Apologies for the oomph-lessness of "Strange Times, My Dear". Caught in a mire of work and reading and reorganising the mess that is life. Promise to blog with integrity once the weekend and feminist-critiques-of-Dickensian-women is done with.
Coming soon: Film review of Waltz With Bashir which I watched last night. Hi-larious double entendre quotes from Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (rightly called Jude the Obscene by critics of the era)
But for now, something silly. LOL photo of the day:
Yo! This is sick! Trippy Devdas. Took the words right out of my mouth, Anurag Kashyap. Right out of my XTC-rolling mouth. Patna ke Presleys have it bang on with their take on love: emotional attyachar (torture/manipulation).
March 3rd, it comes out on D(e)VD (see what I did there! clever, na?) - it's already sitting pretty at the top of my Netflix queue. The rest of you can just stand in line (unless you live in India and have anyway been able to see it in the cinemas since Feb 6th. argh!)...this self-destructive haraami is all mine!
After a weekend of beautiful visitors, Valentine's Day shopping, hot chocolate & macaroons, late night chats over steaming cups of tea, warm hearts & frozen fingers...WORK. Anti-climactic is right! So all of yesterday and today was spent tap-tap-tapping away at a weary laptop. For le moment, essays are done, printed, handed in. And I have returned!
Some LOL news from the BBC (note to un-cool people: LOL = laugh out loud). For those of you too lazy to read the article - a study of confessions carried out by Friar Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar reveals the following amazing fact::
Top Deadly Sins for Men: Lust Gluttony Sloth
Top Deadly Sins for Women: Pride Envy Anger
HAH! Not that we needed any more proof, but now we have evidence from god's messengers that men are more carnal/gross than women! Lust-Gluttony-Sloth...imagine being married to that...*shudder*. So what are your "top 3 deadly sins"? I'd say mine are...hmm...Pride, Anger, Sloth. Impossible to live with, I know.
Also, here's a super-funny WTF piece (WTF = what the f...you know). Ole Billy Shakespeare is doing cartwheels in his grave.
AND it just started to snow...niiiiice. Sometimes, life really IS all Ha Ha Hee Hee.
Look no further than Preity Zinta. Here's the latest bakwaas from a woman who proves that it takes a lot of work to be this dim-witted and uninformed. "a bra-burning psychotic chic [sic]" = a Feminist?!?! I think such outdated characterizations of Feminists are only touted by the completely illiterate or the frighteningly-conservative (I am fighting the temptation to say "one and the same"...oops :P). I am not the biggest fan of Preity Zinta (read as: if I had to choose between a date with a cobra and an evening out with Zinta, I'd emphatically choose the former) and I always knew that she wasn't, by any standards, the brightest bulb in the box (read as: she makes candle light appear sunglasses-worthy). But thoughtless crap like this? REALLY? It is an embarrassment to brain cells everywhere. And, just in case you think this is a slip-up from an otherwise intelligent, talented actress...please, watch this:
I think the only disservice the Feminist movement has done to our world is to provide integrity and a public space for this woman to voice her opinions.
No matter that it's Friday the 13th. Today is the luckiest day of my life. I cannot be thankful enough to whatever greater force controls our lives for this day - and for the greatest gift of my life. Thank you for making me a part of your world, thank you for always reminding me to be a better person, thank you for being the sister I never felt like I didn't have.
Tina is really one of the most incredible people I have ever met. She is warm and loving, fierce and opinionated and you only have to watch her belt out Ek Pal Ka Jeena* to know that she's the very definition of the word 'cool' :P She is one of those rare people who inspires hope, from the very moment that you encounter her. And, despite the whole world sniggering at us - we've dreamt many an idealistic dream together.
Wisdom, empathy, love, kindness, pagalpan, and a huge dash of golden-spirit...mixed together in a bowl and sprinkled with cinnamon (coz I know you love it) and garnished with just-ripe blueberries = Tinu didi. My love, my inspiration, my joy.
