"Inception"

In Agatha Christie's Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, Christie's famed Belgian detective is on the trail of what he defines as the "perfect" murderer - one who doesn't actually commit the crime on their own, but instead makes other people commit murder by the instilling the idea into them via words and suggestions. 35 years after the publication of that novel, Christopher Nolan (of Memento and Batman Begins fame) has made a movie with essentially the same idea, but with a lot more technical mumbo-jumbo thrown in. Inception finds a special group of thieves (led by Leonardo Di Caprio's Cobb) attempting to instill an idea into their target's mind (a process that is called "inception") by invading his dreams. This is in contrast to their normal skill of extracting secrets from peoples heads using the same approach - invading their dreams. Inception is supposedly fraught with risk, but the motivation for Cobb to take on this risk is that he would then be able to return to the US where he is currently wanted for the murder of his wife, Mal. That is the basic plot, but the execution is anything but simple. There are layers of complexity and indeed layers of dreams. Not unlike the shaving razor wars of increasing number of blades, we go from dreams to dreams within dreams, and all the way to dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams. At some point, we the viewer give up trying to figure out which layer we are on and just go along for the ride.

And it is mostly an entertaining ride, especially if you can ignore the earnest and somewhat repetitive dialogs. The characters are dead serious about their roles and never acknowledge the absurdity of their situations. There is a resolute attempt to project an air of normalcy - it seems that everybody knows about dream invasion and extraction and indeed some folks go so far as to train themselves to defend against it. The concept is clearly futuristic and so very SciFi but all the action all seems to take place in present time - this grates on a subtle level.

The inspiration of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is obvious in a fight that takes place in a hotel corridor, but under zero gravity. Many of the effects are quite impressive, but we have stopped taking the plot seriously long before the end of the movie. Indeed, it can fairly be said that a Bond movie broke out in the middle of a Nolan movie. There is very little attempt to explain the various plot elements and we are asked to take a lot on faith. Not coincidentally, some character or the other is regularly asking somebody else to "take a leap of faith" with them.

Throughout, there are hints of secrets withheld and they are faithfully unraveled towards the end, but they had no impact - I shrugged and waited for the story to move on. The ending is another attempt to salvage the mystery element, but feels more like a cheap trick. I am a big fan of Memento and that was the major reason I went for this movie, but Nolan does not fulfill that promise. It was famously said of Memento that the cast and crew were convinced that the tale hung together after they physically rearranged the screenplay and re-read it. I strongly doubt that any such permutation of the script will help with this one. The movie is full of thrills, spills, and inane dialog, but an engrossing work it is not. I suggest waiting for the DVD.

BONO

It almost seemed like clockwork - every few weeks, MGD would recycle his proposal for a 'Boys Night Out' (BoNO), but nothing ever has come of them. Yard House would invariably be mentioned and Prem would respond enthusiastically, which was somewhat odd when you consider that he has avoided any outing that may remotely resemble a BoNO. But things are different when men of action like RD make a proposal. After a successful outing with our work place hot-wings club, RD proposed a BoNO at Bub's Dive Bar last Wednesday evening. They not only have an happy hour at that time (with half priced everything), but also have a wings special - 25 cents per wing!

Remarkably, the only planning was an Outlook invite (to which Prem replied in the affirmative, but predictably did not show up), but RD managed to garner a decent turnout - seven of us - RD, Rahul, Sanjay, Murali, Siva, Ravi, and me. Email activity perked up Wed afternoon with some discussion about car pooling. Then a disturbing note crept in - some folks were actively talking about heading to Nordstrom for some post-BoNO shopping and for shoes, no less! Our noted metrosexuals were leading the charge, so perhaps it should not have been too surprising. However, as Rahul noted, that whole exchange and plan was wrong on so many levels.

