Fourplay

As I watch in awe the rerun of the Sri Lanka-South Africa match, it becomes apparent that South Africa will always struggle to win the world cup. Perhaps every nation has a malady of choice that affects its teams. Pakistan has its internal troubles, India its star based system, South Africa it’s choking and Australia the winning habit. Malinga's four wickets in four balls only match the shock that his hair creates. Sri Lanka may have lost the match, but look good to go to the semis in my books. With Bangladesh and Ireland in the fray, the super 8’s have become the super 6’s. With England in the form it is, the question is: which other team will join them on the flight back home? The performance of West Indies in tomorrow’s match against New Zealand should give some inkling.

I completed reading Vikram Seth’s ‘An Equal Music’ and followed it up with Salman Rushdie’s ‘The ground beneath her feet’. I wanted to read them back to back because they were similarly themed, on music. Of course, they were set in completely different milieus, and Rushdie’s effort encompasses more than just the story of music. I’d recommend both books to be read. The painting on the cover of Seth’s book is Orpheus leading Eurydice out of the Underworld by Il Padovino. It is significant in that the Greek mythological story is the basis of the characters and their actions in both the books. Anocturne has a review posted here. Onto Obama’s ‘Audacity of Hope’ right now.

I finished watching Babel a little while back. I don’t think I was as impressed as I expected to be. Perhaps it is repetitive of this genre of movies, starting with Crash: multiple stories, multiple settings, all interwoven in some way. The settings invariably revolve around trumping up third world misery and celebrating their goodness. I liked the music and some of the shot compositions in the movie, but not much else. I started this little list on the left of the page churning out the movies I have recently watched. Does anyone have a better idea about doing that? I am currently modifying the template to list them, which is irritating. I’d like a more expansive space where I can put recommendations and short comments on the movies themselves.

The Indian store that I frequent constantly has some songs playing on the TV, mostly new work. I heard a song for the first time that stuck in my mind because of its tune and the use of the word ‘sutta’, which is the colloquial term for a smoke/cigarette. I came back and searched for the song and stumbled upon a socio-cultural phenomenon of sorts. Here goes the story. A Pakistani band (seems like one guy) called Zeest released a song called BC Sutta. I won’t expand BC for obvious reasons, the same reasons for which the song was deemed un-airable. It soon became an ‘underground’ hit, crossed the border by way of the internet and is apparently a cult classic in hostels and colleges across India. The song claims to use sutta as a metaphor for all dreams that have to be abandoned in life. The song I had heard in the store was a rip-off with a video starring Meghana Naidu and claimed to be anti-smoking in its message. Here’s the original sutta song and the copied remix that I heard . The furor is over the use of words that are commonly heard but never published. Judge for yourself.