May the year ahead and the future see your life happier and more blessed than you can even begin to imagine. And may you grow to be the person that the world needs you to be. Have a lovely day, my jaan. I love you :D
"The past is not dead. It isn't even past" - The Sound and the Fury, 1929
The title of the film comes from a ghazal by the god-like Mirza Ghalib
hazaaron khwaishein aisi ki har khwaish pe dum nikle bahut nikle mere armaan lekin phir bhi kam nikle
rough translation: a thousand desires like these, each worth dying for many are fulfilled, but still they remain unfulfilling [alternatively, "yet still more remain"]
One of the most overwhelming movies I have seen in a very long time. And, yes I'm glad I waited this long to see it. I don't think I would've ever understood the crimson depths of this film if I had watched it a day earlier. It is maddening, liberating, challenging and draining. And timeless. The only kind of film really worth watching. It says so much - about politics, revolution, love, quests, desire, (in)justice, loyalty, terror, loss, restlessness, awakening, joy...India. The soundtrack will search the darkest, most unexplored parts of your soul. It will converse with you. It will teach you about love and belief.
This is not hyperbole. Netflix it. Watch it online. Buy it. Travel to India for a copy, if you must. Just...WATCH IT.
I had a problem setting up our wireless router in the apartment today. So I excitedly called the 24/7 tech support phone number provided on the box. Excitedly? Why? Because I knew there would be the familiar Hindustani lilt at the other end of the line. And, today, that would come as a blessing. As the tone phur-phur-phurred away, my heart held its...err, beat. And then suddenly, "Hello, this is Smita from Belkin support speaking. How may I assist you today, please?" I sputtered, with tears in my eyes and a frog in my throat, "I can't seem to configure my router..."
I miss India so much. All that yelling and screaming I did at it way back in January...sigh, how I regret it. In all honesty, India is like the bad boyfriend in an unhealthy relationship - it can be quite painful when you're together, and it's unbearably agonising when you're apart. I feel like Devdas right now. O, the tragedy.
So, the cure? My Paroreplacement? (Oh, stop looking so puzzled and watch the movie!) "Masakali" on the subway, the purchase of a bottle of Hyderabadi curry paste with which to make dinner tonight, six cups of Tetley Masala Chai and the DVD of Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.
I really didn't want to talk about Slumdog Millionaire anymore. It was a wonderful experience and I feel like I said all that I needed to (and more). Also, there are other things happening out there! However, I visited Amitabh Bachchan's blog today and thought this post contained two interesting takes (one is inward-looking, the other is just...well, a lengthy not-so-complimentary analysis) on the film -
http://bigb.bigadda.com/2009/02/10/day-291i/
Also, something I absolutely do NOT want to do is react to what other people have been blogging/writing about. Seriously, people, enough! I'm glad the film changed your life and has made you think about the world in new and fresh ways. But, stop being so reactionary and move on. Jeez...to think such a feel-good film about love and selflessness could make people (on either side - critics and lovers) so bitter! The irony kills...
OK that's it. No more, I promise. If you really have nothing better to do than to read yet MORE opinions on the film, feel free to click on the link. If not, I applaud your ability to rise above what's en vogue. Till the Oscar's then...
Ahh, the penny-pinching of cheapo hoarding-wallahs!
So, after receiving complaints from the Salon and Beauty Parlors’ Association of India (yeah, I thought it was a joke too) about the offensive nature of the term "Barber" in the title of the upcoming Red Chillies' Production Billu Barber, Shah Rukh Khan has decided to drop the word from the film's title. Less than a week before it's release. Therefore, it is now called Billu. Wow, what a slick name for a movie! Not.
As Amit Varma cleverly points out, 'If Raj Kapoor’s Shri 420 was released today, a Thieves and Dacoits Association of India might well have turned up to protest at the title—and the producers would then have to cut “420” from the title, leaving just “Shri.”'
Mera Bharat Mahaan!
