Comic Book Heroes: Paper to Pixel!

The world at large and the movie-world in particular are quivering with excitement at The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's "dark, brooding, mysterious" tale - 5th Batman movie, 2nd in its new avatar. The worldwide takings on the opening weekend are expected to be the biggest Hollywood has ever seen, bigger than current leader - Spiderman III!
Which brings me to - do superheroes leap from books to cinema, just as easily as they jump buildings, lift cars and rescue people? What guarantees everlasting silver-stardom to a few? Is it dependent on the movie or the character? Director or creator?
In an America threatened by new forces - political, revolutionary and economic - superheroes seem to be just what the paranoid public wants to cling to. Susan Faludi, writes about DC comics came up with a whole slew of superhero stories after 9/11 - white knights endorsing firefighters, rescuing women from burning towers, and make heroes of ordinary people.
After all, wouldn't anyone want to be superhero? Imagine wearing a cape, using cool gadgets, getting your (most times) woman and flying through the air (wearing tights is a minor price to pay for all this)...that rocks! The most delicious part is that we all have to suspend disbelief and accept that Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker et al are just regular guys, when they step out of their pantsuits. Ok...Bruce Wayne...is filthy rich, but hey! cut the guy some slack - he's an orphan. The step from hero to super hero is just as easy as shrugging out of a shirt - isn't that a delicious thought.
But the transition from paper to movie is not so smooth. Agreed, comic books are easy for studio execs to understand, relate to - being storyboards themselves. But, comics leave much to our imagination while detailing much else that cinema cannot aspire to. There are extremes of facial expression that real human beings (non Jim Carrey) cannot match. Cinema demands continuous delineation of a story, comic books can make a transition from act1 to act2 with a few lines of text! The same "strong, silent" hero of the comic turns into a "taciturn, boring, inarticulate" hero of the movie - hardly endearing. Sometimes, the sheer weight of buries the franchise - Superman 1 & 2 rode on Christopher Reeves, but geeky charm can only do so much to prop a poor script.
The women fare even worse, the only kinds of women that seem to catch the public's imagination are house-trained witches who twitch their noses and ensure their hubby's success - why am I surprised.
In recent times there seems to have been a re-boot for many all-but-dead franchises, thanks to fantastic special effects, some tight scripts, extensive publicity and a hugely interested, younger audience in emerging markets.
Superman returning has had a mixed response with many probably viewing him as anachronistic - we all love to see our angst in our heroes. The undoubted success has been Spidey, captivating old and young with an endearingly geeky Tobey Macguire, appropriately contrite James Franco and enough special effects to annexe the next planet! But methinks they have outlasted their streak - Spidey 3 felt like Peter Parker 3* and there is no Tobey in the next one though the studios are threatening us with atleast 2 more!!!
Batman, the old favourite, who never quite seems to have gone away, is back, and as a hero quite close to the original comic and closer to evil than ever before. A posthumous Oscar for a painted face in a film with a hero dressed in tights - who knows? More power to Christopher Nolan!!!

Well-Intentioned...

I am not too sure of what this means - well-intentioned - because it usually manifests itself as "...in spite of well-meaning efforts..." or "well-intentioned efforts misfired...". Makes me wonder...are the actions mitigated just because the underlying effort was well-meant? Am not sure...
Often the best-laid plans go awry, because of certain actions - well-intentioned in most cases. I guess the most misanthropic of us cannot escape humanity's "social" evils.
We run and run, trying to get away from the billions on this planet, reducing our sphere of exertion/influence, restricting our interactions, staying out of others' way...but no...can't escape the teeming masses. Ok...fine...i'll talk to them masses...but where I have to...for the absolute essentials...NOT when its foisted on me...by....i knew you'd guess it... Well-Intentioned Efforts!!!

It doesn't work for me...period!!

A week after its release, I watched Jodhaa Akbar. I had already read most of the reviews, had heard the CD umpteen number of times and was pretty impressed with the teaser pictures shown ahead of the release. Hrithink and Aishwarya looked like a million bucks and it was an Ashutosh Gowariker picture, he of the Lagaan and Oscar fame.
Maybe it was the weight of expectation, but the film hardly lived up to the hype. The lead actors made a fine pair, very pleasant on the eyes and they do seem to have made an effort. But thats about all that works for the film. The screenplay appeared rushed, just a narrative rather than a perspective of Akbar's life. Akbar is whiter than the whitest and Jodhaa can't quite seem to decide which century she belongs in 15th or 21st!
Therein lies one problem, as I see it, with Jodhaa Akbar.Most period films (historical, mythological, war etc etc), have a basic tenet - transport the viewer back in time. This is a peculiar problem to deal with simply 'cos the sky was blue then, it is blue now. So how does the film maker or for that matter the film goer visualize the times gone by?
Of course, the movie makers have to recreate that particular time in history or "period" for us - this is done by putting up the same kind of costumes, recreating the hairstyles, the surroundings, the machines (or the lack of them). But, I suspect it has more to do with our perception of the past.
The visual medium associated with that age would colour my imagination of that age.
E.g:
Recent past (say 200 years or so) - sepia/black and white. Landscape - golden brown, the pace slower (so we assume), the people more innocent (we are sentimentalists!).
Europe in the middle ages - dark, gloomy,purple of the soutane, the renaissance paintings
Indian myth - sculptures from temples, descriptions of jewellery of the gods, ravi varma paintings (human-like gods)
This is a tough proposition for filmmakers, but one they have managed to overcome to varying degrees. Films use certain tones to depict a time in history and the entire production design is oriented towards this tone. Consistency is of importance and at no time or place can this be compromised. So the outdoors and the indoors have to reflect history, the mood of the movie and have to age accordingly. Advances in CGI have definitely helped and so have filters and processing techniques. I have no idea of what these techniques are and how they work, but when I sit in a darkened movie hall, I do want to get swept away, dress up in fancy costumes, fly with the gods, scheme with courtiers, dance at balls, and generally have a good time!
These movies worked for me...I guess there's lots more that can be added:No particular order

