My Stocktakings

Breaking the Silence

2010-09-15T21:53:00.004+05:30

And then the rest of the story went crazy, somewhat like the ferry wheels at the movie preview. Yes and I did think about the time I spent at home. The monkeys spring in first who would tear out the plants and shred the leaves. Somewhere among the smell of piss on the Ghat the breeze died. I don’t remember what it felt like on the outside. Incoherence reigned supreme. Several trains collided and kept colliding in my head. It was all-blank. But good. Maybe bad. But the best blank was when I was here. Best blank without people around you. Maybe.
Never any certainty.
Not sure if I want certainty. Don’t editorialize when you write. Try not to think when you wake up in the middle of the night. Telling yourself to take it easy in the night and dismissing it all in the day. Ramble sounds more sensible than nothing. Than everything. Because ramble is what it is. Fragments are what exist. Parts are all I see. No wholes.

Office spaces are best for that. No the worst and the best.

Turtles Can Fly

2010-01-12T22:48:00.016+05:30

Iraq. War. A story revolving around children in a refugee camp. Dread of gloom and melodrama (maybe for someone who grew up on Bollywood) descends. Its none of that, its not even the exact opposite .

I found this storytelling very powerful. Maybe because Coetzee's writing-caused-wow is still in my head, but i think this film reminds me of the way he writes. Not stopping to dwell or elaborate on emotions and struggles, taking you through a quick tour of people's lives. Where it departs from his writing stems from the cultural ground from which it is born. It does tell a very poignant tale injected with humour skirting off cliches. Rather it makes me think of cliches we don't register. Picture this, kids strolling through an ammunition bazaar, trading mines they dug out for rifles and ammunition. What emotion would you expect to accompany this visual? The first time i saw it i was sharing the sense of excitement and fun the kids are having at getting their new stuff.

I am replicating a very succinct and apt commentary on the film:
Heartbreak in the High Hills of No Man's Land., 13 March 2006
10/10
Author: PizzicatoFishCrouch from United Kingdom

"The trauma of war has been an issue much covered in cinema, but in this film, we are shown the impact that it has on those who are most innocent of all – the children. The orphaned children are a range of interesting characters presented to us here, from Satellite, a sharp TV programmer to Pashow, an armless but still doggedly determined boy. The supporting children are shown as bright eyed watchers of war, eagerly awaiting it so that they can try their hand at the missiles, which, at first sounds amusing, but then escalates into something much more horrific, and we follow their misadventures through grainy camera-work, improvised dialogue and flashbacks.

The performances delivered by the children are nothing short of astounding. In the lead, Soran Ebrahim is in parts a mixture of caprice, zest and energy, and it is he who grasps our heart and makes for the first, slightly more light-hearted part of the film. In a completely different role, Avaz Latif is the film's heartbreak, and the one that endures the worst. Her performance is wordless, but she manages to portray all her deepest emotions through a look or gesture. When we delve deeper into the plot to realise exactly how much her character has suffered, it is then that the horror of war kicks in.

Turtles Can Fly is not one for the easily depressed. Truth be told, after watching it, I was still in tears for several minutes, utterly helpless and wishing that something could be done about the constant loss of innocence. Its message is blatant, and though a bleak one, presented in a harsh, disturbing war, makes a welcome change from all the Left, Right and Centre propaganda given to us in the Media. Turtles is a film that speaks for itself; no advertising needed."

Avatar in 2D

2010-01-01T11:06:00.010+05:30

I feel let down. My thoughts on Avatar 2D. My disappointment stems from the fact that I was geared up for an experience rivaling LOTR and Star Wars (both mentioned in Roger Ebert’s review though in my quick look at the review I missed the context) and the fact that I was watching Tarkovsky’s Solaris a day before I saw Avatar and that I saw it in 2D! Though I did go from Varanasi to Lucknow just to see the film at least in English.

Seen stripped of its 3D wonder I am sure lot of people will dismiss as just another special effects war story which people might have trouble remembering in few years. But the fact is, it is in 3D and from what I have read I am still pretty sure it’s a spectacular experience. And that made me realize what technical advances in filmmaking had led to. Rather the word “film” itself might be becoming obsolete anytime now. The more we advance in visual, sound excellence the less effort required on drama and story. A different kind of effort , not a purist’s effort.

And that’s what cinema has done(in comparison to theatre), shifted the burden of engagement from story to visual maneuvers. I can see myself over the school years never never letting up my love for theatre and barely being gripped by films until Jurassic Park. And then in college when I started running to movie halls it was an escape that I sought and yet amidst that passivity the thought struck loud and clear. My beloved theatre did not have an fractional influence that cinema had over zillions of people huddling into movie halls to escape the tedium of their lives. And after seeing Avatar I realized it all over again that before anything films are an experiential, immediate, far-reaching but diluted medium. Though in past and people still try to treat it with reverence and passion of an artist , they are the marginal beings in the movie industry and apart from that I don’t know how many would even consider them to be an artist. The sort of artist a painter can be.

I am not dismissing Avatar, though that was my first reaction and I have let weeks go by to wholly say that it is not so. I would love to see this 3D wonder and be swept into another world, like LOTR and Star Wars did. Though these epics and Avatar are not comparable when it comes to the story and character. These two are epics with characters who get trilogies to show their shades, for struggles to persist while Avatar is much much barer when it comes to a layered script or complex characters. Jake Sully who is not exactly Frodo, or an Anakin who is given quite a lot of years before he jumps into the evil bandwagon. The three months span for Jake to make his decision that also without very much as second thoughts made me lose my connect to the character.

So now I dismiss the epic comparision , it is unsuitable . Its not an epic , not a great story of human drama. So I recall to me Hellboy, which if I had seen stripped of its imaginative characters would be quite not the Hellboy I love. Having watched Avatar in 2D made me think though I love epics how much of a fan would I have been if I had watched those with lesser enthralling visuals. The landscapes that one is treated to while watching LOTR, the entirely different world in Star Wars.

How oblivious I have been to the impact of production design, location and photography to films! Avatar has opened led me to quite a few outstanding specimens from my ignorance galores. So hoping a chance to view Avatar in 3D works out and then I can re-think it all.

Yet …. It did bother me the story and let me make just one point to assuage my viewing displeasure.
The protagonist's paraplegia makes me think his conflict is not there. The second life that his new legs have gotten him, the life that he has experienced in Pandora, where he commands the attention of everybody in Otacamaya clan, he is the "chosen one" why would he give it back. Of course he is offered new legs as a human. But for someone who lives very mcuh in the moment, has no fear, has no contemplative bend of nature this was the natural decision. The story does not afford a view into if he had a reason to want to be a human. So it is not surprising or aggrandizing when we see our hero choose to be a Na'avi. Of course he makes the choice after he has burnt his bridge to human race and has established himself almost like the king of the clan. Choosing to stay in a fairytale world of Na'avi who seem to be living so peacefully. There are other things too, but I think I will be waging an unfair criticism. This bit is enough to exorcise my demons of disappointment.

I did like Zoe Saldana's performance or maybe the Na'avi having big eyes (the wide eyed thing that Disney heavily employed for its female lead animation characters) worked in her character's favour.

Two Woody Allens and Sophocles

2009-11-24T18:47:00.003+05:30

Of Woody Allen i know something, i have seen and loved his work. Of Sophocles, not much more than the person existed once upon a time. I have seen Match Point in bits on TV. Never saw the end, though i was told what the end is. Chris kills Nora (Scarlett Johanson) and gets away with it. And i assume the cliched. But when i see it, i realise its not a simple "getting away". There is no getting away as it is revealed that Chris is haunted by his act. And when in a very theatrical fashion the Ghosts of his slain victims confront him and Nora asks him, what about our unborn child?

He says ---> Sophocles said, "To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all."

So here i find the original of it lying on my Mac! Its from Oedipus at Colonus. For that matter it makes another connection now i know why Freud called Oedipus complex so. Here it is reproduced :)

Not to be born at all
Is best, far best that can befall,
Next best, when born, with least delay
To trace the backward way.
For when youth passes with its giddy train,
Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils,
Pain, pain for ever pain;
And none escapes life's coils.
Envy, sedition, strife,
Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.
Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage
Of unregarded age,
Joyless, companionless and slow,
Of woes the crowning woe.

Oh and i said two Wooody Allens, caught few minutes of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, caught on to the phrase, "Chronic Dissatisfaction". Chronic Dissatisfaction.

Mindwalk

2009-10-28T09:21:00.007+05:30

A film, a long conversation. Yikes reminds of Before Sunrise!
A politician hopeful working on the candidacy of the US president, going through a mid-life disillusionment of sorts. An old friend who happens to be a poet invites him to come spend time where he is. And they bump into a physicist on a sabbatical.

Strange ways in which the human mind works, this film had such a reassuring effect on me.

Reminded me of a heated argument i once had with my Russian colleague of how technological advancements befuddle me, is it really development ? etc. I conceded and bent my extra biased view later over some time and observations.

Some talks can be so beautiful, and some can become such pain to bear and put up with. Most we perform as social enactments.

The poet has the last word. The poet was my favourite character, or rather would have been my favourite person if i was there too :). Liv Ullman as Sonia is enchanting. All the characters are endearing in their own ways. I loved the unusual reaction shots.

Saul Bellow- Seize The Day

2009-09-22T21:28:00.005+05:30

"The great weight of the unspoken left them little to talk about."

Its interesting that i should come upon this book straight after Youth. Both are books on trounced upon optimism. Its a day in Wilhelm's life. Wilhelm who gave up a steady job, left his wife and kids in the hopes of marrying another though his wife wont grant him divorce. His father is living a comfortable life on his life's saving, but would not help Wilhelm financially. Wilhelm feels victimized by all he is closely related with except his dog whom he would like to keep with him but his wife would not allow him that too.

Wilhelm had on the words of a Hollywood casting agent left his studies to try his luck in acting. Seven years later he admits defeats takes a regular job, which at this point in his life he has quit at being treated unfairly. He was passed over for a position which he deserved . He has to support his wife and his kids, which is rapidly draining out his pockets and destitution is imminent.

Bellow has an immense grip on this mans psyche, i lived Wilhelm when i read him. Its a story from inside Wilhelms mind, from his mind, not just Wilhelm telling his story, Wilhelm living this day in his life, of course we as a reader also flit out to observe him especially at the end, looking at this miserable man. Was there any other moment we were so clearly outside? We are so caught with Wilhelm's thoughts, little trips to his past. But all of it seems like a day in the life in his head.

The Youth

2009-09-09T11:01:00.000+05:30

A maths major from South Africa determined to get out of the provincial life in his small town moves to London, to bask in its glory, to read poets and talk them, to write his masterpiece. The unparalleled optimism of Youth and what it boils down to. Loved the book. Strange Coetzee.

An End to The Suffering - Pankaj Mishra

2009-07-12T19:50:00.006+05:30

Pankaj Mishra. Its like this place is where i come to profess my ignorance. Yes, its that again. I had not heard of him. Yes i sound repetitive. Its serendipitous the way books find me these days :).

This time i picked up "An End to The Suffering", from this wonderful couple's place. Lovely people. Meeting them was so unlikely and now that i think of it i have spent quite a lot of time at their place, more than any other house in Bangalore including my relatives.

He is scarily understandable and mighty high and knowingly unapproachable at the same time. Beautiful penmanship. Emotions quietly stated, and so identifiable. I had to return the book, i wish it wasn't so.

The book is about Buddha and the writers studies, observations, personal experiences and cultural exposures that led him to conclude that Buddha is a contemporary "spiritual/social/political guide". I am not sure if he used that word. The book is a sometimes seamless, sometimes abrupt blend of travelogues, and more personal travelogues. It also has Buddha's life with the historical facts, his relation to contemporary figures like Bimbisara, Ajatashatru, his political and administrative capabilities and his humanizing and psychological traits. All this added together convey Budhha as a person in flesh and blood not some mythical indescribable being.

Mishra explores his own head, his life, experiences and mental states at all the times he encountered Budha as a concept or a possibility of ideology or a historical figure. My personal favorites were of course all the times in small cities of India, his time in Allahabad, Mashobra but not Kashmir so much. These bits piqued my curiosity but were strangely familiar at the same time.

The Good Night

2009-06-22T17:46:00.003+05:30

A film whose DVD was accidentally sent to me among a bunch of DVDs returned to me.

Penelope Cruz says at a point , "Jeez i barely know you and you are making me feel like i am breaking up with you". Ever get that feeling and had been smart enough to articulate it too? If not aloud at least to yourself.

The Last Temptation - maybe

2009-06-21T12:26:00.005+05:30

Last Saturday in the middle of my search at CED I got a call from an unknown person asking for me. As i walked away from thick dusty folders of brittle yellowed pages, I immediately ruled out the possibility of it being a sales person or a prank call, because the voice didn’t seem to fit into any of those. The voice declared, It was someone from my previous company and stopped at that. He insisted on creating an atmosphere of mystery but i knew it was a person of authority. Well it was sort of the new big boss of the team I used to work in back there.

The reason for the call he said was in a nutshell: I am being called back. It went for half an hour or so. Starting with the pats on the back and flattering things he had heard about good work I had done while I was there, several ppl in the US team had highly recommended me including my boss back there (these of course got my attention and time away from work, and kept me hooked to the call). And that the Co wasn’t the same anymore. Not with him there. Things were different now that he was there and they will just keep getting better. And they will keep getting better. And they will keep getting better. And they will …keep…getting ..better…. I didn’t get a cue where to end the call and so knew I had to wait for him (years of servitude brought me to my submissive self in few minutes to a person i have never worked with), and it came half an hour later. I was flattered but confused, disoriented.

That was that.I had not in the least expected this, i was taken unawares but i didn't say no because for the past few weeks or a month or so i had started contemplating part time software job or something like it to compound my earnings. Now that I had spent six months away from my previous job the only thing that I didn’t like was the way my bank account was getting more and more sickly instead of blossoming and fattening up like it was doing earlier. And that dissatisfaction was the thing which got me to participate in the call. It was a strangely unsavoury feeling i had after the call. I heard myself in flashback again, the affected gratitude and expressing the desire to be willing to consider the offer. Remarking on whatever changes that were mentioned had taken place as very exciting. Affirming "it sounds exciting". I had spoken the voice of reason. The voice which would make my actions approving of all the near and maybe-not-dear ones.

Thus followed 3 days, I didn’t think much about it except how to say no, and when to say no and say it so this generous offer stays open so that the day I come back crawling the doors are open.

Sad.

The day i was to return the call, i was on my way back home with Mummy from Tirupati and the bus kept braking down and delaying our arrival to Bangalore. Sitting in the front seat of Volvo i watched the rocky hillocks, the green villages pass me by. I felt good, away from city always puts you at ease. Maybe because this is always the shorter stay. As day ended our bus stopped again for close to an hour and it was nearing eight now. I began to wonder maybe i should just sneak away from mom and make a quick call and end it. But secretly i didnt want it to be quick, i wanted to talk out my uncertainities and nobleness or god knows what that i did not make that quick call.

And it was when we were back in Bangalore waiting for a car to pick us up that i got the dreaded call. For i was suddenly unprepared. I apologised for not having called, and thought i would call later. But the call continued there on the pavement for half an hour. I hate myself for letting it drag on. I let myself be talked into what i do and him mentioning that these kind of jobs barely get you any money. He said and made it sound like an admission that he did his job to pay his bills. I know people in US admit it all the time, but we Indians would gape at such a "confession". But his confession made me think maybe this is what i could do too.

The call had to be halted abruptly as the car arrived and i could not continue talking this in the presence of my mom and other strangers.

