids younger than that, life appears like passing along through the windows of a moving train. Forever adrift and filled with wondrous images but they never stop to inspect much. More importantly, they don't stop to reflect on how the world has affected them. Kids start doing that when around 9-10 years old. They start asking questions about why they like this color or dislike that fruit. They start questioning about household rules and arguing against dos and don'ts. They start to question the world in a most delightfully innocent way. That process of reflection and analysis continues to grow and flourish for the rest of their lives. 

One thing that struck me immediately was that our feelings towards an incident or a place are not constant. They keep changing and evolving as more experiences enter into the melting pot that is our mind. For example, a song that I found myself loving when I was in high school, visibly mortifies me today. 

Blah. I am rambling. Asking to record every emotion of the day is a tricky business. Maybe if there was a way to map the different emotions you have over time towards a particular thing, you can then draw an emotional spectrum for it. This emotional spectrum can then be compared with people of similar age-groups from different parts of the world. It will provide insights into the emotional digestion of stimuli by people across the world. I am sure that will make for a fascinating study. 

One emotional spectrum that comes to my mind is a rather morbid one. But it does prove a point. But I wonder whether something similar will be feasible for more mundane things such as a flavor of ice cream. 

Today Twitter offers an exciting way to study public perceptions and emotional responses. Even though it may not be individualistic, but it is a great estimate for collective emotional feedback. Apart from providing great entertainment value, twitter is fast becoming an emotional reservoir for mankind. And I am sure a lot of research will take notice of it. 

One of the fundamental characteristics of us humans, is that we reflect on the world around us. Out of such reflections, we arrive at character definitions. From good character stems the urge to act. From actions alone, do we change the world. Mapping emotions can definitely help us understand this cycle better and figure out what makes a genuine, concerned and caring individual. 

Friday, December 21, 2012

Dear Psy ... Why this Kolaveri?


Dear Psy from the Gangnam Style,

As I sit here, viewing your hit 'Gangnam Style' in a, frankly, senseless desire to help it become the first video on Youtube to hit the billion views mark, I can't help myself from wanting to ask you the question... 'Why this Kolaveri dude?'

I know that your song is a supposed parody on the high class neighborhood of Gangnam and its people, but hell, I did not know that for a long long time! I bet half of your millions of viewers still do know that!

So what have you done, you crazy Korean man, to make people all over the world watch your K-pop masterpiece and also, watch it over and over?

What are you trying to tell us? That you don't need to have the looks of a Ricky Martin or a Shakira to become a global music icon? Or that you don't need to have good music to become a global music icon?! While you were making those wacky horse moves during the shoot, did you expect that one day, folks from Barack Obama to the Wolverine will one day be swinging their legs in the same way? (Btw, I think that kid in the video is really cool! He's got spunk!)

I thought a little more about this and on one bleary-eyed occasion, it seemed that you are proof that God exists! Let's accept it, you are not exactly eye-candy material but I am guessing you are a rage among the women-folk now! So maybe there is still hope for dorky dancers such as me and millions more!

That brings me to another observation. Your signature move is now so famous that it can even rival MJ's Moon Dance in popularity... As blasphemous as that sounds to MJ fans including me! But you are a stroke of genius even above MJ! Ban Ki Moon would never have tried the Moon Dance! You need years of practice to get the Moon Dance right while all it takes to do The Gangnam Style are a few shots of booze! Genius.

Apart from being mind-blown when I first saw your video, the adjective that immediately came to my mind about the Gangnam Style was - Loud. Everything is loud in your video dude! Your singing, your crazy suits, your hot dancer friends (btw, nice touch with that train pole dance sequence. Real classy!) and last but not the least, your dancing! But the funny thing was.. it was mesmerizing! When you were doing that weird (and a little disturbing) head bob sequence in that elevator under another's guys legs, I laughed away a head bob of my own! When you were shouting at that girl's bottom in the beach, I was cheering you on! While you were dueling with the Yellow Guy/Girl (not sure till date!) in that underground garage, I almost flipped out!

