110 minutes

I love early morning flights. The alarm, hot shower, the sleepy good bye hug, the Meru ride to the airport, empty sodium vapour-lit roads, the bright smile of the check-in lady, the lazy yawn of the x-ray guy, the fresh brew of coffee at the Jet Airways lounge and the phone buzzing constantly with emails from countries that are about to sleep and those who have just gotten to work - pleasant reminders that all is well with my world.

The coffee had just hit its spot when the public address system announced the departure of my flight. Gate 12. This means I have about eleven minutes before they closed the gate. A five minute walk to the gate means I have another six for the 'breakfast'. I begin to work my plate. Two of life's greatest mysteries:
1. How the chefs in Jet lounges across the country, manage to make the most wonderful coconut chutneys, but just cannot make a single soft idli.

2. Why are airline fruit bowls always made of papayas and pineapples and the sourest of grapes? Is there a papaya lobby?

Pondering these, I grab 2 water bottles, put one in my bag, open the other and walk towards gate 12, which is comfortably placed right next to the escalator.

There is a spring in my step because I know that after today's meeting in Mumbai, I am going on a week's vacation for Deepavali. This also means I have till end of the day to wrap up all 'work-related work'. So, the 2 and a half hours in the flight becomes very critical. Factoring in 40 minutes for take off and landing, I should have 110 minutes of quality time with my laptop. Even if I finish 50% of my to-do list, I will have a peaceful, non-pre-occupied vacation. That is the reason I am not carrying a book on this trip. I pat myself on the back for a wise decision and appreciate the relative lightness of my knapsack.

At the aerobridge, I do the customary 'Indian aerobridge twist' - a dance movement designed to show the guard your boarding pass and also the rubber stamp seal on the tag on your knapsack, in one fluid motion - crafted after years of practice. Remember Mallika Sherawat in 'Dasavatharam', bending down to show her rack and then twisting to jut her butt in your face? Now replace Mallika with me and a knapsack and you get the drift...

A couple of cabin-crew pleasantries later, I settle down into my usual seat. Now, there is a myth that there are only two classes in a domestic flight - business and (as Tharoor would put it) cattle class. That is a myth. There is a third 'Trishanku' class and that is the 'rear exit row reclining aisles' - quite a mouthful, but totally worth it! I am a man who is not particularly popular for doing things ahead of time, but over the years, I have come to appreciate planning for 'Trishanku' - because there are only two seats in this class (14C and 14D, if you are flying a 737) and you need to web check-in at least a day and a half before if you want to beat the other Trishanku-seekers.

What follows this is one of the main reasons I prefer to fly Jet or even fly, for that matter - The fresh lime juice. When it comes to my all time favourite liquids in the world, the Jet Airways fresh lime ranks in the top 5 - along with Kingfisher, the Big banyan Cabernet Sauvignon, the Kabaleeshwarar temple 'thulasi theertham' and water.

After savouring the last drop of it shamelessly, I get ready for the take off - which usually means a quick nap. As much as I appreciate my safety, I just cannot listen to another safety briefing again in life - even if it means that I will never again witness an attractive young woman, seductively put on a yellow mask, or even if this means that someday I will end up with a life jacket that I wouldn't know how to blow into, in some faraway ocean that is rapidly freezing my balls.

Cruising altitude, seat belt signs are off and I jump to open my bag and pull the laptop out. And that is when it hit me.

There is a sign on the bottom-right part of my screen which tells me the amount of battery left in my laptop. Over the years, this particular piece of information has become more valuable to my life than stuff like blood pressure, love, world peace or sex. And presently, it is showing 3% and that means I have just about 10 minutes left - evidently, I have forgotten to put the switch on, after plugging the laptop for charging last night.

Ladies & Gentlemen, at this point, I need to clarify what this means to me. Not that I would not be able to finish my backlog before my vacation begins. Not that I will be missing a crucial deadline with a client. More than any of these, I am now left with 110 minutes and nothing to do. Not a fuckin thing! I pull out the magazine from the seat jacket, only to find that it is the same issue with the cover story on Sikkim tourism that I have read so many times, that I can recite it as a poem. I did not carry the iTouch because it is 'unsocial' on a family vacation. No book. No newspaper as this is a Jet Konnect flight. No nap, as unfortunately I had a good night's sleep. The man to my left started snoring even before I boarded and so no scope for conversation.

My worst nightmare.

I try to close my eyes and think of something useful to do. The bladder isnt full and so a trip to the rest room will be pointless. Besides, they have just pulled the food trolley out and I wouldnt wanna wait behind it like a jackass. I briefly consider reading the safety instruction booklet and decide against it. It is funny how at 32, I am prepared for most things in life but not 'Nothing'. In fact, it is quite scary. What the fuck will I do if I am ever 85, on a wheel chair, presumably blind and without a liver and in all likelihood, stuck with an unattractive mallu nurse? How will I kill time? I make a mental note to buy a pistol and a bullet on my 50th Birthday.

