Desicritics Author: Gaurav Mishra

View From The Aircraft Window

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:13:27 EDT

I took my first flight when I was twenty one. It was my first year at IIM Bangalore; I was to present a paper at a competition at IIM Lucknow and my institute had agreed to pay two-third of the air fare. Bangalore airport is not the swankiest airport in India, but after the hustle-bustle of the railway station, it looked like a different world altogether. The friend who had written the paper with me guided me through the check-in process. As we were about to board the flight, I realised that Shaan, the Indipop singer, was standing next to me in the queue. This is it, I told myself, I have arrived in life. Inside the aircraft, the airhostesses looked like attentive apsaras to my uninitiated eyes (deliberately cheesy line). I sat on a cramped middle seat, and spent the entire flight looking beyond my friend at the view from the tiny aircraft window.

Later that year, I flew to Mumbai for my summer training. This time, I was on a window seat and, as the aircraft curved in the air before landing, I had my first view of the sea. I was hooked to the view from the aircraft window. I flew many times during that summer and always asked for a window seat. Throughout the flight, and especially during take-offs and landings, my eyes never wandered away from the window. In my second year at IIM-B, I flew a few times, always on flights subsidized by the institute to participate in competitions in other business schools, except once, when I flew to Mumbai, to break up with my girlfriend of five years.

During the summer break before I started work, my father and I had our usual discussion on how much (of their) money I had spent wastefully. "On one hand, I try to save every single rupee that I can", he shouted at me. "on the other hand, you fly all over the world and waste it."

After IIM-B, I joined an Indian conglomerate, and as part of my orientation, spent three weeks flying all over the country to visit its many plants and offices. Fresh out of a failed relationship, I fell in love with a colleague. On two dozen flights in those three weeks, I sat in the middle seat with her head on my shoulder, my face slightly turned to the side, to look at her lovely face and the view from the window beyond it. By the end of the orientation, my colleagues had started calling me 'Captain Mishra'; some of them still call me that. By the end of the orientation, I had also learnt my first lesson in unrequited love.

Now, five years hence, I spend as much time in airport lounges as in my office itself. On each route, I know the exact configuration of the aircraft, know which seats have the best legroom. I usually sit on an emergency exit aisle, to maximize both leg room and shoulder room and to have the best view of the pretty air hostesses. I sit on the window seat only on all-economy flights, when the emergency exit window does not have a seat in front of it.

On one such flight a few days back, I put down my book and looked out from the aircraft window at a sea of stratus clouds lit up by the sun. Then, a large cumulus cloud appeared in the middle distance, almost like a pirate ship. Another one appeared to its left, then another one, and very soon, there was an armada of cloud-ships in the sea-sky. Hooked onto the spectacle unfolding in front of me, I rested my head against the aircraft wall and looked at the lovely view from the aircraft window.

I'm a Bihari-Bombaywallah - I'm Trishanku

Gaurav Mishra — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:03:25 EDT

My preferred mode of reading a book is to find a character I can identify with and then look at the entire book from his/ her perspective.

It takes me more than 500 pages of 'Maximum City' to find that perspective.

Babbanji is the son of a Geology college lecturer from Sitamarhi. At 17, he is a "slender youth with a thin moustache and wispy sideburns creeping into a beard." He is the intense sort, the sort who dreams of making petroleum out of waste plastic and writes poetry in Hindi.

Until one day, when a not-really-pretty classmate leaves a note in his textbook

"From my loneliness I am speaking to you."

and he replies

"Why are you seeking for your loneliness one who could go away tomorrow?".

After he is beaten up by some thuggish rivals in front of his entire class and humiliated by the girl's family, he decides to run away from home.

He ends up living on a footpath in South Bombay, and spends his time working as an assistant to a footpath bookseller and roaming around the city to find inspiration for his muse. Adil Jussawala, the poet, happens to have a discussion with him on a book of French short stories and, impressed by his poetic bend, introduces him to his writer friends, including Suketu Mehta.

Eventually, nothing much happens. Babbanji's father, who has been searching for him for months, finds him. As he boards the train to his hometown, Babbanji tells Suketu:

"I'll go back to the Patna branch of Time magazine and write for them!"

In a 600 page book about Mumbai, a 20 page detour about a Bihari boy is something of an anomaly, but it defines the book for me. I realize that, with a little twist of fate, I could have been Babbanji. More importantly, I realize that a part of me still is, and will always remain, Babbanji.

Suketu Mehta writes in the book:

"Bihar and Bombay are the two polarities of modern India, the success story and the disaster. If Bombay were only to be rid of its Bihari migrants, it could be a booming city state."

How true, I say, forgetting for a moment that I am a Bihari migrant in Bombay myself. And then, I see myself as who I am. I am a Bihari-Bombaywallah, the mythical 'Trishanku', stuck between two worlds, belonging neither here nor there, intent on rejecting my past, but not sure about what really I want from the future.

Suketu himself is one, as he reconciles his conservative middle class Gujarati upbringing with his high-flying New York based NRI writer status. So, as he walks down the rundown corridors of his Gujarati medium school, I remember my ten years in a Hindi-medium government school in Patna. As he oscillates between yearning for his roots and rejecting them, I share the ever-changing litmus of his emotions. As he contemplates the complexities of his class-change, his context-shift, I tell myself: that's exactly how I feel.

And then, I return to the beginning of the book and re-read the passage where he decides to marry his wife.

"I had met my wife, who was born in Madras and raised in London, in an Air India plane, the perfect metaphor for a meeting of exiles: neither here nor there, happiest in transit. The day after my first date with her, a cousin was going to Kanpur and I went to Victoria Terminus to drop him off. As the Gorakhpur Express pulled into the station, an enormous horde of migrant workers going back to their villages rushed towards it. The policemen beat them back with lathis. There was an immense clamour, and I stood to one side, watching, despairing. I thought of the girl I had just met, her beauty, her Englishness. She was the way I could distinguish myself from this herd, prevent myself from being annihilated by the crowd. At that moment, I realized I was in love. Being with her, a fine woman like her, would make me an individual."

As I re-read this passage, I realize that I have said the same words to myself more than once.

Voyeur

Gaurav Mishra — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 02:55:24 EDT

On a sultry summer night
I saw the sweltering sky
Flirt with the eager earth,
Fornicate with it.
Soon, it spent itself
In a short, shameless shower.

Walking on the wet earth
Later that night
I heard it sigh under my feet;
Sigh like a woman in heat,
Partially sated,
Thirsty for more.