P.S. - Tinu didi, notice the date of release! Heppy Early Birdday! :P
Priyankar sent me this article a few minutes ago and I just got done reading it. Very, very interesting take on the events orchestrated by Pramod Mutalik and a bunch of deranged goons, collectively known as Sri Rama Sene. Enough cannot be said about the ridiculous double standards that exist in all patriarchal societies (uhh, the world?) - but, as India is a country that is facing Western-style modernization at a rapid (rabid?) rate, it becomes more obvious how gendered this whole culture-clash situation is. Women wearing short skirts, women going to bars, women talking about sexual desire, women having unconventional jobs, women voicing their opinions LOUDLY...all these things appear to be symptoms of a "deteriorating" Indian culture. Men doing all these things? "Arre, India is going to be the next superpower in X odd years, yaar!" Anyway, my anger causes me to digress...the article. Haan, ji, so...
Much of the writing by women that revolves around the events in Mangalore have tended to focus on the hypocrisy in which the "culture war" is steeped - basically, that women are the only ones who are made to feel like they are caught in some ideological cultural whirlwind. Sagarika Ghose shies away from being a woman-writing-about-women (not that that's not a glorious/beautiful thing.) and instead takes a firm and well-articulated stance on the class war which, she contends, is manifesting itself as a 'culture' war. She argues that the newly wealthy class of India is wasteful and frivolous in its spending. And that the neo-conservative religious outburst is being played out against this backdrop of monetary vulgarity - basically, these young unemployed men could give a rat's ass whether or not you're going to a bar or hugging in a park...they are more upset that they are jobless in a dying econoomy while the affluent no less than flaunt their assets (err, interesting word choice, I know). A nation of les nouveaux riches. Sigh.
I'm not writing off the dominant argument that there is some very sinister misogyny, outdated cultural restoration and blatant religionism (that should really be a word) acting as serious inspiration for these folks, but the idea that the privileged are leading lives of frivolous waste and in a manner that has become offensive to many people is something that is worth considering. I don't think Ghose is arguing that we all give up our monthly paychecks to start up soup kitchens and orphanages (though what a grand idea, no?) tomorrow or that we declare abstinence from alcohol, parties and spandex. I think what she is calling for is what Barack Obama also reminded us of. The adoption of a lifestyle of modesty and compassion. One in which we don't spend a million dollars on cricket players in the IPL while poverty is rampant and hundreds and thousands of people are losing their jobs every month. One in which we don't judge other people or their children based on which corporate company they work for and how many lakhs they earn, but what their ideas are, how hard they work and the goodness of their hearts. A rethinking of modernity and independence. One in which, as women, freedom doesn't come from wearing bikini-top-cholis at weddings but realising that not getting married at the age of 26 is a viable option. Imagining a nation where a female journalist can pose controversial questions to government leaders in the smallest villages without fearing for her life. Where, as a man, going to a bar to talk to women or zooming through the streets on the latest Japanese-imported Mitsubishi motorbike to pick up women isn't a marker of personal freedom - but being able to take part in honest and true conversations with women around you, including them as fully in your life as you would any man...that is modernization.
While that ideal India marinates, I shall courier my pink chaddi (a flowery, frilly one no less) to Mutalik. Also, can I just say that I don't like how Ghose trashes the movement/idea/facebook group and then bangs out the disclaimer that she's a part of it. Err, defensive much? Sure, Sagarika, it won't change too much. But if their dramatic outburst is based on some concocted notion of vulgarity, let's up the ante. Also, it's symbolism...remember?
Update: Muthalik retorts. Apparently he has a sense of humour. I'll gladly wear that sari. But only if I can pair it with a blinged-out strapless choli and then go to a flashy bar. And also, only if he promises to wear a dhoti-kurta for the rest of his life. Done deal.
Walking out of Slumdog Millionaire, I couldn't help but feel the most agonizing burden of ambivalence. The person who once had a passionate argument with a fellow jobless individual about whether green Froot Loops are more tantalizing than yellow ones (I picked green) had mixed feelings about a film that the whole world had emphatically chosen as its film of the year. There had to be something wrong with me, I concluded. I don't know what I can add to the din that already surrounds this film. Everyone seems to have very strong feelings about it. And, honestly, I don't. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't that I didn't enjoy the film or that my vision of it was clouded by everything that I have read/heard about it. The film had all the makings to become the 2 greatest hours of my life - India, hope, guns-n-gangStars, Irrfan Khan, Mahesh Manjrekar (!), unrelenting love and a heavy share of chatpatta Boombai masala. Everything....but, it just didn't seem mine.
