Destiny

“A book turned into a film is like a daughter given away in marriage and the film is like a son-in-law. A wise man never says a bad thing about his son in law” said Sanker Mujherji a famous Bengali writer whose books were adapted by Satyajit Ray. Slum Dog Millionaire, the most written about, talked about movie of recent times, feels just that a daughter given away in marriage. The location, crew, sets, actors……all Indians, the winner of Golden Globe awards and having ten oscar nominations. Feels good except for a annoying twinge of a thought that keeps popping up, is it due to a white man being at the helm of affairs? :( There have definitely been more hard hitting movies than this one which Indian Cinema can lay claim too but not any which have awards of this status to back up this claim. But to give credit where it is due, the movie is a wonderfully woven tale, with the answers to each question that leads the hero to being a “millionaire” being shown as a phase in his life. The visual feast that’s offered in the beginning of the movie when the children run with the police close on their heels is amazing. The shots come in from aerial and ground view and it’s done amazingly well. That one chase sets the ground for the tale to be told. I personally fell in love with the last scene where the question is a double edged sword – “What is the name of the third musketeer?” A question that holds a world of meaning to the hero…. :)The cynic in me, however, just can’t digest the fact that everything was for love. Especially when a penniless Jamal suggested running away to Latika only to be turned down due to economic reasons, has the very same Latika frantically running to him once he is on “THE SHOW” with a good chance of winning. And of course the question that baffles me..........how could it be that a child at a tender age forms a strong attachment which would then have him searching the red light area of Mumbai in his pre teens to recover her? Help her escape from the red light area with the aid of a pistol and a trigger happy brother and then relinquish her to the brother.....and then years later still have the "STRONG ATTACHMENT" in place......so much so that he goes on to be a millionaire just for her....... D. Its written Destiny the mother of all unanswered questions!! The ultimate Indian paradox :)

Poetic justice

"Poetic justice - Think: "What comes around goes around." In its purest form, poetic justice is when one character plots to undermine another and then ends up caught in his own trap" - quoted from contemporarylit.about.com

I watched a movie titled Cycle recently and it sort of touched me in its simplicity and presentation. The movie is based on the theme of Poetic Justice, where a honest god fearing man is cheated out of his life long savings by the villain within the first ten minutes itself. What ensues is one and half hours of different characters being woven into the plot, how the money at the end returns to the man and his family and the villain falls prey to the same situation the honest man had faced.

In an era of Matrix's, Aniyan's, Ghajini, etc its so nice to be able to watch a simple movie where surprise surprise, the end is the most predictable one and not something that had the outer realms woven in or the CIA involved and god knows what....... :)

I kinda miss those Amol Palekar Movies where the stories were simple, and the subtleties of dialogue were the highlight. Simple scenes where offering tea to a guest at home, didnt involve the "Bahu or Saas" wearing designer bindi's and saree's :)

There was a movie during my college days which was based on a revolutionary son and a traditional father and their intellectual clashes. At the peak of the movie, the son demands for his child to be returned to him as he doesn't want the grand-child to grow up with the constricted traditional thoughts of the father. The father turns back at that moment and tells the son " But i never demanded that my son be the replica of me, i always gave him a freedom to choose, in thought and in action." The irony of the situation, touched many among the audience then.

Well, it was a lovely change to watch a movie which very like all my first story books, all the fairy tales where everything is black and white - Good meets good and at the end evil shall be destroyed......

Laugh like there is no tommorow

The earlier two posts also talk about new beginnings and well two is about as far as i got in the past 3 months time!!!! However, today on New Year's Day i just couldnt let the day pass by without a note in my long forgotten blog!!

Just a few musings today, i used to think of new year as a big deal, but then now with time it feels like just another day. So many occassions which previously meant an excuse to party and get together now all seem to be bogus hall mark created occasions. While my parents would like to believe that i am finally getting sensible, i hate this line of thinking, coz it makes me feel old and cynical!!! Whats wrong in finding an excuse to laugh and make merry?!! but these days it feels like bah humbug!!!!

Growing old aint aching bones and longer pages in your medical report, its when you start frowning more and smiling less. Youth is laughing like there is no tommorow and that is a bloody exhilirating feeling, just laughing..... no cost and yet priceless!!

Well my new year resolution is to be silly!! Sounds stupid eh? well i guess it does but thats what i want to do. I yearn for that giddiness that comes with abandoning yourself to silly laughter and although i cant create it at will, i shall try to create more opportunities for myself to be like that....what say??

Pitfalls

While this blog certainly was a new beginning for me, what i didn’t realize at that time was that I was doing it just the day before DIWALI!!! As far as new beginnings go i guess Diwali stands right there at the top coz it’s supposed to be the start of the New Year.