We had to brave some tough traffic, but we all managed to get there in time to catch Happy Hour and the festivities began. One thing stands out at Bub's Dive Bar - they serve you peanuts in their shells and as you eat them, you simply sweep the shells onto the floor. They also seem to be Virginia Tech supporters, with several posters and banners covering the walls. We asked for their hottest wings, but sure enough the stuff they brought over was pretty lame. For the second order, I impressed upon the waitress that we wanted the really hot ones and she said, "You want 8 drops?" And I said, "Yeah, that sounds right." I had no clue what "drops" were, but the '8' rang a bell from our last visit. But the second batch was also very tolerable. The natives were beginning to get restless. They didn't say so in so many words, but clearly some skepticism was beginning to creep into their tone when I kept insisting that there is indeed a higher level of spiciness that could be had.

I called the waitress over again and said that the wings were just not hot enough. She was doubtful, but said (not very seriously I think), "You want 16 drops?" I was savvy to the drops unit by now and I said, sure, lets try that. But just make it 5 wings and get us 15 more of the previous level (8, in our estimation). She returned with the two sets of wings and right away we can tell that a new level has been reached. There were fumes coming off of the wings. RD and I graciously ceded the new batch to the newbies. After some hesitation, Sanjay, Rahul, and Siva dove in. Or I should say, took a tentative bit each. And then they stopped. They seemed to be experiencing some difficulty with speech and their eyes were tearing up. Sweat was forming on their foreheads and there was a stillness to their posture. To the rest of us, especially me, it was a riot. The looks on their faces was priceless - it was mission accomplished. After a while, Rahul got up and took a walk - like somebody with a muscle cramp, he was attempting to walk it off. He returned to the table and declared that it had worked.

In the meantime, Murali had just started on his first nuclear wing. He was being surprisingly timid. Much was expected of him, but he failed us - after a bite or two, he gave up. He made another attempt on a second wing, but that too didn't last long. To his credit he did manage to finish off a third one (that was conspicuously small), but by then the damage was done - his reputation as the King of Heat was down in flames, literally. Sanjay, on the other hand, was a true stalwart - attempting and finishing off two of the nuclear wings. I suppose this should not have been too surprising given the spice levels that Geetha is fond of.

The effect of the spice was being expressed in loud tones and we were attracting the attention of our neighboring tables. We offered them a sample, but they wisely declined. Then we realized with horror that the batch of 15 wings were also at the super spicy level. I managed one, but when I started on a second one, I had to stop short. This was unlike anything I had experienced before. To say that my mouth was on fire was difficult, because that would actually require being able to form words and emit sounds. I tried the sit-still approach, but that was useless. Sweat was pouring off of me and after several agonizing moments, I decided I had to try the Rahul technique and walk it off. As I got off the table, a cheer rose from the next one - I guess that given how much merriment I had been deriving from the suffering of the rest of our group, the sight of me capitulating was cause for celebration. Heck, they even snapped some photos of us!

The spice was having a real effect - the overall mood became much more jolly and almost everything began to sound real amusing. All the expected jokes about experiencing the wings coming and going were made. Sanjay predicted that it was going to be water for everybody the next morning. The use of baby wipes was suggested. Some soul who seemed to have some experience in these matters suggested first putting the wipes in the fridge - presumably for an extra cooling effect. Murali attempted to repair the torn shreds of his reputation by laying down one preposterous challenge after another - "I am going have 2 more!" "But you can only get them in batches of 5" "Ok, I'll have 5 then!" We dissuaded him from this foolishness. So then he goes, "Ok, then I'll just drink the sauce from the previous batch." We almost took his car keys away.

Eventually we had to leave and we spent some time standing outside the joint, just watching the folks coming in. Sanjay made a whiplash move to catch a new arrival (apparently he was just checking out the hat she was wearing) and dropped the carryout box that he had for the sample he was going to bring home for Geetha. His explanation of why he lost control of his hands while enjoying a fashionable hat was not very convincing. But then, we were not in a picky mood either, so we let it pass.