Eventually, the whole Gangnam phase went off and I moved on with life as usual... until I heard that your video was fast approaching Baby Bieber's Baby, in terms of views on Youtube. Even though it was my hatred for Baby B that made me watch your video again and again that day, I must admit, there was a tinge of grudging admiration and love for you as well.

So today, you have a billion views! Congrats! :)
I can't say you don't deserve it! In a year of many tragedies, environmental disasters, wars and shootings, your mad dance has certainly brought a smile to millions.
You have horse-danced your way into Musical Hall of Fame. Keep dancing on, you round Korean Superstar! Keep dancing on!

Cheers!
Fellow Horse Dancer.

PS : Just out of curiosity, how did the horses react when you were doing the move in front of them? One of them seemed pretty pissed off in the video!










Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The trial for India's soul


Two days back a 23-year old medical student and her friend saw a movie and got into a private bus around 10 pm in Delhi. Little did they know, that their evening would take such a turn for the horrific. Within minutes, the 6 males inside the bus started verbally and physically abusing the girl and her friend. The girl was snatched away, gang-raped and repeatedly beaten with an iron rod on her abdomen. They finally threw the semi-naked couple on the streets. While this crime was going on, the bus driver was calmly driving the bus around the streets of India's capital including crossing three police patrol points.

Is this the country I want to call home?

Gang-rape is not unusual in this country. Every once in a while, we come across men who turn into beasts and throw all regard for human life and decency to the wind for a few minutes of savage pleasure. But still such a brazen violation of every tenet of human dignity inside our own National Capital is a chilling reminder of the sickness that resides in the hearts of some Indian men.

Hinduism, the major religion of this country, places women on a supreme pedestal. Even Vishnu is identified by the Vedas by the position of his consort within his heart. How can such degenerate, vile minds flourish within a country that cherishes her women? We have had women Prime Ministers, Presidents, Chief Ministers, Judges and Bureaucrats, why can't we make India safe for women even after all this?

The opposition is obviously gunning for the Delhi Government and for the lives of the perpetrators of this heinous crime. For a change, I whole-heartedly support it. The Delhi Government has miserably failed in protecting its women and has played a crucial role in the transitioning of our Capital into the Rape Capital of India.

Capital punishment for rape or gang-rape will no-doubt make many lawyers and human rights activists queasy. Leave alone 'rarest of the rare', such incidents are no longer even 'rare' in India. They will undoubtedly object to making scapegoats of just these criminals to teach a wider lesson. While there are valid concerns from either side, I believe that this incident should be taken in a wider perspective. This is not just about justice for this one girl. This is a trial for India's soul. How many more young girls must be devoured before we wake up? I consider rape to be a greater assault on the right to life than even murder.

Public humiliation of the perpetrators of this crime will undoubtedly appease many sections of the public, but that alone is not enough. Heads must roll in the establishment of the government and the police. Let each and every police constable on his rounds remember that he will not survive another rape within Delhi.

Education is often cited as the tool to weed out the animalistic tendencies of the human mind. But I strongly believe that irrespective of education, tradition and culture, vermin will always exist. It is up to us to root them out. These are people who will claim to be protecting 'Indian culture' while raping innocent women.

Let us not let such people hold our souls in ransom. Let us snatch away the soul of this country from them. Let us show them that even though India has a high toleration level for crime, touching our women and children is where we draw the line - a strong, inviolable line. 

Thursday, December 6, 2012

A lie away from being truthful


We all lie. To even claim otherwise would be a lie and lead us back to my first statement. Since lying is such a universal thing, it has never bothered me much. I lie just as much as a normal human being does. When my mother asks me if I had a healthy dinner, I lie. When my Project Guide asked me for my status, I lied and aggrandized my position. When my office mentor asks me if I had gone through that presentation, I lie and say that I did so while in reality I did not even know the presentation existed. Lying is something we do with such alarming regularity and normalcy that quite often we do not realize it when we lie.