The mud on my feet felt
Warm like love fluids;
The smell of the wet earth,
Heady like the smell of sex;
The soft sound of my footstep,
Wet like the light lapping of love.

Aroused and ashamed
At the same time,
I took in the night
Through all my senses
And walked on
Feeling like a voyeur.

Not Dead Yet

Gaurav Mishra — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:42:57 EDT

'Mate':
Fit to die
But not dead yet.
Stranded in the stalemate
Between life and death,
You writhe in your bed
In the hushed, haughty, hypocritical
Hospital room.

Your body -
Blighted by wounds
(Wastelands),
Torn asunder by tubes
(Tunnels tearing the earth) -
Tightens, twists into spasms
And then, spent,
Twitches apologetically.

Your fingers flail about,
Seek, beseech,
Something to hold onto.
I hold out my hand,
Feel your fingers ease in mine
(Crushed cellophane in cardboard).
Tranquilized by the touch,
You fall asleep.

Baba,
If I hold your hand
As I hold it now
And sing you a lullaby,
Would you fall asleep
And not wake up again?
'Mate ndapu':
Dead finished.

NOTE

From Pat Barker's The Ghost Road:
� 'Mate' means a state where death is appropriate.
� 'Mate ndapu' means death.

Baba died the day after I wrote the poem.

Eavesdropping on Bombaywallah & Mumbaikar

Gaurav Mishra — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:32:38 EDT

I have been writing a series on Metroblogging Mumbai for the past few days: 'Bombaywallah & Mumbaikar Discuss'.

Bombaywallah and Mumbaikar are two friends who talk about everything that everybody else in the city is talking about. They exchange gossip about Bollywood debutantes, crib about civic conditions in the city, contribute their two bytes to the controversy of the day and sometimes, even philosophize a little. They always talk with wit and humor and a trademark detachment that allows them to look at a sticky situation objectively, so that they are amused, and not annoyed, by it. They are detached, but not indifferent or cynical. They love the city in all its unwieldiness, love the people populating its narrow potholed streets, love its heady mix of sights and smells and sounds, love its 24X7 pursuit of power and pleasure.

I often overhear them at public places and write about what they are discussing. In a strange, surreal ways, I always find them at a location that is relevant to the topic they are talking about. I once found them at the McDonalds outlet in the High Street Phoenix mall at Parel, discussing the Big Mac index that calculates the number of hours people in different cities need to work to buy a Big Mac.

I also met them outside a multiplex at Bandra where they gossiped about the debut movies of Omar Abdullah's cousin and Aamir Khan's step-sister and almost had a fistfight about whether they should watch the latest Bollywood blockbuster or the surprise sleeper hit from Hollywood.

I remember seeing them outside Mahim police station discussing sweet seawater and milk drinking idols. Irritated by the three hour delay in my one hour flight back to the city, I barely heard their discussion about increased security at airports, when I came out of the domestic airport almost at midnight a few days back.

I also think I overheard them as they entered their car and talked about checking out a new restaurant in Navi Mumbai named Hitler's Cross. And of course, my first memory of them is etched forever in my mind: on a gray, rainy day, Mumbaikar rushing Bombaywallah to the emergency ward, after he had had an anxiety attack about the potholes on Mumbai flyovers.

I know a little about them, but wish I knew more. Bombaywallah is tall and fair, with long flowing hair and a tendency towards putting on weight. Mumbaikar is shorter and darker, with a wiry, muscular body. I know that they live not far from each other: Bombaywallah on the Worli Seaface and Mumbaikar near Shivaji Park at Dadar. Bombaywallah's hectic 9 to 9 job and frequent flights in and out of the city leaves him with no time for either TV or newspapers. He looks like a consultant to me, with his light shirts, striped ties, silver Honda City and Friday night parties that extend into the wee hours.

I don't know what Mumbaikar does for a living. He dresses less formally, in dark button-down shirts and black jeans, and sometimes travels by local train. Although I'm not sure, he could be a real estate agent, a good one; I have often seen him in a white Esteem. He has a dry wit and a bend towards collecting news and Nepali khukhris. They are quite different, these two and I wonder where they first met, how they became friends.

I'm sure you have met them too, together or separately. If you haven't, look out for them; you will find them everywhere. If you overhear a conversation between them, do let me know; I might have missed it and will be happy to write about it. If you manage a glimpse into their lives, don't feel shy, listen and look, and tell me about them. Someday, I might write a novel about them and dedicate it to you.

The World's Weirdest Startup Ideas (And, Yes, They Work)

Gaurav Mishra — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 15:21:00 EDT

Every astrologer of every type I have ever consulted has told me that I'll start a business of my own one day. It has always looked unlikely. One, I have no money at all, no money from my family, no money of my own; and while future earnings count, I have already counted it and spent it all. And, two, when I don't even have the commitment to have a steady relationship, how likely am I to have the commitment to build a business?

I did consider it seriously once, in my IIM-B days, when I wrote a business plan for a transcription based ITES start-up. It was late 2001 and those things were mushrooming everywhere, medical transcription, legal transcription, and I don't even remember what else. Riding on the ITES story, our plan also found some enthusiasm in business plan contests in India and our institute even sponsored us to participate in an international business plan contest at Hawaii! We stayed walking distance away from Waikiki beach and had a wonderful trip, but did not find favor with the VCs.

Since then, my nine-to-nine, at-least-five-days-a-week, never-a-dull-day job has left me with little time or inclination to think of starting something up myself.

However, ever since I have read the list of 'the twelve best business start-up ideas for Americans outside the US' in the August issue of Business 2.0, I have thought of nothing else but start-ups. I have also, incidentally, broken my vow of never ever blogging about business.

First things first, the list is not meant to be the ultimate investors' guide to start-up opportunities. It's an anecdotal list, a collection of interesting start-up ideas from around the world, the focus squarely on the interesting part. The ideas range from the almost altruistic (become a social entrepreneur in South Africa) and the openly opportunistic (flip gold mining claims in Bolivia) to the truly creative (build cheap Wi-Fi networks for Brazilian resorts) and the brazenly bizarre (launch an exclusive online social network for Russian millionaires).

The list is also indicative of the new centres of gravity for business growth: two ideas each are in India and China and three each in Latin America and Africa. Most of the ideas require investments of less than $100k (which is still a lot of money!) and it is also indicative of something that two out of only four low and medium risk ideas are from India.

My favorite ideas are (1), (3), (8) and (12). (1) and (3) because they involve just the right mix of an eureka! brain-wave, technological know-how and plain old used car salesman type selling. (8) and (12) because they involve traveling on work to Greek vineyards (and drinking wine) and Libyan ruins (Leptis Magna would be worth it all itself).