The ride home was a cascade of thoughts clamouring around in my head, because now i really gave a thought to being back there. Six months back there could double my bank balance. My new boss is promising me 40 hours week. I could work hard the rest of the hours and do "something". But what i am doing now isnt work which is done out of the comforts of your home. I had to go places and commit my days to people. I could not finish that work in the off hours i get, rather i wish i could give my off hours to make money. Not the other way around. I realised the fool that i was being from all sensibilities by saying no now. Now when i was required, when i could have negotiated and got things at my own terms. I said no and a dear friend hoped i had not said "no out of resentment". I feared i might have said no out of the strongest reasons of sticking to my decision 6 months back and staying true to the conviction which i had then though reality would have told me otherwise. And that was the reason when i was leaving i had made it clear i am not taking a break, but choosing a different path. So that the day i get all weak and want an out, I would know what a fool i would look to my previous me.

I got home it was barely a minute long call, i said no. I was wished luck. And that was it. The war was over for now.

Beam me up Scotty

2009-06-08T21:28:00.013+05:30

2 roomies back, my roomie had a Tee, which she wore more frequently than ever.A bright lively yellow. It had a stick figure kinda girl raising her hands up to a UFO "Beam Me Up Scotty". Well those who know, know, i didnt. Saw Star Trek yesterday and i want one T too, which goes "Beam me up scotty" :). Loved the film. Brings me back one full circle to "movies should entertain". Movies are everything right; from art, industry and yesterday .. before anything ... entertainment.

Actors are taking their jobs just as seriously as can be possible without overwhelming the audience with character portrayal. Whats with me! This film is veering me away from "arty" films.

And HellBoy tata, i have another to replace you in Masala Fantasy, Full Paisa Vasool, Low Brainer-Entertainer category. It beats you more in the Low Brainer, lighter-on-character-sketches hence more appeal category for entertainment.

The Book Attack

2009-05-15T10:37:00.002+05:30

I had entered the library with all the determination that I am not picking any book by any author who won a nobel/booker/pullitzer/whatever. I am targeting chick lit. The Bridget Jonesy kinds , the re-hash of pride and prejudice. The last time I read one the same bad taste in your mouth , like you picked up something that everyone else seems to enjoy and you cant understand why. What is wrong with me??? Oops, a very big , universe-encompassing question.

So anyway, here I am in the library looking for what I am supposed to be looking , trying to remember who wrote “Devil Wears Prada” and then i see the book catalogue Kiosk. And what do i type? Dasgupta , i am looking for Rana Dasgupta. Good they dont have it, now move on. I start my walk along the bookshelves, my gaze stops at Jennifer Elkridge something, my hand pops out, picks it, (sigh) , Bingo ! , Nobel Prize Winner. Nope, PUT IT BACK! I look down , noooo not Milan Kundera, I loved him in The Joke that I finished a week back. I tear my eyes away. Hari Kunzru ; I have always wondered what he is about, maybe I will find out today, NO, NO. Doris Lessing. Argh! Help! Whats going on? The conspiracy , THE conspiracy. How do these books find me, now that I think of it even my roomie has been making sure that my supply of heavy reading stuff is maintained.

I came victorious in the end. Armed with “Pillow Talk” , (Title in nice flowing pink and the water colour and ink drawing of a of a lady with big eyes and eyelashes) and TinTin. I did it. I have been a member of this library for close to a year and now I come victorious. Lets just see how palatable I find em. How lasting the content? ??? Wrong expectations? Why cant a fun book be lasting as well, a work of art too. Why is a work of art always leaning to the morose?

It Happened Again

2009-05-15T10:33:00.003+05:30

That somewhat panic attack kinda thingy. I dozed off at three, not three in the morning like most of ex-colleagues, ex-collegemates e.t.c would be doing but ya in the day. And after 40 odd blissful minutes I woke up, “Woah! Woah! I am sleeping , THIS is what I am doing in my life!” and then those creepy thoughts started attacking me, they go like --> “You should get a job!”

AAAAAAAAAAA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, HEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAALPPPPP

Not a S/W job, but some donkey work job with a production house or a director. But a job , to dupe myself. To lull myself into an “occupation”. Keep me busy, so my head doesn’t get to any mischief. No, I think more out of the guilt that I am “sitting” at home. Though I do go out once in a while on the research thing for this second documentary , but ya its such a cake-walk and non-taxing that I feel like I am not doing much on that.

But as is always with the wars in my head as of now I have decided …. Again …. For now…. That this was the right thing to do. Leaving my first stint with the school which took 6 days a week and choosing to work a third or maybe a lesser amount of time , but in a freelance fashion. Lets see how it goes.

The White Tiger, SlumDog and Hemingway

2009-05-15T09:53:00.006+05:30

Pardon the title, pardon my head. This is how thoughts wrestle in my head. So when i read White Tiger i could not help but think of Slumdog Millionaire, you know poor India and all. Hemingway ... welll i cant talk or write about him but i could not help think about him. I had finished my first Hemingway just before picking up White Tiger so i could not help compare.

My roommate hands "The White Tiger" before heading out for work. The door closes and the book opens as i plonk down on my constantly bean-spewing bean bag. And i finished it in a day, if it werent to meet a friend for lunch, i would have finished it in one sitting. About the book, its about India, the "servants" in India. How a driver is not just a driver but a servant. The accusations levellled at Slumdog for showing only the ugly side of India, selling it to westerners, i cant help but notice such tiny ones creep up in my head for The White Tiger. Nothing prominent and fist-raising kinds. I cant be certain as i am doubtful as to how a driver (or someone at that economic level) would feel or think, a driver from darkness, lets say UP or Bihar. Sometimes feels like an eye opener. Sometimes you do wonder at the level of the exaggeration.

Gurgaon! the place has threat written over it right ? The only time i went there was at night and this shining city rises out suddenly scross the highway. And i was like whats happening, what happened, why is India letting this happen! Then a week later you are at Delhi Railway Station clicking the snaps of good old rats prancing around the platforms. Mules still being used to lug construction material across at the station. The gap is huge.

And i remember having thoughts in the initial days in Bangalore, you see the glitz, the money, hear about the thefts , "they" think its rightfully theirs. "They" see us spending so much money on cells, cars, malls, clothes, flights. It would not kill us if they swiped a little. I would mentally calculate the cost of the items, watch, cellphone, shoes clothes etc that i was carrying on me and wonder does the vendor across the street make that much in 3 or 6 months? My thoughts felt little exaggerated. And this book feels for certain brief moments seems exaggerated too. But in a country of millions isnt that a possibilty. It definitely is, but ya i do wonder maybe now after Arundhati, Rushdie, Adiga would someone have a tale from India to tell which didnt always tight-rope walk on destitution, rage and disappointment? A tale which the world will consider worthy of recognition?

This is where Slumdog comes in, though it showed slums, the whatever that pissed people off, it showed them happy depite of all. They were so alive and had such a desire to live ! And thats what you sense feel and know in India. Ya the big cities might drain that exuberance out of you, but strangely it stays alive in the lower stratas of society. Its strange. The other day a very staid BBC reporter/anchor interviewing a family in the slums of Dharavi and while she is interviewing the man of the house, the lady of the house can barely suppress her smile and the moment the camera is turned to her, she acquires a poker face, she talks of water, schooling etc as her parameters for choosing the next Govt. But she still seemed miles happier than a guy who would want huge tax shields from the Govt. That is the mystery that India offers . Doesnt it? But it is so huge and disparate that you can never say what could or could not happen. So though we have lot of films on happy go lucky stories and melodrama in Bollywod in Indian Cinema, we havent read stories of warmth and smile which abounds here when it comes to textual material.

As for Hemnigway, i read my first one, courtesy rooomie again. Its the Garden of Eden, a book published posthumously. So not cent per cent Hemingway. But this book preceded White Tiger hence the comparision. No i shouldnt. Nope i would not. All i know is Hemingway was intense. No i should not compare. Just because i read it before White Tiger i would not. Hemingway was a master, i feel inadequate to write about his writing. There is so much exploration of the psyche without the superfluosness. His thread bare simple sentences sink so deep. It was a pleasure and i would love to revisit it. Being slightly auto-biographical adds so much more to the novel, just the character of David Bourne and the later part of the book. No its a little too mammoth to compare Hemingway with _______ anything right now.

J M Coetzee and A S Byatt

2009-04-16T15:41:00.010+05:30

Coetzee and Byatt are two enormous writers whom i have accidentally come across. I will grapple but still try to explain what is it about their prowess which struck me.

My flatmate was reading Coetzee's 'Disgrace'. That is the first time i heard of him.

I read the initial 20 pages with a sense that this a fast paced read with some pithy statements emdedded in between. But by the time i finished, which i did faster than ever in last few years, you are in awe of the man: the author. The character David Lurie is strangely at moments idealistic, predatory and most interestingly unabashedly honest. Honest to himself; again at moments. You know its one person but there is no predictable fashion in which a person behaves, not in real life, in fiction yes.

Not since i read Anna Karenina have i come across such an astute observer and portrayer of the workings of human mind, of how society and institutions' web tightens and molds you into what is deigned acceptable. Both for David and David's daughter. Though David does not bend, he casts himself off. As for the daughter, inspite of the cruelty inflicted upon her she seems to be calmly content accepting a primeval role for herself.

The helper, the animals finish the portrait of Luries months from and after the 'disgrace'.

I came across A.S Byatt browsing through the bookshelf of our hotel in Pokhara,Nepal while i was waiting for my dinner to arrive. And it rescued me. Those two days the 'touristy' feel of Pokhara had left me cranky and pissed off. The Matisse Stories trasported me to the sketchy and vivid world of a middle-aged woman, her visits to her hair dresser who is tired of facing age at some level, of a sense of panic, of exasperation of trying harder than ever to keep 'her looks together'.

In one hand there was the banality of experiences in Pokhara or maybe my dislike towards having companions while i travel, on the other was Byatt! Even while i would be reading her story, i would stop go back the last few sentences and then scratch my head. How did she create all that she did! I went looking for a book of hers in my library just to figure out how she does it, but they seem to have misplaced the only book of hers they have.

I read "The Chinese Lobster", in a little clearing on my way to Kahun Danda, top of a hill in Pokhara. By the time the villagers had directed me to the base where i should start my climb for Kahun Danda i was beginning to lose my excitement to get to the top. And more disappointing was the fact that it was dust road, of the finest powdery dust.

"Medusa's Ankles" was more intoward. I remember it as the tired taut thoughts of Susannah and the chatter of Lucien the hair dresser, the cracks in her thought from within. The walls and the pink nude. The change in Lucien's design of the salon. And all the scared floating thoughts, glances and thoughts in between. It was also the first piece of Byatt that i read. Hence the novelty.

Back Off

2008-07-17T11:54:00.002+05:30

The little sissy wimp who left a comment on my blog a day back (there are some nice profanities clamouring in my head and i will let them be). Have you considered shock therapy ? I have heard it can do wonders for a timid, dormant, putrid brain of yours. Oh ya tell them to notch it up real high. The best thing you ever did for every one around you. Come on you can do this much for me, or lets meet in person and i will take care of this miserable life of yours :)

What a day

2008-05-04T12:21:00.004+05:30

Of late, past few weeks, I had come to the conclusion that i had lost interest in exploring this country. Then i change hotel in the middle of the afternoon. Then i decide to go out. Then i decide i will not skip the trip to New York two weeks from now. Then i go for a movie. Then i start returning to my old self(enjoying being alone and floating and have no one to answer to). Float around in a coffee shop. Watch a movie. Hang out at the hotel bar hoping to scrounge some dinner. Meet this lady, bless her, she was 66 but man was she raring to go. She was Marilyn from Ohio and that was the nicest and most optimism inducing conversation i had in the last 2 months or ever in my life.

Seriously its weird how people open up at bars. I had always heard, read and seen(on TV) it. But, this was something. We talked of thing which were foremost in our heads but we would not mention to friends for numerous reasons, and here all reasons disappear. And it just flows so easy and no awkwardness afterwards. For instance the barman in one breath mentioned how the day he was going to propose to the girl he wanted to marry she broke up with him. I still think its incredible that he told that to us strangers, but i guess either thats how it works or he just gets kicks out of cooking up random mood or audience-suited anecdotes.

But that gives me hope that people in this country can chat their mundane lives off too. Maybe they do it more in bars, or places where strangers are supposed to be addressed and talked to. You know makes sense in this structured and organised country. A place for everything. A place for talking about things which bother you.

Windy

2008-04-30T11:03:00.004+05:30

Its windy outside. Nice windy, though it became tough to walk. The wind wasnt cold that made the walk likeable. The wind has turned the view of the strip from my window dusty as well.

Good Quarter I Say

2008-03-31T11:52:00.007+05:30

I got a mail from a long lost, well not so long lost friend. a nice long mail. I love those. Saying i hadnt blogged in a long time. Well if it brings wayward and lazy friends back to mailing me and poking me to see if i am alive, then i guess it is a good thing.

The reason i didnt blog: This has been a good quarter, goood. Note: Just one extra 'O'. I have said enough, it can get jinxed. The moment i make an open statement it has always been jinxed. So i rather stop here, so that even if it is jinxed it doesnt happen to every tiny detail. Technically the quarter has one more day and 33 minutes to go. Oh God.

So i will be back when i have to whine or make statements :).

So long buddy.

Social Butterfly

2007-10-14T13:06:00.000+05:30

Who the hell am i? Am i socially awkward? Only inwardly. I do things which make me cringe, take controlled breaths. But i keep doing them. So after a long time i went for a huge social gathering. I had abstained form them in my previous company, but since this is the first one in my new company i cant give it a skip. I have to give it a shot, and in all subsequent ones excuse yourself by saying i tried.

Well, it wasn't so bad, i might just go the next time it happens. But there is this bad taste in the mouth that stays the next day like a hangover. When you wake up next morning feeling that maybe you should have hob-nobbed a little less. Should have talked a little less.

Are there are two mes. One; left on my own i could just space out and stare at the sealing, just while the time away. But throw me among people, my awkwardness comes out by turning into this flitting social bug. My awkwardness is not with people, but with me. I am just not sure how to let out the other me in public. Or is it just two mes? Both of us dont understand each other. Sounding schizophrenic or Gemini?

Oh but i do understand one thing form yesterday. There are three kinds of people:
Those who will tell you what you want to hear.
Those who tell you what they want to say.
Those who tell you what they know you don't want to hear.

Crazy maybe i am

2007-10-11T18:24:00.000+05:30

I am dying of boredom

I am so restless

I could burst out of the building and that wouldn’t be enough

This is like a pile of muck is piling exponentially fast on me.

Things are so still, among the clickety-clicks of key strokes that I might just drop into a coma and never wake.

The rant in my head seems to be receding quietly in a corner, somewhere I sit and watch dispassionately.

The faint voices echoing around me all speak this despicable tongue that it makes me want to stuff their mouths with old rotten rag pieces and then throw them in the elevator duct.

Getting rid of people cant become such a huge all consuming agenda, but God it has. Where have all of them come from, is this massive basicness going to suck the wind out of my lungs?

It is good if you are not spoiled by all the media hoop-la around you, but only if it’s a sage-like abstinence which drove you there not blatant ignorance.

When you are aware that Puri jagannath is a regional film director but not that it is actually a very famous place on the map of India.

When you keep asking what is F.R.I.E.N.D.S, maybe it is excusable but seriously where do you live, cause I know where you breathe the majority of your living day lights. And that unfortunately my co-worker is in this office space we share.

Scratching my nails on my cardigan laced elbow I meditate on this inward decay, taking in less and less of this stifling air but still continuing to breathe for eternity. Why have I slaved into this, where should I run to from here?

Would answers ever be equal to the question I have? Or will unanswered ever-spawning questions always haunt me?

I have no idea. This is crazy, things suddenly in this little moment seem to have gone out of control. But the strange thing is I know like a screaming lunatic is silenced with electric shocks, the complacency and insecurities in me will keep me tied to this dog’s life, cause I have become one.