• Lord of the Rings - New Zealand, magical in itself, was burnished in gold, the Shire was bathed in fairytale green. Mordor was a frightening CGI creation of rumbling grey, scary black. Gondor was a spectacular white fortress in the mountains. Hobbits were plump, cheery and small, the Elves - ethereal, translucent, Lothlorien - timeless. Wizards were larger than life, orcs - hideous, ents - old, nazgul - not so scary, and the ring - alive. In short - almost as Tolkien wrote it and I imagined it!
• Schindler's list - Filmed in B&W, the cruelties of the war are presented as such, without emphasis, which in itself is frightening. Shot documentary style, the lighting and sets are stark, much like the photos of the Holocaust that serve as evidence of the horror. Handheld camera helped to emphasize the rawness and gave the movie an edge
  
• The English Patient - Sweeping vistas of the desert, glorious costumes from the tailor of the royals, light and shadow-play that gives flashbacks the softness of memories, the beauty of war-torn Italy - the scene in the church with its murals is splendid. The book on which it is based, had an epic sweep - set almost at the end of WW2, it moves across continents and exotic cultures with ease. The sets are fantastic and take us back to a happier time where boundaries didn't exist and the madness of war hadn't whittled everything down to a strife-torn minimum.
• Elizabeth - Shekar Kapur brought an Indian sensibility to the tale of the "Virgin" queen. Lofty overhead shots, dark, brooding sets punctuated by flashes of red, fiery oranges create a movie that exudes the power of its protagonist. Tudor history was presented without its cliches and the designs created a lush, courtroom spectacle where anarchy and chaos lurk around the corner and can even be glimpsed out of the corner of the eye.
  
• Lagaan - Painstakingly recreating an entire village set in a hazy time of pre-Independence India is no easy task, given the limitations in budget and technology that India usually faces. Lagaan's filmmakers setup a village in Bhuj and Bhanu Athaiya recreated the costumes of pre-independence India and sourced antique and musical instruments from around the country. The Kutch desert serves well as a drought stricken village and the dialect displaces it to somewhere in UP
• Guru - Biopics even if they claim not to be so, are a tough proposition. More so, when the lifetime in question coincides with a time of huge change in the surroundings. Guru, inspired by Dhirubai Ambani's life was as much a story of India post-1947, as of the man. The film moves from the sepia-laced 1950s to the bell-bottomed 1970s, to the cooler tones of the recent past, seamlessly. The costumes and hairstyles keep pace with the times. Particularly interesting is the recreation of the Mumbai sea-front of the 1950s. Props change too - from the tram of the 1950s to the long "imported" cars and Ambassadors of the pre-liberalization India.
• All the mythologicals of the 1960s in Tamil cinema (mostly A.P.Nagarajan) - I know...this is oh, so inappropriate! But then, these movies with their cardboard sets, gilt-laden jewellery/walls/swords, actors weighed down by kgs of make-up, were all that people in a country where legend is part of life, imagined divinity to be. They featured amongst other things, some of the best music of all time in Tamil cinema, recreated the grandeur of the heavens (as evidenced by our temples), in an age where the most challenging special effect was to show a man landing a punch on another.
  
• More of the list - I am too tired to write descriptions!
• Vanity Fair (Mira Nair version)
• 1947 -Earth, Water (especially the blue tones)
• Marie Antoinette
• Spartacus
• Gandhi
• Saving Private Ryan
• Pride and Prejudice (TV Series, since it features Colin Firth

Home...

Where do I go? Stuck in an unhappy marriage with here, self-imposed exile from there and perched on the edges of a wretched equilibrium between the two.
Waiting for something to happen, to disturb this state of affairs...its that elusive jolt, that seems to happen to others without any deliberate action! Why am I being denied this small peace of living in the city I love above all others!!!!!

Days...books...women!

March 8th is Women's Day! Being a Saturday, the world at large has decided to celebrate and mark the occasion a day earlier :-). My office has caught the mood too and we are having a celebration! Games, fun and frolic for the women it seems! I have a bunch of flowers on my desk and a poster wishing me. A few of my male colleagues wandered up to wish me and there was much mirth and giggling when some of the flowers and posters were transplanted to other "male" colleagues' desks (presumably to embarrass them).
Makes me wonder - what do I think of this day? Should I gush about being remembered along with books, lovers, fathers, mothers, pets, wearing odd socks, dances, talking like a pirate and sundry things? Or should I wrinkle my nose at it and say "...I hate there being just one day for women!..."? Truth to tell, I don't know. It does seem strange that half the world's population has been singled out for an international day! Like...nobody knew these women were around till the UN decided to call it a day (sorry...couldn't help it!)? Add to it, how is it marked? People send flowers, there are movies on tv, RJs call guys and ask them what they are gifting their wives/girlfriends for Women's Day! Its all considerably silly and incredibly shallow!
I included the "books" in the title 'cos of an article in the guardian about World Books Day - but it turns out that WBD is March 6th only for the world according to the British and the Irish. For the rest of us outside of the Empire, it is April 23rd. Being very lazy, I shall on the 23rd post one titled "Refer 8th March"! So long...