But nothing lasts good, forever. Even an inveterate stalwart liar does slip up eventually and his lie is uncovered. So for normal humans such as you and I, the chances of getting caught are much higher. As children, still novices at this ancient art, we used to get caught a lot more! From the days of the proverbial Johny, we all used to steal sugar and then deny it too! One of my earliest memories of my own childhood is a rather sombre one. While playing with my G.I.Joes one day, I tried to make one of the Joes perform an Olympic somersault followed by a Canon blast. The ensuing projectile flew across the living room and rammed into the glass showpiece. The sharp pitched crash that followed brought the whole house to my scene of crime. My mother vigorously started checking if I had any glass pieces on me and once I had been certified 'glass-less', the scoldings began. But I refused the whole thing! I claimed that I had been very far away from the showpiece (which was true as my projectile had managed to cover an impressive range! Strange how I sucked at shot-put in school though) My mother started scolding me more for lying but I still steadfastly stood to my story. Finally my father who usually protects me when my mom goes ballistic stepped in and gave me a tight slap with a warning - 'Never lie'. I went to sleep crying that night still claiming innocence.

Looking back at that event after all these years, what surprises me is not the fact that my usually calm father got so enraged over my lying but that even when all the odds were stacked against me and my flimsy tale, I still stuck with my lie!! Why did I do that? To save me from loss of face? I don't think I was old enough to even appreciate that I had any face in my family! I mean these are all people who had seen my actions in a diaper, how much face could I possibly save after all that?
No, I think that somehow we human beings are deeply wired to stick to our lies. For a moment, just compare this with the conviction that people show towards the truth. During discussions with friends, on many occasions, I knew that what they were saying was wrong and that what I knew was the truth, but still I usually do not speak it out loud for fear of hurting their feelings.

Let me tell you about this one time when I saw a guy at school put dirt into another guy's tiffin box.  I did not know either of them, so no question of partiality there. But when my teacher asked who had done it, I kept quiet. Why did I not speak out the truth? What if the teacher had directed that question right at me, would I have reacted differently? I highly doubt it. I would have just said I did not see anything.

Standing up for the truth is one of the most romantic and most venerated of all ideals. Be it religion or atheism, truth is often the most ideal of ideals. And yet, it is such a treacherous one. Why is it so difficult to be more truthful in our everyday lives? Practical people often say that man is a selfish and rational creature. Between lies and the truth, he will pick the option that offers him greater rewards. Religion makes this simple reasoning much more complex by the idea of 'short-term' and 'long-term' rewards. Would you lie to save your face for ten minutes or say the truth and preserve the purity of your soul for eternity? Now that's what you call a loaded question!

If humans were meant to be truthful beings then why is it that right from childhood when we are supposed to be pure and innocent, we show greater disposition towards sticking to our lies rather than our truths? Are humans supposed to be intrinsically flawed creations who lie or speak the truth as they will? Are we all such randomly programmed sentient beings? Is there no greater thing than the necessity of the now and recent future? I would like to think not. For no other reason than that it makes me feel nauseous to think so.

As I reflect more and more on my two anecdotes, I arrive at an interesting argument. Lying is often a deeply, deeply personal thing. It is so deeply intertwined within us that even though there is a conscious part of us which condemns lying, there is another cog that keeps the lying wheel rolling. And when our lies get exposed, we are more often that not, standing up for ourselves! To be more accurate, the part of us that condemns lying is forced to stand up for the incorrigible liar inside of us. But being truthful is a very tricky game. Truth is never a singular affliction. Truth requires you to stand up for everyone at the same time. You cannot be truthful to one person and dishonest with another at the same time in moral transactions. While lying is a many shaded dye, truth is always freshly starched white. It is a burdensome, absolute standard that we are asked to bear, not for ourselves but for everybody, while lying is simply you carrying your own water. Even a child knows which is the easier task.

Just because lying is easier to defend, does this imply humans prefer lying? That is a risky question and I would not like to imply such causality. All I will say is that even wannabe truthful people often lie because it is easier to deal with.

A society where everyone shared my pessimistic viewpoint would be a starved one without doubt. All societies have been blessed with a few individuals who perform not just their expected moral duties but also stand for absolutes such as their faith in Truth. Mahatma Gandhi believed in no Law higher than the Truth and lived his life based on that conviction. Theists will agree on Dharmaputra's umbilical and sometimes strained connection with the Truth during even extreme hardships. Common folks will always empathize or more likely sympathize with Raja Harishchandra. Such people inspire us. They make us strive to live tomorrow as slightly better people than we are today. They are the crepuscular rays on our cloudy lives. Truth is a rigged game which offers a much simpler shortcut of lying. We have the power to choose. As they say, it is in moments of choice that the autonomy of Man is asserted. Nature or God lets you assert yours when you break glassware and look up to angry faces. 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Finding a city along with a bunch of books..


