TambdiMati

In January this year, a press note was released by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, announcing an amendment to the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000, which should come as sweet music to many ears.

For the first time, noise level in India’s cities will be monitored by a national tracking agency. By year-end, monitoring stations will have been set up in seven cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai , Hyderabad , Bangalore and Lucknow. Over the next two years, 18 other cities, mainly state capitals, will follow suit.

So what exactly is all the fuss about? How do we define noise in the first place?

It has been defined by experts as as “acoustic signals which can negatively affect the physiological or psychological well-being of an individual.” (Handbook of Hearing and the Effects of Noise, K.D. Kryter, New York Academic Press)

In simple language, noise is unwanted sound.

Continue reading →

Along with hordes of tourists, whackos and weirdos, Goa seems to attract more than its fair share of creative people.

They come from around the world and are thick on the ground. Between my village and the next, if you chuck a stone, you are likely to hit a Booker nominee, another writer who is a Padma Shri, two published novelists, a published poet, a respected abstract artist, an innovative industrial designer, several columnists, a studio potter, many architects —and possibly Amitabh Bachchan, who recently bought a house here.

I moved to Goa with the firm resolve of writing the Great Indian Novel.

That continues to be a work-in-progress, but the writing has just got better over the years. As many creative people from around the world are discovering, Goa makes the perfect setting for creativity.

Stuck for an idea, I take long meandering walks by the river, with gulmohar flowers turning the path red in the summer, and loads of little frogs keeping me company in the monsoon. You can rest your eyes on a hundred shades of green in the paddy fields, or turn them to where smoke rises from evening fires and shrouds the trees. There is always the beach to lie on and think up stories in the sun.

During the many hectic years I spent in Mumbai, I rarely, if ever, knew when there was a full moon. Urbanites don’t raise their eyes to the sky too often. And if they do, they don’t see stars but the orange haze that hangs over big cities.

But in Goa everyone knows when a full moon is around the corner. The dogs howl all night.The cats stay out late. The crickets yell their heads off. Even the crabs grow fat. And writers find themselves sitting late at their computers madly trying to get down all that their frenzied brain is seething with.

I understood the link between the moon and creativity only when it was demonstrated for me cycle after cycle. Now I fit the full moon into my writing schedule.

Having chucked it all to become a hermit in Goa, you find that you are actually at a great creative intersection. This came home to me when I found myself at a dinner with Amitav Ghosh, Orhan Pamuk, Kiran Desai, Maria Aurora Couto, Mario Miranda and half the writers in town.

Two Booker-nominated novels were written in Goa (Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies and Damon Galgut’s The Good Doctor). I wouldn’t be surprised if more were in progress right now. A very supportive community exists and there are regular meetings, interactions and discussions.

This community draws on an established and vibrant tradition of literature.

The first printing press in Asia was set up here by the Portuguese. Goan literature spans 13 languages. The main language, Konkani, has four different scripts, and Goan writers are known for their contribution to Portuguese literature.

For such a tiny state, the literary output is tremendous. Now the Goan writer finds himself having genial discussions about the art of writing with counterparts from around the world. Over a measure of feni, of course.

Read the entire article here.

“Big nalkasur daddar!”, screamed my son Fabian pointing to a huge green roadside Narkasur effigy, in the popular seated position, somewhere near the St. Inez-Taleigao junction.

Fabian had been appointed our Narkasur-spotter while his elder brother Desmond kept up a non-stop conversation with me. This is our annual father-and-sons routine on the evening before Diwali in Panjim.

Astride my trusted Activa scooter, with Desmond seated behind and Fabian in front, we do the standard route from Tonca through Panjim to Mala and back, and in the process see every Narkasur in town. Much more exciting than watching Cartoon Network, and definitely cheaper than a movie, popcorn and cola at Inox.

Especially since Fabian turned four. Before that we felt morally justified in saying that he was technically in the three-and-below category, and hence did not need a separate ticket.