The spice was still roiling our tummies and a general cry for ice cream went out. We spotted a Gelato place across the street and headed there. By now, all thoughts of shopping were out the window and thankfully we were spared the sight of three middle aged men heading off to shop for shoes, together. Of course, a small cup of gelato was hardly sufficient to douse the flames. I had a violent fit of hiccups soon after I got home and had two Tums to calm things down. RD noted the next day that his stomach was not "very jolly." When I ran into Siva the next day, he expressed regret at not having acted on the baby wipes idea. Both Sanjay and Ravi continued to suffer through the day, but also experienced cravings for the wings. I do have it on good authority that neither of them are planning to expand their family.

An outing for half-priced chicken wings for a BoNO had all the promise of being a snooze fest, but boy, were we wrong - happily so, of course.

Kindle, Reconsidered

A while ago, I made my case (LINK) against the Kindle and its ilk. The ranks of e-book readers continue to swell, with the iPad being one of the splashier entrants. Interestingly, book publishers were among the greatest cheer leaders for the iPad (they dubbed it the "Jesus Pad") largely because they hoped that it would deliver them from the clutches of Amazon. Amazon has dominated the e-book market and its pricing power is so great that the $9.99 price for a new book became the de facto standard. Publishers hate this and indeed believe that this price is unsustainable. One of the key reasons that they were willing to sign up with Apple is that Apple is willing to allow publishers a say in the price of the e-book.

The emergence of all the new readers has had the predictable effect of dropping prices on existing readers. The regular Kindle is down to $189 and I am sure a $99 Kindle is not far away (Christmas?). And in many ways, this is mostly what Amazon expected - they don't have much interest in dominating the e-book reader market - all they care about is e-book sales. A clever part of this strategy has been to have readers for Kindle format books on every popular device, including the iPad. The most recent Kindle app has been for Android powered phones, which is what I use. This is really the trigger for this post.

Despite not owning a Kindle, I have lots of Kindle books in my account - the explanation is simple: my BIL in India uses my Amazon account to purchase books for his Kindle. So, as soon as I downloaded the (free) Kindle app for my Android phone, I had immediate access to a whole bunch of books. I started innocently enough - browsing through a few pages of Born To Run. Then I started on an Harlan Coben ("Caught") novel, not really expecting to actually go through with it. But before I knew it, I was hooked and the quick page changes required ceased to be an issue. As Bezos has famously claimed, the physical form of the "book" vanished. What remained was quick and convenient access to the book I was reading, never having to remember where I had left off. I finished that book in short order, then another one by Greg Iles ("The Devils Punchbowl") and briefly flirted with "90 Minutes in Heaven" before deciding that it was too cult-ish for me. Started a Jonathan Kellerman novel ("Bones") only to realize that I had already read it (most of these thrillers are like confections - high in excitement, low in retention) and have since moved onto a Jeffery Deaver book ("The Broken Windows"). All in the space of less than 10 days.

So am I a convert? Hardly - many of my beefs about the Kindle are still relevant, but the minor epiphany here is that what I was railing against was the notion that e-books are superior to books, magazines, and newspapers as we know them. I also didn't believe that the reading experience would measure up. But in reality, if the material is interesting enough, it almost doesn't matter what the medium is - this should have been obvious earlier. Then the undeniable convenience takes over. But, another caveat is needed - the Android app is not the first Kindle app I have tried. I had previously tried it on my laptop and on our iTouch. In both cases, I didn't read more than a couple of pages. What is different this time is that my phone is always accessible - I was already carrying it and now being able to have immediate access to my book made a lot of sense. I would often kill time playing some inane game on my phone - being able to read a book is so much better. So, there you have it - e-books do have their place!

