Mousetrap – 76

A beginners’ guide
BollyWHAT??
If you’re one of the three people in this country who don’t grok Bollywood, here’s where you can find your crib sheets. This site aims to make our films “accessible to fans everywhere! — er, well, as long as you speak English.” Originally it offered plot synopses, glossaries, transliterated and translated lyrics; now the site has expanded to include bios, gossip, filmographies, recommendations. And it does it all with a nice mix of fun and genuine affection for its subject. A great way to get yourself up to speed on the national obsession. If you want to, that is.

Yer Granny could do it
Grandma’s Tales & Hip Hop Grandmom
Bloggers, so the cliché goes, are immature, maladjusted, geeky young men whining at the world. That may be true of some parts of the ’sphere, sure, but it’s by no means the rule. At any rate, these two ladies are about as far from that stereotype as one could get. Both teachers, they live in different corners of the country, and far from being socially inept, both project an immense sense of joi de vivre. And just in case you’re beginning to think they’re twins or something, no, they’re very distinct personalities. Go visit the ladies. They’re helping make blogging respectable for the rest of us.

Pre-history
Web Pioneers on the Wayback Machine
This paper has written about the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine before so I’ll only remind you that it is “an ongoing archive of the web” that gives you snapshots of sites as they once existed. This special collection points you to the archives of the sites that pretty much defined the web at the very beginning, before the dot com boom and bust: Yahoo!, the Trojan Room Coffee Machine (the first ever webcam), the NCSA, IMDB, Amazon (the first major e-tailer), NASA, WELL, even the White House. (Archive.org commenced work in ’96 , so you’ll only get ten-year-old snapshots.)

Playtime
The 50 Worst Video Game Names Of All Time
Self-explanatory, that title, no? I’ll just give you my favourites from the list. There’s Spanky’s Quest. (The protagonist is a monkey. Get it? No? Never mind.) And Boobie Kids. And Sticky Balls. Really. Go see. [Link courtesy Ashwan Lewis.]

You’ve got book
DailyLit
Books by email? A chapter at a time? Not as strange as it sounds. As the site explains, many of us who find ourselves with little or no reading time spend hours a day reading email (or, if you’re like me, generally reading online all day). So the site offers you books mailed to you in bite-sized segments that should take you around five minutes to read. If you find yourself with a little more time on a given day, simply mail in for the next bit to be sent immediately, rather than the next day. All books currently available are public domain, so while you’re not going to get the latest bestsellers, you will get quite a few classics. [Link courtesy Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan.]

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 29th October, 2006.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap – 75

G.I. Show
Calcutta 1945: An American Military Photograph Album
During World War Two, Calcutta played an imporant part in the Allied effort. Troops transited through the city en route further East and South-East. Not just Brits; many American soldiers too. And the University of Pennsylvania’s Van Pelt Library has made a rather unusual photo album available online. The pictures give you a sepia-tinted glimpse into that world, and with the photographer’s captions, give you a perspective on the average American’s view of the India of that era, much of which would be politcally incorrect to express now, of course. Though some may argue that many of those opinions are still held… [Link from Neha Viswanathan.]

Camera Veritas
The Weird Picture Archive
If you’re a reality TV fan, this site will keep you going between downloads of The World’s Most Shocking Police Videos and the Jerry Springer show. The tone is set right there on the front page, which, as of this writing, shows you a chap who can put a finger up his nostril.. and out of his eye socket. You can go search for your favoured brand of weirdness in the convenient categories (which sections for aliens, animals, humans, deformities, medical conditions, and much else), or use the archive search facility. Warning: this is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended guardians of culture, here or elsewhere. The pictures can gross out even The Simple Life addicts.

Ex Libris
BookMooch
You know how some people (and you know who you are) borrow books and never return them? Well, this site makes it all official. It works simply: you register for free, and list the books you want to give away. And you can check out what others have to offer, and mooch their stuff. You gain points each time you list a book, send one off (postage is your only expense) or acknowledge receipt of one, and you use them each time you receive a book. Go see. And, er, by the way, you can save yourself the bother of registering and just send your books to me…). [Link via Prayas Abhinav and Joan Pinto]

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 22nd October, 2006.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

BEST days

We moved to Bombay when I was ten. I missed the old place, as I’d missed others as we moved from city to city, but as young lads do, I made friends fast—school chums, colony playmates, tuition pals.