Love, Hate and sundry matters!

Is it too much to ask for some effort/understanding/sensitivity? I don't know who's at fault here...I just want people to look beyond the prickly obvious and understand the fear behind it. The fear of being hurt, betrayed, used...its overwhelming..especially in the face of uncertainty. Why shouldn't I question the intent at this stage- isn't it the obvious conclusion to make when making any effort appears so difficult for the other party? Across a distance, what else is the comfort or reassurance one draws other than the obvious gestures?
Don't they realize that the only way to protect myself is to be matter-of-fact and not let the turmoil and attachment escape and give me away? To let my emotions pour out would be giving them too much control on me - it would be apparent just how far gone I am, and the dependence would become too obvious...the other person would get to know of it and use it to their benefit...not a good situation, especially when there is a possibility that the other person could very soon come and tell you "...i don't think this is working...long distance...am seeing another person.." meaning "crumple and dump!".
What do i expect - i don't know. Am naturally distrustful of the situation, so nothing other than the extremely obviously romantic gestures will do - romantic being defined my way...not the conventional. Would I do something like this? Oh yes! I'd do a lot of these things - however difficult it might be to implement them. Not doing it in the name of practicality, seems like taking the easy way out. Even if it means taking the early morning, late night flights to be with that person, I'd do that...even it it meant manipulating meetings to suit this schedule, I'd do that...even if it meant taking calls from the boss in less than ideal circumstances, I'd do that. But, alas, thats me! Why can't somebody do these things for me?!!! :-(

Of the (Wo)men's movement!!!

The men it seems have decided to claim the women's movement for their own! The Hindu on Sunday, carried an article on the need for men in the women's movement. Now, this is not about progressive men including themselves in women's groups and feminist movements. This is about addressing men as a target audience for the feminist ideology.
Personally, I am ambivalent about the premise of the article. It states that there needs to be a specific, and concerted effort at including men in order to empower women. This is not a need to include men in women's groups - it is more an effort to educate men separately, convert more men to the empowerment ideology,so that there is "true gender equity".
While I agree that gender inequities cannot be addressed in isolation, it seems to me that its too presumptuous to cast men as "victims of patriarchy, as much as the women".I would be willing to be victimized indeed if it let me make the choices denied to half the planet, and let me abuse, subjugate and at the very least lead a better quality of life than half the human population.
The women's movement's first priority has to be women - men can come help, support and emancipate, but alongside us, not expecting to be treated any different, not expecting to be singled out for praise. Every human being, man or woman, who believes in equality and stakes their life on this belief, deserves thanks from the women's movement.
Every 7 minutes, a woman is raped in India - who's the victim here?! Its rather tough to go on about educating young boys and men on sex, gender and the need to treat a fellow human being with dignity, when you are in danger of being gang raped and worse! Education has done nothing to improve the behavior of men or the safety of women - every day the number of women who are in abusive marriages, without security, with children, with AIDS increases. And this is just the ones who have chosen to speak, out of desperation.
Believe me, I would love to have the boys of today, reared to be responsible men of tomorrow, but I would rather ensure enough girls get a chance to be born, reared and survive, till then. For the world would be drab, dreary, monotonous and lacking perspective without the woman to light it up.

Of Weddings and Babies!!!

'Tis a New Year!!! Like everybody else, I have a New Year tradition (extendable to birthdays, anniversaries and similar such unmemorable occurences in life) - switch off phone at 10 PM, stay home, watch movie, go to bed before 12 at all costs. To me, its a waste of time, since Jan 1st brings with it no earth shaking change in mind, body or soul that Jan 1st - Dec 31st of previous year already hasn't. I am only a year older (ok..ok..in 8 weeks!), none the wiser, fatter, grayer, more cynical ( i know! that ain't possible). In short, not better!

I digress. To come back to this post - which is a result of much angst and bitching. I am 28 (there...I have gone ahead and done it). Seems to me that at this age, the rest of the world has only two tasks, which they tirelessly seek to fulfill - getting hitched, making babies (ugh! the phrase, not the kids). Its almost like there is a time-delay explosive in each human mind, that sets itself off in the mid-late twenties and drones on, ceaselessly, till obeyed - "Go Forth and Procreate". What is appalling and particularly hard to comprehend is that this entire exercise is one that happens voluntarily - human beings want to be defined only by their we(l)dded or otherwise status.

