October 30, 2021

The Vaccine is back!

We’re back! The last edition of the Vaccine was dated Sept 18, 2021, which means that there was a five week hiatus. All in all, there have been 37 editions this year in the 43 weeks in 2021 so far. Not bad, don’t you think?

Things have been a tad busier than usual starting mid September. I was in Chennai for about 10 days and got back. I guess things are returning to normalcy. People are beginning to get on planes and trains and travel, go out to restaurants, the movies, etc from what I can tell. I don’t want to jinx anything but I am highly hopeful that the worst of Covid-19 is behind us. The San Francisco airport was eerily empty when we traveled largely because of the ban on foreigners entering the US still in effect. This ban goes away in November and I’m sure that tourists will soon be thronging the city by the bay.

Travel was surprisingly smooth. We had to mask in the airport and on the plane and in taxis. If you’re traveling to India, that means well over 24 straight hours of wearing a mask. It sounds painful but you get used to it after the first four or five hours. It was great to be back in Chennai, see familiar faces, sit around and talk. This trip was a marker, a reset of sorts for me. It marks the end of the pandemic as far as I’m concerned and I sincerely hope things stay that way.

In the meanwhile, other things happened while the Vaccine was away. Adele dropped a single ‘Go easy on me’ from her latest album ‘30’. “I had no time to choose.. what i chose to do… So go easy on me baby.” Adele is a 1000 year soul in a 30 year old body. Bestie is killing it in this life with her mind boggling lyrics.

Shah Rukh Khan’s 23 year old son, Aryan Khan, walked out of jail after a harrowing four weeks under lock and key. Aryan was arrested following a Narcotics Control Bureau raid on a cruise ship party. The anti-drugs agency found no drugs on him, but claimed in courts that his WhatsApp chats proved his involvement in "illicit drug deals" and links with a foreign drugs cartel. I honestly don’t understand what is going on with Shah Rukh and his son but I’m glad that whatever this terrible thing was has passed. No parent should have to go through such an ordeal. There are insecure, dangerous and vindictive people in power all around the world. In India, they got their claws into Shah Rukh Khan. The whole spectacle gave me a bad feeling at the bottom of my stomach.

Joe Biden is right. Before leaving for Europe, he exhorted fellow Democrats to come together and pass two infrastructure bills, one for a trillion dollars and another for what appears to be close to two trillion dollars. He told them that his presidency depends on what the Congress does (or not) in the next few weeks. If the Democrats don’t find a way to compromise and get things done, they are certain to be routed in the 2022 elections.

Last weekend, I happened to catch the iconic Eagles in concert at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Time, as we have come to understand it, is a shimmering mirage. Paul Rudd is older than Ted Cruz and Taylor Swift is only a year younger than Adele. Rock and roll’s relationship with Father Time is equally fascinating. Men and women barely into their twenties, dewy young people with nary a mark on them write soulful ballads with shattering maturity. And they grow old and it all comes true.

By the time the Eagles released Hotel California, they were knee-deep in experience. Ankle-deep, at any rate. The Southern California sound, which they had helped invent, ruled the airwaves. Mildly rocking, beautifully harmonizing, with silvery sleek songs, the Eagles found the elixir. Their previous album, their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), was a behemoth. It would go on to be the biggest-selling U.S. album of the 20th century.

We, the rock and roll faithful, had gathered in San Francisco, masked and flapping our vaccination cards, to watch the Eagles perform their Hotel California album beginning to end, with a greatest-hits set to follow. I sat in my seat, mask-muffled, transported by the still-intact Eagles harmonies to the high realms to enter which one must leave the body behind, mesmerized by the surreal complexity of the moment. Hotel California is in some ways asshole music, an introspection from the window of a Learjet. But it’s also self-aware, and wonderfully crafted, and superbly exquisite in places. It is of its time. It drips with foreknowledge. The weird breeze, the mirrors on the ceiling? We are all just prisoners here, of our own device. At the Chase Center, Henley delivered this line in an especially knowing, pining voice. Luxury gone rotten, an approaching storm. From his gold-plated heyday he somehow glimpsed it. He smelled it. And you know what, it’s still there. This Hotel California, this shimmering American palace of God-knows-what, is still our future.

Last but not the least, a tip of the hat to Daniel Craig. From the get go, he put his imprint on Bond. Like any good 007, he showed that he could rock a tuxedo and toss out double entendres with equal ease. But he was also a colder, more brooding James Bond, closer to Sean Connery than Roger Moore, but with an aching angst all his own. With Craig Bond, things were personal. His latest and final Bond film ‘No Time to Die’ is a fitting farewell to the man who did not just keep the 007 franchise alive but made the playboy Bond actually thrive in a 21st century where we’ve seen intense scrutiny of misogyny and chauvinism. Craig has been a terrific James Bond, perhaps even the best of the lot. His departure certainly deserves a little fanfare and the finale is moving.

Craig’s Bond is wrestling here with mortality and facing the end of his usefulness. “You’re irrelevant,” says Ralph Fiennes’ M, dismissing Bond with icy bluntness. “And we thank you for your service.” “No Time To Die” is very much about relevance, its eventual cinema release after more than 18 months of delays being seen as the first big test of the theatrical model in the post-lockdown era. Will it bring generations back into the cinemas? Will Bond ever be allowed to be Bond again, a dashing rogue leaping deftly from caper to caper? Time will tell.

As always, stay safe. Have a great week ahead.