2007-09-26T12:12:00.000+05:30

When you have seen a movie thrice in a year since the first time you saw it, you got to admit there is something going on here (3 is a biggie for me, even the movies I rave about seldom I see them again so quickly). And when there is something going on, I try to define it. So what could it be; 10 things I like about this film. More personal than critical reasons. I have tried and tried but I cant think with a clear rational head for this:
1. The opening track, including the visuals.
2. Bond: Mr. Daniel Craig & his wardrobe.
3. M: Judi Dench
4. Le Chiffre: Mads Mikkelsen
5. The opening cranes etc chase sequence concluding at the embassy.
6. The “I will not let the aircraft be blown”, sequence.
7. The “Bond is about to die of Cardiac Arrest”, sequence.
8. The look on Daniel Craig’s face, when he realizes Vesper is no more.
9. The short but lovely chemistry between M and Bond. Vesper could learn form them.
James Bond: I always thought M was a randomly assigned initial, I had no idea it stood for...
M: Utter one more syllable and I'll have you killed.
10. Every time Bond comes out of water like a Barbie doll :). Thank you(the makers) for keeping the female audience in mind.

Honestly, I have tried and just snickered at all the contemporary Bond flicks which have passed us by. They are brain numbingly dumb. But the Bond fans are disappointed by this Casino Roylae. “Where are the gadgets?” they ask..Bond without his gadgets and his guns should still be Bond. It should look like the physical skirmishes and the chases he gets into is what he is capable of. Pierce Brosnan? Nope.

The plot, the sub plots are good. The story tight and the dialogues, the quips with their well timed humour apt. No doubt well cast. Except Vesper, who irritated me the third time I saw it till then she was perfect. Here we get to see Bond, a human Bond before he learns his last lesson of betrayal. When in one of the final scenes M says, “You don't trust anyone, do you?”

Oh and there is something of the old Bond here, what a way to end the film.
“The name’s Bond. James Bond.”

On Talking

2007-09-19T11:49:00.000+05:30

Strange exercises these conversations can be. I always fully participate. It’s just how cautiously I tread that varies. I never draw back. My ideas bounced across the wall of your sympathetic or well meaning or derisive or cynical, or stupid or bored or naughty face. You could be anybody, very rarely somebody form work. No I am careful. Very. Would never let my thoughts go on their abandoned breezy run in a place like that. It could mean death to them. But if you show an inclination, few of them might make a little sound and reach your ears and the rest of them take form eagerly but stay in their phantom bodies uncomfortably residing in my head.

There are times when upon meeting you they have built into this wonderful castle of impressive ideas, thoughts, observations, feelings, misgivings that I would just stand back and admire. That’s a beautiful whiff of life you gave them. Seeing it makes me smile and thank you for helping me understand them and understand me.

The Lady with the Getting Ready Regime

2007-06-14T14:37:00.000+05:30

Lot of people from time immemorial have mentioned to me about my vulnerability at getting irritated by things which don’t concern me. About things out of my control or my reign.

I have spent now roughly one and half years spending roughly two hours of every working day traveling to and fro office. So how has it been? Well, not the same every day. There are lot of days when I just open a book and then go off to sleep. Sometimes I keep staring out of the window, thinking of million stray thoughts.

Then there are days, a little rare but here and there they come. One thing grabs my attention and the rest of my ride the more I try to avoid, the more persistently it nags me. The “thing” could be …. Sigh…. Just thinking of it unsettles me. Eiu… well, sometimes a down with cold person. A sneezer. Sometimes a shamelessly relaxed fellow, who would occupy more than his/her share of space, the more I shift to keep some space, the more they would gobble it up. Till date I have never been able to tell them it bothers me. I have rather shifted seats if they are available, otherwise just sit and sulk.

Then there was this super sick day. Oh God. This gentleman just diagonally opposite to me was digging the goldmine of his nose. He did not give up till we reached office some one hour late, and I though looking in some other direction would be aware of the incessant dig, dig, dig. And every now and then out of exasperation I would tun to look in his direction to reassure myself,"now it is stopped, now I can stare ahead" only to repulsed more. Ugh.

And today I took my seat in the bus, next to a lady on the three seater seat, with my bag and hers sitting happily between us. I noticed as I was sitting that she was putting on her socks, those flesh coloured ones . It reminded me of a kid who got out of home in hurry. I smile(inwardly).

Then she starts combing her hair. It was wet. Oh boy she did step out in hurry. I look at the watch. 9 in the morning. Makes sense maybe she didnt want to miss the last bus to office. I open my book and start reading, the bus moves and stops, stops and moves in the heavy traffic. Once in a while I look out taking note of the honking vehicles around me. Look in the direction of the door. See the people streaming into the bus at every stop.

Maybe some five minutes had gone by; I realize she is still combing her hair. And boy I have noticed; now I cannot rest till she closes the activity. And does she go on. I wonder is it therapeutic? Is it soothing cause she doesnt seem to be untangling her hair any more, she just keeps dipping her comb in every now and then, pulls few strands out of the comb, dumps the strands out of the window. And harps on my agony by going on and on. But the moment does arrive when she stops it all, and decides she has plucked enough for the day and keeps the comb in her purse.

Whew ! Look at the watch, the minute hand somewhere between 10 and 15. Peace for the rest of the trip. Nah she takes out a little bottle and starts the deadly application of a body lotion for the next eternity. What was wrong with her. She thought she was sitting in her trailer park for her to get ready for the next shot. She applied the moisturizer in three goes on both her arms, and so slowly as if someone out there with a camera to shoot her. So slowly time stretched, stretched till I felt like reaching out and throwing the bottle out.

And her antics went on at leisure for her, she went on applying the lotion on any goddamn exposed part of her body. It felt more horrible than when people start discussing their very personal problems in the very public buses we have. And she closed her ceremony by putting on gold ornaments (bangles on both wrists, three rings, one chain, a pair of earrings) and every single item was brought out separately and put on.

She took half an hour to do all which can be done in five minutes.

Venture a guess why she did that, i think one of the following:
a) She just came back to civilization from somewhere, and was taking pleasure in every little thing which is a gift of civilization.
b) The kind who have given womankind a bad name. The ones who take hours to get ready.
c) Narcissist.
d) Plain Psycho!

Aerosmith were here

2007-06-03T21:20:00.000+05:30

Whoa! They are another kind. These western musicians, showmen, performers.

[Few days back]: Even as i logged into the website to book my tickets for the show, i lacked the excitement which should serve as the motive behind spending Rs.1800 . I lacked the enthusiasm to drive to palace grounds in insane traffic and stand long hours to watch the band perform for 1 and half hours. I had second thoughts as an image of the band flashes in front of me. Do i want to do this. Look at them, somewhere near as old as my grand dad, wearing leather pants. Wearing make-up, hair done, clothes picked for a costume party. Who are they kidding? Well near about a few million people. And also fooling those who don't believe in being fooled, to still walk in wondering what the fuss is all about.

Well then why did i go? Hear me out, whoever i have adored have been less and my affection for them also transitory. Years after i had gotten past Bryan Adams he still keeps coming to India. When i wanted to go for the Strings concert in Pune, mom was home to see me. When Euphoria performed in my company, i had no idea they would be coming, i had taken the very day off. Oh how i writhed in pain and tortured myself at only if it had been. Finally i knew i was going to see them perform, the time was right, these were the people i had been listening to past many months. Indian Ocean was to come to IIMB, nothing could go wrong, no other appointment waiting for me, nobody could impose on my time. Friday evening i get so excited i am telling any remotely familiar face i meet that i am going to see them.I get the signs of chicken pox erupting over me the very next morning.

So here i was standing in queue to collect tickets for this show of not so loved by me band. And i stand and i stand and we stand, we; me and all these newly introduced friends of a college batch mate. Another compromise when i go with somebody when both of us work hard to tolerate each other. After 2 and half hours of standing in partly stinking partly smoked increasingly pressing on you crowd, it begins.

From where i stood, this time i was sure it was not just another organiser.It was Joe Perry. With a white stole around his neck. On the dark stage, i could make him out by the light of the huge display behind. Boy, did i go crazy ! Yes i did! People you always see on TV, people who are a staple diet on music channel. A face which is mostly hidden by hair. A face you know so well. Of a person you know. A person you know through this extremely convoluted media. So much so you would recognize them any day they pass you by, but they live unaware of your existence. Strange world we have created here. A world of celebrities and common people. And there i was a common girl, jumping like crazy. I clutched the little hand next to me so tight. I was going crazy like crazy. Joe Perry in the flesh!So? Yeah its a big deal!

But soon Steve Tyler took over. And he does take over, he is there jumping ... nah horsing around the place. Lying down on speakers and trying to catch the air with his hands. Going and hugging Joe, almost eating his ears out. Fooling around all the time, the guy loves the stage. I don't know why but everybody else looked dead bored including Joe Perry, though he had ample shirts to change and take off in front of screaming females. Somehow my hysteria had disappeared as fast as it had appeared, but i still played along, swayed along with whatever songs i could recognize.Oh yeah screamed along, its so fun i wanna do the mindless screamign again. Though i was coughing a lil later.

Mr. Steve Tyler, the bouncing bundle of antics. Obliging the crowd with snaps, giving million priceless poses, but these are the best my cell could capture.

Joe did make a very memorable statement. "We have always wanted to come to India.... blah blah...India is very close to what Aerosmith believes in (places a hand on his chest), its not the elephant rides, not the paint thing you put on your hands. Its kama sutra, its also about messing around". Here i have done my bit to recreate the demi-Gods words.

All that was noticed at the show follows in random order, well not that the rest has been organised till now, but let me just try and finish it. Steve Tyler seemed to be trying to hard to make his grumpy band smile. His enthusiasm totally clashed with the straight faced performances by the rest of the band. "Mr. Joe Perry", as Steve would keep referring to him as did ample tit flashing. Changed his guitars as fast as he could. One with his wife's pic one it.
One of those with two guitars rolled in one. Here's a pic, i dunno what you call them. Then the other antics of blowing golden dust of his guitar. Playing it in all possible positions. Getting the drummer drum it around. Well quite entertaining. Did get me thinking they might as well have been fireworks brigade here to entertain us with the dazzle. Well no one ever said its all about the music. No one asked me to go.

But i am star struck. This entertainers from west sure can entertain even half-asleep or dead bored. Great night. Lasting images. The silly feeling of having gotten so close to these Gods. The delight, the joy, the euphoria carries me even through monday. I love grand performances and here it was.

I did not go as a fan and did not come back as one. Though i loved the experience, it was an experience strangely, an experience of how some amongst us are so above us. They are Gods maybe not equivalent to the devotion and the number of devotees that Indian Gods command but still they got there in spite of not being carved out of stones and marbles or mold out of metals. Strange world we have here.

dilbert for me today

2007-05-29T17:03:00.000+05:30

this is the voice in my head lately

Sur Mes lèvres : Read My Lips

2007-03-30T19:03:00.001+05:30

She is lonely and desperate. He is a crook out on parole.

She leads a mundane existence as a secretary and is desperately seeking a man. To an extent that even while requesting for a trainee to help her out in doing the menial work, she says she would prefer a man, his age, physical characteristics. And she is deaf, but manages with hearing aid.

In walks the first applicant to the job, claiming he knows everything. She is more than glad to take him. Though, his being straight out of jail worries her at first.

Then begins their story, she heaps help after help on him. She makes him pull through, helping him learn the chores. He doesn’t seem as interested in keeping the job as she is.

A paradoxically intriguing character, how she wants a companion, only when she is alone or only when she is in public, but never when she is with him. You keep wondering what she has up her sleeve. What is she thinking now?

They have interesting things coming their way. The story unfolds in an unusual fashion. By the end of it you might feel the gist of it is nothing all you hadn’t seen so many times before. Though while it’s unfolding you can’t predict what will happen next. The rate at which they rush into one thing then another keeps you busy wondering.

It makes me admire the French. How easily they can make a movie which is entertaining as well as very close to the lives of somebody real somewhere.

Ridicule

2007-03-30T18:46:00.000+05:30

Delightful ! Delightful!

The story of an estate owner in the times of Louis the XVI, whose estate is impoverished and people plagued with disease all because of the water which stagnates on their lands. Seeing no way out but to seek assistance, he decides to plead his case with the king at Versailles.

And so takes place a delightfully entertaining adventure of this man out to help his people out of their misery. But to get the help he has to literally put his wits to test. Because in those times to move up the social and ladder and be in the king's sight would have been the easiest if you were a master of the wits.

Naturally then the movie is resplendent with “quips”, “paradoxes” and “repartees” classified as different play of words by one of the characters.

Humour and curiosity keep the tone of this period film so light and fascinating that you realise period films can be so much more than a sombre narration. Must watch, changes your expectation of a period film.

Nani Cinematheque and the New French Film Festival

2007-03-30T12:03:00.000+05:30

No one does it like the way French do.

The New French Cinema is here in Bangalore. Thanks to people like Prakash Belawadi and Alliance Francaise and many more. A lovely and interesting mix of movies of our contemporaries is being screened. No Goddard, no Truffaut. Strange but contemporary cinema should have come to us more naturally than the classics. But, then as the Alliance director said, “The fraction of the world cinema which is available in a city like Bangalore is too insignificantly small”. Another observation of his which he shared with the audience was that in a city full of book stores, of the books which are easily available and celebrated in France all he sees is one or two. “One or two”: a very small number.

I pledge my ignorance to French literary achievements. But, a nation which has produced so many cinema wizards should definitely be ruling a proud chunk of the movie market anywhere in the world. And why should they be only the movies which have won the test of decades of critical approbation. Why not what’s being served fresh and hot be shared with us.

I thank Nani cinematheque and Bangalore Bias for this opportunity. May there be more to come! Will keep you posted on all that was & would be revealed.

ChinaTown – Roman Polanski

2007-03-21T16:32:00.000+05:30

(In the world of deep slumber) Shreds of Chinatown fused with random visual figments float in my head. I see Mr. Noah Cross, he is trying to say something. I am trying to put pieces together, justify the events. A clue still evades me. My head is spinning trying to retrace my steps. I hear a friend laugh, then I see her, she is happy, she says she knows it all.

How come I had never heard of this movie? I chanced to buy it on a whim. Is it that i am too ignorant or has this movie not received the publicity and fame of gigantic proportions which it should have.

The movie is such a rewarding experience. The story telling is crisp. Nothing is out of place in this movie. What most of the movies don’t even dare to become, it has attained. This movie paled so many other movies I had seen before. They could have been entertaining, funny, majestic, provoking. But, what they were not was this perfect a movie that Chinatown is.

The unique atmosphere of the movie is achieved by an unerring eye to detail, unflinching originality in these minute details and a million more things which I can not put a finger on. Another remarkable and rare thing: the sparing use of soundtrack. Most of the time it has silence mixed with the environmental sounds.

Its perfection also stems from the characters; to every scene to every conversational intercourse, every gesture. It is acceptable even for the greatest of movies to have a little leeway when employing characters who have a very short screen presence. You don’t have the luxury of developing characters, and in such cases clichés rescue you by providing a device handy to use anywhere. You can use them for plugging story telling loopholes or to move the story forward quicker than it can. Not to mention by detailing out too many characters (which are not central to the story) one risks losing audience’ interest.

Jack Nicholson’s character Jake is frill free. And so is Faye Dunaway’s. Brilliant performance, both of them. They have created two people who are a nice mix of very real and very cinematic. Their performances are outstanding. Jack Nicholson's character is drawn out very well in the opening scenes of the movie. The economy of space and time that has been practiced here is impressive. As the rivetting plot opens up and unfolds in front of you, at the same time in those same moments you get introduced to Jake and his world. And his cahracter just goes on acquiring more shades as the movie progresses. Faye Dunaway has also her share of spell to cast on the audience. As the wife of one of the cities rich and powerful men. The drawl in her voice, The dead pan yet strangely enigmatic look she bears on her face just heighten the sense of mystery surrounding everything and her.

The movie’s trivial-est characters are also sharp. I mean every one of them. From the woman pretending to be Mrs Mulwray to Roman Polanski’s brief part as the man who slits Jake’s (Jack Nicholson) nose, to the officer accompanying Lou who does nothing but snicker.