Consider the following scenarios - I had a chance to meet up with a friend after nearly five years and what do we discuss? Not careers, not money, not parents, not friends! We did discuss friends, but in following manner: "You remember Wonie, she's in Seattle, married to Wonky. They have a daughter!. You know Xany, who was going to marry Sammy, she married Pony instead!". Er, what are Wonie and Xany doing? "Oh, they are working in technology!". Yeah, right!
Or, consider this - I bump into a junior from college and her husband (who else!), and find that I barely remember her (she didn't either). We finally correlate names and faces, and I list a few others I remember, only to be told "Oh her, she's married...that girl, she's getting married this week...this person, is expecting a baby". DUH!!!!

STOP!! What? People don't have vocations anymore, passionate causes?! Ok, forget those (I don't either :-D), don't people have careers anymore?! What gets my goat is, this malady particularly afflicts womankind. A friend obsesses about how she's trying to fit babies into a career progression schedule in a manner most frightening. Another thinks that a woman in the management team at her workplace is not a shining example of women career-makers, because "she's not even ma.." ...rried. Of course, how could they, the " Much married-lost individual traits-have become my spouse's twin Club" would hardly countenance someone who presumably chose mind over menopause, when it came to making decisions in life.

Don't get me wrong, companionship, love..the works, all of it is fine. But, why does it snuff out what little individuality (its very less to begin with, especially with Indian brain-conditioned-to-confirm women), we retain? Why do women, who once wouldn't think twice about bonking a guy on his head for sexism, now spout a politically correct variant of the same excrement! Or are these just rantings in my head, because I'm on my way to becoming a lonely, sad, bitter old biddy, who is going to glare at women from under bushy eyebrows, and excessive chin hair jutting out, declare, "who needs kids, man, I have my dogs"?!!! I have no idea...for all you know, my next post (given usual frequency), might be a bouncy baby, titled "My Cho-Chweet Choby"!!!! ;-)

Bittersweet Symphony!

Every once in a while, comes a time, when I get tired of being myself, in the circumstances I find myself in...mostly professional, sometimes personal. Many times, there is not much one can do about this - a makeover, wardrobe change, holiday - they all lift the gloom, streaks of silver in a pilling black. You tend to keep feeling the walls around you, looking for ways out of this puzzle. Then you are offered a choice - tempting, tantalizing, asking you to reach out and grab it. You hesitate, shrink back, remember things past, determined to do the right thing this time at least and save yourself. Thoughts of "what could be" are banished and you war with yourself, body and soul.
One day, things are at their lowest ebb, you review your choices (numbering one), throw caution to the winds, and plunge headlong into temptation. You frolic, drink deep, come back for more, and it is the loveliest time of your life. A sense of foreboding lurks around you, causing glitches, mood swings, tears and much heartache, but you fend it off, determined to live in the present. Till...
...there comes yet another moment, seemingly well orchestrated, that uproots you, from all that is familiar into a cloud of promise, betterment and riches. Its a bittersweet moment of professional triumph marred only by a sinking realization that you have had an all too brief attempt at an indescribable emotion. Yet more choices, you think, only to see that there are none. The Fates have decided for you, it couldn't have been better timed, an easy escape, a mutual release. There should be no hurt egos, broken hearts, there. Or will there be? You have kept reaffirming to yourself that the end is nigh, only to find yourself there, without having begun at all...

Men and Measurements

What is with men and measurements - distances, curvatures, heights (oh yes! most definitely heights)? They seem to have an obsession with quantifying things - what I can measure, I have the measure of. The Freudian sub-text is rather hard to escape - :-).
I have read 2 books in the last month, both on men trying to measure the previously immeasurable. Well written, both are epic-movie-worthy sagas.

The Great Arc of the Indian Meridian: To call an exercise in traversing a 2400km long path - dotted with hills, plains, rivers; through forest, flood, fever; evading the clutches of thugs, thieves; placating the religious feathers of the "natives"- a mere survey, would never do it justice. This was the Great Trigonometrical Survey - 50 years, 1000s of men, millions of pounds.
Two men, pursued the survey with fanatical obsession, devoting their entire lives to the cause. William Lambton, lies in an obscure grave somewhere in Madhya Pradesh, long forgotten in Britain and India. His exacting standards of accuracy (3.5 inches over 400km!) were something the Survey's later proponents would never waver from.
George Everest was caustic, insensitive and abusive of colleagues and most definitely did not set sights ever on the mountain that now makes his, a household name.
The book, by John Keay, is a fast-paced read, capturing the sweep of the entire sub-continent and its flavors.Keay spends very little time explaining the basics of surveying before moving onto the men, their characters and their tribulations. The book takes us across a country so captivating and diverse that the only way to measure it was to stay indifferent. It is a slim, dramatic and fast-paced volume touching upon history, politics and the passion that drives scientific research.

Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann has been a best seller in multiple languages selling more than a million copies since publication. Kehlmann takes two historical figures - Baron von Humboldt, explorer, naturalist, aristocrat and Gauss, mathematician, scientist, commoner - and fashions a witty, ironic, magnificent novel of politics, revolution, science and personalities.
The book starts with Humboldt and Gauss meeting, at their dotage, in Berlin on the sidelines of the German Scientific Congress. From there, it travels back in time, chapter after clever chapter, charting the parallel course of their live, only for these lines to meet, as Gauss found they always do, in the end.
The central theme is displacement - Humboldt measured the world in absolute, traversing across Central and South America, measuring every peak, every river crossing, the line of the equator with precision. Gauss on the other hand, hardly stirred out of his hometown of Gottigen (he found his job as a surveyor a painful distraction) and imagined space as "folded, bent and very strange".