I'm also partial to (2), (10) and (11), because they remind me of the six weeks I spent at Babrala in Uttar Pradesh, convincing some of the poorest farmers in India to grow vegetables, along with the usual grains, to increase the yield from their land.

(5) and (6) are interesting only because they involve Americans setting up shop in China and are not really inspiring otherwise.

My least favorite ideas are (4), (7) and (9 ). (4), because it presumes that Russian millionaires would want to spend their rest and recreation time online, and not in the real world. (7), because, in spite of its frontier aura of the wild west, it is exploitative at its core. (9), because I really believe that Indian vineyards will become big, and in a not-too-distant future!

The list, incidentally:

1) Mingle with tourists and well-to-do locals at Brazilian beach resorts and watch them log on to the web via your targeted wi-fi broadband service. (Investment level: <$100K. Risk Level: Medium.)

2) Buy soybeans from Argentine farmers, set up a micro-refinery to convert it into bio-diesel, and sell it back to the same farmers (who account for about 75 percent of the country's diesel consumption), thus setting up a virtuous cycle. (Investment level: $100K-$500K. Risk Level: High.)

3) Tie up with the usually mom-and-pop content providers in India's booming mobile industry, build a software that allocates space on cell-phone screens for ads, and sell that space to advertisers to help monetize all of those pageviews. (Investment level: $100K-$500K. Risk Level: Medium)

4) Build an online social networking community for Russia's status-conscious nouveau riche millionaires, hire a handful of wealthy socialites to spread the word and rake in the moolah. (Investment level: $500K-$1 million. Risk level: High.)

5) Find a small, fast-growing Chinese city with a ready-to-experiment university population and open an American style restaurant with a menu that specializes in hard-to-get offerings: fresh coffee, bagels, and homemade ice cream. (Investment level: $100K. Risk level: High.)

6) Become an approved home designer or contractor for one of the large home improvement retail chain in China, hire an architect with Western expertise and a Chinese foreman who can source local labor and deal with the bureaucracy. Set up a service to remodel homes for China's burgeoning middle class, who are yet to imbibe the American DIY spirit. (Investment level: $100K-$500k. Risk level: High.)

7) Hire a local Bolivian geologist to prospect for a plot of land that promises to have gold deposits, stake a claim on it with the Bolivian Ministry of Mines or buy the claims directly from the peasants who own them, then flip the property to a medium-size mining company. (Investment level: $100K-500K. Risk level: High.)

8) Travel through Peloponnese, the peninsula making up southern Greece, tasting wines at its 150-plus boutique wineries to find ones likely to appeal to US palates (and sommeliers). Then ask to become their exclusive U.S. representative. (Investment level: <$100K. Risk Level: Medium.)

9) Import fruity white wines from California and Australia to cater to the increasingly cosmopolitan tastes of the burgeoning middle class in India, the world's fastest-growing market. (Investment level: <$100K. Risk level: Low.)

10) Tie up with coffee farmers in Rwanda, export the coffee beans to the US, process and package it, and sell the coffee to a retailer, or a coffee chain like Starbucks. (Investment level: <$100K. Risk level: High.)

11) Teach locals in an impoverished South African town to use their skills to make something marketable (like home-made cookies) and sell it to socially conscious clients. (Investment level: <$100K. Risk level: High.)

12) Travel to Libya's dozens of archaeological sites and 1,100 miles of undeveloped beachfront, tie up with a reputable local partner to cut through the red tape, and invest in Libya's brand new travel and hospitality industry. (Investment level: Any. Risk level: High.)

If I were to start up something today, I would buy out a vineyard in Nasik, hire an experienced team to make the best wine in the region, set up six hundred standalone wine bars across the country, offer vineyard tours on weekends and start drawing cartoons on the back of business cards.

Coming Soon To Your City: The Masturbate-a-thon

Gaurav Mishra — Mon, 7 Aug 2006 00:35:38 EDT

[This post contains material that some readers may consider unsuitable. Reader discretion is requested.]

Frank Furedi, the author of Therapy Culture, raises several pertinent points in Spiked about the London Masturbate-a-Thon, a first of its type charity event in Europe,

intended to encourage people to explore safer sex, talk about masturbation and lift the taboos that still surround the subject, by coming to a public place and coming in a public place!

Furedi starts off by pointing out the very obvious exhibitionism involved in the event:

Public masturbation used to be associated with sad old men wearing dirty raincoats. Now, with the Masturbate-a-Thon, narcissistic voyeurism is no longer seen as a sordid exhibition, but rather as a (public service) exercise in raising awareness about safe sex.

However, just as I'm about to reject him as another moralist, he surprises me by saying that:

The advocacy of masturbation today has little to do with a hedonistic desire to validate sexual pleasure. Rather, the solo-sex crusade promotes a dogma that regards passion itself as a disease. Old-fashioned moralists told people to 'just say no' to promiscuity, homosexuality and extramarital sex. Today's establishment demands that we 'say no' to all passionate relationships that carry risks and consequences. [It seeks] to institutionalise masturbation and render sex with another person as unnecessary [by saying that] knowing how to love yourself comes both chronologically and logically before having relationships with others.

-*-*-*-

Lucy Mangan provides more details in The Guardian about the event that was held in London on Saturday, August 5th:

Tonight, for Britain's first ever Masturbate-a-thon, people will converge on a studio in central London, to participate en masse in the act of self-love. Soft lighting, relaxing music, and Moroccan-style soft furnishings are in place to help the mood, along with snacks, disposable paper sheets, and copious amounts of lubricant to minimise any technical difficulties - and, one presumes, the dry cleaning bill. The occasion will be the subject of a documentary to be broadcast later this year by Channel 4.

The Channel 4 documentary, incidentally, has the working title of 'Wank-a-thon' and has been commissioned as part of a series of programmes dubbed 'Wank Week', following the success of 'Penis Week'.

According to the official London Masturbate-a-thon Website, the event was open to anyone over the age of 18, of any gender and sexual orientation. Couples were welcome as long as they kept their hands to themselves.

The event took plavce in four main areas: The Comfort area, where the participants relaxed before and after masturbating, Women only area, Men only area and a Mixed area. Each area had private cubicles for participants who were so inclined.

Participants asked friends, colleagues and loved ones to sponsor them. The amount they raised was determined by how many minutes they masturbated and/or how many orgasms they achieved. Participants were allowed to bring and use their own toys as an aid to stimulation - but were not allowed to share them with others.