You watch Jack Nicholson in this movie, and you marvel at the expert dexterity with which he has brough the character to life. You can revisit this movie just to study his character (and few more for other reasons), and his magnificent performance. Unlike the "teeth baring", "raised eyebrow" specimen he has become. The numerous characters he has done in the last few years, one seems an evil twin of another. The Jack Nicholson typecast that had crept into his character reminds me of the woe of Nana Patekar. Both fine actors, victims of gruesome typecast.

This man Roman Polanski is a master craftsman. This movie can be treated as an example what cinema achieves for you, how it should be treated; and in Roman’s hand it’s a toy. He has made this movie so compact, not even a whiff of air from the world around would seep into it. No moment in it has been put callously. No turn careless. While you are watching it, you are seeing a beautifully well knit story.Though it is a plot driven thriller, its greatness lies in the perfect execution of this film. Even a thesis on this movie might not be able to cover, all that this film has achieved. And what others should look up to, before daring to think they are filmmakers.

The Dreamers

2007-03-13T11:41:00.000+05:30

There is this new rating in movies I have been introduced to: NC17. It is for arty porn. Or as Wikipedia says, “that MPAA rated NC-17 films were legitimate motion pictures with actual stories and developed characters, as with the first such film, Universal Pictures' Henry & June (1990), rather than merely prurient/pornographic fare.”

Henry and June is highly pretentious crap. It might as well have been awarded X rating or well there was no point in exploiting the NC17 rating. Oh yeah they didn’t have a story but then they were bland too. And they had better production values, better paid actors who just shammed at their jobs in this movie.

As for dreamers, the three characters are adorable, especially Isa (played by Eva Green of Casino Royale). They are amusing, till their twisted selves are revealed. Isa captures your heart when she declares the first word she ever spoke, “New York Herald Tribunes”. The abrupt cuts to older movies, like for “New York Herald Tribunes” the cut from Breathless. I was smiling all over. Bernardo jumps to these scenes intermittently. It seems a sort of loving tribute to the worthwhile cinema that has been. The trio’s run through Louvre, just like in the movie Bande a part. Their delightful cheering at the end of it, “We accept him, one of us!”

Exactly five minutes from the moment Matthew is stripped, the movie loses the level it had promised. Matthew’s character doesn’t come out strong. Looks like both the script and the actor had to contribute for that. The God’s hand appears in this one as when the filmmakers could not decide how to justify the change in Matthew’s attitude from violent protests to active derivation of pleasure. So suddenly he is made to faint, and when he regains his consciousness a few seconds letter he is all eager for the act to begin. This bit was too damn insipid.

Matthew seems a big misfit, he is with the twins but he is not with them. He plays along with them, till he has had enough and then starts talking as if he just walked in form the world outside and is startled by their prurient ploys. Matthew’s character leaves too much in want. His sudden outbursts and speech would make you suspect that maybe he was just pretending to be like them, understand them. Not what I felt while reading the book. Matthew’s is a very weakly developed, under justified character and Michael Pitt does no wonder to hide it or pull it off some how.

Hats off to the actors, the amount of time they are naked is appalling. I don’t know how they could have been so comfortably rattling off the dialogues, it was awesome. Maybe the least the rest of the crew could have done for them to be comfortable was be naked themselves.

Apart from the glaring flaws in Matthew’s character, and the casting of Michael Pitt as Matthew, the movie is watchable if you can down an NC-17. Or rather if you haven’t seen one, and want to see what the fuss is all about. Actually what else would you want to watch it for, it becomes a drag once the first half an hour has passed by. Maybe you can keep a book by your side, or a su-do-ku to go along with it.

The crooked line (Tehri lakeer) -Ismat Chughtai

2007-03-09T11:41:00.001+05:30

Read Ismat Chughtai’s The Crooked Line this Saturday. I had really boring work planned for the Saturday all of which I dropped more than happily, as they concerned no one else more than me. The book reminded me of Prem Chand. It brought India of those days to me, the India of Prem Chand. But certain things were different now. Now I was in affluent city instead of the villages where his characters thrived. The social circles were more affluent as well. And somehow everybody was not worshipping Gandhi. Rather one of the characters even says something to convey the irreverence. It was a revelation to realize that not everybody was idolizing Gandhi those days.

I did not know there was so much that can easily be communicated even from under a burqa. There is this bit in the story where these girls go around flirting (in their own way) while being confined in burqa. Somehow I assumed the life within burqa to be quieter. Our protagonist and her friends don’t seem to even sense the presence of it. It seems to compliment their coyness.

The first few pages of the book; I found the little protagonist in her early days vile and mad. I found this little demon’s life loathsome. On the other hand there was this quick and riveting change in events and characters around her. Her madness had a repulsive appeal. At times she reminded me of Gabriela Marquez’s Amaranta as a little girl. But while Amaranta seemed a little surreal; this girl was too real. A live and breathing creature she was becoming with every passing passage. Hence more was the revulsion and more the attraction.

The novel warrants a read primarily because of the geographic location of its characters and their placement in time. Towards the third and the last phase of the book, the novelty has worn down. There are lots of conversations which fail to interest one. And the protagonists a life has moved to a territory where nothing seems to be as significant as to be narrated. She could have shrunk the third bit and finished it a little sooner.

Its all about the Star Wars.

2007-02-15T14:05:00.000+05:30

Love this shot. The crinkling of the brow. The red tinge to parts of the skin. The coarseness of the cloak. The sahdows under the eyes. The folds of the hood hiding his face. You know eveil lurks under it.

What can i say ? The mania has me in the grips. Star wars rules. After having stared enough at this shot at my desk top, i needed another proclamation. Fantasy films are so my thing. I wonder if i had seen star wars before lord of the rings, would i have gotten so crazy as i did about LOTR. Or maybe if i hadnt seen LOTR, i might be thousand times crazier right now.

Whew! Saved! Love the whole story about Darth Vader.

One day me and my roomie were wondering out loud why star wars is such a huge phenomenon and why despite all that we never felt compelled to watch it. Then i fell sick. Then i was a bed ridden. Then i was watching TV, as i couldnt even get DVDs for myself. Then i end up seeing STAR WARS episode -I. Then rest just followed.

Anakin Skywalker as the little kid is what caught my fancy first. I have watched first three episodes only to find out what happens to him. And well i found out. And wouldnt you agree, this is the story which moves the episodes forward. Frankly i dont care about the republic or the separatists, all i care about is what happened to the cute little Ani.

Me and Lenin, 1 year back.

2007-02-05T20:27:00.000+05:30

Anna Karenina! You get to bite so much into it.

Its an epic. Its a study of multiple characters, but its fiction.

Lenin. Cleaning my shelf i came across my old notebook. Almost a year back, i had written down things which me could relate to with Lenin in the book. Here they are:
1. We both believe people spend their lives seeking distractions.
2. Can be referred to as disillusioned.
3. Don't believe in being a part of the so-called "we can make a difference" groups.
4. Hate to face practicalities of life, think of them as fruitless exercises.
5. Though we would not like to get emotionally agaitated, but we do seek affection .
Afterthought, not from the notebook:
6. In those days, though i still do too but at that time this desire was too strong. To spend my life toiling in the land. To be a farmer of some sort. To live in a village. Disconnected from all. A quiet life, a life in which days are spent in the sun, and nights sleeping. :-)

And somewhere last year, while discussing the book with a person about how much i related to Lenin, at least by my interpretations. And she told me they studied in college that Lenin's character was Leo Tolstoy himself. Damn! i dont feel literary with a long beard and steely eyes.

Girl Interrupted

2007-01-12T15:52:00.000+05:30

You know how we never eat cake with khichdi, or chicken shashlik with aloo-chat. The way we are told not to mix drinks. In the same fashion, you should layer up your movies carefully.

Girl Interrupted followed by Breathless, very hard to swallow. It seemed so pretentious. Also the expectations were high somehow. I expected to be a revelation. It comes off as a cheap thriller. They were trying to pass Angelina and Winona as crazy people, where the fact is they look less crazy than half the people I meet everyday.

The movie revolves around the lives of few loonies living in an asylum. There is one specimen each of the commonly understood psychiatric disorders. It’s a pathetic attempt to explain the psyche of mentally disturbed. The characters caricatured. It has bits and pieces of “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest”, floating all over it. Its like a remake, there is nothing new.

It moves on cheap gimmicks. For quite some time, it builds a threatening tone of wardens and nurses trying to prove you mad. The whole world abandoning you. The second gimmick when they suddenly unravel the seemingly sane Lisa’s (Angelina Jolie) diagnoses simplified to the world. Boiled down to few statements she makes at Daisy’s apartment. And the most pathetic of it all, how Susanna shines a ray of hope and triggers the realization for all the crazy people out there that they don’t want to be like that, they want to be normal.

A movie which mocks the vagaries of mind, and shows in gaunty shades those who have lost their sanity.

But then it can be called mildly entertaining, which this subject shouldn’t be. Especially projected in this fashion. And all said, mix your movies well.

Breathless

2007-01-12T15:50:00.000+05:30

“It's silly, but I love you. I wanted to see you, to see if I'd want to see you.”

Its funny, its witty, its adorable. I picked it at random from the DVD shop. I though I should see a Goddard, I knew I had to see a Goddard from long time now. I knew I was going to like it, but forgot why. I also picked up Girl Interrupted as friend had once mentioned it reminded her of me, so it stuck.

As I walk away from the DVD shop, I am thinking to myself I should stop seeing disturbing movies. It was earlier me which liked them. I never liked “My life to live”. It was boring, I was being pretentious, and I never really liked it.

Funny I enjoyed breathless so, it is still with me and will continue to do. And I have realized I had already seen a Goddard. And I might want to see, “My life to live” again. And yes I definitely really liked it when I saw it. I was stumped. “This is how movies should be. You don’t need people then.”

“We're hiding like elephants when they're happy.” – Its happy.

It always confuses me when anybody screams at me “You can’t be serious! How can you not like ‘Before Sunrise’!!!?” I came to conclusion that I find a couple boring each other to death, boring. But, Michel and Pat are not your conventional mopey pair. If ‘before sunshine/sunset’ bored you and you don’t think you are not that cynical, you love romantic movies, then this one is for you. In addition there is a cop-chasing a criminal story at the base of it.

It talks of the confusion you face when weighing your emotions. It introduces you two different people. It introduces you to them. Above all it makes you believe, it is no pretense. It talks of relationships. I love the fact that it talks so much in 90 minutes.

“When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.”

Oh by the way, this movie is credited for the beginning of French New Wave and the birth of phenomenon that Goddard was going to be. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breathless. But that’s secondary.

My favorite is the scene where Michel makes those three expressions. They can not be named, they can just be revisited.

I loved all of these quotes.

Crazy day with the Ballad of Jack and Rose

2007-01-12T15:42:00.000+05:30

It was a weird day. After a long time I was probed out of my shell. I was wondering who I am again. Who we are? Why we seek friendship? Why the need to share? Why are we mistaken? Why all that is important never absolute? Why do we compromise on affection? Why it hurts? Why we cry?

Anyway after having moped enough, as my plans were suddenly revised, I when back to my initial plan. Picked a DVD. The Ballad of Jack and Rose. Not a happy movie. Disturbing father daughter relation, always threatening to careen towards incest.

I hated to see Daniel Day Lewis like this. I know he was acting, but I felt bad for him. True actor. Not to the magnitude of Marlon Brando in “A streetcar named desire”, but still. Camilla Belle was good too as his daughter. But I didn’t feel rewarded by a beautiful performance, something was missing. Or maybe something was overpowering, “the sympathy for the eccentricities”.

It’s the same, “sympathy for eccentricities” which didn’t come out right. Somehow I just couldn’t see their (father-daughter) point of view. I mean I could maybe, but by turning my wheels, no help from Rebecca Miller. The effort tired me.

By the end, I was glad to cry, awful day it was. Jack died. Daniel Day Lewis flaunted all the bones in his body. Gave me a perfect excuse to vent it out. It was an unstable end, just like the movie.

The story too ambitious, Rebecca fell short of her devices. Still I take away what the story couldn’t say built on maybe by my own imagination. Makes you wish it was otherwise.

Deadened me.

2007-01-02T11:31:00.000+05:30

It’s a Tuesday morning at office, worse than a Monday morning can be. It was a long weekend. Another year has started. And I sit here lost among people I don’t give damn about. Building packages and reports I don’t give damn about. I am lost in a sea of cubicles. There are voices and murmurs around me. I can hear people fretting over DART application not working. They are all in a panic to submit their DARTs which are their weekly activity vs. effort report. Our delivery manager had walked in. He was telling my co-cubiclee about some bug found in her application. I wanted to yawn and blow him out of the building. The deadness of the place has deadened me.

A sneaky restlessness started creeping in right after I declared to a lunch companion of mine that I felt complacent here. Settled with the way things were. Happy just following the routine. Having breakfast at home, spending some time in office somehow, coming back home to cook, eat watching TV, and go to sleep. Lazing around on weekends, shopping maybe(something that I despised, the sight of malls and happy people in it used make me make a disappearing wish.)

And now I cant take it, I don’t want to come to office anymore. I wish for different things. I want a life, where I don’t have to wear clothes which are called office clothes. I don’t want my work to be something which I don’t enjoy. I want to stop looking for gushes of travel escapades to bolster me up. I want to stop living life on little time which I take off from my work. I want my life to be lived every moment. I don’t want it to be rationed to me a morsel a day.

Out of work at home

2006-12-09T18:25:00.000+05:30

The whole week I was caught up in work, yesterday I got time, but I started fooling around the house. Trying to move my internet connection cable form one room to another. When the house was wired up for broadband my computer and I used to stay in the bigger room. Then came the third roomie, and I moved to the smaller room with my computer, but the wires were not so easily transferable. So we, no my roommate suggested we will call up the broadband guys one day and get it moved. I secretly nurtured the desire to do it on my own. I am not silly enough to call outside help for something so simple.

The situation is this. There are three 2 square inch boxes, which you first open up. Then you unscrew the wiring, and you try to remember where the wiring should go back. Another hurdle is to make a hole in the window mesh in my room. I pick up a knife, a kitchen knife, and it goes through, a little pushing around and there it is big enough to fit in two wires.

I go to the roof to check where the wire is coming from, whether you can move it nearer to my room's window. Not possible, too heavy. Go back to the other room. I have successfully opened up all wires, but they are twisted, somehow I push them out of the window. The whole wire drops to the floor. We are on second floor. I can pull the wire in with the help of floor mop, but the wires' cover has come off, it’s a pipe near about 3 cms wide.

So I march to the ground floor. I realize it’s not fallen on the floor, but is in limbo between the ground floor and the first. There is a sand pile next to the wall as there is some repair of the flower beds going around. I stand their contemplating for some time, how to lift myself onto the platform where my pipe is lying. The sand pile shifts quickly under my feet, if I try to get a grip. So without much ado I lift myself up and land on the platform. Pay attention I am still in my office clothes when I am messing about.

Victorious I stand their on the pedestal holding the pipe in the hand when our apartment security guy comes to nose around what I am up to. I mumble something and jump down, run up to my floor. I am having fun.

Now my battle ground will entirely be my room. I bring the floor mop, like a cowboy swinging his lasso, my floor mop ropes in the wire in just the second attempt. The real painful struggle begins now. I have to thread the wires through the 10 feet long pipe. I succeed in ten minutes.

I am invincible.

This is the part where I start cursing myself a teeny weenie bit. I forgot to note down which color wire would have gone to which point. Six loose ends and six connection points. Damn I could have clicked a snap. Yes from now on I will click a snap of any wiring that I intend to unwire and then wire. And end up rewiring the whole house. I just decide all blues go on red and whites on green. If it doesn’t work I will just switch all the connections. I have never been good at this, peeling the insulation of naked wires and not breaking them while connecting them back. So after few breaks of wires, and little jabbing of wires in my finger my connection is ready and yes the phone is working.

Now the part which I don’t understand is how to connect this to my computer, as I see no loose ends and there is one wire left which would not fit in anywhere.