“Small nalkasur daddar”, piped in Fabian, who has a language problem not only with ‘l’ and ‘r’ but apparently also in estimating size. Any Narkasur above twelve feet was ‘big’ and anything below that was ‘small’. The word ‘medium’ does not exist in Fabian’s vocabulary. Maybe he will grow up intolerant of mediocrity, which isn’t such a bad thing!

Continue reading →

It’s 6.30am on Diwali day, and the firecrackers have already been going off sporadically for close to an hour. Earlier, the turn of the day was greeted by a flurry of explosions at midnight.

For a lot of people, this is a day of celebration. For our household, it’s a day whose arrival we await with trepidation and frustration.

To put yourself in our shoes, imagine this. If you have kids of your own, put them at the front of your mind; if not, think of any young children whom you deeply love.

Imagine a situation in which those kids are so terrified that no amount of reassuring on your part can dispel the fear in their eyes. Imagine them rushing about your house, trying to find a spot where they can feel safe from whatever it is that is terrifying them, but being unable to do so.

Imagine them cowering against you, shivering with fear despite your embrace. That’s what Diwali is like for us.

We have six dogs who are as dear to us as most people’s children are to them.

Like most animals, they are scared to their wits’ end by the cavalcade of sound that has come to accompany this festival. Right now, five of our dogs are gathered around my wife Anjali on our bed, as she pets them all in turn and tries to soothe their nerves.

Chipku, the oldest, is sitting under my table, and I can feel her trembling against my leg.

Chipku’s reactions are always the strongest. She was on the street for two years before she came to become part of our family. The level of fear she exhibits during Diwali underlines what it is like for all the stray animals out there.

For them, it is as if war breaks out in their immediate vicinity once every year (or several times, actually — every time there’s a festival nowadays, it has become the norm to have a barrage of fireworks).

Animals in general have a far greater sensitivity to noise — dogs, for example, are said to hear things between four and 16 times as loud as humans — and Diwali must sound to them like all hell breaking loose.

Earlier this year, I was approached by Scholastic India to write a piece for a collection of festival stories that they were planning to come out with. I told them how I felt about Diwali and they were fine with carrying the story I proposed.

Titled ‘A Dog’s Diwali’, it’s about a pet — neglected and scared on Diwali night — that runs away from home. Here’s a short excerpt:

“Pluto lay on his stomach on the sack, his head on his crossed front paws. His ears twitched with every sound he heard, positioning themselves to best identify the location and implication of each noise. Sporadic explosions had begun to go off, and to his acute hearing, even semi-distant blasts sounded like they were right outside the house. As evening turned into night, a wall of noise began to grow all around him, and his nervousness began to reach a fever pitch.

“From time to time, he would get up, nervously whining, and pace around as much as his chain would let him. The house itself was quiet, and being left alone was adding to his anxiety. Sometimes, hurried footsteps would come and go past the door to the dining room, and he would sit up, hoping someone was coming for him. But whoever it was wouldn’t stay, and he would be left alone again.

“Soon, the sound of explosions was a continuous barrage in the night. Many of them were actually happening just outside Pluto’s house now, and he was extremely agitated. He had pulled the chain as far as it would go, and was yanking at it, trying to get free. Then, on one of his tugs, he felt something give. The collar and chain were unyielding, but his struggles had managed to get the collar up past one of his ears. Feeling his head starting to come free, he jerked it violently back and forth and suddenly the collar slipped off.”

Diwali is called the Festival of Light. Its transformation into a festival of noise and smoke is an unwelcome and unhealthy development — I hope it’s one that more and more people will over time help in reversing.

Just weeks ago, India Today editor Aroon Purie was forced to admit that most of an Editor’s Note was plagiarized. It was another shabby footnote in the steep decline of one of India’s premier media franchises.

But will he apologize for the new low plumbed by his latest Editor’s Note – on Goa – if anything an even more egregious example of irresponsible journalism?

The plagiarism episode was followed by more allegations of the same.But this new episode conclusively demonstrates that facts don’t matter at all to this particular media baron.