Leigh Holmewood writes in another article in The Guardian:

Prizes will be on offer for those who clock up the most orgasms and those who can masturbate the longest - the current record, according to the organisers, is a chafing eight-and-a-half hours. To qualify for the record, the organisers say 'at least 55 minutes of every hour shall be spent self-pleasuring by manual or sex toy stimulation' with participants getting just five minutes to 'replenish and renew'.

-*-*-*-

The organiser of the event, the San Francisco-based Centre for Sex and Culture, has run mass masturbation events in the US for the past six years to raise money for safe sex groups and plans to replicate the formula in the UK.

In a blog that has the aura of rebellious-trying-to-be respectable, the matronly Carol Queen, co-founder of Centre for Sex and Culture writes about her work:

Since Good Vibrations created National Masturbation Month and the Masturbate-a-Thon back in the last century I have given about a zillion interviews extolling monkey-spanking, pink-salad-tossing, Surgeon-General-firing, and Coming for a Cause. I helped develop Good Vibes' NMM taglines, and am especially proud of 'I'd Rather Be Masturbating' and 'Think Globally, Masturbate Locally'.

She then goes on to give details about the 2006 San Fransisco and London Masturbate-a-thons.

In the 2006 San Francisco Masturbate-a-Thon, which had about 100 participants, a man set the new 'Longest Time Spent Masturbating' world record at 8.5 hours, a woman from Hong Kong won the 'Furthest Distance Come to Come' award, and an intrepid female won the 'Most Orgasms' award, by coming 36 times.

The 2006 London Masturbate-a-Thon had almost 200 participants. While it did not break the 8.5 hour record, it did set the new 'Most Orgasms' world record, at 49 orgasms.

-*-*-*-

An event of such ambiguous motivations raises difficult questions, which do not have ready-made answers. Mr Furedi has raised some pertinent questions, but I do not necessarily agree with his answers. So, I'll try to recap these questions, provide my own perspective on them and then leave it open for your comments:

Masturbation is indeed considered taboo, and there is value in bringing it out of the closet. But then, most other sexual acts are also considered taboo and what will be the next public spectacle: a *uck-a-thon? Even the most liberal commentator cannot ignore the in-your-face exhibitionism which is at the core of the event. Here, Mr. Furedi, I'm totally with you; this is nothing but pop-culture exhibitionism, addressing the lowest common denominator. (Mr. Furedi, incidentally, also argues that masturbation is, in fact, not taboo. I'm only mentioning that in passing, because to me it's a peripheral issue.)

What is more disturbing to Mr. Furedi, however, is the positioning of masturbation as an alternative to sexual activity between two people. Mr. Furedi seems to have painted himself a picture of a situation where masturbation would make sex with another person redundant. I personally think that he is over-reacting here. Men will be men (and women will be women too), and although some of us will laugh when Woody Allen as Alvy Singer proclaims in Annie Hall, "Hey, don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love," I don't think too many of us will give up sex altogether. The people who participated in the Masturbate-a-thon were probably more sexually experimentative than our neighbours and went there to look for a partner with similar proclivities. In fact, when I was researching this story, I stumbled into a London gay chat room and found a participant trying to make a rendevouz at the Masturbate-a-thon.

And finally, Mr Furedi fears that it's not really about sex, it's about relationships; that the Masturbate-a-thon is really about undermining passion in relationships; that saying "don't have sex because it's risky" is only one step away from saying "don't fall in love because you will be hurt"; that masturbation is the no-expectations caveat emptor of relationships.

Here, Mr. Furedi, you over-estimate Channel 4 and Carol Queen. Their concerns, that seem to be vastly different from yours, seem to operate around having a little harmless fun, and protecting their right to do that. I don't think when Channel 4 was commissioning 'Wank Week', it was thinking of changing how our society is structured.

-*-*-*-

YOU HAVE BEEN TAGGED POSTSCRIPT

If you have heard of the Masturb-a-thon, you have heard it all, or have you? Report other equally weird events, or make up one of your own, in the comments section.

Book Voyeurs, Book Groupies & Books As Aphrodisiacs

Gaurav Mishra — Sun, 6 Aug 2006 09:15:27 EDT

I'm on another wild goose chase since yesterday: this time on the possibility that books might work as an aphrodisiac.

It started off with Sashi's post on a Guardian Unlimited article about how reading the right book might attract the right partner to you.

"To rephrase an Apache Indian song 'Arranged Marriage':

'Me wan gal say a soni kudi

Me wan gal that say she read wif me'"

I e-mailed Sashi's link to Amit, who, like always, figured out a way of adding his unique twist on the topic:

"In a situation where two strangers know nothing about the other person, what kind of book they're reading could serve as what economists call a signaling device. One of the things we look for in potential mates is shared interests, or values, and their choice of book can indicate just that."

Amit also linked to Falstaff's post on the same topic, written almost a year back. It's a hilarious post, about how he compulsively checks out women with books, like other men check out women with large boo*s:

"I realised recently, though, that there is one sense in which I'm the worst lech of all - I'm a confirmed books man. I'm insanely drawn to the sight of a woman reading a book in public If I'm walking down a street and come up from behind on a woman reading a book, I have to turn around to see if I can get a closer look at the front cover. If I'm sitting next to a woman reading I'll keep watching her surreptitiously from the corner of my eye, waiting for that one critical moment when she turns a page and the entire title of the book is visible for an instant."

My book-voyeur instincts set on fire, I headed over to the Guardian Unlimited article itself. They are having a ball over there, with almost 150 comments already in.

"Not only can you judge a book by its cover, it seems you can judge the person reading it, too. According to a survey of over 2,000 adults, books play a crucial role in influencing our opinions of strangers. Half of those asked admitted that they would look again or smile at someone on the basis of what they were reading. And it gets better. Not only does sitting with your nose in a book positively influence others' opinion of you, it could actually - get this - lead to sex. A third of those surveyed said that they "would consider flirting with someone based on their choice of literature". It's finally official, people. Reading is hot."

In the article, and in the comments section, there's a raging debate on the genre most likely to help you pull. While an overwhelming majority rejected erotic/ horror/ science fiction, self-help books, chick-lit and the latest Dan Brown bestseller as being too low-brow for a second look, a significant minority thought that people who read literary fiction (classic or contemporary) in a public place were pretentious pigs.

For me however, the question is not whether Brown or Beckett will help you pull; in the end, it's a question of personal taste, isn't it?