Who cares I did a good job. The phone is still working and in an entirely different room, by an entirely different window.

Don & Dor

2006-11-17T23:23:00.000+05:30

I have taken time, as I wasn’t sure. It is nearing a week since I saw these two fantastic movies. I have been thinking on and off about them. There are two parameters of evaluating the success of any work of art, anything at all. How much do the masses like it, and how good the movie is. Well I guess there is more to it, and that is where I come to Don. The movie was entertaining though the story was juvenile, maybe because I already knew the story.

I enjoyed the movie Don, as I had told myself I am going to. You wait for two years for a Farhan Akhtar movie to come out; you will not take disappointment for an experience. Since I had heard there were mixed reviews of the movie I prepared myself to see the good parts only, zero on them and then don’t lose focus. How can you not enjoy the movie? What about SRK? Well that I have been brainwashing myself for a long time now, I guess more than a year no since I heard that he is going to be the Don. And once the trailers hit the screen, I guess that’s where my blindness started visibly hiking.

I remember, the memory is faded, thanks to my self triggered brainwashing. I remember disliking the trailers in the beginning, yes and I think I can coax out more memories. Lets see yes there is one more; of a highly opinionated person telling me the trailers look horrible, and I blocking all those voices out. The Farhan chant starts in my brain; yes no one tells me Farhan Akhtar churns out a bad movie, no one. The chants float around in my brain. I am submerged whole heartedly. I am eager, I am on my knees waiting to be delivered.

So finally I am sitting in the hall on a weekday, it was only possibility of getting a ticket, the good thing is it costs 50 bucks less on a weekday. Well they could have kept those 50 bucks as well, as for half an hour we were tortured with ads. No exaggeration in the previous statement. Enough you imbecile, it is about Don not PVRs desperate money making schemes. So the movie starts, suave paris, suavely dressed shahrukh who pays 20 euros for a cup of coffee. Nice, cool. Drives through Paris, sorry driven through Paris. Then the movie continues slick is one move after the other. Its not loud, not it is slick, its not boring, no it is, well entertaining.

Now as to where to place the movie, I will go in the order of appearance. The Kareena K song seemed to be rudely in bad taste. If you are going for a more realistic touch, you don’t want the girl to dance, then so be it, but looks like electricity courses thorugh her vein and makes her shake and tremble uncontrollably. Or if you want her to dance, teach her to dance, or get somebody who can dance. Poor Kareena, I feel she has really come up well as an actress (wonderful in Omkara) even the anger of the character comes out well in the brief scenes she has. So why am I cribbing about a mere song, because when you make a song dance movie, then the song dance take 50% onus of making the movie a success.

Speaking of song dance, I just loved the two party songs, especially “Main hoon Don”. They were fantastic. Let’s talk about action. Well we are still imitators; we are still aping what Hollywood had achieved decades back. The level is better than usual bollywood stuff, but nothing original. We put all that we have seen in other movies in this one. It feels nice to have Indians doing all those stunts, its fun. Yeah our heroes skydive too, fight mid-air. But, they don’t do anything that hasn’t already been done in the movies of the Hollywood. Don is not the first to try to get at par with the world when it comes to car chases, but it just reaffirms the push to the standard. It makes Don looklike a wannabe James Bond. The car chases, the fights nothing is riveting enough. I was just cheering a kid on his attempt to bring it out, being a very sympathetic audience. Patronising.

The commendable part about the movie is the number of characters which have been thrown to move the movie forward, rather you can see, plot point one gone, bring the next character in, then the next. “Sir, I have run out characters”. Fine, give the existing character another shade, a darker side. One character which falls comically short of expectations is De Silva, Boman Irani fails miserably to give the cop feel.

For that matter the first scene where the cops are standing holding coffee cups, looking at Ramesh’s body. Om Puri and Boman Irani’s first conversation makes me feel as if I am witnessing all this on the sets. Translated, the scene seems so plastic. The intended suaveness is falling flat for our chief cops.

How do I sum it in one, I see it in fragments, the flaws and the efforts which went waste. The story was plain silly story, where its so bollywoodish in making. Don’s story is cent per cent meant only for screen, it cant be anything else. Every character can exist nowhere but on Bollywood screen. This is not a movie which will appeal to you for its freshness, for its insight or empathy for a character. This is not what the previous two Farhan Akhtar movies did to me. I loved them so much; they were so surreal to me, in terms of everything that I guess I was expecting another sensational revelation. But, I guess this time this guy just decided to let his hair down, and indulge.

I enjoyed the movie, but it didn’t have the pounce and the force with which the previous two movies had grabbed me. I didn’t get bored when the movie was playing. It is just when I came back I realized, I felt pretty empty handed over the days. The delight and pleasure I experienced in revisting Lakshya in my head and on screen was missing. Don was entertaining; I hope I will grow to love it, but that’s a foolish hope, as I have nothing to savor now.

I was so dying for Lakshya experience to happen again. To me Lakshya stood bold and proud above all Indian movies. It had cleared the slate of pretentious melodramatic assembly of war movies. To me there is only one Indian army movie to be spoken of.

When I had come back from Lakshya I was rattling off to various people I met, especially one person in particular the nuances of the film. I was happy with Don. I said, “Oh it was lovely”. But I had run out of words. I enjoyed the movie that was to it. And, I guess that was all there was intended to become of it. After all it was Don, cop-robber story which can fascinate the minds for centuries to come, just keep adding twists in the end till it becomes twisted.

I am not disappointed with Don, I have just revised my expectations. What else could I have expected from Don. Don was supposed to be a nice popcorn flick, blockbuster. And I guess that is what it was aimed to be. Why did I imagine something new to happen? Sigh ! :-(

As for Dor. Frankly I was not even considering viewing it. Again maybe I have a lot to learn. This I guess is too early in the career of these directos to think you know what they have to deliver. Before anyone, before any other director there was Nagesh Kukunoor. I wanted to be him. I loved him for Bolllywood Calling. I know people would hail Hyderabd Blues and RockFord as better examples of his ingenuity. To me Kukunoor ruled because he bashed up everything bollywood that I hated, and that is so much in face and still the masses enjoy it and classify as light hearted Indian comedies.

Teen Deewarein was great. Then there was Iqbal. Then Farhan came with Lakshya. I pushed Kukunoor hands down to the second spot. I have another to worship. I guess part of the reason was Iqbal. It scared me, I know it was great, the storytelling was more smoothed out than ever. There was nice music, beautiful backdrops thrown in once a while. The mother-daughter pair as well as the village setting. But I had to hate it by end, it reeked of stereotypical bad guy. Somehow ending was so rushed through and predictable. I am not against happing endings, or bad guy vs. good guy thing but I hate in your face storytelling. The biggest reason of it all was I thought there was nothing new here, to me that was death of what kukunoor stood for. I might as well go back to not looking at Indian movies with any expectation.

Then someone over the last weekend told me how different Dor was. I could not agree more with her. She was right. She said this is the first Hindi film to be made having women as the central character. There are sometimes stories which happen to women also and they generally bring in an unexplored fresh angle, mostly internal conflicts. Conflicts with society.

This movie does have some social bearings, but it is such a delight to see them delivered subtly. I am always scared that whenever there is a social evil to be brought to light, the bollywood directors take the easy way out. You have somebody in the cast get up, choking with sentiment, depicted through red eyes or moist eyes or steely eyes or flaring noses or raised finger. Everybody stands still and listens to the monologue waiting for him/her to conclude.

The compositions were beautiful. The landscapes of Rajasthan and the north are beautifully transported to the screen. So many frames are just sitting in my mind as picture postcards.

The strength of the movie lies in the fact that it hasn’t given in to the usual stereoypes in our popular cinema. The supporting cast except for Shreyas character is there only for the purpose they are, not to hog the screenspace unnecessarily. There is no fear that our filmmakers seem to be paralyzed with. The fear that works against giving due attention to the prime characters, rest should fall around it.

The movie leaves nothing to be desired. It satisfies with its placid sweet natured maturity of the story and the story-telling as well as delights with the reserved understanding it offers to every character.

And i remembered the confusion.

2006-10-31T17:36:00.000+05:30

Everyday on my way back home we are stuck in a jam. It’s a 10 kms stretch for which buses just move a metre a second. The bus scrapes a meter ahead, halts, keeps chugging, and starts all over again after five minutes. So there are at least 5 such junctures at which it happens for at least 15 minutes.

The conductors for these buses are generally very young fellows, but yesterday in my bus the young fellow seemed a little too young. Maybe he was like me, at 16 also I could have easily passed off as 10. So somewhere in the middle of another of those screech, push, grunt, move acts by all buses in synchrony. The conductor, lets call him Raghu spots a friend co-worker in the bus next to him. They are hanging out of the window chatting gaily as if sitting in their home and yapping. Its not just his stature, it’s the childlike happiness and excitement which exudes from him which makes him seem like a kid to me.

In few minutes Raghu’s friend has hopped in our bus. No he didn’t jump in through the window, he got down form his bus and easily walked into ours, restating the fact the traffic was virtually still.

So the point is, once they were together they seemed so much more alive than any one around me. They smiled smiles which showed through not just the upturning of the corner of their lips (The passing a colleague in corridor smile). Their smile was a being alive smile, it was caught in the moment smile. How long has it been since I got caught in the moment. Their chatter, their body language, their obvious delight in being with each other reminded me of how things used to be way way back.

Sometimes I think it’s the middle class morale and manners which bog us or tone us down, which make us fit into boxes, which were never meant for human inhabitation. Maybe its an offshoot though but I kind of arrived at it when I saw “Born Into Brothels”, it’s a documentary about the prostitutes in Calcutta and their kids. But it’s fascinating, it reminded me how it used be a kid, how it used to feel to be happy and feel unbound, how i used to scamper off out of the house at the odd times of the day. How it felt to never contemplate the consequences before jumping into the action.

It got lost as we moved in years, as we started seeking permanence which would forever elude us, seeking appreciation from people around us, from the society around us, without even realizing we were doing it.

That is why I did not get it when the activists (the NGO guys who had organized the screening of the film) started screaming about keeping our sympathy for the kids to ourselves. Because I had no sympathy I had a confusion facing me, their lives were supposed to be screwed up, I was dreading that the pathetic state of survival would sadden me. I was supposed to be hoping for a happy ending, but that is in movies, there is no happy ending in reality, in reality there is no ending, there is no central character. Isn’t the ending always in context of a story?

Back to the point, i had no symapthy for them when the confusion started clearing out. I realised i was stumped,i had always imagined such lives to be horrific and gloomy. But they were happy kids, they knew how to live. They were so keen on being happy, or maybe they were just as happy as we were as kids. But i was caught unaware i was not prepared for anything but sadness, sadness, destitution and more gloom.

As i was saying they knew how to live. Not by getting into so called “respectable” professions, but by living the life the way they see it, not by a million expectations around them. By being true to themselves, by being basic.

Another pictures that is related to this collage of happy kids is of construction workers in front of my sis's house. There is this construction that was going in front of my sister’s apartments when I was staying with her. The construction workers would stay there, at night playing loud music. Fighting wildly sometimes, very ugly abusive fights. I would hate them for it, despise them, wish they would clear out the premises. But then there were those days when they would sitting out in the sun, women oiling little kids’ hair. Doing anything at all on their day off. I would sit in the balcony and stare at them, envying them for those minutes which so unknowingly and placidly and blissfully slipped by them.

I am sure everyone has their share of worry. Yes I am sure but somehow I feel for the so called less privileged not living up to the society’s cosmetic propriety sake demands the worries are not invited or kept at bay. Their problems just slam them down, deal with it then and their and be with it. Their futures not planned, kids not educated, day to day existence becomes day to day. This state is definitely something they want to jump out of, but we should not consider them lesser, no looking down required, as they are hell smarter than us, and more aware of what they feel, unlike us who would not be sure what to say how we feel but speak at for hours at which books we like.

It is just that we would never want to be in their shoes though they would want to be in ours (mostly ...... i guess), as the outwards appearances that we maintain are worht fighting for. And the outward appearance that they present is not really presented, it is typecasted, it is biased perspective of a common upper class eye

Welcome to the neighbourhood

2006-10-23T15:23:00.000+05:30

Our neighbours form the floor below, sent us chicken stew. I feel formally welcomed into the niche.

Yesterday, we did our first bit of socializing around the apartment, for pure selfish reasons. We needed to enquire about broadband connectivity, cable etc. Three weeks we had been here without bothering to peek into anybody’s house. Not even diwali wishing we did. Now my roomie was damn hell bent on getting these things enquired about, me was shying away. The reason not been anything to do with anti-socialising, I looked damn tired courtesy sleep deprivation. And I didn’t want to start off the new relations as a hangover ridden person. But, one’s gotta do what one’s gotta do.

So we went forth enquiring, sipping teas, gobbling diwali sweets and snacks, we even had to refuse an offer of juice…. Sigh…. Did it hurt. Nice evening of community chit-chat and in the end we even have our dinner sent off home. Was it yum? Yeah it was, but the thing which makes me happy is this exchange which happens. I love my neghbourly exchanges, I think they are a very wonderful part of community living.

Me- a living embarassment to me.

2006-10-14T10:29:00.000+05:30

I have to try, I have to really try. I have a major problem, I always always fall for the guys who act hard-to-get or maybe, I hate to admit are plainly not interested. These would be the guys who I would think of as a part of the crowd, but then something about their seeming disinterestedness would draw me towards them, though I would be telling myself, no no I loathe this guy. Yuck, eiu, I can positively puke at the idea of even looking at him.

And then BOING!!!. Another BOING!!!. “Yes a little more of the doormat treatment, please. Thank you.”, now I am drooling at the idol’s feet. I appall myself. I get pushed more and more to the edge till I find myself hypothesizing and drawing conclusions from even a sneeze. Yeah and in this pathetic stage I find myself again. Sheesh!!! I am living embarrassment to me. You know the best thing right now would be to fall over the edge and then walk on safe grounds again, with a bruised soul, till I rise again to fall 

Full Metal Jacket - Joker

2006-09-14T13:05:00.000+05:30

Yeah Joker is a really lovable character, not a stereotyoe and i love it.

One of my favourite stills, the picture speaks a lot. I love this one, every face speaks volumes, look at the onlooker with his palm one on one, like monalisa, such dumb expression, totally out of sync with the tension between the other two, I love the way they are loaded with ammo and camera, the black guy in the corner, the way he has bent forward, even the specky in the corner of the frame.

The ciggies on the helmet ... The scribbling on the helmet

Another thing i even love the conversation, i love the way juggle it around, how the weight is thrown form one character to the other. In the screenplay book i was reading as part of my course, they had asked the writer to visualise these conversations as if the actors are separated by two sticks joined at palms, and by pushing the stick ahead you throw your weight, by relenting force you draw back. This physical energy should be perceivable from words.

____________

2006-09-07T13:21:00.000+05:30

Sometimes even typing blanks used to be enough. He would make sense out of it. Its a friend gone, life has changed, i never really thought of it as that, what with this course and all, but today as i am going through old posts, freakily pasting them up on the Blog, i come across conversations .... which seems to have happened in childhood, its two eager kids planning to make max of the time together. I was going to Pune, and i had to meet few friends as well as old neighbours as well as both of us wanted to do allllll that we used to do.

Kid1: yaar i would reach there by 9 hopefully
Kid1: but Mennon home bhi jaane ko mangta ...
Kid1: Vohuman/matinee/Railway station is a must in the morning
Kid1: i second that
Kid1: though i am more keen on lonavala
Kid1: with Human Bondage ....
Kid2: !!
Kid2: Oh yes yes yes
Kid2: We have 2 mornings.
Kid2: So one morning can be lonavala.
Kid2: lonavala should be sunday morning so that instead of 9 we can move it up little early.
Kid2: say 7-8 ish. Better weather.
Kid2: Menon home can be a afternoon affair, the time where we cant roam outside
Kid2: And lonavala would be nice. We will get down at any of the station, roam around for an hour in the illage and hill.
Kid2: And get back again in the next train.. What say.