All that counts is pure sensationalism, underwritten by a persistent underpinning of xenophobia. Once credible, India Today is now a bottom-feeder, and Purie a tabloid hack (at best).

Goa receives 27 lakh domestic tourists and nearly four lakh foreigners every year, many of whom just stay on.

Here’s the first “fact” thrown out by Purie, and he’s already in a hole he’s going to have difficulty crawling out of. These numbers appear to be pulled out of thin air.

3.1 million tourists per year in Goa?

That’s around twice the population of the state, and vastly inflated over any official statistic available. Who is Purie going to blame for this one? What’s the source? Of course there isn’t any! It’s been made up, plain and simple.

It has now, unfortunately, become the crime capital of India, where a confluence of sex, drugs and mafia has made an underworld industry that is growing faster than tourism.

Crime capital of India? We know from the previous disgrace that Purie almost never writes his own Editor’s Note which is written under his byline. But does he even read it?

Can anyone from Delhi – where only one recent scam (CWG) is alleged to have skimmed off 8000 crores – say this out loud without falling over laughing?

Is Purie even aware of the extreme ridiculousness of someone from Delhi – where 96% of women say they feel at risk every day – calling Goa “unsafe”? It’s beyond shameless!

And Goa’s “underworld industry” is growing faster than tourism? In whose fevered imagination? Is there some data for this? Are there any facts that can be mustered to back up this incredible assertion?

Of course there aren’t! It’s been made up, just like the rest of this shabby excuse for editorial journalism.

Ever since this incredibly skewed and irresponsible Editor’s Note came out around 24 hours ago, I have been asking the people around me in Goa whether they recognize much in it. Of course everyone is aware that lawlessness and gangsterism has become a fact of life on part of the coast, and that there is an ugly politician-criminal nexus – a widespread Indian disease – that is taking hold on state soil.

More than two years ago, I myself wrote in a Time Out Mumbai cover story that “only a huge crackdown can eliminate the drug business that pervades large pockets of the coastline.”

But there is more to this Purie editorial – and the entire scurrilous, deeply dodgy Goa cover story. There is also a persistent strain of xenophobia, underpinned by aggrieved Delhi-style feudal entitlement – as in, “why am I not being treated deferentially in Goa, in the feudal manner that I am accustomed to. How dare these foreigners feel so at home here!”

It is a common, utterly colonialist mentality, and that lack of deference is ultimately the biggest affront to Purie and his ilk.

Look at the cover picture itself – an unremarkable young caucasian woman in an unremarkable two-piece swimsuit. No Goan would even turn his head – the sight implies nothing more to us than a young woman going swimming.

But as we all know, many repressed tourists from the hinterland don’t see anything quite as simple as that. And India Today doesn’t either – it feels quite comfortable plastering the word SEX across this innocuous image, and  implying prostitution as well.

This is the ugly stereotype of Indian narrow-mindedness, and here India Today emblazons it right across its front cover.

We have been wondering here at tambdimati.com, how will this girl feel when she sees the cover . Did she “ask for it” by wearing a swimsuit to the beach? Like Delhi girls “ask for it” by merely boarding a bus?

How would Purie feel if it was his daughter pictured in a bikini, with that lurid headline splayed across her legs?

IF the dabbawalla of Mumbai knew such a furore was being created over him – that too via a writer sitting in Canada – he perhaps could be justifiably proud about himself in these times.

But my guess is he doesn’t know. Or more correctly, doesn’t care. He goes about his business bringing food to the hungry office-goers at lunch time, satisfied he has served his fellow human beings and earned his just wage.

Aditya Thackeray nudging the VC of Mumbai University to ban Rohinton Mistry’s book Such a Long Journey for perceived aspersions against Maharashtrians more than a decade after it was written in (1991) is comic if not ludicrous.

I am sure his culture department could have found worthier and more contemporary books to fit the bill. He would be the darling of the publisher of the book – because at least then people would read it.