The personalities of these men are contradictory as well; Humboldt the aristocrat was tolerant and given to forgiven the transgressions of fellow humans, Gauss -arrogant and given to sadistic jibes at others. Humboldt's preference for boys is hardly evident, while Gauss is debauched, sowing his seeds at random, as long as they don't interfere with his research.
Painting their lives in the background of Napoleanic wars and upheavals across Europe, gives Kehlmann a chance to contemporize - the futility of war was plainly evident then as now. Unlike most post-war German fiction, Measuring the World is witty, sending itself up on more than one occasion (novels -"the perfect way to capture the most fleeting essence of the present for the future"). The ending is deliciously ironic (in light of recent events) with Eugen (Gauss's son and butt of his cruelest jibes) rebelling against his father and sailing to the icon of a liberal world - the US!
Craftily written, well translated, Kehlmann's book is loaded with asides and observations that remain with us long after its two lead-men and their obsession with measurement has been given a rest.

Fear, Envy, Malice...

Why do I insist on doing such things? There seems to be no control of mind over body, a hormonal rush to the head results in me careening off-road, a roller-coaster ride ...the path ending suddenly and me falling off the face of the planet!
There we are, back to where I started...alone...with just one difference - there's yet another part in my heart eating itself out, at the rate at which I am moving from one disaster to another - not much of my heart will remain and I can start on the lungs!
Jealousy eats into me...why does it become so murky and mixed up? Professional spills over into the personal and vice versa...there is a double blow on my ego that sends me screaming, arms flailing over the edge...into an abyss. How is it that personal rejection transforms into professional oneupmanship?
It torments me - unable to reconcile being a lesser woman and more importantly a lesser success (I know...there is no such thing...but can't bear to proclaim myself a failure!). How can it all come together so horribly well for someone else and so spectacularly wrong for me?
Self-pity - the easiest thing to sink into at this stage...an almost mind-numbing state of pain. It threatens to burst out of me any moment, taking control of me, pushing me from human to monster, debasing me. It simmers under the surface, slipping out in sharp comments, laced with bitterness and malice, uncharacteristically humorless.
Why can't I find people who can accept me as I am - warts and all? I know...too many warts, but still. There should be some place in this world for us ugly ones, right? Someone who can look beyond that should not be impossible to find - or maybe there is nothing beyond that. I don't know - one of these days I will wake up, not want to see my face ever again and action upon that thought.
Is it wrong to act upon impulses regardless of consequence, is it not possible to be free, uncaring, with even one's friends? Maybe these aren't friends...this is so confusing! Why don't I have any other choices in life?

The Abyss

Life is a dreary parade of the same mistakes over and over again. There seems to be no learning - I sense myself slipping towards the same cliff-edge. The pattern of events is depressingly familiar. A lack of options, ennui, desparation, temporary insanity, short-lived bliss, anger, tears, humiliation. The pain far outweighs any pleasure that one might have imagined. One picks up the pieces of one's ego, moves on and thinks one has learnt.
I turn a corner only to find its the same as the one I've left behind - the props have changed, I haven't. I don't need this right now - wish I could save me from myself! I should have a warning sign lit in neon, placed all around me - a bright red, flashing cocoon of explosive material. Stay away world! I beg of you...

Hope...maybe we can't do without it!

2 movies...2 scenarios...2 non-American directors...maybe I am reading too much into this, maybe not!
1.) Children of Men
A deeply moving adaptation of a P.D James novel describing a futuristic world where there are no more children. It is the year 2027 and the world is in its 18th year of infertility (I did dislike the assumption that women are infertile, the men are still fine!) In the middle of this chaos a miracle occurs - an 18 year old African immigrant gets pregnant! Much of the movie is focussed on the unlikely hero - a disillusioned middle-aged bureaucrat - who gets the responsibility of saving the girl and by consequence humanity's only hope.
The movie is eerily set in the near future - red buses and Starbucks survive alongside newspapers with moving headlines and modified cars. London wears a grey-green pallor punctuated only by the black fumes from bombs and tanks. "Children of Men" is a bleak movie, with a strong undercurrent of love and hope. The hope that with the miracle birth, with rejuvenation, maybe humanity will yet survive - this is a movie that will resonate strongly with a world where strife rules and each generation is reared on lesser compassion and greater indifference to this strife.

2.) Babel
PG Wodehouse often talks of a concatenation of circumstances - those dubiously connected string of events that invariably lead to Bertie Wooster landing in an awful pickle.
Babel is one of these - an episodic story of disparate strangers who unknowingly impact each other's lives. The events are so much of a coincidence that you almost want to believe that each of our actions has a profound impact on lives across the globe. But, with Babel it is not the events as much as the characters that inhabit them, that are disturbing.
Dysfunctional couple trying to reconcile to the loss of a child , a deaf-mute schoolgirl looking for sexual fulfillment, a Moroccan goat-herd "unnaturally" attracted to his sister and guns...people unable to articulate their issues, pushed to a desparation that takes control of them. Trigger-happy societies, indifferent to the disadvantaged, suspicious governments that don't accept the help offered - societies that boil over every now and then and decimate themselves.
Yet, it offers hope - light beyond the darkness. But, the despair seems to alleviate only temporarily. It looms over the hope, threatening to engulf, threatening to snuff out the wee life that defies it. It is but a matter of time, an ephemeral peace that we hold on to.