For me, the question is this: what should you do once the perfectly pretty stranger has slipped into the airplane seat next to you and opened the book that sets your pulse racing?

The comments section in the Guardian Unlimited article throws up some interesting book-voyeur anecdotes.

Two day-dreamers reveal their book-voyeur fantasies and one even writes a novel about it:

"I once had a double win on the tube when reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children and a woman asked me my opinion of it as she had been thinking of reading it for a while. Before I could reply, however, the woman next to me stated it was her favorite book by him and she'd read all his works. We all immediately got off at the next stop and went to the nearest hotel room for hours of debauched sex. Actually, we didn't. I blushed at the thought of the outrageous (although unlikely) possibilities of the situation and stammered out something about not begin very far through it yet."

"I wrote a(n unpublished) novel, the opening of which was based on a personal experience. I was reading an economics textbook and a girl leaned over to me and handed me "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", saying "If you want to pull, you'd be better off with this. In the novel, I married her. (And murdered her later, though that's not important right now). In real life she got off the train and I never saw her again."

It's a case of signaling-gone-wrong in this hilarious anecdote:

"I was once reading The Happy Prince and Other Stories (by Oscar Wilde) on a bus, and on the back of that got talking to the girl sitting next to me. We swapped phone numbers, met up for a drink a week later and mid-way through, it emerged that she'd assumed I was gay. We never did get together, but we are still friends, and I suspect that she hasn't changed her mind and still thinks I'm gay."

A young lady reveals her deepest, darkest secret and then wonders if she should have:

"I love checking to see what people are reading. If I can't get a look, I've been known to follow the person until I catch a glimpse. Maybe I shouldn't admit to that."

Maybe, I should play cupid and hook her up with Falstaff.

Another self-less good Samaritan does try to play cupid:

"I pointed out to two strangers standing side by side on the tube that they were both reading the same book, 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. Hopefully that led to romance; she was beautiful."

We don't know if it worked out for them but we do know that it worked out for these three young men:

"I met my girlfriend of four years while bored in a nightclub reading Norwegian Wood. The fires started burning when we got in to a heated debate about the Duchess of Malfi."

It worked out for him and that's fine, but who reads a book in a nightclub!?! I have seen people reading in cafes and even pubs, but nightclubs!?!

Another one manages to pulls, without even having read the book (the world is not fair, I agree with all of you shaking your heads in indignation):

"She was talking about Dante and I was nodding like I knew what she was on about. She then complained that her professor wouldn't let her write her thesis about the Devil. I seized my opportunity. "That's terrible," I said, "everybody knows that the Devil is the main character, in many ways the most human character." She was stunned, I was in, and all thanks to me lifting a quote I had heard only the day before on Radio 4's 'In Our Time' with Melvyn Bragg."

And finally, in order to pull, not only should you be reading an appropriate book by an appropriate author, you should also know how to pronounce their name:

"Met and won my stunning mate (of two years) when she said to me, "You read Nabokov?" and I replied, "I not only read him, I know how to pronounce his name properly, too." Thank the gods it was 'Speak, Memory' and not that other, more famous book of his I was reading when she approached me..."

Incidentally, what are the various right and wrong ways of pronouncing 'Nabokov'? I have come across only one so far, and assumed that it's the right one.

Reading all this, one enterprising young man actually decides to test the theory and asks out a lady in the comments section itself:

"You've pretty much summarized my literary tastes. What are you doing this weekend???"

The entire debate has also set my mind running on four or five tangents (so expect more on this soon):

1) What is the appropriate approach, the perfect pick-up line, in such a situation? How does one avoid coming off as intrusive when on is, in fact, intruding?

I have come across two so far, the first doomed-to-disappoint one in the Guardian Unlimited comments section:

"Is that a DeLillo in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"

And the second one, with more possibilities, on Amit's post:

"(In a sleazy French accent, with a drawl) Good evening mademoiselle. Are you aware that Monsieur Foucault was once paid for a television debate with a chunk of hashish? Well, I have a chunk of hashish with me as well. What say we partake some of it while we discuss Monsieur Foucault's work? I would love to tell you all about my forthcoming illustrated version of The History of Sexuality."

2) What are the most memorable references to such situations in popular culture: in books or movies or songs?

In the Guardian Unlimited comments section, I have been pointed to Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (one of my all time favorites, incidentally, and quite useful, too; read the 55-ers below) in which Tomas, our hero, gets pulled by a receptionist in a small town because of the book he is reading.

Then there is "Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader", by Anne Fadiman, which is about how the author met her husband, courted him, and fell in love with him over books.

I can also think of Woody Allen's short story "The Whores of Mensa", which is about men who date beautiful but stupid women, and hire whores to talk to them about intellectual topics:

"For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartok records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys. Nice racket. Great town, New York."

Incidentally, Amit's Focault pickup line could have come straight out of a Woody Allen movie.

I also came across a song by Sundays called "Here's Where The Story Ends" which has these beautiful lines:

"Its that little souvenir of a terrible year
Which makes my eyes feel sore
Oh I never should have said, the books that you read
Were all I loved you for"

3) What about people, like us, who are as likely to open their laptops and read an appropriately highbrow blog instead? Are laptops aphrodisiac-like too?

Another comment on the Guardian Unlimited blog throws some light on this problem:

"It's quite hard for passersby to smile at you when they see what blog you're reading on the tube, isn't it? I mean, they can smile but you won't be able to see them because they have to be behind you, looking over your shoulder to see the screen of your laptop in order to know that you're reading (their favorite blog)."

4) What if you are not the reader, but the writer? All of us have heard of music groupies; what about book groupies, or better, blog groupies?

Sashi, once more, pointed me to this article by Curtis Sittenfeld in New York Times:

"Yes, I realize that Norman Mailer persuaded six separate women to marry him, but for the rest of us, writing a book as a means of finding either love or sex seems to me about as efficient as the also-popular idea of writing a book to get rich. And yet I have to concede that a surprising number of those over-the-top rumors about writers and their torrid affairs are actually true. The thing about groupie stories, and this is especially true of the salacious ones, is that they always seem to feature men in the starring roles. What I've been wondering lately is, has any woman writer - ever, anywhere - had a groupie? Based on conversations with editors, booksellers and fellow writers, I've come to believe women can have groupies, or at least there are plenty of female writers who strike the fancy of male readers. The catch is that typically these women fall into one - or both - of two categories: either the woman is very attractive or she writes a lot about sex."

One, I haven't lost hope yet, especially since Salman Rushdie and Padma Laxmi still seem to be together.