It’s not as easy to make new friends when you’re older, in a new place; I know that now. For my parents, old pals from our home town were a link to their youth. The only such lived in Colaba and we in Chembur. And so, ever so often, we’d do our mini-expedition into South Bombay. For a middle class family, a taxi all the way was an indulgence. My brother doesn’t have the use of his legs, so the local trains, with the foot overbridges, and of course, the crowds, were too much of a hassle. So we took the bus.

The most convenient was the 8 Ltd, which then, as now, ran between Chembur’s Ambedkar Udyan and Flora Fountain. But then, the busses that plied the route were all double-deckers. The pollution, we quickly discovered, gave me blinding headaches when I travelled the lower deck. So I would be handed my ticket money and packed off to the top. (My parents and brother didn’t have the option; carrying John up the narrow stair to the top was difficult.)

Those rides were my introduction to the larger city beyond the lazy tree-lined avenues of Chembur. Over the years, I’ve got to know many other sides of this vast metropolis, but so many of those first impressions still define it for me.

Alone in the top deck, without Dad to point out the sites, I learned to orient myself in the city. Street signs were way too small to read from a moving bus; many were obscured with cloth banners and branches and, besides, the names weren’t the ones that I found on the old map I pored over, and they weren’t the ones that the conductor bellowed as he rang his bell. Commerce, on the other hand, can always be relied on for visibility. So shop signs, and even better, banks (because they put their branch names on their signage), those temples to Mammon, helped me figure out the geography of this city of money, the city Dad had moved to, to give me a better start in life.

I’d have charged to the front of the bus, of course, to pretend, when I thought that no one was looking (I was all of ten, after all) that I was the driver. With the wind blowing in my face, I’d mark off the areas we passed through: the bottleneck just before Sion, where now a flyover doesn’t seem to have helped matters; then Sion Hospital, and King’s Circle, which in all the years since, I still haven’t been in; and the broad sweep of road before Dadar’s huge traffic island; and the road narrowing again; and the confusing jumble before I found Byculla, marked by a Chinese joint visited once and forever imprinted; and then the church, and another hospital before the chaos of Mohammad Ali Road, with its fragrant set of restaurants, before VT, which was my mark to reluctantly make my way to the lower deck. And then we’d take a taxi to my parents’ friends home, within sight of Radio Club, where the adults would chatter away, and I’d be waiting to get home.

We’d head back, usually, at night. The return journey started at Electric House, with the 6 Ltd. Unless it was very late, in which case Dad would splurge on a taxi. As much as I dredge my memory, I don’t recall much of those return trips. I guess I slept through them, because all I recall is a blur of light and speed. In later years, I’ve come to know those sights better, as the boy-who-had-to-be-at-school-by-seven changed to the man-who-worked-into-the-wee-hours-by-choice.

And, ever so often, just for the memory, I take a bus back through the length of the city, even it means I have to change to another one to get me home, across the creek.

Published in Outlook‘s City Limits Mumbai, October 16th, 2006.

Tags: Outlook, Outlook City Limits Mumbai

Mousetrap – 74

In their own words
The South Asian Literary Recordings Project
Whoop-di-doo! Just right to fill in those gaps in my iPod. If you’re an admirer of fine writing, and, by extension, of its exponents, you’ll love this. Brainchild of the USA’s Library of Congress Delhi office, it was set up to celebrate the LoC’s overseas bicentennial. It features well-loved authors reading from their own writing. You’ll find Mulk Raj Anand, Faiz, Kaifi Azmi, Keki Daruwalla, a certain A B Vajpayee (as a poet, not a speechmaker, thankfully) and many, many others, over eighty of them in all, in recordings ranging from 30 to 60 minutes long, in 22 languages from all over the region. Warts and all—accents, mistakes stumbles, and the more endearing for that. And yes, all available free, in Real Audio, and the more friendly MP3 format. Bliss.

The world’s longest Fw:
Yahoo! Time Capsule
I stand accused of featuring way too many Google products. To which I say, hey, they do a lot of cool stuff! (Yeah, yeah, okay, we’re a G-roupie.) Anyway, to prove our secular credentials, here’s a cool Yahoo project. Caveat: you’ll need a Yahoo ID. Up to the 8th November, you can contribute images, text, audio, video—from your personal archive or created specially for this—to one of the categories of what they call an electronic anthropology project. They say it’s “the first time that digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes.” (I think not. I recall several others, one of which I featured here.) These contributions will be handed into the care of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Star treatment
Anousheh Ansari Space Blog
A few weeks ago, the world’s first female space tourist (as in, not somone who had qualified as an astronaut, but paid her way with lots of money) took off in a Russian spacecraft and spent time at the International Space Station. And, as seems inevitable these days, she blogged it all. As with her little jaunt, she had help with the blog, but there is a lot of stuff she’s written. There’s also a Flickr photo set and her personal site. Go relive the journey with her.