When OUP published James Laine’s book on Shivaji it raised the hackles of the SS of Mumbai. They dutifully set about doing what they do best, viz. burning copies of the aforesaid book. The situation, I overheard, was redeemed by the wryness of a marketing director who is believed to have opined, “Ask them how many they want to burn, we will supply directly.”

Continue reading →

Last week I noticed a very spiteful advertisement in a local English daily (not GT).

It referred to the reunion of a cover band named The Syndicate. For younger readers let me first explain what The Syndicate was/is. It consisted basically of five male musicians who formed a beat group somewhere in the 1980s. They were very popular for the next two decades until they disbanded somewhere in 2002 or thereabouts.

Now The Syndicate, as they styled themselves, was no more or no less talented musically than any other Goan cover band of that time or now.

What made them uniquely popular was something called The Syndicate Sound. The members of the band had shrewdly read the writing on the wall and invested in state-of-the-art sound equipment that was miles ahead of the competition. Their sophisticated synthesizers, amplifiers and speakers could output the highest treble sounds (ting!) and the lowest bass sounds (thud!) with amazing effect.

It was said at the time that for your wedding reception if you wanted the village to know you should hire The Big City Band and Xavier Sound. But to keep the taluka awake till odd hours you should hire The Syndicate Sound.

Continue reading →

My evaluation is purely based on ‘branding goa’ and is not to be mixed with ‘marketing goa’. the task of ‘marketing goa’ is a much larger space, and ‘branding’ is a specialised niche (a sub-set) which forms the core of a successful marketing endeavour.

Hence I have not looked at areas like infrastructure development, pricing (though I believe that Goa should be driven by value and not volume), positioning of the state and competitive analysis at this stage.

The problems that I clearly observe are as follows:

a. Brand Goa does not have an owner. Just like nobody’s child – Brand Goa is growing wild. Since there is no custodian who is managing the brand it tends to get blown in different directions without any strategic plan.

Continue reading →

It took me many years of living in Goa to realize just how many levels it exists at. You are bounded by secrets on every side.

The hippies have theirs, the newly arrived Russians have theirs, and the Goans keep many of their own. I decided to research this post by asking everyone I met in the week to tell me a secret.

Continue reading →

The Sunday Evening Quiz Club (SEQC), of which I am a part, has in the last two years brought something of a quizzing revolution to Goa.

That, in itself, would be a good subject for a post on tambdimati: the Goa review, but I’ll leave that for another day. For now, I’ll focus on one aspect of it.

Among the best things that SEQC has done for quizzing in Goa is to raise a crop of new quizmasters, people who till a couple of years ago would perhaps not have dreamt that they had it in them to set and conduct a quiz.

And there’s one common sentiment that more or less all these virgin QMs have expressed as they went about setting their first quiz: “Man, this is tough!”

Like with most specialised tasks, the first time — even the first several times — you do it, it’s difficult.

But with experience, you work out systems and methods for yourself, and you arrive at ways of easing your effort. Then you can focus on the art of doing the work really well. I’ve been setting quizzes for the last 25 years (okay, that includes a 20-year hiatus between the time I left college and when we set up SEQC, but still), and I’m still figuring it out.

What I want to talk about here is the most recent quiz I set — the BiG Q 2010, which was held on October 17. The BiG Q is an annual SEQC event that we plug as being aimed at “identifying the best quizzer in Goa”.

It’s a bit of a rigorous test — 120 questions to be answered in 90 minutes from a question paper, rather like an exam, but with all subjects mixed up. You’d assume only hardcore quizzers enjoy that kind of thing. And yet more than 120 participants landed up on a Sunday morning at the four locations — Margao, Panjim, Ponda and Vasco — where we conducted the event simultaneously.

The details of the quiz, the question paper and the answers, who won, who scored how much, all that is up on the SEQC blog for everyone to look at.

What isn’t is how the quiz was set. That’s what this post is about.

Continue reading →