Summer Arrives

Is it really Summer? Hard to tell from the weather we have been having in San Diego - you almost need a jacket in the evenings. All the other signs of Summer have arrived on schedule, though. Kids are out of school and almost everybody seems to be heading off on vacation. Our Summer has not followed its normal pattern - indeed, you could say that about the entire year so far. January was all about preparing and getting through the Carlsbad Marathon. Then Feb and March was focussed on preparing for the visit of my sister and family. Tax returns had to be filed and a minivan purchased. My sister and family were here for 4 weeks, starting early April. We did a road trip (the minivan has been quite a success) to two of our favorite places: Grand Canyon and Death Valley. My BIL, Ravi, was rather overwhelmed by the Canyon and wants badly to do the hike down to the river. Before leaving San Diego, he even bought himself some hiking shoes from REI and insisted that my sister do the same. The plan is to practice in Bangalore and come back here to do the hike. The logistics are a bit challenging, so I am not even thinking about it.

After a small lull, we had more visitors in early June - this time in the form of Malini's parents and nephew (Nishanth) and niece (Nandita, aka Neetu) from St Louis. That was a raucous 4 weeks and it surely took all of Malini's patience to get through it without having to use physical restraints on any of the kids. In mid-June, my friend Rao and family came to San Diego for a short visit and for a brief time, we had 5 kids at home. At the end of June, Manoj and Veena showed up and after spending a few days returned to St Louis with the kids. The unseasonably cold and overcast days meant that we made only one beach visit, the highlight of which was trying our hand (or should I say, hips) at hula-hooping. Arjun picked it up rather quickly while the rest of us were less successful(Hula Video). I did manage to figure out a way to keep the hoop going - using a rather ungainly, rapid fire spinning motion. The folks who had brought the hoops remarked that they had never seen anything quite like that. We also managed to squeeze in a Pani Puri session and broke out the barbecue for some grilling. Our grill has two extreme zones - a cold zone on the right and a hot zone on the left. Too much risk with undercooked chicken, so I used the left side and Chicken Carbonara was enjoyed by all.

But really, the way we mark seasons in our house is with what sports are playing on TV. Through the winter months, the boys really got into football (the American version) and Abhi nominated Drew Brees as his personal hero (largely because he decided that the Saints were the best team given their near-perfect season). After the Super Bowl, he was upset to learn that there would be no football for a while. Almost every day he asks when football season will start. January also marks the start of the PGA season, but with Tiger's off-course scandals, watching golf coverage has been muted, although we watched the finish of all the majors with great interest. I don't really follow NBA and so neither do the boys, but we had a brief flutter of interest during the finals given that the Lakers were in it and it went to seven games. Then there was the unexpected bonus of the World Cup in South Africa, which overlapped the visit of Neetu and Nishanth. This resulted in many a soccer game in the backyard in which the teams belonged to the nation of the day. For some reason, Abhi was most fascinated by the goal keepers and as is his wont, would show us slow motion replays of dramatic botched and successful saves.

July brings the last of the 'special' days (anniversary, BDs, etc) for us, but also signals the start of the Tour de France. In the past I have only paid cursory attention to it, but last year Armstrong's return from retirement caused me to watch the coverage almost every morning. The boys and Malini also got into it and Abhi (who decided he was Contador during that time) was inspired to take the training wheels off his bike. I was looking forward to this years race given that Armstrong and Contador would be going head to head. Things started well, but after several crashes in the early stages it became clear that Armstrong was not going to be a GC contender and it was going to be a 2-man race between Contador and Andy Schleck (they finished 1-2 last year). We are still watching it, but not with as much enthusiasm as last year, although with the race reaching the Pyrenees in its last week, the race has become full of drama. One final mountain stage awaits - with a finish atop legendary Col du Tourmalet.

The highlight though has been the Padres baseball season. They were expected to do nothing this year, but have played exceptionally well and sit atop their division. This essentially means that the boys and I are watching or listening any time they are playing. We play a lot of baseball at home in which every aspect of the real thing is fully enacted. We run the bases, call fair and foul balls, hit singles, doubles, and home runs, keep pitch counts, and even try different types of pitches (so far limited to fast balls, sliders and curve balls).

And so the summer rolls on. After the hot spell of last week, we are back to being the Seattle of the South. The Summer has been quiet, but still feels a bit hectic. In just over a month, Arjun's school will reopen and a new rhythm will take over. Of course the only cadence we will really care about is "1-Mississipi, 2-Mississipi, Ted, Hut!"