A man's identity is seldom defined by him alone. It is largely influenced by his tastes, his friends and quite importantly, by his place of stay. The existing social and cultural mores of his place of stay deeply affect the mental and emotional pipelines of an individual. Unsurprisingly, this link that we share with cities and villages has been glorified on numerous occasions by authors and film-makers across the world.I am a metro-man. I have never lived in a village for more than a few months, so I can never relate with the flowing peacefulness of sleepy paddy farms and gushing brooks behind the street. As much as I can love them for their ability to recharge my mind and body, I can never connect and more importantly emote with them on the long term. I love the frenetic pace and hurried lifestyle of the city. I know it's bad for me, but it is the set of cards I was dealt with and I am largely happy about it.

Hence in every metro I have lived in, I try to identify myself with a certain aspect of the city. I try to alienate what I love and hate about that city. This process of 'getting to know' the city underpins my relationship with it and determines how I will remember the city after I have left it. In Chennai, Calcutta and Trichy, I could find that little part of the city and its cultural scene which left a deep mark on my psyche. And last weekend, I decided to search for that connection with my new home - Bangalore.

As with most good things in my life, my search began with The Hindu. Saturday's edition shared a sombre article about a famous Bangalore bookstore 'Page Turners' of Penguin shutting down in December and offering great discounts as a final punch.A s someone who has been concerned with this worrisome trend of 'bookstore deaths' (and blogged about it too!), I wanted to visit this store at least once before it shut doors for good. So after my morning cuppa, I left for a long journey, traversing across the town to reach this store in M. G.Road. The journey reminded me of my first and most frustrating opinion about this city - the transit times. Agreed, I do not stay in a very fortunate place. Office timings demand of me to stay very far away from Bangalore City itself, hence every time I want to visit the City, I need to plan for at least two hours of Travel Buffer zone! While this is undoubtedly an irksome thing, its unavoidable nature makes me try to spend that time in a fruitful manner. I now use these long bus journeys through concrete jungles to catch up on my favorite podcasts or with my reading. Thanks to the luxuriously comfortable A/C buses, these bus journeys provide with a very comfortable setting for some 'alone' time. Hence, I no longer cringe at these long bus rides.


I finally reached M.G.Road after more than one and half hours on two buses and found a place that defied Indian stereotypes. Undoubtedly the most 'happening' few streets of Bangalore, M.G.Road and its adjoining Brigade Road were a sea of tourists and foreigners shopping door to door at stores
boasting the latest international designs and brands. Even though I have traveled and shopped abroad, this exotic scene of international-ness transplanted upon crumbling buildings, garbage on the street and awful traffic, lent a very awkward smell to this scene. But I was star-struck none the less. While these streets do not remind one of the 'Old Money' of Parrys Corner at Chennai or Marine Drive at Mumbai, they did have a very vibrant and pulsating sense to them. One could clearly see the 'New Rich' that Bangalore has incubated as part of its meteoric rise from a sleepy, retirement city into India's Information Age capital. These are people who have broken into the upper echelons of money and status through their education and hard work alone and are eager to show it off!! Amidst this wave of nouveau riche ITians, I could also see the staple images of India - beggars and street dogs. But none the less, M.G.Road and Brigade Road gave me plenty to see and admire.

As I was searching for 'Page Turners', I ran into an old friend - 'Higgin Bothams'. Anyone who has lived in Chennai or has traveled through
Central Station or Meenambakkam Airport, would be familiar with Higgin Bothams.
One of the first and most aristocratic of Chennai book stores, its iconic store
on Mount Road is as much a part of Chennai's important sites catalogue as the
Egmore Museum and Marina Beach. I vividly remember traveling to this store once a year with my
father and my elder sister for our family's annual books purchase. We used to
rack up on a number of books on finance, accounting and such for my father,
Nancy Drews for my sister and some Tinkles for good old me. Higgin Bothams
Bangalore reminded me of its Chennai cousin. It had the same nonchalant, humble
exterior with a disinterested store clerk and dull settings. It this age where
even book stores are demanded of to be 'pimped-up', Higgin Bothams presents a
refreshing sense of disdain at whether you buy a book or not! Very refreshing
indeed!