And two, if I were to become a book-groupie, I would become Erica Jong's groupie. She was pretty when she was young, she writes about love, life and sex with rare honesty and she's one of my favorite writers of all time.

5) And finally, if books don't turn you on, what does? What is your preferred signalling device, your favorite aphrodisiac?

I was shocked when I found that cigarettes turned me on. Show me a pretty thirty-something woman, with a champagne flute in one hand and a cigarette in another and I'm putty in her hands. In fact, I started smoking because it turned me on to light my cigarette from one such woman's. Both of us would hold our cigarettes in our lips, I would lean forward so that the cigarette tips touched, and with our lips six inches away from each other's, I would pull hard. Ecstasy!

While I follow up on these question-tangents, consider yourself tagged on them.

-*-*-*-

55-FICTION POSTSCRIPT

They chat on the institute intranet, late at night.

He: Awake?

She: (Smiles) Yes, it's only twelve.

He: I find myself counting the number of times I see you everyday. I hate it. (Hesitates, then presses ENTER)

She: (Taken aback, thinks before writing) Why?

He: Why do it? Or, why hate it?

She: Both.

-*-*-*-

He: There's a line in Milan Kundera's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being': "Vertigo is not the fear of falling; it's the desire to fall." What I feel for you is not very different.

She: (Looks worried) Why are you doing this to me? And your girlfriend?

He: (Sighs) That's part of why I hate it.

-*-*-*-

Movie Review: Closer- Revisited In 55-Fiction

Gaurav Mishra — Thu, 3 Aug 2006 16:40:50 EDT

I recently watched 'Closer', for the eleventh time. Why eleven times, did you ask? Well, Mike Nichols is one of my all time favorite directors and The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Closer will all figure in my 50 all time favorite list.

Closer is the story of the intersecting lives of two couples: Dan (Jude Law)/ Alice (Natalie Portman) and Larry (Clive Owen)/ Anna (Julia Roberts).

The excellent plot twists and turns and expertly explores themes of intimacy, infidelity and insecurity. All the four leads are excellent, especially Clive Owen and Natalie Portman, who won Golder Globes awards and Oscar nominations for their roles.

Most importantly, the characterizations are clever, complex and convincing, all at the same time. Dan is an unsuccessful British novelist who writes obituaries for a London newspaper, Alice may or may not be an American stripper 'who is in London on an expedition', Anna is an American photographer who likes to shoot strangers in aquariums and Larry is a British dermatologist who hangs around cyber sex chat rooms.

Finally, the opening scene in which Dan and Alice see each other from opposite sides of the street, as they walk through rush hour London traffic (while The Blower's Daughter from Damien Rice plays in the background) is one of my favorite movie scenes of all times.

-*-*-*-

My other obsession, apart from movies, is 55-fiction: works of fiction in exactly 55 words. So, I decided to put my two obsessions together and put down the 'Closer' plot in eleven 55-fiction pieces:

-*-*-*-

Dan & Alice

A man and a woman, strangers, see each other from opposite sides of the street, as they walk through rush hour London traffic. As she steps onto the street, she is hit by a cab.

Later, in the hospital, he tells her what happened: "You came to. You focused on me. You said, 'Hello, stranger.'"

-*-*-*-

Later, in a bus, he tells her that he writes euphemism-filled obituaries for a newspaper.

"What would my euphemism be?" she asks him.

"She was disarming", he replies.

"That's not a euphemism," she protests.

"Yes," he looks into her eyes, "it is."

Stunned, she turns away from him and looks out of the bus window.

-*-*-*-

Dan & Anna

As she photographs him for his book-jacket, they realise that they are about to kiss.

"I don't kiss strange men," she hesitates.

"Neither do I," he replies, as they lean forward and kiss.

Later, when she refuses to see him, "You are taken", he protests: "You kissed me!"

"What are you," she taunts him, "twelve?"

-*-*-*-

Larry & Anna

He enters the aquarium, in his doctor's white coat, and looks around for the nymph, named Anna, he had met in a cyber-sex chat room last night.

She answers to her name, but tells him that he has been set up by someone pretending to be her, by a man who thinks he loves her.

-*-*-*-

Dan & Anna

A year later, at an exhibition of her photographs, she smugly tells him how he had set her up with Larry, "Nice work, Cupid."

When he asks her if she loves him and she says "no", both of them know that she's lying.

Later that night, strangely irritated, she finds herself snapping at her boyfriend.

-*-*-*-

Dan & Alice

He confesses that he has been seeing Anna for a year, "because I fell in love with her", "because she doesn't need me".

"How do you do this to someone?" she asks, then remembers that she had been on the other side.

"I'm the one who leaves, not you," she repeats incoherently and runs out.

-*-*-*-

Larry & Anna

"I slept with a whore", he confesses, but realizes that she also has something to confess.

"Are you leaving me? Because of this? Because of Cupid?" he asks her. "Why did you marry me? But we're happy, aren't we? Is he a good fuck? Better than me? Did you cum? Did you ever love me?"

-*-*-*-

Larry & Alice

He sees her in a strip-club; she strips for him, opens her legs wide to let him have a look.

When he repeatedly asks for her real name, pleads, she replies: "Jane".

When he begs her to sleep with him, she first tells him, "I'm not a whore", and then, "I'm not your revenge fuck."

-*-*-*-

Dan & Anna

She meets him at the opera, a free woman, her divorce papers finally signed by her ex-husband.

He is happy first, then suspicious, "You slept with him, didn't you?"

"He wouldn't sign the papers otherwise," she pleads, "please forgive me."

"He's clever, your ex-husband," he sighs, "All I can see is him all over you."

-*-*-*-

Dan & Larry

Alone, without Anna or Alice, Dan breaks down in Larry's office.

Larry tells him about the club: "Yes, I saw her naked. No, I did not fuck her. She still loves you. Go back to her."

But, as Dan is about to leave, indebted, Larry stops him: "I lied to you. I did fuck Alice."

-*-*-*-

Dan &Alice/jane

They whisper sweet-nothings to each other, in post-coital bliss, until... he tells her that he needs to know the truth about the club

"Then it's over," she replies, "because I cannot tell you the truth."

He suddenly realizes that their entire relationship is a lie.

"Who are you?" he asks her, and slaps her hard.

-*-*-*-

Postscript

I, of course, realize that the real reason why I like 'Closer' so much is because I can see myself in each one of these eleven situations.

My preferred mode of reading a book, or watching a movie, is to find a character I can identify with and then look at the entire book/ movie from his/ her perspective.