"Shantaram"

People from Bangalore may be familiar with 'Premier Books' - a little hole in the wall book shop on Church Street, just off MG Road. It used to be my favorite haunt and I always pay a visit during every Bangalore trip. I know the owner quite well and generally ask for his recommendations (and end up walking out with an arm full of books). One of the books I got during my last visit in 2008 was Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It is story set in India and apparently was doing quite well. I started it soon after my return, but couldn't make much headway and for over a year, it just sat on my book shelf. At almost 950 pages, it is not a book that you just quickly toss off. Then, a few weeks ago I decided to give it one more go and as has happened before, the second attempt was the charm - the story grabbed my interest and kept me up several late nights trying to finish it.

Shantaram is the true story (or is at least based on one) of the author, Gregory Roberts, who spent 8 years in Bombay in the late '80s while on the run from the Australian authorities. He had been convicted for armed robbery (as a side effect of feeding his heroin habit) and had escaped from prison. He arrived in India on a stolen New Zealand passport under the name of Lindsay. He couldn't really reveal his real name and was 'Lin' or 'Lin-baba' for his entire stay.

It is a remarkable tale and mostly well told. The experiences he packed into the eight years would be sufficient for a few lifetimes. He has to hide from the authorities and inevitably gets involved with the Bombay underworld. He starts off befriending a local Bombay guide (whose mother bestows the moniker "Shantaram" on him) and that leads to him to living in a slum. Despite his white skin and Western sensibilities, he integrates well into life in the slum and gets accepted by the locals. He becomes the de facto slum doctor when he calls upon his first aid training to care for some fire victims. Simultaneously, he is also moving up the mafia ladder and soon is out of the slum, but not before spending a few brutal months in a notorious prison (Arthur Road Jail, for folks familiar with Bombay) enduring torture and near death. Along the way, he becomes a player in Bollywood and rather unexpectedly, travels to Afghanistan to bring material support to the mujahadeen in their fight against the Soviets. This part feels very immediate in its resonance with the current situation in Afghanistan.

The driving force of the narrative though, is a love story. Lin meets (the first time he steps onto the streets of Bombay, if we are to believe his version) a rather mysterious westerner (Swiss-American as we learn later) called Karla and spends most of the book trying to win her over. For reasons not fully revealed till the end (and unsatisfactorily at that), she is unable to love him back. There is a theatrical quality to the events and dialog, but this tension does keep the story moving forward. Another central figure is Khader, the erudite mafia don, whom Lin comes to see as a father figure. Significant real estate is devoted to Khader explicating his philosophy of life (which the less charitable will see as a thinly veiled rationalization of criminal acts by a deeply religious man). It is clear that establishing this take on the "meaning of life" is an important goal for the author (& no doubt, the 'Khader' figure is a composite created for this purpose), but it feels insubstantial. Thankfully, the rest of the story is strong enough to carry the novel.

This book has been something of a world-wide phenomenon and according to Gregory Roberts this is actually the second (& so far, only) book of a trilogy (or quartet according to some sources) that he is planning. A Hollywood studio picked up the movie rights and Mira Nair signed on as Director with Johnny Depp playing the lead role. They even scouted out locations, but it is unclear what the current status is.

Bombay plays a key role in the story and the city in its various moods, colors, smells, and people come to vivid life in the telling. A Bombay native will enjoy the book just for the nostalgia it is likely to evoke. The author clearly loves the city but does not shy away from presenting the city and people with all their warts. The descriptions of his prison stay are especially hard to stomach. It never feels mean, however - this is somebody who is very fond of India and Indians.

The story is gripping, but some of the writing is a bit overwrought. The author often spends several paragraphs waxing poetic about some emotion he was feeling to the point of feeling contrived and I began to skip these sections. The knowledge that this is largely a true story keeps you going and overall, the book does not disappoint.