I finally found 'Page Turners'. In fact, the store was very crowded! Clearly a number of Bangalorians had read the same article and had shared my enthusiasm. I weaved my way through the crowds and discovered some amazing books! Penguin being one of the largest publication houses, 'Page Turners' had the best titles across all genres! I simply could not help myself and ended up splurging a sizable chunk of my just-received monthly pay!

After my book drive, I resumed my walks through the side roads and gullies. One might wonder why I did not make this trip along with a friend or a bunch of friends. To be honest, I had already visited M.G.Road and Brigade Road on more than one occasion with my friends, but I have this theory that the special bond that one shares with a city can only be found when alone. When you don't have the constant interruption of conversation, thoughts and bantering, your mind tends to explore the surroundings and your senses start to perceive more than the bare minimum. This lends into this ethereal connection that we feel towards any place. To exemplify, when I used to live in Calcutta, I used to take the Metro often by myself to travel to my mom's office near Park Street.
As a middle school student, these trips were very exciting times as I fancied myself to be a 'Big Man' to be allowed to travel alone. After reaching the 'Maidan' Metro Station, just as I used to get out through one of the exits, I used to run into this vendor who sold baked beans, puffed rice and onions in the form of a local delicacy called 'Jaal Muri'. Every time, I used to stop and buy a small pouch of this delicacy and eat it on the way to my mom's office which was a couple of blocks away. To this day, I remember the vivid smell of slightly old onion and masala of the Jaal Muri. It is one of the many images that come to my mind when I recollect my times at Calcutta.



After walking around for a few hours, I decided to travel back home through a circuitous but more fun route! I took the Metro from M.G.Road to Baiyapannahalli. The Namma Metro Project, although a work in progress, should be a source of pride not just for Bangalore but for the whole of India! It is a beautifully maintained mode of transport with a friendly and helpful staff and well thought-out logistics. It was concrete evidence of India finally taking her baby steps towards a superior way of public commutation. One thing which really fascinated me during my Metro ride was the attitude of my co-passengers. Unlike the usual disdain and arrogance with which Indians treat public transport, my co-passengers seemed to regard the Metro with a certain respect, even fear one could say. A father severely reprimanded his son for jumping on the leather seats and trying to pull a poster on the wall and another person even offered his seat for an elderly gent, all very new and unusual scenes in Indian public transport! Although it is early days for Metro Project, I really hope that people continue to maintain this sense of deference towards the Metro.


I finally reached home after another bus ride from Baiyapannahalli. I was tired and my legs were sore from walking for more than four hours but I had come back much wiser about my new home. Bangalore is a really beautiful city. It is a city filled with young people like me, filled to
the brim with ambition and in some cases with compassion. It is a city with money flowing in from all quarters and it is a city which is opening her horizons to the world. It is no longer just the IT Capital of India but also the Youth Capital of India. The infectious sense of optimism and happiness that the young educated Indian possesses is evident in every shopping mall, multiplex and office in this city. It is a city where its hard to be unhappy. Yes it suffers from crippling traffic problems and some law and order concerns, but as with young people, you tend to move on and look beyond these flaws. Bangalore is at the vanguard of a New India, one that is rising with each quarter of positive growth. But I would like to believe that they are not just interesting in piling money, they are also giving back through their money and time! Bangalore newspapers are valiantly pushing for the views of this new class by demanding better garbage-disposal, traffic control and policing from the Municipality, NGOs are flushed with volunteers who are willing to give back on weekends and holidays and finally millions such as me are blogging and documenting about the rise of this city and about the New Indians who are fueling growth so that the rest of India can shrug off its slumber and become a part of this rise.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Idiot Box Retrospection

College is a momentous experience for anyone. From making life-long friendships to trying out new things, college is a highlight phase of most people's lives. It was no different for me.