I like Closer so much because throughout the many twists and turns in its plot, I never cease to identify with both Dan and Larry. I can see myself being the best and the worst of them: charming like Dan and committed like Larry at one moment, insecure like Dan and vindictive like Larry the next moment.

I like Closer so much because watching it is almost like watching my own life unfold in a series of home movies.

Movie Review: Rikshaaa! A Film On Three Wheels

Gaurav Mishra — Thu, 3 Aug 2006 00:46:13 EDT

I first met Soum on a whirlwind of a weekend in Mumbai about six months back.

It was the week the One Tree Music Festival came to Mumbai and has-been bands from the 60s and the 70s played to a nostalgic audience. I have especially fond memories of the event because I happened to catch the drum-stick which The Blues Brothers drummer had thrown into the audience.

My friend Rana had come down from Kolkata for the concert and he seemed to know everybody in Mumbai. After partying non-stop for three nights, we hooked up with Rana's MBA-musician-singer friend Mohan and invited ourselves to a birthday party in Bandra. I was feeling out of sorts amongst two dozen actors, models, singers, salsa dancer types, until I found myself standing next to Soum, who seemed as out of place in the party as myself. We soon found ourselves talking about our IIT/ IIM days, about how he was one of the first people in India to video-blog, about how he met his PETA-activist girlfriend while doing a photo shoot on tanneries in Dewas, about how his friend Rohit had written a novel in verse, which he intended to perform at street corners in small Indian towns. We stood together fascinated, as the hostess and her model friend, dressed in wigs and really tiny skirts, playfully performed a lap dance for their actor friend whose birthday it was. Then we drank a little more and talked some more about his collaborative musical documentary on auto-rickshaws.

Soum moved to Pune almost immediately afterwards, and it was almost after three months that I caught up with him and another old friend at a laidback restaurant in Pune's Coregaon Park. Rohit had successfully performed his novel at IIT Mumbai and now wanted to do a show at Pune. The restaurant where we were eating hosted such events regularly, my friend knew the owner, a new connection was made and Rohit found a place to perform at Pune. It was also that evening that I realized that the Bandra party we had gate-crashed into was actually hosted at Soum's flat and the pretty hostess with the wig was his flat-mate!

It was only after another three months that I found myself thinking about Soum, when his friend and collaborator Laura left a message on my blog-post on rickshaws:

Videowallah - Ah, just wait until our documentary! Coming soon, we promise! Rickshaaa! A Film on Three Wheels!

It's a small world, they say, but this small!

-*-*-*-

An auto rickshaw (auto or rickshaw or tempo or tuk-tuk in popular parlance) is a three-wheeler vehicle for hire. It is one of the chief modes of public transport in the Indian Sub-continent and is also popular in South-East Asian countries. Auto rickshaws are usually fitted with a motorcycle version of a two-stroke engine with a handlebar for control, effectively making them a three-wheeler motorcycle carrying passengers on the rear seat.

The auto-rickshaw has many admirers. Its high fuel efficiency makes it the only vehicle economic enough to address the travel needs of millions in the Sub-continent. Its small size makes it ideal for snaking though the traffic-choked urban roads. Speeds can reach as high as 55 km/h, although it feels like a lot more, if you have ever traveled in one. And who hasn't, in this part of the world?

I have been on a wild-goose rickshaw chase on the Internet for the last ten days. It started when I stumbled onto the Rickshaw Blog (via Shashwati's Blog), a Pakistani blog that collects the poetry, phrases, expressions, and words found on the back of rickshaws:

Kabhee side say aatee ho kabhee peechay say aatee ho, Meree jaan horn day day kar mujhay tum kyon satateey ho?
Sometimes you come from the side, sometimes from the back,
My love, why do you torment me with blowing your horn?"

My rickshaw-appetite whet with rickshaw-shayari like this, I started searching the internet for more rickshaw-anecdotes. I first found Auto Rickshaw Art, a Bangalore based blog that captures the art (pictures) on the backs of rickshaws, with the same passion that the Rickshaw Blog captures the words.

I read with fascination as Owais Mughal described the perfection of the auto-rickshaw's automotive design, in All Things Pakistan, and discussed in detail its various aspects: the three-wheel design that allows for easy access for repairs, the driver's 'hot' pilot seat, the driver's ergonomics that allows one of his legs to be free while driving, the 'danda'-driven starting mechanism, the never-used passenger foothold, the barely-there head lamp, and the multiple multi-purpose mirrors that:

"...are placed by the driver to his own strategic advantage. If a passenger is to his liking then these mirrors help the driver to keep an eye on the passenger from many different angles."

I remembered my two years at IIM Bangalore as LJ, in a hilarious post, lay out a step-by-step guide to auto-rickshaws in Bangalore: how to stop one, how to approach the rickshaw-driver, how to understand him and what rickshaw-etiquette to follow. I remembered struggling with the unwieldiness of Kannada as I read her Beginners Auto Kannada Guide:

Auto driver Kannada is a versatile, adaptable and flexible language. You only need to know these two words and you could write a novel.
1) Hogi- means Go. Usage: Right Hogi, Left Hogi, Straight Hogi, Flyover Hogi, Please Hogi, Railway-track Hogi, Urgent Hogi.
2) Maadi- means Do. Usage- Stop maadi, reverse maadi, over take maadi, fast maadi, slow maadi, fly maadi, save maadi.

I thought of all the times when I have sat behind a Schumacher-like rickshaw driver and held onto the back of his seat for dear life, as I read Sudarshan's tribute to the rickshaw drivers of Surat, for providing him the daily thrill ride to the office and back:

It's the last pit-stop before it ends. The engine is rumbling just under him. Today is his day. Nothing is going to stop his glorious rush to the chequered flag. Its time to go! He barely lets the brown elixir into the starved engine and it shoots off. A left and then maneuvering in for a cut on the right. That was close. He can't hear it, but he's sure that the audience are heaving and sighing as they watch him approach the finish line. He gives it his all. YES! He's bettered his own previous record! A screeeeeeeeeeeching stop."

I read an entry in Wikipedia about South Indian heroes playing famous Auto-wallah roles - Rajanikant in Tamil movie Baasha, Shankar Nag in Kannada movie Auto Raja (which inspired Upendra's Auto Shankar) and Mohan Lal in Malayalam movie Aye Auto - and thought of the chase scene in the James Bond film Octopussy in which Roger Moore and Vijay Amritraj make an escape in an auto rickshaw.