Christmas!

Christmas is here! Apparently in a few places, it no longer is! A large number of organisations in Europe have banned decorations & Christmas parties on the fear of offending employees from minority religions.
There has been widespread derision at what is perceived as political correctness carried too far. At the same time, it has surprised many that firms are very serious about this move and they see a genuine need for such curtailment. All in all...not too much holiday spirit to share.

Christmas is here too! Imagine my surprise when I walked into office (MNC company in India) only to find a very detailed Nativity scene set out - complete with white cotton wool for snow (I am not sure Bethlehem ever had snow). Inside the reception area a large Christmas tree ringed with loads of gilt paper, bells, stars and what not. Every floor had some sort of decoration or posters announcing Christmas parties!Curioser and curioser, wouldn't you say?

The instinctive reaction is to pat ourselves on the back and say "Look at the blundering West...they have no clue how to handle multiple religions. Look how tolerant we are!". Stop..pause...tap your left foot..scratch your nose...reconsider. Maybe we are being too smug...how come we don't have any Iftar parties - as good an excuse as any to stuff our faces. Maybe it is that we are too secure in being a majority Hindu country that we are able to toss a few paltry, overt gestures of tolerance to communities that rarely represent a threat. I mean, "Id Mubarak" doesn't quite have the jolly ring of "Merry Christmas...Ho Ho!", does it?

Cocoon

Depressives - don't like being happy. They like to think they are unhappy so that they can continue being unhappy.I think im depressed...terminally.

To hide would be the best thing to do...stay away from reality...be wrapped in cotton wool (pink preferrably) and sleep away the years...not wake up at all...or maybe wake up when the world as I know it is over... everybody familiar is no more and there are no chains...nothing to hold onto... everything is new...maybe then I will find peace...innocence...freshness.

I am jaded...tired...my soul (atleast thats what I would like to call it) seems stretched thin...brain's stopped working... theres this cosmic lethargy that seeps through everything I do... I'm heavy...burdened...by my own failures...weak.

Flesh...claws at me...choices...ephemeral...pleasures momentary...regrets everlasting.
Skin...deep...peeling off... blood... hormones... confusion.. rage... helplessness... mediocrity... death... peace...the sea...

The "ic" factor

I feel romantic...like I want to be wooed. I know, i know...sounds utterly tacky. But, yes its the way I feel. Not with chocolates or flowers etc...ugh! Want something more mature...older...recalling an era gone by...old-fashioned if you like. Its strange...if the man were cast of an older mold, I am sure I would never get along with him - he will probably think he knows better in everything and be a controlling monster! But...one cant help longing for something that harks back to an earlier age - of courtesy and courting, of orchids and diamonds, old-world charm and the sort of suprises that only a man who has seen the world can give. Hmmm...I am letting myself run away here. That does it! I am off to scour the net for lovely pics of darling George...(sigh!)

Lepakshi - in the stillness of time...

A miraculous Sunday morning - why miraculous you ask? Well...I woke up at 6.30 am! It doesn't happen normally, let me assure you - 6.30 am is more like midnight most Sunday mornings. Well, I had woken up and needed to find something to do for the rest of the day. After much deliberation, I realised I had read all the books in my cupboard and watched all the DVDs in my shelf. Finding nothing better to do at home, I ventured out.

After the usual dispute at the friendly, neighbourhood petrol bunk - they fill 200 when I pay 2000 - I was finally out and on the road. I had decided that Lepakshi, that I had read about a couple of weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to visiting was the ideal destination. So in good faith and trusting that traffic early morning on a Sunday would hardly be a bother, I headed down M G Road, only to find, large posters announcing the Bangalore Marathon. Bangalore's worthies had chosen the very day of my Awakening, to do their annual constituional! There were all these fit, and some not-so-fit souls, full of the grit and gumption I can never find, doing 42km with a lot of sweat and toil. Unfortunate side-effect of otherwise worthy cause - a 20 min traffic holdup near Cubbon Park.

Moving on, I finally hit a marathon-free zone somewhere after Hebbal flyover (I remember a tiger on 2 legs, running the marathon with a placard that said "Save Nature"). After that, there was the wonderful NH7, one of the nicest roads around these parts - a superb drive at an optimal 100-110kays, the wind in my hair, Floyd in the car - all the way to the Andhra border. Crossing over into avakkai country, I enquired at the Anantpur checkpost for "Lepakshi?" to be told - just take the left right there. In their friendliest manner, the flunkies at the checkpost also saddled me with their local RTO officer, telling me "drop saar, madaem, going Hindupur". Once the obviously uncomfortable Babu realised, I wasn't the chatty types, he stayed silent, only to surface near a rail-head saying "staap pleaase, i am going".

