Domain Maximus

Finally. After a delay of CWG proportions, I have just completed the first draft of Dork 2. It happened approximately 5 hours ago. For now I am calling it D2D1. The version you will see in ex-tree/Kindle/iPad/Xoom/modern-dance format will most probably be D2D3. Next the missus will scan the whole thing. Meanwhile I will clean out odds and ends like the author’s note, acknowledgements, and making character names and proper nouns consistent. The end result, D2D2, will then go to Penguin. Who will then send feedback. Which I will incorporate into D2D3. Which will go to press.

I know all this sounds terribly boring. But in reality it is spectacularly boring. But it must be done. Personally I am a believer in freestyle spelling. But many readers get very upset and send emails. Which I would like to avoid this time round. So more attention will be paid to grammar and niggling things like tense shifts. (D1 was full of horrendous tense shift things. Did you noticed it?)

D2 carries on a few months after D1 and takes place almost completely in London. This is not because I’ve been living here of late. It was always planned like that, with D3 happening back in India. But there is really very little London in it. (Unless lots of London will make you buy the book. In which case it is brimming with London.) But it was a pleasant coincidence to write of the same city you are typing in.

Our plan, ever since Penguin and I first discussed it in mid-2008, has been to tell Robin’s story in three books, with the ultimate aim being to make him CEO by Book 3. That plan is proceeding well. Otherwise significant changes have been made from my initial plan for the book. There was too much material in the CDs I found under the sink. So I had to cut and chop and shift things a bit. (Ahem.)

Anyway I won’t bore you with all those things right now. There is plenty of time for that. Also I need to leave some gossip for marketing no?

Instead let me share some data points that will, I hope, whet your appetite:

• D2D1 is currently 62770 words long. That will increase by another 2000 words by the time D2D3 is finished.
• That should translate to approximately 300 pages or so in print. But this is fully variable.
• Most of the book was written using Scrivener on a desktop and a laptop.
• A Dropbox account was used to sync the project between both machines.
• The whole things took around 5 months to write. But most of the writing happened in the last two weeks.
• Writing was usually done to background music by Earl Klugh, Fourplay, George Benson and this wonderful mix of Rainymood and The Fragrance of Dark Coffee. Anything with lyrics completely distracts me. So does anything that is too fast, too slow and too complicated. Smooth Jazz seems to be working of late.
• During the writing process I read the following: A history of the Popes, a biography of Paul Dirac, The Eye of the Red Tsar and, as I got closer to the deadline, Michael Palin’s Around The World in 80 Days. Reading humour books keep me cheerful. But I am paranoid about being too influenced by what I am reading. Palin’s travel non-fiction is most satisfying without leaking into Robin’s head. Now I am reading Jo Nesbo’s Nemesis.
• I write entirely in 14-point Georgia font. Have been doing so for 4 or 5 years now.
• In order to help me focus I removed a bunch of apps from my computers, and stayed off updating Twitter for two weeks. Whenever I wanted a break I played Stick Cricket on the iPhone.
• It will take at least 6 months from now till release date. Which means November-ish maybe? I hope so
• I am thinking of doing something online as a bonus track, if you will, for the book.
• The next project that is already beginning to ferment in the brain is a crime novel. (Yes, I know you are going to make Sreesanth-bowling jokes.) But no, seriously. A crime novel has been obsessing the mind for months. I have written just a little bit. Why not? You live only one life.
• Otherwise life carries on as usual. Mint, Cricinfo, Twitter and now a little Facebook.
• I intend to spend the next two weeks doing nothing but watch cricket, eat, cycle a little bit, read and blog/tweet/poke.

What else? Nothing much.

Enough about me. You tell me. What is up?

There are some downsides to locking yourself indoors on a tight writing regimen. You don’t get enough sun, exercise or food groups. Also the endeavour comes with a certain amount of guilt if you’re doing anything but write. Anything. Even taking bath. The self-inflicted guilt is mind-boggling.

But I also miss reading.

So then I did the math. Unless something drastic happens to medical science or to my income levels, I simply will not live long enough or have enough free time to read all the books, magazines and Wikipedia entries I want to in life. It is physically impossible.