Then, almost on cue, I stumbled onto Bharatbala Ganapathy's Hari Om (2005), a film about an auto rickshaw driver who takes a French tourist across Rajasthan. When I read the Ego Magazine review of the movie, which called it "arguably one of the most rewarding films to emerge from India during 2005", I wondered how a road-movie-junkie like me had managed to miss it!

I also read about a group of foreigners, on a recruitment drive in India, who become completely obsessed with the auto rickshaws and decided to take one (or two) back to the US. They were advised by one of their candidates to:

"Take it apart and then ship it piece by piece back to the US. Johnny Cash style. Fewer customs problems, lower cost overall, and pretty fast."

Eventually, however, they were not able to acquire an auto-rickshaw for their return trip, although an auto-rickshaw retailer did try to cross-sell them a scooter.

And then I read how the 25 year old one-time backpacker Dominic Ponniah could take the auto-rickshaw across to the UK (here, here and here):

"Each cost me �2,000, then I had to spend another �500 on shipping, and spend a further �2,500 on modifying them here -- they almost had to be rebuilt from scratch -- and finally �1,000 for rebranding and painting, so each tuk tuk ended up costing me �6,000."

Finally, I read about The Indian Auto rickshaw Challenge and told myself: what an adventure!

"The Indian Auto rickshaw Challenge (Aug 21-28, 2006) is a 1000 km (590 miles) rally through the most scenic roads of South India in (an auto-rickshaw). You'll travel through an incredible course of misty jungles, balmy coastlines, flooded streets, monsoon rains and overpowering Indian crowds. By reaching a multitude of challenging way-points and completing physical and intellectual exercises, you may be crowned Auto-rickshaw Rally World Champion!"

It promised to be the experience of a lifetime. I thought of the various ways in which I would beg my boss for a vacation so soon after my Sikkim sojourn. Plan firmly in place, I clicked on the 'sign up' button and sighed: $1675 registration fee plus all travel costs! That's more than I earn in a... very long time. There's a discount for Indian residents, but still... It promises to be an annual event, I consoled myself; by next year I would have won a lottery ticket, or married a heiress, or managed to not spend all my money. Maybe...

-*-*-*-

Now that my first hand auto-rickshaw adventure was not happening, I decided to do the next best thing: interview Soum on his collaborative musical documentary on auto-rickshaws.

Soumyadeep Paul, who is known as Desoumal in the blogosphere, belongs to Camboktu, a world whose denizens have a camera for a head, a metronome for a heart and a keypad instead of fingers. His fascination with the video camera started when he was at IIT Kanpur and shot a short movie with his friends. He then went on to direct two films during his stay in US, Dusk (an adaptation from Saki's famous short story) and a horror story written by himself, which never saw the light of the day.

It was then that decided to quit his job in the Silicon Valley and travel through Asia, camera in hand. A few short films came after that - Chor (a 13 minute thriller fiction), The Truth About Turbans (a two min documentary on turbans) and the interestingly named Moustache Dreams. He is currently working to boot-start an experimental cyber-media startup in Pune and collaborating with other Camboktunians on his musical documentary on auto rickshaws.

So, how did it start, I asked him, his fascination with rickshaws. Rickshaw-obsessed myself, I sighed as he described how he had picked up a copy of Time Out Mumbai in January 2005, read about the Formula One race for Rickshaws, organized as part of the Mumbai Festival, and decided to go over to Hiranandani Complex and shoot it.

The race, the first of its kind around the world, attracted hundreds of rickshaw drivers who wanted a shot at the prize money, and the fame.

"I want to participate because it is fun and my chance to move ahead in life, and be known" said one competitor.

"They think they are the Michael Schumachers of the roads... with their goddamn Ferraris" claimed an angry local.

Soum, along with friends Poorva Joshipura and Anoop Mathew, shot non-stop for four hours. Almost immediately afterwards, they came across a book called "Chasing Rickshaws" by Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet, and they were hooked.

Their imaginations fired, they decided to make a 15 minute short film on auto-rickshaws. As they, along with friends Prashant Soni and Sanjay Senanayake, started shooting footage, in various Indian cities, the project's scope increased almost organically. First, they thought of documenting their work as a video-blog on rickshaws. Later, as Laura Taflinger from the UK and Jacqueline Schnabel from the USA heard about the project and jumped in, they decided to make Rickshaa into a one hour musical documentary.

So, what exactly is the movie about?

"There are many ways to make a movie about rickshaws", Soum tells me. "You can chart the rickshaw's evolution, talk about it from an automotive perspective, or document its role as a source of livelihood for the rickshaw-wallahs. We have focused on capturing the quirkiness of the rickshaw experience." So he has shot a sequence sitting inside the rickshaw as it negotiates a bumpy pot-holed road. There's a sequence shot in the Bajaj factory in Pune, which he promises is as quirky as it gets. There are interviews with rickshaw drivers and exclusive footage from India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, UK and the US - all of it set against rickshaw-music.

As their website Rikshaaa! A Film On Three Wheels says:

This musical documentary tries to dive into the crazy world of auto-rickshaws, and bring out their joys and frustrations, their music and their daily struggle for bread, and their fights against a largely chaotic system.

But what is rickshaw-music? Is it the predominantly Bollywood and Bhangra music that rickshaw-wallahs play? And what exactly is a musical documentary? Don't all documentaries have some sort of a soundtrack?

"It's a musical documentary", Soum explains, "not only because the sequences are set against music, but also because the songs help the narrative move forward. The songs themselves are a mix of popular soundtracks and original music written for the movie."

When I heard that Soum was looking for original rickshaw-themed songs, I pointed out that a student called Shreyas at UTAH has written a Kannada rap song called Auto Soori, about the everyday life of an auto rickshaw driver. I'm hoping that Soum and Shreyas will figure out a way of using the song into the movie, not only because it fits right into the quirkiness that Soum is trying to capture, but also because it fits right into the spirit of collaboration with which the movie has been made.

"This is a new type of film-making," Soum says, "made possible only by the internet." He calls it collaborative film-making and explains that he hasn't met either Laura or Jacqueline who have shot the Brighton tuc-tuc footage and the Worchester footage about Albert Tolman (the American blacksmith who designed the first rickshaw) respectively. Both of them heard about the movie and, intrigued, asked if they could contribute. The film is in the final post-production stages, and will be ready for release after he visits London next month for the final cut with Laura.

Rickshaws are part of the unique ID of South Asia and any movie on rickshaws, especially one like this, is also a movie about the ultimate irony of an Asian existence.

Soum, as a fellow rickshaw-enthusiast, this is one movie I'll not miss.