A major addiction that most of us get during college is the love for TV shows. From age-old classics such as Fawlty Towers and Friends to avant-garde shows such as Fringe and The Wire, we all get hooked onto our fair share of shows. In fact, I would say that I would have spent more time watching TV shows during college than attending classes!
Despite this near-universal love for TV shows, what each show means to each person is starkly different. Just like a 'sleep-in tee shirt' or a 'i am depressed - pants', some TV shows become more than just a passing interest in one's life. They come to occupy a certain role, often critically important one, for most people.


I think all of us would have experienced this common incident. We have just finished watching a marathon TV season of The Wire or Six Feet Under, and just when we realize that there is nothing good left to watch, we start playing a random episode of Friends. We will then end up watching the rest of the season in record time! The grip that this show has on most people's lives is utterly incomprehensible. Even when we can quote each and every dialogue backwards, the show always manages to get a few laughs out of us each time. I think that beyond a certain point, we no longer watch Friends because it is funny. We watch it because it reminds us of a much simpler time when we were in school and were taking our baby-steps into the world of TV shows and life. It reminds us of an America that was before the devastation of 9/11 and the War on Terror. It reminds us of a time when mobile phones were scarce and the internet was scarcer, of a time when hanging out with friends in a coffee shop was the staple fun quotient of the day. Personally, I never found Friends as funny as other shows such as Seinfeld or Arrested Development(AD), but I found myself yearning to live in that time none the less.





Speaking of AD, if I had a pick one TV show that must be made compulsory viewing for each human on Earth, it would hands-down be AD. A show that is ridiculously funny and yet disconcertingly insightful, AD consumed me to such an extent that I ended up watching one whole season of it, one day before my semester examination! Even when I was writing my examination, my mind kept going in an infinite loop of the many funny dialogues and I found myself laughing like an idiot in the middle of the exam! On the face of it, AD may seem like a mediocre show, its humor is very subtle and fast-paced. So one lapse of concentration and you will not get the joke, but it grows on you. You tend to grow and mature with each character and every time they delight you with their unpredictable yet oddly consistent antics, you will love them just a little bit more!



The Wire. Need I say more? A TV show par excellence, a work of sheer genius and a masterpiece in every way, The Wire in many ways is the greatest TV show ever made. Back in second year, when I started watching it, I watched the first four seasons in one go within a few weeks and then got thoroughly depressed as I had just one more season left. I decided to savor that last season of brilliance. My resolve lasted till 3 months after college ended, when I finally saw the fifth season.




Each TV show has a USP. It could be a light comedy or a serious criminal thriller. But a few TV shows achieve greatness by recreating a period long gone. There are so many shows which are set in the past and they show great dedication in recreating the settings and dialogues to suit that period of time and they become very accurate portrayals of that period. But very very few TV shows not just portray but transport you to that phase. Mad Men is one such show. A frustratingly slow paced show in which pretty much nothing happens, but you end up living an alternate life in 1960s New York. Initially I did not get the brilliance of this show. In fact, my first 3 attempts at watching Mad Men, ended within the first ten minutes of the first episode. It just did not seem right. But finally, the show started speaking to me and I have never looked back since. Mad Men affected me to such an extent that once I even dreamed about being in the 1960s!


There are a few shows which have acquired legendary status and following, despite having been very unsuccessful during their original runs. Shows such as Firefly and Freaks and Geeks ran for just one season but achieved a lifelong-loyal fan following. These shows affect you and even before you understand what it is that has affected you so much, they end. I remember royally bad-mouthing Fox Network for ending Firefly, but then I wonder, if Firefly had lasted for 4-5 seasons, would it have affected me just as much as it did in its brief existence? Or did the fact that there was just one season, make the experience more special? I will never know, but Firefly is one TV show that I will never watch again but I will always remember with alarming clarity. Wish I could say the same about my studies.

I have left out so many other unbelievable TV shows in this post that it is almost embarrassing! But I guess I just wanted to share a few shows which have come to mean a lot to me over the years. I strongly believe that TV shows represent the next phase of creativity. Branding them as crass and commercial will do injustice to the growing number of shows which are more works of art than just  fodder for the idiot box.