This is a depressing thought no?

But of course I do not want to depress. So please go read this bizarre New Yorker Shouts and Murmurs piece.

Alternately, my woefully neglected Instapaper RSS feed is here.

What else?

Oh yes. There are positive developments on the Cubiclenama front. But I cannot confirm it right now.

Bye.

P.S. Apologies if these little posts are clogging up your RSS feed. Things will be likewise for a while. Feel free to temporarily bury feed at sea.

Whilst I slog away on Dork 2–final manuscript due on the 13th–why not enjoy the latest Cricinfo column?

It has lungis in it…

At first there was a lull in the conversation while malllusss mulled his words. On the face of it he could be asking why Malayalis wear lungis (sarongs). In which case there are entire books written on the topic. I don’t want to go into details but benefits include:

1. Easily adjustable for size of wearer. You can gain or lose weight or height without overhauling you wardrobe.

2. Fold can be raised or lowered depending on height of rain water, quantity of beer, volume of music.

3. Sustainability: after many years of satisfactory use a lungi can be converted into a blanket for babies, a durable kitchen towel, a restraining device for capitalists, or a shirt for Shah Rukh Khan.

4. Ventilation.

I could go on and on.

Part 2 of the France travelogue shortly. Maybe tonight.

But the book takes priority, as you will no doubt understand.

When I was a kid I absolutely loathed going out shopping with my parents. Not that we embarked on protracted shopping trips too frequently. But when we did… shudder. Supermarkets bore me, textile shops siphon the life force out of me and, worst of all, my Dad’s proclivity for watch showrooms frustrated.

We’d be walking along some side road in Abu Dhabi hunting for ‘sale’ when suddenly Dad would disappear. We’d look around and see him mimicking walking, but not really moving at all, outside a Rivoli or Al Fardan or Al Futtaim gawking at an Omega or a Patek or a Kolber of some kind.

Over the years he did develop a small collection of watches with one or two expensive ones in them that he, I daresay, nurtured like children. After a while he infected a bunch of co-workers with the watch bug. And then every few months they’d all buy and sell watches to each other and feel quite posh.

I hated it.

But that kind of thing does leave residual tendencies.

And now I write about watches for the newspaper. And I bloody can’t get enough of the thing.

I can’t afford any of them. But, as you will see, just looking at them is a balm for the soul.

Hope you enjoy our second watch special (below) and the first in what will be a periodic series of MintWatch specials. This one is on the SIHH fair that happened in January. There should be at least two more this year.

Sometimes your parents make complete sense retrospectively.

Is there a thing that strikes more fear into the heart of a man than his missus telling him the following?

“Sweety, you decide fully what we are going to do this weekend…”

At this point–and many recently married/civil unioned/otherwise coupled young men don’t know this–you stand at the edge of a precipice. On the one hand you can step gingerly backwards and somehow salvage the weekend and peace of mind. On the other hand you can actually take this comment at face value (you fool), assume the weekend is yours to manipulate as you wish, book two tickets for Tron Legacy 3D and expect your bitter half to play along enthusiastically.

Ignorantly blissful of reality you wake up on Saturday morning with a spring in your step, and Olivia Wilde in your head in three dimensions. (Let us not forget how excellent she is in just two.)

And then suddenly the missus, while reading a book or meticulously vacuuming the bath tub, says: “I am dying to watch any movie this week except that nonsense Tron: Legacy…”

Things go rapidly downhill from that point. You try to convince her with nostalgia, logic and Youtube trailers. She weighs the evidence fully and then decides, cruelly, to ditch plans for a Full English breakfast at the local illegal-immigrant-run cafe and makes poha instead.

Oh wait.

You think I am saying all this on the basis of personal experience? Ah ha ha ha.

Understandable misunderstanding.

No this is what happens to Pastrami on some weekends.

*Cough cough*

Anyway. Imagine my horror when around 5 weeks ago the missus called me up from her office and told me that I had to immediately make travel plans for the long Royal Wedding-Easter weekend in the last week of April.