Although the majority of India knows this for sure, I am one of the ignoramuses who didn’t know. I could be pardoned though, for this festival is one, which my native place does not take the plunge for celebrations. Websites assure me that this is highly unintentional and that the only reason we didn’t join in to begin with is because Kerala didn’t have a strong business community due to which the festival lost out in terms of allure- ness. Now that got me ticking, festivals with all the mythological connections were supposedly rooted in religion and religious intent. Or is that the hogwash that our grandparents gave us and their grandparents before that…and so on…..?

If you look at any festival, its definitely a cauldron of commercial activity….. new dresses, sweets, food, sparklers, hallmark cards (no Indian festival is complete without it these days!!! )…..well lets just say that it leaves a huge impression on one’s bank balance. So which goes to say then that any festival was started perhaps with not just a way to remember god but also to sell goods…… is it blasphemous statement? Well okay….. then maybe the festival started off as a way to remember god and god knows what….. and then the highly intellectual (read greedy) human species decided to add on market activities to them……

If that being the case then I guess we keralites perhaps had our fill of remembering what with Onam and then Saraswati pooja all happening within weeks prior to Diwali and then we decided to sit this one out….. Smart eh? :)

Oh man talk about getting deviated…. Well where was i? oh yeah….new beginnings….. I kind of figured I was getting good at this when I started the blog and then diwali crept in and well I got a wee bit over confident. So when my friend threw the facebook challenge in my face (pun intended). I decided to take it on……..

Boy – o – boy!!! Why can’t I learn to quit while I am ahead!! The thing that sort of leaves me confounded is what’s with the whole social networking sites??? Why would I want to talk to a person with an audience of all my other “friends(?!!!)” when I could just as well drop an email or pick up the phone or call for a cup of coffee and COMMUNICATE. It sort of reminds of people who lean out and shout at each other from their balconies, with the entire apartment complex being a forced hearing participant. And these conversations are especially enlightening coz they invariably are about when the next particular party is to be held? And did you see what she did on that serial? And hello are you coming for that sale or not? And ……. Oh god…… oh merciful god…. Now instead of the balconies and the shouting on top of our voices ….we are far more civilized….. it comes with the IT advent and the viral marketing and ….. oh who cares?!! Well my friend assures me you can do a whole hoard of stuff out there….. you can write on each others wall (?!!) and I thought graffiti was a definite No No. You can check your movie compatibility….? Does that mean I get to know if I will like a movie before watching it or after??? You can post stuff and like be totally radically cool……oh how exciting!!!!!!

Well I am there and guess what I am right now in the phase of “being discovered.” I am however hanging on tight and posting politically correct and highly unrevealing boring stuff. I guess the day is not far when I shall be shown the wall….er the door……oops the virtual door!!! Till then let me try to tame the conventionally balcony yelling aunty in me. Alvida

A new beginning

Writing has always been my way of expressing my deepest emotions and thoughts. However, due to circumstances most unfortunate I haven’t written a word for sometime now. Its been a quite unpleasant feeling as if my soul is drying up. Quite like mother earth does when droughts occur. With words missing, my dreams fading into nothingness, an emptiness of sorts is enveloping me. I feel it as surely and strongly as the suffocation an asthma patient would feel. There I was in all this misery when my cherished friend dropped in and suggested a blog!!! A blog, i gather, means different things to different people, for me it begins as an outlet. An outlet for my emotions, my unwritten words and my unexpressed thoughts. It would, however, be interesting to see how my relationship with my blog shall metamorphose with time. My first baby steps as a netizen blogger begins with all the waverlyness possible.

There is something very satisfying about coming up with a phrase that is just right. Like -

“Picture abhi baaki hai” such simple yet touching word…..when life gives you a beating, you remember such words and a surge of mental energy comes forth, does it not?

“Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.” Something quite gratifying about this statement. Demands a person to own upto one’s own foolishness. Not a very thrilling prospect at that, eh?

“Miles to go before I sleep” implies action, perhaps goals and a dash of dreams. In college, indeed in school, this phrase promises the greatness yet to come. Come corporate life, peers racing past you and EXPERIENCE (painful and otherwise); the same phrase but in different tones hold true. A touch of weariness and resignation creeps in ever so silently. Wonder how it sounds after a midlife crisis? ;)

“Infinity” – in a world of boundaries with limitations on everything – relationships, careers, aspirations – this one word unleashes….go aheah, just say it, roll it on your tongue….. perhaps rules were meant to be broken and boundaries to be crossed…..the possibilities…..infinite!!! What say?!!! …..words, the world of words, where imagination rules, scenes play hide and seek with consciousness Alvida (alvida kehne se phir milne ki umeed rehti hai)