Danny Boyle's Trainspotting is one of my favourite films of all time. It is a fast-paced, racy trip (hah! pun intended) through the manic lives of a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh. Often critiqued for glamorizing the horror of heroin abuse, it is an interestingly flashy portrayal of pain. And, while Slumdog hasn't achieved quite the same rapturous intensity, there are moments in it that feel oh-so-Danny-Boyle familiar. My favourite portion of the film is this one. It is everything I had imagined Slumdog Millionaire would be.
AR Rahman beats, M.I.A.'s nasal growl, stunningly dire visuals, running boys - their footfalls so firm on the Dharavi streets your heart pumps, la tendresse in the grime. For me, sadly, there wasn't enough of this in the film. After the first 30 minutes of the film, I felt like it degenerated into a string of plot-driven events and circumstances.
That's not to say that I wasn't curled up like a nervous hedgehog in my cinema seat, eyes as wide as tea saucers, madly whispering **spoiler alert** "Jack Hobbs" when Jamal is faced with the first-class hundreds question. And that's not to say that I wasn't bouncing up and down in my seat when Salim's phone rings-and-rings-and-rings during the last question ["Come on Latika! Pick up the goddamn phone man!!"]. A fantasy plot meets the venomous reality bug. It's not like it hasn't been done before, and it certainly has been done by Danny Boyle before. It just didn't work for me in this movie.
But enough about me! Let's talk about Slumdog.
You know what was really great about the film? How many full-blown masaledar bindaas Bollywood cinema techniques it embraced. The relationship between two chalk-and-cheese brothers - one who lives for rising out of the grime, by any means necessary -- one who values naught but family, love, companionship (Deewaar, anyone?). The shots of Latika's foray into the musty redlight district are so similar to Hindi cinema shots of courtesan/bar girl scenes that I had to bow down to cinematographer Anthony Mantle's keen sense of cinematic vision (also, anyone else notice how the familiar strains of "Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai" were AR Rahman-ised in "Ringa Ringa"?). And, really, the Jamal-Latika love-defies-all-odds story is child's play to any Bombay film industry wallah. Also, has Danny Boyle pulled a Yash Chopra with his shooting of Jai Ho in VT Station? Let's wait and watch if we have Hollywood producers lining up outside Laloo Prasad Yadav's office to try and grab spots to shoot their love songs in various Indian railway stations. (I'm only half-joking by the way)
It's interesting watching Danny Boyle stray away from his indie noir-comedy and trying his hand at making a commercially viable, universally appealing film. But perhaps I've watched far too many Hindi films and, therefore, Slumdog seemed like a poor man's attempt at classic Bollywood. The melodrama quotient was altogether too subtle in Slumdog. Perhaps the songs should have lingered longer. The characters been more spicy. The dialogue richer. The lead actor (Ila will kill me for this) better. Dev Patel made for a rotten Bombay slumdog, I must say (although, A+ for effort, mate). The accent was atrocious, the wide-eyed marvelling at the city rang false and, in general, he was unconvincing. And the argument that Loveleen Tandon/Danny Boyle couldn't find a single actor in India to play the role -well, that's just a plain lie, isn't it? I'm not saying you need to cast Shah Rukh Khan or Hrithik Roshan in the role. But, why didn't you just pick up an (older) kid from the slums, like you did with Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubina Ali if you were gunning for 'authenticity'? And hey, I thought all the supporting actors in the film (from Irrfan to Saurabh Shukla to Madhur Mittal) did an excellent job in their roles...guess what, they're all Indian. So, really, Dev Patel was a deliberate choice.
Also, I wish people would stop talking about the film like it's a work of activist cinema. No, it's really not. It's a film in which two young boys find ways out of a glamourized slum using a keen sense of enterprise and a whole lotta luck. It's happy. Where the good guys win, and the bad guys...well, we lose them, somewhere between becoming overnight millionaires and mushy "kiss me" love reunions. It's not a film about Poverty - it's a film about Jamal Malik. But also, why are some people acting as if this is the first film in which an Indian slum has been portrayed? Clearly people have NOT been watching enough cinema coming out of the country if they think this film has done what no Indian film has done before. You don't even have to stray too far from commercial Hindi cinema to find dark, dreary images of the slum life - Ram Gopal Varma and Madhur Bhandarkar have instant poverty all ready for your DVD player. But also, if you're living in India or have lived in India, and you need a flashy film to tell you that slums and inhuman destitution exist in our country...really, Yash Raj Films and song-and-dance sequences are not the problem at all.