I don’t know if you noticed online or read in any of the papers, but recently the United Kingdom celebrated the wedding of Prince William, first son of Prince Charles. It was a huge deal.

The bride was a little too thin. Still, the catering was not bad. Good fried rice. Excellent Chicken 65. Payasam was too cold. But overall not bad for an upper middle class family with no income. (However Mercy-aunty told me that apparently they don’t have budget for a honeymoon.)

Thanks to the proximity of Easter on the 24th of April to the wedding on the 29th, almost everyone in the UK planned to take the intervening days off and convert the whole thing into a 10-day holiday. Which sounds like a great idea. The problem with this is that people who live in this part of the world plan the socks off their holidays. They are like the Montek Singh Ahluwahlias of vacationing but with greater accuracy. They book flights and hotels and tours and museum tickets months in advance. And they do it so comprehensively that any delay in booking impact liquidity severely.

One minute hipmunk.com is showing a London – Barcelona flight for just £140 return per person on ShadyJet. Unfortunately due to a long-entrenched distrust of Indian ecommerce websites, and previous experience of booking flight tickets on the right day but the wrong year, I hesitate.  I double check before clicking on the buy button.

Disaster! Sad screechy Carnatic violin music!

That two minute delay is two minutes too long. When I click on the buy button again ShadyJet is fully booked and the only tickets left for Barcelona are first class fares on Air France.

If I wanted to spend that much money to be subject to incompetence I would have bought the Pune Warriors.

So you can begin to imagine the thoughts running through my brain when the missus empowered me to plan and execute the entire 10-day holiday program.

Where to go? What to do? How much to spend?

So that evening, after she came back from work and had finished vacuuming the TV, I asked her for suggestions of destinations and an estimation of budget.

Me: “Why don’t we choose three places and then I can search for tickets and hotels and draw up comparisons…”

Missus: “Excellent. Which three places?”

Me: “I was hoping you would suggest something?”

Missus: “No no. You decide this munchkin…”

Me: “Oh ok. Then… off the top of my head spontaneously… I was thinking France with emphasis on Normandy, Germany with emphasis on Berlin, or Poland with emphasis on Auschwitz. A world war 2 theme… overall…”

Missus: “Very good. I also think that France, Holland and Spain are the best options.”

Me: “It is as if you stole the very words from my mouth my little Verbal Charles Sobhraj.”

Two hours later, after requisite budgetary discussions, we decided that a whirlwind tour of the Provencal region of France, starting with a short, skip and jump through Paris would be best. From Paris we would proceed, via train, to Avignon, Arles and then Aix-en-Provence before returning to Paris for the flight back to London.

Air France is not my favourite airline in the world, in much the same way that blunt force trauma is not my favourite feeling in the world. Yet the London-Paris-London tickets on AF were both well-priced and well-timed for our evenly paced but quite accurately timed trip. We would spend between two to three nights in each place, giving us just enough time to tick off the usual tourist haunts, and still have some time for lazy reading in French cafes overlooking French town squares.

Four days before we left for France, and thus the title of this post, I bought two sturdy backpacks for both of us. For her a 66-litre Mountain Life backpack in murky pink (favourite colour) with lumbar support, rain cover, external compartments on the top, bottom and sides, and adjustable shoulder straps. For me a 65-litre Mountain life backpack with orange trims (official Mint colour) but otherwise similar configuration as above.

The idea was to somehow carry 10 days worth of clothes and accessories in the two backpacks, and then carry reading material and laptop in a little day bag. We’d carry above mentioned day bag on board as cabin baggage in order to pilfer things from the plane such as trays, bowls, cutlery, toiletries and life jackets.

Comedy! I am kidding about the cutlery.

Over the next two weeks I hope, fingers crossed, to write you through those 10 wonderful days of traipsing around France, drinking beer, and eating cheese from plastic bags.

This fully illustrated story is full of history, romance, something called Panache, cold breakfasts, copious ethnic stereotyping, and Popes.

Hopefully you will enjoy these posts. Perhaps they may even inspire you to do a little travelling of your own. But, most of all, I hope they will convince you to never travel by Air France.

Till next time: Au ghevoir and take ze care yeah? Yeah ok ok.