A few more queries in Telugu, and I finally saw a huge, monolithic Nandi statue and knew I had gotten there. A turn from the main road, through an arch and I was parking near the Veerabhadra swamy temple. Unlike most temples, that don't let you do photographs easily, the ASI and the government have put up a notice here saying that cameras are allowed in the external part of the temple. Up a flight of steps, and you are greeted with a main entrance, that the architect envisaged as grand, but is now only an unfinished stump.
Enter and you realise that this is no ordinary temple complex. Every conceivable style around that time and before (im guessing 10th-15th century AD), has been incorporated. It is so many unbelieavably beautiful sculptures, one doesn't know where to begin. Exactly the reason to hire a guide! There are a few available, who can do it in English, Telugu and Kannada. Along with a family of Tams that was also visiting, I hired a guide who could talk in fluent English. He explained the history of the temple and how Virupana, the vision behind this, got executed by his king, after tales spread of Lepakshi's growing grandeur.
The first courtyard is flanked on all four sides by long pillared walkways, adorned with some amazing sculptures, some religious and some depicting the life of those times - each walkway roof was adorned with paintings, now long gone. Going around to the back of the temple, our guide took us to a corner, sheltered spot and pointed out to a nearby hillock. "Watch tower", he proudly told us. On that hillock stood a smallish structure, looking over directly to the temple courtyard. This was the lookout in the olden days and the moment the guards saw any danger, they would light a torch or shout from the watch tower. Ingenious indeed.

Moving on, turning a corner, we saw the most adorable Ganesha sitting placidly, showering blessings on passers by. The next eye-catcher is the sculpture of Nagalingeshwara, a lingam resting amidst the folds of a giant, serpent. Undeniably powerful, this fantastic image is a monolith. Entering the inner courtyard, we were confronted with a hall with no roof! This apparently was the Wedding Hall, that was to be the cynosure of all eyes - the Who's Who of the ancient pantheon has put in an appearance here. Sadly, it is now a set of desolate pillars, some leaning against one another for much needed comfort.
Advancing through an arch, we come to the Dancing hall, where we find a divine orchestra - all performing in obvious joy and merriment. The Ashtadikpaalakas (pardon my spellings), each one weilding his favourite instrument, perform to the delight of Siva & Parvathi. Our guide, in the manner of a magician, suddenly said "Look up" and I obeyed, only to be astounded. Row after row of the most delicate murals - scenes from the Mahabharata, Shiva Purana modified to suit the local fashionistas - somehow surviving rampaging monarchs and modern camera flashes. The ones in the interior are the best preserved and if they are anything to go by, the people of the 1500s must have been one fantastic looking lot!

Straight ahead is the garba griha with the idol of Veerabhadra, a sword-clad warrior god. A quick archana and a history of the temple later, we were back outside, wondering anew at the effort and mechanics of painting on the ceiling (mind you, its a flat roof, not the Sistine Chapel). I kept going back to the wedding hall, a place that seemed symbolic of Lepakshi. Inspite of the obvious attempt at grandeur, one could not but help feeling that such a mishmash of styles, if completed, might have had the opposite effect indeed!

Lepakshi, is strangely empty, most other temples I have been exposed to (even the ones which get like 2 people a week), are alive. This little town, with its tragic story of an ambition demolished, seemed to be flat and even dead. But its still worth visiting - I will probably go again - just to remind ourselves that there are places where time stays still...hurts are unwashed...and the stones still weep for a completion they will never achieve. Oh yes - its a great photo-op, but I think my pics reflect what I felt.

Nenju Porukkuthillaye!

...that is a line from one of Subramania Bharathi's poems. Bharathi was a poet, visionary, freedom fighter during India's long struggle for independence. This line "Nenju Porukkuthillaye, intha nilai ketta manitharai ninainthuvittal"...translates (loosely) into "My heart despairs, to think of these directionless hordes..."
What is this malaise that grips Tamil (and indeed much of Indian) society? It is called "marrying a girl away!". To achieve this single moment of glory in society, the girl's parents will stoop to any levels, grovel at anybody's feet, all for that disgusting moment of pride - " I have done my duty now". What duty is this, that these people talk of? A duty to grind that girl, who till recently was a living, if not thriving human being, into the golden dust (yet dust it is) of matrimony. 'Tis a strange fate, if she marries, she loses her identity to become another's wife, yet if she doesn't she lives to see her self-respect shredded in front of her own eyes. The very core of her being will be stripped naked, paraded in front of greedy, evaluative eyes. Eyes that judge, eyes that pry, eyes that gore, hands that paw, lips that leer, these are what will tear her apart from within and without.
Does nobody understand in society what it is to be a part of a sham called "arranged marriage"? There is a very harsh line dividing "getting married" & "getting married off" - the latter is like a swivel door that pushes you around rather than the other way. The man "gets married" while the girl "gets married off". She is "given away", like an inanimate object, an act of discarding. Why is it that in this day and age, even an economically independent, unmarried girl, is thought of as a burden, a duty to the parents go to any lengths to finish.
Woe betide, any woman for whom the leap from engaged to married is not always successful. For this woman, is marked, by the world and by her family. Her own will very apologetically tell future candidates in hushed tones, revealing as it were a tragic flaw -"she was engaged, but then it got broken". Then, it will be held against her, the "groom's" parents will denounce her as a lady of ill luck, and either demand more "compensation" which her already debt-ridden parents will happily get trapped into, or worse, say "NO". If he does say NO, then it gets really sickening. The girl's parents will now stop at nothing to offload their "burden" - they will beg this paragon of male virtuousness to please, please, oh! please accept their daughter. By the time, they are done groveling, their daughter will be walking naked in daylight, stripped to the bone marrow, her ego laid bare for all the world to trample upon.
When will this oppression end? This is the plight of the urban, reasonably educated woman. What then, is the plight of my less literate sisters? What can we do to hold a mirror to our parents - let not society bully you into losing your self-respect. And, if you cannot resist, don't drag mine down along with it. Stop the world! Lemme get off!