Back to present. The customary co-pilot announcement! (Message to co-pilots: Dear retards, let me tell you a couple of things. Stop waking people up in the middle of their naps to tell them your cruising altitude. We dont give a rat's ass if you are flying at 30K feet or at 3 feet. We gave you loads of cash, so you can worry about this shit inside the cockpit and get me to my destination. And whats with the 'outside temperature' crap? Look around you. Do any of us look like we are about to open the door and take a walk in the clouds? Why the fuck should I care if the temperature outside is -25 degrees? )

Back at 14C, I am still awake and bewildered. I rearrange the contents of the seat jacket, dust off a spot on my trousers, uncross my legs and look at my watch again, hopefully. No luck - 70 minutes to go. Now I am seriously considering switching on my phone to play poker. My thoughts drift - wife, car, boss, obama, business idea, sachin, college hottie, deepavali...and magically, I relax. The to-do list fades into oblivion, the laptop gets stowed away, the legs gets stretched and I suddenly realize that I have not done this in a long time. I have not 'just sat down' and drifted along with my thoughts, without an agenda or a care, in a long long time. And boy it feels good. In fact, liberating! I indulge for a while and look at my watch again, reluctantly. No luck - it is landing time...

Kal-man chronicles - Part I

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2006 US Open. Round 2. It is past 10:00 PM and I am speeding in my '97 Avalon to Kiru's beautiful apartment in San Antonio. Home away from home. I have just realized that the match is still on. That means he's gotta chance. I knew that if this thing was going down to the fifth set, Andre's got it. I park, run up the stairs and settle into the most comfortable sofa in the world.

We watch the 5th set. What a set! Andre wins. He lives to fight another day. Typically Andre. That also means he is not retiring tonight. Phew!

He loses his third round match 2 days later and retires. Ironically, he loses to a kid called B. Becker.

Cut to: 1991

I am a 10th grader, living in Virugambakkam and watching the 1991 French Open final on Doordarshan. He loses to a freak called Jim Courier, who I end up hating. Being an Andre fan since childhood means that you hate his opponents - especially the ones who beat him in a Slam final. In Andre's case though, this is a long and growing list of people - Connors, Ivanisevic, Sampras, Courier, Martin and even that midget called Michael Chang. So I hated them all, growing up.

I am not sure what prompted my admiration for this guy to begin with. The Sportstar centre spreads? The rebellion? The return of serve? The double-handed backhand? or was it just the audacity of wearing denim shorts, ear rings and a pink shirt, for a French Open final??

But denim shorts go only a little far in a making an idol. What makes Andre my most favourite athlete is his ability to bounce back - not from the floor, but from deeper in the dungeons! My tennis coach at Loyola told me something on a fine summer morning in 1995, that I will never forget for the rest of my life - "Fitness is not running 1500 meters fastest. It is about how soon you recover from that 1500, to run another 400". And Andre was that guy who could run those 400s in real life (literally & figuratively) again and again and again.

That means being #1 and managing to go down to #132 and bouncing back to #1 and doing this shit all over again for over two decades. He was the most flawed perfection ever in Athletics!

When the girl friend gifted this book last year, the first thing that stuck me was - 'wow, that is a big close up on the cover!'. Why this rugged, disturbing picture? Why not the one with the 92 Wimbledon trophy? or one of those Aus Open moments? Or one from when he had hair? Or one with Stephanie?

The answer is quite clear after the very first page. This is as honest an autobiography as any you will ever read. This one is not for the gallery. This is all about the flaws, the quirks, the embarrassments and also the triumphs and the fun of it all.

If you are one of those tennis fans like me, who rooted for this guy for most of your teens and twenties, this book is a fascinating read. He takes you through all of it - right from when he won a hustling match against Jim Brown at age 7, till that marathon against Baghdatis in 2006 - His introduction to Pete as a kid with a flawed game, his Canon commercial, Nick Bollieteri, Wendi, Gil, Brad Gilbert, Brooke Shields (in very intriguing 2 chapters), Stephanie and of course the slams! The 8 he won and the million he lost.

I remember most of those slam finals. Strangely, I even remember what I was doing at the time, while watching it on TV. But now I also know what was going on the previous night, on match day, at the court, on the ground and inside his head! And that is much bigger and closer than any ball he might sign and lob at you!

Once upon a time in Mumbaai...

These days, it is a cliche to say 'I love Mumbai during the monsoon'. Who doesnt? There is something about taking the 'black and yellow' taxi and driving around Juhu and Worli, with the high tiding ocean on one side and getting drenched through the broken rear window on the other. Let me not start on the late afternoon coffee, for I will never get to what I Really wanted to write about today.

