Outtakes on the HHG2G

On reading a book in five technology formats

When I wanted to read Jeff Ryan's Mario- a glitch in a library ordering system told me that the book wasn't available. So due to my desperation to read it (a literary exploration of Nintendo's Mario for Christ's sake) I ended up buying the ebook for my Kindle.

Then, while writing Atari v. Sports Soo,  because I had left the device at home, I read Ryan's Mario on the Kindle software on my laptop. Homeward bound that day on the tube it occurred to me that I could continue reading on the Kindle phone app. Reaching home, I decided to try it on an iPad as well.
The difference between the iPad and the Kindle is the glare off the screen- the Kindle is much smoother on the eyes if read for a longer period. This is the advertised superiority of reading devices over tablets and for once, it is also a fact. Additionally, book-marking is certainly more convenient on electronic formats. You can't shut an ebook.

However, going into the library, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the system had decided to deliver the book after all. It was beautiful. Small details, for instance, the page numbers printed like Mario's coin counter are details that electronic based publishing is yet to catch up with. Of course, nothing beats being able to flip and riffle through a book, and not be waylaid by clumsy hyperlink selection. Feel the quality of its paper and the weight of its words in physical terms. There's a small thrill there that is indescribable.

Something about the experience- of reading one book over five technology platforms- made me want to re-read Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I discovered why coming across this paragraph:

"-he also had a device which looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press-buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million 'pages' could be summoned at a moment's notice. It looked insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words DON'T PANIC printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact that most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the Ursa Minor- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub-meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in."

Arthur C. Clarke is credited with having foretold satellites. Star Trek, cellphones. Jules Verne- the submarine. I wonder- was Douglas Adam's the prophet of the ebook?

Douglas Adam's HHG2G anticipated the ebook by nearly 42 years.

***
On two player Contra and coincidence

When I was about thirteen, a boy in my school who lived next door (we’ll call him Roop) and I used to hang out, usually to play tennis.

Roop was about two years younger than me but he was obsessed with Pink Floyd- which was weird for someone still abusing Pepsi and Bournville. Roop could quote the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on tap. Which he did, especially in any debate speech he was asked to give (the HHG2G's wisdom is applicable to any motion) turning the august gathering instantly into some form of stand-up gig.

The summer school break that year, his parents threw all caution to the wind and rented a video game console. It was spent mainly playing two-player Contra. 

Is it weird that I remember a childhood friend and tennis partner mainly as a Contra figure?

One afternoon, later that year in winter, we were both running for our Houses on Sports Day. Along the way we picked another boy from our school, Suleiman Akhtar, standing at a bus stop and looking to hitch a ride. Perhaps this is why I remember that winter so well. 

Roop won the D division championship, I won the C and Suleiman Akhtar won the B. 

An odd coincidence that we all came for the meet in the same Ambassador taxi- as big, ugly and yellow as a Vogon ship but maybe, powered by the same engine as The Heart of Gold.

***
On India/Pakistan, Finance/Human Rights and coincidence

I have a dear friend, a trader in the City who has a tendency to announce in the late evening after several drinks, ‘Right, I’m going back to work.’

As the only unemployed/self-employed person, I’m generally included into plans when someone ditches at the last moment. So one evening, my friend texted that he had two free tickets going for Mira Nair’s adaptation of The Reluctant Fundamentalist at the BFA. 

I invited a friend as my plus one. We took the same Law and Society in South Asia course. It seemed appropriate as she was from Pakistan. We were long overdue to hang out, and it was, after all, a film made in India-Pakistan collaboration.

After the movie, we went for a drink and my trader friend and my Law and Society in South Asia friend got talking. If you know how far the world of human rights research is from the City and India is from Pakistan, the coincidences, these two people discovered between themselves were incredible.

First they too had a common friend, whose desk was a few rows away from my friend’s desk. Given that the bank he worked for was gigantic, it was still reasonably plausibe, but at a stretch, that two South Asian Arsenal fans may know each other.

Then my friend set his glass down and said:

‘Right, I’m going back to work.’

‘Oh my god,’ said my other friend. ‘We’ve met before. We were at a party in Whitechapel once and you were the one who left to go back to work.’

***
Coincidence and London pubs

Another Sunday I went for birthday drinks at a pub.

I met the girl whose birthday celebration it was for the first time in the lobby of the Park Hotel in Calcutta. Those were the days of trawling the city at night, its clubs, dhabas and tea shanties and meeting all sorts of people because that’s what young people generally do in Calcutta.

‘You probably don’t know me,’ she had said then by way of introduction. ‘But your girl friend and I used to play together when we were little kids.’

At her birthday drinks, half-way around the world in London nearly four years later, I realised the people present in a pub were almost a curation of my life. 

At the far end, sat the family I was marrying into, my girlfriend and her cousins. Then, someone who used to play squash at my club in Calcutta. A girl from Delhi who progressed much further than me in Harsh Ki Khoj II, back in the day I thought it was a good idea to take the reality TV route to a sportscaster job. Another person present was from the Law and Society in South Asia course and who happens currently to share a flat that was once occupied by the closest friends of the trader friend who keeps announcing after a few drinks, 'I'm going back to work.' 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, at least the first part, is at its core about four people who once met at a student party in Angel, Islington.
When Arthur Dent is first dragged into space by Ford Prefect, the alien ensures his human friend is fortified by several pints at the local pub (the awkward bar tender small talk conversation is an epic description of everyday British life by Adams) before hitch-hiking the ride into space. Later, Arthur Dent meets a girl he had geekily tried to hit on at the aforementioned party in Angel but been given side because Zaphod Beeblebrox cut-in and said, 'Hey doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet.'

The HHG2G makes a lot more sense now (especially, after a few drinks in a London pub and meeting people from different planets at SOAS) than it did during Roop's debate speeches at school.