Sheesh being nostalgic is so sucky !!! I am feeling so moronic right now.

No offence, but i find these names quaint.

2006-09-07T13:15:00.000+05:30

I don’t know in how may countries is this possible, that you keep moving from one region to another every three years or so for so many years and still be surprised by the quaintness of the names that you come across

Prabhu Boomibalagadoss – some guy who keeps postin stuff on common mailing list

Pugazendhi Panchatcharam – my lead

Jijo Baby – ( it took me days to believe it was his official registered lifelong name, and you could just wince any time somebody would call the poor guy by his sir name, for that matter anybody in his family) my co-cubiclee

Jayatheertha Achar Manchali – a help desk personnel

Need to keep moving.

2006-09-07T12:44:00.000+05:30

I guess it bothers me to stay put at one place, it relly bothers , that’s why you have to keep moving, and there is no sense of belonging... :-). Not that I complain, you just have to get to know yourself I guess, you know whenever I have been on my roaming spree, I would notice there were a lot of people like me , a map or a book in hand, bag on shoulders, clicking here and there, noting down this and that in diary, and then these firangs , especially women who stand all the Indian eve teasing , the confusing trains, and still how much at home they seem to be traveling around, it really bothers you , you have to heed the call , and I guess though you don’t know anybody around you who does it, you might not see the logic in it, but once you get into it, you would immediately know, this is it, you don’t think of yourself as a weirdo anymore, you relax and are happy to be, and then it stops bothering you , and you just become more receptive to these calls, and I guess keep getting more and more fine tuned to what is that makes you the happiest...

The storyboard of forrked out :-D

2006-09-07T11:40:00.000+05:30

We did a ten shot exercise a few days back, we were supposed to do it in pairs.I couldnt come up with a convincing story. My partner came with a story like this:

Girl waiting for boyfriend.
Boyfriend arrives, he is going to break up with her today, does not know how to say it.
Girl knows of it.
When the boy tells him, she says she already knows and she has a parting gift.
She brandishes a big bad knife and stabs him in broad daylight.

Well, my contribution to the theory was the fork, i said if she is already doing something wild, then lets make it with fork :-).

So instead of slitting his throat with a knife, our heartbroken femme fatale sneakily takes out a fork from her side and jams it in his hand. :-D

And so was produced the most hilarious 10 shots ever, i am still laughing at the thought of it.

Omkara re Omakara

2006-09-05T14:33:00.000+05:30

Lovely Dobriyaal , I would say. His face , his expressions were a delight, he is so damn good, he can teach everybody a damn good acting lesson. What with bigies like Naseeruddin Shah doing every other role. I forget the last time Naseer enacted a character, he was so bound in Iqbaal as well. I just remember masoom, and all these Krish and every other forgettable role he does, helps me forget the magic of Masoom.

I don’t know why good acting is so rare in movies, it leaves you thirsty for a performance and every time one comes by I cling to the memory and impressions of it created by it in my head for as long as possible. Last I remember was Rajapal Yadav in Main meri Patni, I treasure Indian characters more as I identify naturally with them…

As for Devgan , nothing outstanding, but better than Apaharan , he was the sore point in Apaharan. Apaharan was more entertaining when I saw it, because of such fast paced entertaining reporting of those incidents in Bihar, but the characters not well sketched or well enacted, Ajay was flailing embarrassingly with his make do Bhojpuri, even Bipasha was better than him.

As for Saif, this is his best role ever, but I hope he doesn’t get a national award for this one cause he already got one where he didn’t deserve; for some candy floss.

Kareeena was good, not that she had much to do I guess, but for whatver she had , she did it considering that she is the POOOOO from Kabhi khushi …….., big diff, unrecognizable.

Vivek ya , as it is his role was supposed to be just another gullible idiot I guess, then i guess he can be forgiven.

But man is Saif lucky … lovely character, and he does it so well, the scene where he is swaying his palms in front of Raju, loveable character. You know we were told the protagonist is the one who moves the story forward, I think it is Saif in this case. If it weren’t to the beautiful establishment of this one character, everything would have collapsed, or become just another conniving villain aka Pran, Prem etc. Its true this movie is about Omakra, but very quietly Langda Tyagi shoulders Omakara’s onus.

Stuck in the middle with you!!!

2006-09-05T11:05:00.000+05:30

Let me give you some Bangaloree news, Sonia is coming , the city has been made ugly with her manly looking huge cutouts all over, there is one big poster of her leaning her head on Rajiv’s shoulder on display as well , it seems so out of place, its like a photo from family living room flashed in streets. There were millions of people swarming the DD tower road yesterday, 110s of buses, thoushands of villagers, to cross a stretch which takes me 3 minutes max, took me an hour, an outstanding thing was there was a hawker selling samosas in buckets along the traffic, like they do when a train stops on a stations, all of us bangaloreans had formed a human train for him, which was more or less stationed there for half an hour. :-D

Incredible Bangalore !!!

Zidane and fifa 06 for me :-(

2006-07-12T09:01:00.000+05:30

“This morning the sense of incredulousness is still there.” screamed a French daily, on the dawn of the day following Zidane’s exit in world cup 2006. And that is the case.
The moment I saw the replay of Zidane headbuting Materazzi, we were aware that the referee has not seen it. I started hoping that it stays so. But alas the fourth referee had seen it and informed the other over the headset. I know, I know red card was deserved, but it didn’t feel like it, the maestro’s last match of his career, the stage as grand as it can be where football is concerned, the audience emotions on the highest fervors, France and Zizou seemed so close to the fairytale ending that would have made him a legend among legends, but they were still to be decided with 10 odd minutes in the extra time to go. But all hopes smothered at least for Zidane as he gave in to the provocation by Materazzi.

Italy went ahead to win the world cup, with penalty shoot out win, thanks to an unlucky miss by David Trezeguet. But gloom and what gloom had descended around me from the moment he walked out of the field. The player who brought charisma back into this world cup, the one who raised the stakes, the team which pounded Brazil was no left destitute.

My passivity is painfully cultivated one, I stopped watching cricket though I used to enjoy it so much as I rationalized that when we guys scream and shout and get all worked up, for all you know they had just written the end of the story long before the match began, and then they (at least Indian team) play every third day and from dawn to dusk, no sense in wasting my sentiments on the game. But this soccer season I get lured again, Germany’s defeat the nation’s collective sorrow was so hard to watch that especially because the defeat came suddenly in the 119th minute. I think man soccer is too much of high intensity drama, with unexpected climaxes and anticlimaxes. Like Harsha Bhogle said, it’s an unscripted drama unfolding in front of your eyes, performed at the greatest of the theatres, the end of which no knows.

Zidane’s early exit brought with it such incredulousness. Such tainted chapters of your career are not avoidable but so sad that they had to be the closing chapter of his career. I just hope we all forget the last one and remember him for all that had come before, the 98 victory he brought to his nation and the only victory his nation has had at fifa world cup.

I would once again like to snare passivity in and forget soccer , for the sudden cruelty that it unleashes, it leaves lots of ifs and thens in your mind, tormenting you to go over what happened wondering if just one piece had been moved around a completely a different glorious reward would have been awaiting the now declared losers. But I guess that also is the lure of it, that so much is at stake and gambled away sometimes and almost worlds move around in a matter of seconds, that the beginning an end of the same game might seem so alien to each other.

Jodhpur Finally

2006-07-09T13:55:00.000+05:30

I step down at the platform , my heart is buoyant again, getting high just breathing the cool winter morning Jodhpur air, the air , the station everything brings refresing sights and no smells, fortunately Jodhpur does not follow the overcrowded pattern of railway stations seen in other cities of India. Generally the bigger the station, the more are the people. I bounce till the last platform, take an auto from here to my friends place where i will be putting up.

Voila, the regalties begin from my place of residence only, the house has yellow stone walls, quaint displays of woodwork, i thought people didnt keep elaboarate furnishings in their homes anymore, but this house is a delight. It also has an angan which remonds me of my nani's(mother's mom) home in Benaras. Next few hours spent in chatting with Raji, while she cooks my lunch. I just love sitting in kitchen, where curious stuff is happening all the time, little chopping, little bending, little simmering, then the transformations, the aroma and oh yes the food is ready. And today's lunch primarily consists of ghee on yummy thick rotis, with yummy sabzi, yummy besan ki kadhi. Man what do i care for palaces of Rajasthan, i am so spoiled here.

By 3 i head off to Mehrangarh. Once there, i take a good look around, i have a nice view of the whole city, yeah nice and grand, its something else to be able to take in so much at the birs eye view. Mehrangarh is very well taken care of by the current raja of Jodhpur. And the best thing out here is the pre-recorded audio guide that you get here. It makes your walk around the fort leisurely and you can do it on your own and soak it in at your pace wihtout trying to keep up with guides.

I spend hours inside the fort re-living the grandeur. The fort is majestic, perched above the current city of Jodhpur, and that is what gives me the maximum kick here. So now the camera sleeping till now is awakened and called forth to preserve these sights around me. Well i am not sure how successful i was in preserving bit, well not much and i guess you never can take that with you, and that why you cross spaces to be there in person. Anyway so i just have lot of fun clicking every thing around me. This view, you could keep coming back for more. There arent many indian tourists around me, weird, lot of noisy firangs, one or two quiet fellas soaking stuff and wrting down i guess there impressions, cause there are lot of fleeting impressions you have here, one quickly drowned by other, but somehow related. There are a lot of locals here in the fort. They seem to have come for their evening walk. Bunch of women walking around is the brightest mix of the rainbow. You click their snap, they would want to take a look. One or two kids dancing to these 3 stringed instruments, disturbing. While i am trying to capture a parrot since on the outer of the fort wall, a group of 3 4 men gather arouund to see , waht is it that makes hang on to the edge of the wall (not excactly). They keep guessing for some time, when finally one of them nails it, the mitthu. Yes, i smile then the obvious question , where are you from. I reply they nod, smile move along. Nice people, by the standards that genrally a group of men here would jeer at you, but i guess they were just accaptably curious.

I walk around more, looking into every nook possible in the time left. I realize the forst is pretty open to and directly conscted to the villages just below. I am thinkign whether i should venture into one of those tracks, but since its getting late i as give up.

But i dont give up completely. I decide to walk back the main path, it was a very interesting curve. The sun has set and its 6:30, so concerns are showered my way, one or two passers by suggest i take an auto, which i had to eventually after walking quite a bit, once it was pitch dark and there was nothing rewarding around as the city was also nearer.

Back home, good food, good bed, man i am a royalty.

Jodhpur and the rest

2006-06-16T16:40:00.000+05:30

On my run run run spree again, have decided to check out Rajasthan, cities chosen are Jodhpur, Jaipur and Jaisalmer. Reason being, a lot of miscellaneous information and notions thrown in together as well as the fact they are almost in a straight line, Jodhpur falling in between the other two is approx. 5-6 hours from both by bus, and to cram up max touring in less time you could utilize the night time by doing slow (approx 7 hrs) traveling by train during night.

Before embarking on the tour-de-tricity I had sworn I would be well equipped with a camera, I can’t let any other beauty pass me by without having a tool to capture it.

First lap: Pune-Mumbai (buy camera)-Jodhpur
I am leaving my flat at Viman Nagar, its not day yet, everybody sleeping, feels strange, I realize though I can any time return to Pune, I guess this chapter is closed, I keep looking around the room for some time and stare out of the balcony for a little more, I guess the balcony was the best part of it, waking up (to sleep again) to see the rising sun tinting the sky red, coming back from office early in the morning, this was the part which would give away signs that another day had dawned and I thought I could stretch time by extending night into forever.

This is the first time I am traveling to Mumbai by train, seems lovely outside, but I unfortunately chose ac chair car, so I feel a little locked out and doze in between, blaming it on packing stuff, though I didn’t do much of it physically, but I seek excuse in mental exhaustion and the fact that I had been running around, meeting people, climaxing it with as always lovely dinner with the Mennon family, this time Meera didi’s mother also was with us, though it was one of the low spirited ones.

I reach Mumbai VT, it is almost nearing 11, and my train leaves from Bandra terminus at 3:00. Cannon S1IS is what I am looking for, realize it has been recalled, though I find a vendor who claims he can get it for me, I do a little more search, nope nowhere else is S1IS being offered, get online do a little comparative study of prices, check up with official cannon dealers, little more to an fro calls with shopkeepers, I finalize, go to ATM withdraw cash, shit now my wallet would not fit into my jeans, what am I whining about it would not even fold. The whole episode wraps by 2, standing at the cloak room I just confirm with the cloak room people the best way to get to Bandra, though I had already bought a ticket for Sion, they exclaim, no no, a definite no no, that is ridiculous, the guy gives me step by step instructions, go cancel the ticket, get a new one to bandra, take an auto from bandra to terminus, OK? Oops, I run back, the guy at the ticket window is confused, thinks I am getting it cancelled because he gave me a sion ticket by mistake, no time to correct him, though I can clearly see the guy is not happy with the thought.

It is 2:10 by now, I get onto the train to Bandra, which is scheduled to leave at 2:20, I realize it is a slow local, holding the poles at the entrance of the local train I scan the crowd, start questioning two 30ish guys , ask them whether I can catch a fast local, they tell me there are no fast ones to bandra on this track, one suggests I should catch a taxi, the other one just looks unsure of the suggestion, wow he is confusing me, I am aware taxis are a no no for long distance quick travel, but this guy keeps muttering, “taxi, taxi”, damn, on my repeated stressed questioning of his confidence in the valuability of his suggestions, he goes and asks a man standing nearby. Now let me impress upon you right now, when in a new city, or on travel, when asking for directions, you can get little one sentence facts straightaway without cross-questioning, but if your next course or route requires even slight amount of personal decision making then you have to first satisfy your helper’s curiosity, why do I have to rush, which train do you have to catch, in Mumbai and in other big cities I guess its less, but in small towns, be prepared to open up.

Coming back to the gentleman standing with the lady, so he asks me for some necessary information, as to how much time I have, what is the train I am catching, where do I go to, he realizes the shit I am in, but shakes his head and addressing those two guys and me says taxi would be a sure way to miss the train, wow, and these guys almost had me jumping onto a taxi, anyway after seriously considering all the options out loud he imparts me the information that I cant do anything but sit in this local train, he says there are no options at all, and says I might make it by a narrow margin. I get into a self reproach, coupled with little panic triggered imagination of me on my way to jodhpur sitting on the floor or standing in a crammed sleeper. I just sit there and let my thoughts go in a circles of self-reproach, when I realize the lady who was standing with the uncle has come running to my window, sees me and says “there she is” and happily beckons somebody, there comes the guy and he tells me that the train on the next platform leaves four minutes earlier. Cool, I jump onto it, I guess by now I have the harassed look on my face cause the moment I enter, I am asked where do I want to go, when do I have to reach there, and given reassurances that I will make it just on time, well just the thing I am hoping for. Isnt Mumbai amazing??? Although, there is no coach or compartment reserved for a community, but looking around this one, I sense these are all Muslims, but in every way true Mumbaite, compassionate reassurances and instructions are sent my way.

The second the train halts at Bandra, I jump onto the platform, run to the entrance, hot into an auto, at Bandra … the moment I start sprinting towards my platform, I can hear some dear spirits screemin “oh ho …. Express to choot gayi” , panting, though stil not carrying my luggage I realize I am following a coolie, I board the train after having run for miles, sitting in the compartment I can hardly believe my luck. The train finally started 1 and a half hours later.