Obsession

What is an obsession? Websters' defines it as a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly : compelling motivation. That is a rather bland description of a powerful word - one that rules, one that controls, one that subjugates. An insistent worm that drills its way through your head - every waking and sleeping second. A misconceived fulcrum around which your thoughts revolve, which dictates which way your mind's balance swings, your actions, your reactions, your activity, your passivity. Its the inside of your eyelids, when you close them, its the back of your head when you look ahead, its the middle of your forehead when you are lying down. Its your entire being. Its the single most influential thing that decides how you feel when you wake up in the morning, how you feel when you retire for the night, how you spend the day nano (or is it pico) second to nano second. What am I saying, it does not decide - it IS how you wake up, how you sleep, how you exist. It is the air that you breathe, it is the music in your ears, the tears in your eyes, the highs, the lows, the only thing right now in the world worth living for.
But, what do you do when this obsession is another human being? Do you become a monster? Do you get trapped within the confines of another human being's persona? Do you fight yourself? Do you punish yourself for being weak? Do you derive masochistic pleasure from obsessing further? Do you analyse, over analyse to death the little details, read meanings where none existed? Do you ask for justifications where none are required? Do you retain your sanity by holding onto the obsession alone? Do you feel a little lesser of a human being every time you give in to the obsession? Does it tire you out? Unable to think of it, unable to get away from it...giving into an orgy of emotions, everytime you obsess, pacify your ego every time you give in, what is it that drives us to such dark depths, ignominies that once would have been scarcely tolerated are now accepted as a matter of course. WHAT IS THE WAY OUT?

HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW!

I had a hair cut yesterday! Yippeee! Hoo hoo! Hip Hip! (Cartwheels, cheerleaders kicking heels in the air etc.) I know what you are thinking, have you gone mad? It’s a hair cut, that’s all. That’s all?! What do you know about hair cuts? Let me introduce you to my hair.

It’s been my constant companion for the last 20 years or so (I remember my Mom got my head shaved when I was in Class I, some long overdue religious obligation (God must be a taxonomist on the sly, all that hair would serve well as a stuffing!). It used to fall in a hugely messy way till my hips, meaning it was nearly two and half feet long! This was hair my mother had nourished for twenty long years in the time honoured traditions of Tamilnadu. It was subject to weekly tribulations with long hours spent massaging, cleaning, scrubbing with assorted herbs and washing it, presumably in order to make it behave. But, my hair – it was admirably resistant to such attempts. I mean, I haven’t seen too many things in life, that made my mother tired, but my hair did, in a way I haven’t ever been able to replicate. It was just solid and stubborn in its inherent frizziness. I did admire my hair for its attitude to my mom, but what irked me all these long years was a similar attitude to poor me. I mean, I had given it space, the freedom to grow as it pleased (which it anyways did, I just gracefully acquiesced) and what did I get as reward? Tangles, hairloads of them! The kind which would break a wide toothed comb, the kind that refused to bow to the deepest conditioners, thickest finishing creams. I mean, I never subjected my hair to the tyrannies my Mom did, but when the bottle passed from Mom to me, my hair was just as unyielding. It was still 2.5 feet long, thick enough that I couldn’t gather it together in a nice, graceful motion that many of my friends had perfected, and FRIZZY!

I struggled gamely, through four years of undergraduate study with my braid trailing me (not being Rapunzel, I didn’t find a knight whom I could haul up to my dingy little hostel room – bed, me and little else!). My morning hair-combing ritual went like “Ouch!”, “Oh No, I’ve lost the strands again! “, “Aaargh!” “Goddamned hair, who wants this much of it?” Of course, most of it was interspersed with many, ahem, unprintable words. I would run the comb through exactly 2 cms of my hair, before it encountered a huge knot – what ensued was a battle for (comb) tooth and knot, invariably resulting in knot being dishonourably discharged from my scalp. It was violation of any human-body parts’ rights my hair might have had – but I was waging war and like Lochinvar, I figured all is fair, with comb and hair.

Then came the momentous occasion when I decided to do my post-graduation in London (Yes! You read it right, this is London, UK not London, somewhere-in-the-wide-expanses of Mid-western USA). Giving in to my persistent and persuasive efforts, my Mom decided I could get my hair shortened in order to manage it better “all alone” in the UK. After much deliberation, the length of hair that could be “sacrificed” at the altar of modernity was decided as (hold your breath!) 2 inches. The sacrifice was performed at one of the best beauty salons (or parlours, what’s the difference?) in Madras with my very anxious and (so) meddlesome Mother supervising it (she was actually crying when the scissors made contact with hair).

Since, then thanks to the rather malefic effect of Bad Bad London, I have had multiple hair-cuts of successively shorter hair. But, much like me, it retains an inherent fuzziness that’s still untameable and gives me a very “charmingly” hassled (even when I’m not, which is anyway rare) look all the time.