OK, this is beginning to sound like a rant post. And it shouldn't be that! I liked the film. I promise. Enough to see it twice. Enough to cry like a baby during both viewings and every time I've watched the trailer. It's a beautiful film...but I can't help but feel that too much about it was just too deliberate. The tears and the trauma, the smiles and the soaring spirits, the loss and the love...it all just felt too practiced and packaged. The reeling, rolling abandon of the opening clip is quickly lost in gasping-for-breath breakneck storytelling and, somewhere, the universal appeal of the film is lost and Jamal's individual story becomes the focus of the narrative. It's a film that is a visual marvel...but an intellectually/emotionally unchallenging one.
Having said all of that, though, I will be cheering my tush off for Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle and AR RAHMAN at the Oscars. Because ultimately, they brought together the Ska/Dancehall grit of M.I.A. and the exuberance of Jai Ho. Because, I will forever be indebted to them for the scene (from which this agonizingly beautiful photo is taken) in which Jamal (played by the altogether too perfect Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) braves sabotage and defecation to secure an autograph from Amitabh ji. And, for creating a motion picture in which we all realise that, somewhere deep down in all of us, is a scabby little slumdog, fighting his way through a not-so-great world by living off of that magical fairy dust that always makes things better...love.
The Super Bowl was this past weekend. What is this "Super Bowl", you say? Well, it's the championship game of the NFL (National Football League) - the highest award in American football. It is a Sunday when huge chunks of the country come to a screeching standstill as men, women, children, cats and dogs all gather around buckets of chicken wings and barrels of beer to watch the game. With an estimated TV audience of 80-90 million viewers at any given time and a TV rating of 40 and 60 share (i.e. 40 % of all households and 60% of all homes tuned into television during the game), it is, undoubtedly the biggest night in TV. And, where there are people involved, there will be money involved. Stacks of it.
A sub-culture of the Super Bowl that has emerged over the years is the commercial. Of course with such HUGE reach, big corporations realise the advertising potential of the evening. So, people will tune into the game (and, if you've ever watched a game of American football, you'll know that there is a commercial break every half-a-breath) to catch some of the most creative ads companies can come up with. It is rumoured that a 30-second spot on TV during the game can cost upwards of $ 2.7 million. Yeah, that's a lot of zeroes after the 2.7 There have been some interesting ones this year: the 3D SoBe ad (if you have 3D glasses on hand, use them - it's pretty cool!), all the lavish Coke-Pepsi ads and (apparently the most popular ad of the year -- please don't ask me why) the Doritos: Crystal Ball ad.
Having finished all my reading for the week and having countless hours at my expense, I decided to watch a few of the SuperBowl ads (you can too! on hulu.com). And, my feminist ears couldn't help but prick up as the adjective "sexist" was whispered through the cosmic, online galaxy. Here are a few of the best (read as: worst) ads:
Pepsi Max - because replacing 10spoons of sugar with carcinogenic preservatives instantly transforms a drink from macho to sissy. if you thought the gendering of Scotch-on-the-rocks vs Apple-tini was the stupidest thing ever...think again.
Bridgestone - because we aren't creative enough to come up with anything except the age-old stereotype of "gabbing girls" and women as "passenger-seat-drivers"
Teleflora - because what's not funny about crushing the (stereotypically) shaky self-esteem of a young woman with the threat of eternal damnation of the soul, i.e. leading a man-less life
I feel so inspired! I think I'll get out of my pink pajamas, grab a bowl of low-fat cereal+skimmed milk, take a bubble bath and think about my massive school-girl crush on this totally hot guy who sold me DIET Coke at the cafe yesterday. Commercial media, is that a feminine enough way to start my day?