'Once upon...' is a lot of fun. A few years back, I had sworn never to watch a Emraan Hashmi film and up until last night, I would not have believed you, had you told me that I would watch a Milan Luthria film in theatre. This is not just my kinda film. But watch I did and had a reasonably good time.

It is impossible to not like a song like 'Pee loon'. Something about the lines 'Let me drink in....for it is the season for drinking in' is very intoxicating. And Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's version of 'Tum jo aaye' is blissful.

I of course did end up squirming in my seat (something about the sofa seats at PVR make you squirm generally) multiple times during the film. It is impossible not to do so, when every line in the film is a 'punch dialogue' and said for the effect. Half hour into the film, you are desperately craving for a normal conversation. FYI, it doesnt happen until the end.

I just do not buy the fact that gangsters generally drink, smoke and play cards all day. I am pretty sure they have a life and may be even do other fun stuff! It was a technique that worked quite well in the 60s and 70s in bringing out the 'bad-ass'ness. Not anymore. It is hilarious to see Milan run out of ideas in engaging his characters and constantly letting them light cigarettes and breaking bottles for the effect.

And there are other things that put you off. But at the end of the day, it is impossible not to warm up to Ajay Devgn's swagger, the racey background score, the cuts (oh the cuts!) and the charm of the 70's Mumbai. I was especially surprised (pleasantly) by how much Randeep Hooda looked the part.

Disclaimers before the film notwithstanding, your own inner voices tell you this is Haji Mastan and Dawood - gangsters you and me loath in real life, being glorified on screen. But you just cannot quell the 'sense of history' as the film unfolds. For history doesnt differentiate between the good and the bad. There are only those who changed the world we live in.

Watch it. Like I said, it is great fun. I am glad I saw it in Mumbai and took the auto back, holding its 'leather parda' with one hand and still getting drenched a little in Mumbai's monsoon.... 'Drinking it in' and wondering if the stories shape this city or does this city shape her stories.

a film by Maniratnam

I think it was 1987. One summer night, I lifted my head from my home work to see two see two men on television, talking in a strange Tamil-English tongue, about a national award their film received. I was just a kid, but even then I was quite militant about the correct pronunciation of my mother tongue. But something about these guys was very endearing and I remember going back to my homework, thinking that they were probably from a different state.

That was Mani Ratnam and GV, talking about 'Mouna Raagam'. I saw the film eventually after many years, on VHS. Thats how we normally watched film at the Nagarajan household. Going to a theatre was pretty close to a vice for a student and the only exceptions were Kamal Haasan and Balachander - our 'white list'. You see, my dad was regimental about his views on cinema, but he did have taste.

1987 was a strange year. I was in 6th Standard and my world was rapidly changing in front of my eyes. We lost the World Cup. I finished reading the best book ever written (I was quite convinced at that time!) - 'Detective Dog Ranjha'. I fell in love with Keerthana. I saw 'The Last Emperor' and decided I wanted to make films for a living. I scored my first 100% in Maths (It will also be the last time). Quite a year for a sixth grader, no?

The year was not quite done yet. On a stormy monsoon night, I came out of Devi theatre with tears in my eyes. Velu Nayakkar had just been killed. Both me and the skies were bawling. And my stone-hearted dad was pulling me along to the bus stand, with my mother and sister trailing. Dont these people have a heart? Such a good man has just been killed so needlessly and they want me to board a crowded 17A with water pouring in from every hole on its roof?

I have seen Nayakan about a million times after that and strangely, I was not surprised when Time magazine decided it had to be among the best 100 films on the planet.

I think The Ritual started about that time. My family did not miss watching a single Mani Ratnam film in theatre for many years after. He slipped in with ease into the white list. The Ritual usually began with me and my sister listening to the advertisements on All India Radio - the 30 mts slot that was sponsored every Sunday night at 8:30 PM. Later on in life, when the Nagarajan household became economically liberalized, we even started buying the soundtrack before hand and let Ilayaraja soak our senses in his symphonies.

Then came the posters. Ah what posters! Finally, a man who appreciated white. A man who understood that a poster is not about what you fill it with - It is about what you dont.

Then came the anticipation. During the bus rides to college, the morning run, minutes before u sleep and other times when you let your mind be. What is it gonna be like? How would be have shot this song? who is this new girl? why is this Madhu Ambat and not PC?

Then the film happened. The seat that was carefuly bargained for, with the box office assistant. The biscuits from home. And then the multiple emotions.

mmm...wow....what?...wow....huh!...mmm.

Then the reviews on Ananda Vikatan. And then, the hangover.

I am no more a 6th grader. I dont think Maniratnam will feature in my list of top five film makers. I have matured enough to hate him - some times. But he is an inseparable part of a generation of film goers. Their psyche and their taste. My psyche and my taste.

Even today, as I get ready to watch Raavanan in a couple of hours from now, I am living the ritual. And I know that a Maniratnam film is not measured in hours, but in weeks and months.