Boom
The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products
A little bonus for cartoon fans. Remember the Roadrunner cartoons? And how Wile E Coyote always seemed to get clobbered / burned / flattened by stuff with an “ACME” brand name? Well, this fan has curated a comprehensive set of them. Enjoy.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 15th October, 2006.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap – 73

Sync or swim
Gidol!
Got a digicam? Think you can make better music videos than the pros? This is for you. Gidol (originally called Google Idol, if memory serves, but not connected with either Google or any of the various country-name-here franchises of American Idol) is a global contest where anyone can post amateur videos set to well-known music. Members vote on entries in the contests, and winners get inducted into the hall of fame. Which may not be much, but hey, it’s better than putting up with the sneering of whoever’s been cast as the Bad Guy judge. (Incentive? The lads behind one video got an advertising contract from a cola MNC.) By the time you read this, entries will have closed on Gidol’s first Bollywood-themed contest, but you’ll be just in time to check out the results.

Attention-deficit stories
55 word fiction
Flash stories, also called short-shorts, are very short stories, usually not more than 500 words, frequently less. Micro-flash specifies far lower word counts, and fifty-fivers are even tighter: not more (and, the purists insist, no less) than 55 words. Here, you’ll find attempts from the blog world. Not one of them longer than this paragraph. (Which was 55 words precisely. Not including the contents of this parenthetic statement. Gah. Now I’ve ruined it.)

Edward Lear would be so proud
The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
This rather unusual lexicographer;
His online word finder is half a
standard dictionary,
but it’s extraordinary,
’Cause the definitions are all perfect limericks, unlike this one.

How does your garden grow?
Gardentia
Great site for the amateur gardener who fell asleep in Biology class back in school. No, really. It lists plants not just by scientific names, but also by common names, including quite a few in Indian languages. Each one has a picture, description, and basic care instructions. There are also some articles and features worth reading, whether you have a proper garden or just a window box. The database isn’t perfect; family names aren’t clickable, but have to be scrolled through, for instance. I guess that’s because it’s still “under construction” (which it has been for ages). Should have been “still being planted” or something like that, no?

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 8th October, 2006.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Udaya [Restaurant review]

In the days of one’s miss-spent youth in Chembur, Udaya was one of our choices for an evening out. Simple reasons, really. Dark, dingy, not too much of a mark-up on the beer, and decent chakna. All that a growing lad needs.
Life moves on, and so do we. And a decade-and-some passes. And, one day, one hears that there was this great place for aappams in the former home-burb. Further questioning reveals that it’s a respectable place near the station, called Udaya. Could it be, could it be..? And indeed it turns out that it is. A few years ago, Udaya refurbished itself, getting all bright and cheery. And has developed a reputation for excellent Kerala food. Thanks to early exposure to said cuisine, one’s response to mentions of aapams and ishtew is, very literally, Pavlovian. So, hauling in tongue, one repaired to Chembur forthwith, drinking buddy of one’s youth in tow. Beer was quaffed (purely for old times’ sake, one hastens to assure you), while waiters were commissioned. Obviously, the punjabi/mughlai/chinese sectionn was scorned, and we debated the merits of chicke, fish and mutton. And, in a bit, soft, fragrant aapams arrived, accompanied with a bowl of Irachi Ishtu (mutton stew to you and me). Heretic friend opted for Meen Urukiyathu (fish flavoured very heavily with tamarind) and Neichoru (a rather heavy rice preparation) and then proceeded to tick into my stew. The quantity, fortunately, was enough to survive his depradations, or old friendships be damned, one would have finished his beer. Yes, excellent stew it was. And you know what? The waiter told us that the place had always served Mallu food. I guess we, erm, didn’t notice back then in the day.

~ Peter Griffin

Udaya Family Restaurant
Shrama Safalya Building, Near Railway Station, Chembur, Mumbai 400071
Phone: 25214628, 25218792 (Home delivery available)
Hours: 11.00am-4.00pm – 07.00pm-12.00pm
Cuisine: Kerala. Also Chinese, Punjabi, Moghlai. Serves beer.

Published in Time Out.

Tags: Time Out, Mumbai