Next day
I will be reaching Jodhpur by 9 or so, nothing appealing happening out of the window, pretty monotonous, there is a lady in my cabin, who keeps moving a lot, more like hopping from the bottom birth to top with amazing ease, and yes doing it a lot, she has a lot of luggage distributed over top berths and of course under the birth, is dressed in typical marwari style, when I am brushing my teeth I notice her sitting at a seat near the door, which you find in some of the coaches, she seems to be enjoying her tobacco. Back to my seat , after some time, I am somehow in conversation with her, she tells me she is going to a ceremony of some sort to her village, says since she is going after quite a long time, hence a lot of luggage. My natural curiosity of as to how is she going to mange, she says the usual coolie, auto etc; I realize not an issue with her at all. Pretty unusual for a married woman traveling alone, not that it is a big deal, but I have never met anyone like her before, all of them even consider traveling alone a big thing as well, even though you they would have somebody seeing them off, and somebody waiting for them at both the ends. In some time I realize, the ceremony is no usual ceremony she is going for, she is going fro her niece’s ‘niksa’, which she explains as her renunciation of the worldly things. From now on her niece, will have no family, will travel by foot, will never board a bus, train, bullock cart, or any mode of transport in short, she will move cities, she will be heading to Kanyakumari from here, she will never even touch a man, I am a little foggy about this but as to her food I guess she said, she can not eat something that was cooked specifically for her, she can only consume leftovers, only if there is something going to waste.

I am tentatively bugging the lady now for more details, this is news, till now I was only aware of one name, Gautam Buddha, who had left every worldly possession just like that, and now the lady in front of me seems to know dozens who do it around her. I am amazed, I ask her and in turn am trying to wonder what this society is like, in which several households seem to have let their dear ones depart from them in this fashion. She states is as a matter of fact, though with a little grimness, “agar aatma palat jaaye to koi kya kar sakta hai”.

Yeah i am busy, bye

2006-06-16T15:52:00.000+05:30

Listen, when I said, ”Yeah I am busy, bye”, all I wanted to really say was as follows:

I aint busy working my ass off, like you do, I aint busy spending my time chatting with the 100 people on my list, fooling myself that they are so fun to chat to, I aint busy exercising my charms and my good natured-ness on some fellow without ever actually giving a dime about them, just like you do, I aint busy just enjoying every mundane moment of the corporate environment around me.

But I am busy, untroubled in my cocoon, gobbling up new books, new movies, learning from them, changing with them, partaking a part of me the last time I read catcher in the rye, and discover something within me when tears warm my face, when I watch Dancer in the dark, busy turning the lines and recreating the image from the God of small things.
I am occupied … with things which are cherished by me, maybe in some time a void will appear, a void created by people left behind, but I guess that void is always there, and I would rather leave parts of it empty than let worms crawl into it.

Dancer in the Dark

2006-06-16T14:50:00.000+05:30

This is one movie which took me completely unawares, all my guards down. I completely forgot I was watching a movie. As a rule I never forget that, even if the subject appeals to me , there is a part of my brain which sits back stone-faced and slices and dices the stuff on the screen, toys with it wondering where to place it.

The movie walked around me like a person, a person who draws you unto them with their never seen before openness, everything, every gesture is just right, you just take the hand which is offered to you without a question and start walking the trail they walk, forgetting for those few minutes who you are, what you are. I forgot the fact that I am just a person sitting in a chair watching the goings on of the screen, surrounded by strangers in a cinephiles club.

I feel a little weird admitting it. I know the movie was very different than any movie I had seen till date, in a lot of ways. But what was the diferentest was the way I reacted, I thought I didn’t know myself that day, I didn’t know I was so pliable, so touchy. And I am so scared to admit my opinion of it, because this one crossed the lines of being another film with the revelations it brought alongside.

The strangest thing of is all the way I was that day, the way I reacted, the way I felt muted after the movie, the deep dull weight in my head and in my chest , how when I was finally in bed again the thought of wretched poverty would get me crying again.
First of all, tears started streaming down my face somewhere mid-way through the movie. Ok my eyes do get little moist once in a while when watching a movie. But this was strange, they seemed to be streaming down as if a sudden excess of fluid had been detected in my body and had to be urgently released. But generally in every movie there are one or two such phases. But bro this movie was nothing of phases it was one helluva experience, they rocked, the filmmakers shook me up, till I forgot all restraints and was crying openly I was beyond all sense of control. Here I was sitting among strangers, by the end I had stopped wiping my face, and in the last few minutes I almost crumbled into me, and was very aware of an unknown pressing ache in my chest, I thought it was because of the uncomfortable chairs, but later I realized it was nothing but weight of the sadness thrown off the screen.

Spoiler- plot give away follows ........
The movie is heartbreaking. It transports you to this forsaken land of innocence.
Selma (Björk) is this naive, honest factory worker, who is saving money scrupulously for her son’s eye surgery to save him from falling prey to impending blindness, which has already advanced upon her as she moves to middle age. Everyday when she steps out of work there you find Jeff waiting for her hoping she would accept his offer of a lift back home. With time her blindness becomes apparent to those close to her, and their concern for her rises to anxiety, but Selma smilingly casts aside their worries and admits to have no need for eyes anymore, she has seen all she ever wanted. A beautiful song ensues where Jeff is telling what all is left to see, where Selma is happy simply recounting all she has come to see.

Though the movie is not a feel-good candy floss even from the beginning, what with Selma and her kids life in a foreign land, her saving money, her kid’s running away from school every now and then, and her foggy sight. But, there is this pure warmth that one feels for some time in the beginning, which is lost as Selma’s naiveté is cruelly punished for by the neighbor and the owner of her trailer, when she confides in him about her illness and the fact that she is saving money to protect her kid from the same sickness. And what hurts the more is because she did this just to ease him of his debt-related worries.

Bill is brilliantly acted out by David Morse. I loved this character so much because there is a lot of ambiguity in defining it just they way you can never really pen down a person as one discrete entity. I love the way Bill is shown as this usual nice caring husband, friendly neighbour, generous landowner. But once he learns of Selma’s stashed away fortune and her near-blind eyesight how he stands in a corner one day to learn the place where she keeps her money and eventually takes it. The character Bill before resorting to stealing also tries to emotionally coax her into giving him the money, by offer of quick return, by telling her that he has been thinking of killing himself. Even in the sequence of last struggle between these two before he dies, I was not sure whether some part of him is actually resorting to death as an escape to this problem, as well as hoping that her blindness might fool her into giving up, thinking he has been hurt.

It’s a story told with a purity of unbiased unopinionated view. It made me a child again, how I would read a story and be swept into the world opened up before me, unwarily, how my happiness would depend on how happy everybody in the story ends up.

Recently i came upon this review of Dancer in the Dark, and i think this one says it so much better and echoes what all i couldnt express but agree with.

Here:

Milestones !!!

2006-06-16T14:15:00.000+05:30

First
I am a spectator again, as in my role in life is currently basically of a spectator, but not that of any sports AT ALL. FIFA world cup 2006, brings me to the front of the tube, I ignore songs and the general channel surfing is shunned when they come to play.
I watched the opening match, just like that, I guess because people around me were watching me and get introduced to terms like MF DF Strikers.

Yesterday I find myself catching the ESP vs UKR, though this time nobody else is watching it, I had no idea you get hooked to soccer so easily. The sheer power and team play at work which is put on display crammed into 1 and half hours is scintillating.

Yesterday’s spectacle reminded me of how I used to be a devout cricket follower as a kid, at least when my parents would permit TV viewing. How we would switch to radio if the power went off during a India vs X during world cup. How on the day of a final the whole family will sit from morning to evening (provided it was weekend) with the day passing by and the tension mounting. And how I suddenly stopped, when one name after the other, was dragged in the mud, with claims of match fixing. The hardest blow of it all was Hansie Cronje. Cronje epitomized the perfectionist and impeccably the true champion for me in those days.

Now I rediscover the joy of enjoying a sport without ever having played it, it is so much different from the delights of watching a theatrical performance, here the whole script is is written and executed in front of your eyes, its impromptu you could say. But the way spain played yesterday, I reailsed the biggest kick you get out of being a soccer apectator would be by watching an example of perfect teamwork at play when one goal is brought to fruition by 11 kyes synced together.

And today, today my mind kept returning to the perfect clockwork like execution of the last goal, it looked like a well orchestrated, perfectly rehearsed move. And now I find myself looking forward to going home and catching the next one.

Second
I have touched 50 kgs, somewhere in these few days I have crossed the line :-). And this definitely is a milestone.

Random snips- from a conversation one day

2006-06-16T13:28:00.000+05:30

We are called homo sapiens , but years of 'civilized' living has made one organ 'the brain' go so disparate that though still physically alike on a mental scale we can be classified into many species.
Just another one of the millions of samples of homo spaiens crawlingon this planet.
As in why are wearing clothes, animals are not, but if we dont cover oursleves then we are mad, as we are very different to not feel the need of it.
Lot of what we do is conditioned by the culture around, we never question it.
Sorry i know i do what comes within the least resistance path and gets me max satisfaction.

Jan- 06 kerala trip Day 2

2006-04-27T14:12:00.000+05:30

Early morning rush, rush, by 7 we have boarded the bus to Alleppey, the buses to Alleppey are very frequent. The bus ride is nice, is it the holiday mood, or people in general seem more subdued and relaxed in terms of interactions, there is a calm deliberateness to most of the gestures. Once we reach Alleppey, PKA does some enquiry as we see a boat full of people leave the jetty, we are commanded by PKA to enter an auto, and rushed up to chase it till the next jetty, where me and Anu suddenly stand rooted and refuse to board this one as this is more like a passenger boat, not the one we see in all the “God’s own country” propaganda. We do a little enquiry here and there; we are approached by this thin guy, one of those unforgettable specimens of human species, thin, dark, the same dark leathery skin more pronounced on thin people as it generally clings to the bones. Wearing light white summery cotton all over, lungi folded to knees, sandals on feet, white shirt. He has combed his oiled hair in a fashion, which plasters his hair little onto the forehead in a curly fashion. He has a very unpestering was of following you , even suggests a trip to the tourist help desk to us, you could almost mistake him for just another local going out of his way to help you out with the options available. We realize he is offering the cheapest so far, so we take him up 200 bucks an hour, a motorboat.

Wow, it’s a little murky canal of sorts with huge stocky trees shading it from above from where our journey begins,

Rang De Basanti

2006-04-22T14:12:00.000+05:30

I get it, its all the fatasising element which drives one crazy,

Answer fight club, if I look at it, I am swept alongwith it, it sings, its fantastic, hail David Fyncher !!!, hail chuck Palahnuik !! , hail everybody in the movie, idolize it, see it again, because it speaks of something that is repressed in me, something that I feel surprised that why everyone is not talking of.

I guess it’s a similar case with RDB it’s your views stretched and brought to completion in a way that leads for those who are already with the characters to identify with them, and feel that every bit of it was very much happening, a fantastic happening. These are things which are very possible if you let one emotion rule over you, but time and other menial tasks of the day, and the best of all

I just remembered, a friend at college had once remarked to me, that why movies like X-Men or any superman are such huge hits, primarily because they echo our hidden desires.., our fantasy, though I had strongly scoffed at the idea, as obviously I never sat and dreamt of me flying across seas, lifting houses, but with time I realized, it was the irrational desires hidden in our subconscious that she was referring to.

Kerala- jan 06 trip -Day 1

2006-04-18T15:47:00.000+05:30

Let me get into tedious details…

We started from Bangalore Cantt at 10. We includes me, Anupama and PKA (pronounced paka and for very good reasons too). I was positively hysteric for the first few hours, till I went off to sleep, in the morning my enthu did not find any company , whenever I would see a nala or clutters of coconut trees, my delightful pointing them out would be converted into something , I don’t know what It was , but I found it strange that not everybody around me is jumping with excitement.

We reach Cochin, PKA takes control, idhar udhar, eventually we find a place to stay, in a quiet little street in Kochi, and that too very cheap and very good at that (200/-) .Since its much warmer, we enjoy the bathing hell more than we do at Pune or Bangalore. Have a very sorry breakfast at a very quaint restaurant called Colombo, in front of the Lodge. My companions have already started cribbing about sad south Indian food …(double sigh). I discover a new milk shake on the list , it is called Sharjah, and is Banana and bournvita in a milk shake. Anu’s Orange juice tastes like puke, though I didn’t divulge my opinion then to her.

By 1 we head off to the boat jetty, which is just 5 mins walk from here, its really quiet here. The sun is pumping out heat full-throttle, the next ferry to Fort Kochi is in another 30 minutes, for which we stand in queue for 20 minutes. The ticket costs an unbelievable 2.50, I had no idea there ever were modes of transport available, which cost this much. The ferry gives you a nice view of the Cochin coast, then the Cochin Shipyard, crosses wellingdon island, and finally Fort Kochi. I haven’t seen a boat jetty before, but they really cannot be compared to bus stands, as from where you get off from the boat, you generally walk through a narrow street, for a minute before you hit the road, which would be again a street only. So by now we have hit this street, there is a tourist information desk bang in front of our eyes, the moment we come out of the narrow aisle, rather there are lot of these desks all over Kochi.

There are “walking maps” of Kochi available at these desks, which was meant to be my guiding star, but they have run out of it, we make do with a plain city map of Kochi, but this is also good enough. Our stroll begins with checking out a fish dock, there are slimy puddles and flows we hop over, it is as smelly as it gets, but then in Kerala the smell of fish and stagnant sea water becomes your constant companion. Moving on, we have a direction now, we head towards Santa Cruz Basilica. Its closed, we just sit here for a whil, waiting for the clock to strike three, PKA starts hovering around the priest, every now and then , and its hilarious seeing him virtually bend with reverence , even when asking the priest for directions to Dutch Cemetery . Poor “father” as PKA had packed all his reverence in this address, seems uneasily shifty as he clutches his bag of unclean laundry and tries to live up to PKA’s image of his as the spokesperson of God. While we are waiting for the church open, a firang duo also reach here, the guy turns out to be German, but discloses it in the end, as he kept saying he is also from Bangalore. I guess we should have straightaway phrased the question as “Nationality?”. You have to pay 5 bucks to enter the church, I don’t remember who, but one of us was very offended by it. I can never forget Tirupathi, but then its all the same muckiness everywhere I guess, whether they ask for an entrance fee or not.

After having covered both the churches , we do some regular wasted tourist-type shopping, we are now facing the sea, where the Chinese fishing nets are at Kochi, its very nice here, I want to keep sitting here, we sip on hugest coconuts I have ever seen, and instead of malai we get the whole coconut ready to be eaten. We now move to the jewish town and the Dutch Palace. The jewish town might be a shopper’s paradise for anyone looking for quaint stuff, at least checking it out was fun, but my fellow companions are in a hurry to somewhere I don’t know where, when we hit the jewish synagogue it is too crowded and nothing keeps me here for long enough, I guess the major portion of my time here was spent in tying and untying my shoe laces, back in the jewish town streets, we peek into shops, but hurry hurry , (ARGH), Anu likes a cigarette case, which the owner claims is made of rose wood, it has a sheet of wood which rolls all over the box to cover or reveal the contents. We replenish our level of coconut water and head to palace, which seems to me to be nearer to a dak bungalow in comparison to a palace, it doesn’t really fit my perception of a palace, its plain wood, cement, and the stuff of which your and my house is made. We have only ten minutes to see it, PKA stays outside, me and Anu split , me trying to check out as much as possible, in the Japanese murals there are some real unseen before murals of Vishnu putting his multiple limbs to please multiple female goddesses or I I don’t know what, whew! I go tell Anu about the discovery and we remark on what a hypocritical society we have… which we keep building upon a day or two later. We see PKA standing outside a temple on which there is a board in place , which says only hindus allowed. PKA has not thought of making the visit till we arrive and enter the temple protected by us, stand there, all reverence, some firnags are entering the temple with their shoes on, I was just pointing that out to them , I guess all of us mumbled something and at the same moment the woman notices the notice in front of the temple and they leave apologizing to us, and well stupid world what were they apologizing for, and why to us, I felt like as if we for an instance were holding the baton of protecting Hindu religion by not letting anyone else enter the temple.

We head back to Ernakulum, a little lying down in the rooms, then strolling on the streets, looking for a place to eat, we find a bakery, have dinner, nice fish, head back to bakery, buy junk, buy a little more necessities and back to Hotel to sleep.

Theme song -You hurt me to my soul

2005-12-19T08:23:00.000+05:30

There are some times, some particular situations, or certain phases, when a song or more like few of its lines keep playing back in your head, it happens or maybe is more noticeable during any written exam that I am sitting through, i still remember the first time i noticed it, it was in the 9th standard, history paper, and from then on i guess i got used to it, cause I don’t remember it getting loud in my head until i started sitting for university papers. What I presume is that it is inversely proportional to my preparedness or concentration at exams, as I remember in 9th especially, I was in love with history, i loved facts, so i just stuck to the point and always handed over a short and crisp paper, way ahead of anybody. And as for my university papers, I had to struggle through every minute of it, to keep my mind on the exam instead of contemplating when should I leave, or should I leave college altogether, my brain would spin out a series of badly-timed vicious questions, which stamp a why in front of every fundamental rule of life, which we have adopted unknowingly from the moment they were imparted to us.

Coming back to theme songs, as I have now started calling them, though they never remotely seem to fit the mood, but I have assumed them to have become tame and ruly as the last time I was sitting on the dentists chair and wondering why doesn’t he just drill through my head and get it over with, pops the song,”you hurt me to my soul”. The fact that for once the song didn’t ridicule the situation around, unlike when I would be sitting for PU papers and an upcoming bollywood movie’s song starts playing, I guess very obviously reflecting my overdose of latest movie trailers.

Here goes the replay again.

2005-11-14T18:32:00.000+05:30

These freaks keep coming back to strut their stuff in my head again, Ed Norton walking down the corridor, wheeling a barrow, face all puffed and bleeding, blood on his shirt, whistling like, oh my God, and he turns to his left, I can keep playing it back and again. Then his face staring at the screen, the all so predominantly dull green look about it, and then Marla Singer, saying the words “It was a bridesmaid’s dress …..” , my God the beautiful attraction cum repulsion , I don’t know what is it, Is the stupidity of the dress, or is it the hair, or is it the drawl of her voice or is the nauseating look on Norton’s face, or the rotting look of the room, I have got to say I love the way David Fyncher has drenched the whole movie in the semi-lit dirty look, I LOVE IT. Somehow brad Pitt has stopped making his appearances, when I first saw this movie, I gave my just equal attention to all three of them, now Edward Norton rules, if I think of Brad Pitt, it seems so ordinary that I just discard it, but every scene where Norton is or where he is just narrating, WOW, I bow to thee. I guess I should thank the make-up artist as well out here, nobody can come and say that Norton had slept in any of those days when the shooting was going on, did you look at his eyes, oh God no, not just the eyes, yes its clothes too, I know I am super biased to this movie but I just cant help savoring every moment of the movie, where I sense that the guys nerves are not strung but frayed all along, it’s a fundamental sapping at their roots.

Next comes in Meryl Streep, most of the time when I hear her name I just remember the dialogue, “she looked like Meryl Streep’s skeleton walking around... (fight club)“. I just cant forget her in Bridges of Madison County, I know memory plays tricks on us, it kind of heightens the delights we have had and sugar coats even the mediocrest of happenings, but in Bridges I was completely bowled over by her apparent natural ability to pull out specifics of the commonness of a housewife and do it with such natural, unaffected way. I guess I can never even get around to describing it, I will just say its in the little things she does, when she is on the bridge, how she moves her hand to shoo away some fleas, how she walks on the bridge with her hand behind her, the expression on her face when she peeps form the little gap at the photographer. The scene when she is sitting at home and the photographer is telling her stories of his travels, the way she lifts her legs slightly above the grounds, bends forward, grabs her mid and keeps going into peels of laughter, u don’t feel like it’s a person acting, you feel it’s the real Francesca, though I loathed the character and the story when I read it, it just goes beyond my understanding as to how did Clint Eastwood get these compassionate colors in which he paints every character of his film, cause it leads me to Sean Penn in Mystic River, minutes pass by on the screen, the story progresses, but I have never seen anyone get as close to throwing the grief of estrangement, the pain of a loved ones death, the desperation, the emotion which words find incapable of tying, how does it stay on the screen , it just creeps in like a fog every time I see Sean Penn, was it the music? Was it just Sean Penn? I doubt that, my interest in Sean Penn was so piqued that after this I thought I could repeat the pleasure, so I just picked up two random movies of him, to seek the same joy, but though I kept fooling myself, that yeah he has done a great job in both of the, The dead man walking and. But I knew there was this little touch of a very real human, of very humanness which kind of is brought alive in Mystic River, is it cause the role was just the thing, he was left to do it the way he wanted, which could be purposely also cause maybe here Clint also knew that is always the best, but what is captured in those scenes, when Sean just sits there and sits there on the porch is not a movie for the moments it was there, its like you are sitting next to a man who lost his daughter, and to him its not just another event in a story, it is wrecking him every moment of his life, a life which has suffocatingly slowed down.

Dont Play Dont Rewind

2005-11-14T18:30:00.000+05:30

Every time I get over the fact of not having been able to get to do something which seemed much fun, after a while I am more than happy, that happy feeling which brings that stupid clownish smile inside of you. The reason being as simple as it gets, I saved myself from getting bored by another thing, and since I am sure I am not returning to it, I can say, “yeah that sounded like a fun thing to do”, but I never found out, and since I have ruled out from ever finding out, its better than finding out, “Gosh this too is so boring”. It also is more like u left it at the right time, just before it starts disgusting you, or more like you abandon doing it or going to that place for the dread it might just add up in your dumpster of list of “been there, done that, and don’t care for it no more”. It feels real nice to know there are things you loved, and you would love to return to.

Erase And Rewind

2005-11-14T18:04:00.000+05:30

When we say, “I changed my mind”, how much of I is there in I, as in most of the time I think its mind which changed us, it really gets out of hand sometimes, its more like a chemical reaction gone bad because of maybe we were trying something unprecedented knowingly or we were doing the same old thing, but didn’t realize that the expected output of reaction is affected by millions of things around us, which are out of our control, and which we would not be aware of, a simple chemical reaction gone bad because of slight change in the environmental conditions during nth phase, or a little skewed measurement of the components or little trace of impurity, God knows anything could spoil it.

Herzog & Kinski & collective chaos.

2005-10-26T15:46:00.000+05:30

Had no idea who Herzog & Kinski were, but since collective chaos, a Bangalore based forum for all those any way interested in film-making, was screening a few of their movies, and it seemed curious enough, I ended up checking out what they were all about.

Not an outright difference but, yes the crowd is a little different here; the clothes they are wearing are, a little more towards grungy than towards normal. The hall is good enough to seat 80 odd people, a roughly 12 square feet stretch that could be a make-do stage, I guess.

I had done a quick background check on who these guys were, what was not to be missed etc. But my prime source of information regarding these guys was none other than collective chaos’ links, so the only thing I know and am wowed by is that Herzog has made some strong statements like;

"You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates"

"Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film"

"It is my firm belief, and I say this as a dictum, that all these tools now at our disposal, these things part of of this explosive evolution of means of communication, mean we are now heading for an era of solitude. Along with this rapid growth of forms of communication at our disposal— be it fax, phone, email, Internet or whatever— human solitude will increase in direct proportion"

…and the fact that Herzog & Kinski seem to have made a lot of movies together despite Kinski’s non-cooperativeness and due to Hrzog’s surprising persistence.

So on the first day I am able to catch only the last on the list, “My Best Fiend”. A documentary by Herzog, on Kinski. Although it didn’t fit in with my ideas of conventional documentaries by BBC or discovery. This seemed to me more like a personal, emotional journey back in time in order to relive the memories of this close association that you form, something that one does mentally a lot of time, but here Herzog used the tool that he knew best, o preserve it, to enliven those memories and trap it in a film. It is a very delightful personal indulgence; he actually travels to the god-forsaken inner recesses of the forests, to the house where they lived together. Through the film Herzog talks of Kinski, his eccentricities, his ravings, his egomania, and a lot of incidents just highlighting his madness or all bordering on his egomania. Their relationship was apparently a very confusing and stormy one, although their were clips shown of them in which they have those relaxed moments, but all of them seem to be in front of the press, and Herzog tries to affirm this twice or thrice in the movie but he doesn’t seem to have much to support it. There is one shot in which he stands in front of a photograph of them with the photographer and says, “see, we had our relaxed moments too”, when the photographer adds in,” and, Yeah at the next second he was screaming and shouting “.

There are a lot of interesting stories throughout the film, clips of Kinski’s ravings, his tantrums on the set, interesting incidents narrated in interview with different people, of Indians who offered to kill him. Also, anecdotes by the actor who almost had his skull fractured by Kinski, and by his co-actress in Woyzeck.

Day 2: There are a lot of people around me, I don’t how but I find myself being a part of one of those pointless discussions. Net result, I learn nothing, and have been successful in offending a very respectable member of some art patronizing organization, and the third one gets the satisfaction of having said all she wanted and nobody even heard her. Lights fade out for the first one, and I here her making a conclusive statement marking the end of discussion, which again I don’t think any of us heard.

... and now why i dont worship Kinski
“Aguirre” and “Cobra de Verde” is all I could catch, hate having missed Woyzeck, I loved the story and whatever clips he had shown yesterday seemed interesting. Aguirre, has an intentional crudeness to it, in the opening shot itself you can see it, it is a 2-3 minute long continuous simple shot of following a line of explorers down a mountain. In Aguirre, you don’t even see Herzog resorting to any lightning techniques or sounds or color filtering. I guess that is what appeals to the fan of Herzog, but one definite eyesore to me was Kinski. I don’t know, had I taken an unreasonable dislike to him, but every shot that he is there, I can almost sense the discontinuity, as if somebody just screamed, “and cut” and there he went……….. nope, nope I go over all his shots in my head and nowhere do I find him acting well enough. I couldn’t help but wonder over Herzog’s obsession over him, the character is no where of a acting genius that he seems to be making him out to be, or the reason that he stuck to him despite all the possible threats he posed to the crew’s dissatisfaction, the continuity and the smooth progress of a movie. I guess what is the most unique part of Herzog’s movie-making was actually doing it the way they did it, I don’t know how else would you explain that he tried to haul the hugest boat over a mountain cause the subjects in his movie had done the same, and weathering the most hostile jungles for the sake of a movie.

In the very opening of My Best Fiend, Herzog stamps the fact onto audience that Kinski was an outright genius of an actor, he describes his never-ending speech practices, he discusses a scene, which particularly stuck, in his memory. There are fans who claim him to be the greatest actor, I guess I don’t even have to explain where Kinski stands, he commands idolization and the respect as an actor of countless, and I find myself at loss as to why could I not sense the apparent brilliance, or “haunt in his looks” or dazzle of his acting. I guess I might just go over Woyzeck and Nosferatu , maybe portraying a different character might help me see it, or maybe never.

That is what is the trouble with the artistic stuff, some hail it some snub it. Sometimes a whole generation goes around mocking it and the next one comes and embraces it, places it on a pedestal and overdoes the idolization in order to make up for the previous lack of it.

I guess that goes also for the immediate adulation a work of art receives here a little above what its merit calls for, because of it broke the convention, by bringing in a subject that should have been talked of long back.

Turn the Knife.

2005-10-18T13:00:00.000+05:30

Vernon God Little: Lets not talk about the plot, its ok in the beginning because there is not much of it and the beginning is always easy, it always brings the promise of something different which is almost always not there, which happens in the case of Vernon God Little as well. While reading this one I had that same sense of bewilderment as I had while reading, "To kill a mocking bird". It is like when you are reading to kill a mocking bird, you cant help but marvel at the clarity and ease with which the story unravels from a child’s point of view, bringing out the irrationality of grown-ups’ behavior which we come across as a child and kept wondering why don’t they understand, how could they not see it in the simple logics of a kid’s mind, isn’t it simple? They just have to remember…. weren’t they kids once?

So I guess the prime thing is when an author goes down the memory lane not just to relive an incident from the compassionate or amused eyes of an adult, but justifying, sensing and reasoning everything as a child or a teenager like in this case. This method of storytelling is refreshing, nostalgic, and very rare no doubt because it is highly demanding for the memory cells not just in remembering the facts but in accomplishing the superhuman tasks of narrating from a child’s rationale with the language commands of an adult. Though this quality stands way unprecedented (as far as my reading forays are concerned) in case of mockingbird in comparison to Vernon.

The other two things, which distinctly mark it out, are: Firstly, how Vernon compares an emotional bond to a knife, and the leisure with which this analogy is explained not in one go but in bursts, talking about it every now and then in context with the plot, especially by the end when Vernon watches a newborn playing with its Mom, he points it out as "the knife" has been planted. This analogy depicts the profound woe & confusion of a teenager who just realized all the transitory-ness and turbulences in relationships.
The second thing being the funny but situational substitution of Vernon’s middle name, from Vernon Gonzalez Little, to Vernon Godzilla Little, to so on.

VGL is a humorous insight into the mind of a teenager who is coming to terms with reality in a rush, which is triggered by unfortunate incidents happening around him. Vernon is depicted as teenager who has been fed too high on media, Van Damme movies and consumerism, shown in the book by the fact that his every other thought runs to his Nikes or, a bewildered comparison of what was happening around him, to what it would have been like in a movie.

What about these songs?

2005-10-18T12:23:00.000+05:30

Nothing compares to what you feel, when you just stumbled upon a song you absolutely just discovered and are going to enjoy for days to come. It started with Bob Dylan, Tambourine man brought me close to tears, I still cant say what it was, because I just would not call me a person who needs a little musical delight every now and then. I have enjoyed numerous songs, sang along at the top of my voice with my eyes closed, found myself short of sighs for few, gotten nostalgic, but the fact remains I cant figure out when would I need it, cause I have listened to it when I have a highly-critical need for it and what defines it, I have no idea.

Well, anyway while I was at it, Bob Dylan was the only one who made sense in the world; rather I was thankful that he existed and he wrote these songs otherwise I might just have drowned. Since I had been on the terrain of musical exploration which truly delights the self, I guess I added it to my list of basic needs now, just like other needs which we develop after a little familiarity with materialistic objects, it could be the longing for a certain cuisine, or the longing to be clothed in certain fabric. So every now and then over the past few months I would find myself band-hopping, seeking God only knows what, from Bob Dylan to Simon & Garfunkel to led Zeppelin to Pink Floyd to Bruce Springsteen. I would not be able to describe how great musicians they were, who a better drummer or a Congo player, I remember them and think of them as the emotions they evoke, as the rhythm they create, as to how pain-wrought or laze ridden the voice was. There was a certain fashion in which the words, the rhythm, the melody and the instrumentals would blend to create trademark music.

Feel like as Somerset Maugham said somehitng like, a fool who is moved by a work of art but does not know how to finger the techniques which bring to such heights.

We Don't Live Here Anymore

2005-10-18T12:00:00.000+05:30

"Half-baked insights into the soul of the man you never understood" from the movie, "We don’t live here anymore".

I just cant forget this scene, when Jack lashes accusations on to Terry, his wife, Terry crouches and Jack flashes his brilliance by saying "Don’t give me half-baked insights into the soul of a man you never understood", and wow you think … man this one is it, he has won the argument, when Terry starts repeating what he just said, each time a lil louder and starts lashing back at him and whizzz you just don’t realize how could she beat that.

And so on go the numerous domestic squabbles in life, you know that the arguer has a point but somehow for the sake of argument, certain words were substituted for harsher words, certain incidents were re-sketched with nastier shades and recalled for argument’s sake.

A story of two married couples and the infidelity, which permeates their life, keywords: startling and realistic. The dialogues are powerful and instrumental in bringing the story across, dialogues, which add zing to the riveting confrontations between two of the characters. Character sketches brought to life by brilliant acting, were a delight to watch, especially Terry the accusing, suspicious wife, a disaster as a homemaker, whose life is in a mess because of the nagging doubts regarding her husband’s devotion to her.