Kafkaesque

"Love-Hate Relationship" or "A Soiled Prayer"

2011-06-26T22:22:00.001+05:30

When I was seven, God,

I was told to believe

And never be afraid,

For your invisible hand

Would set things right.

But if it didn't

(And here's the dodgy part)

It'd be your infinite wisdom,

After all; and I was clearly unfit,

Too ignorant, like the rest of us,

To comprehend the bigger picture.

My feeble seven-year-old intellect

Stubborn, headstrong, refused to conform

And thus I became an atheist.

Impressed with angst?

Seduced by rebellion?

Swayed by logic? (or lack thereof?)

I cannot say for sure.

For a dozen years or so,

I relished making my parents cringe

And shredding to bits

The arguments of my devout friends.

It wasn't their faith which was to blame,

I assure you, Lord, it was my tongue,

My acid tongue, which true to its name

Spewed forth venomous bile

In the guise of high rhetoric.

But as you know,

At eighteen, one lives a thousand lives

And a thousand times does one die;

Elevating the mundane,

Debunking the profound

At the drop of a hat.

In my thousand-and-first avatar,

I, inebriated, desolate, disjoint,

Declared to the heavens

The following blasphemous words,

"Why do you torture me so?

If you're real, make your presence felt!

I've been pining away in vain,

Not a sign of my beloved yet,

And I've been wasting away for so long...

Surely, surely this is a garden-variety miracle

For a divine old fart such as yourself!"

As it so happened, you obliged

And I was united with my apparition in red.

It was on a lark that I stopped believeing

And on a lark did I believe again.

I know I'm not supposed to summon you

Think of you as a last resort.

In fact, truth be told, your way

Is to renounce desire altogether

Or something like that.

Forgive me, I've been born again

Not too long ago.

But how do you explain

My return to your flock

In the wake of my failures

On the trail of my defeats

And with the stench of insincerity

Still bearing down heavily...

I believe I love you,

Most days when I wake up.

My prayer, however, isn't pure.

And I'm convinced, now,

That every prayer is equally soiled, equally defiled.

There are no holy cows, among

The mad cattle rush of pilgrims,

The frenzied faithful, who now

Call me one of their own.

On Beauty

2011-06-04T15:57:00.006+05:30

(In which we begin with a tip of the hat to/shameless rip-off from a certain Zadie Smith )

What does beauty mean to me?

What do I find beautiful?

I could, of course, go into an elegant discourse, citing various high-and-low-brow sources to back up whatever definition strikes me as suitably edgy or off the beaten track, as it were. Beauty might be found in Tagore one day, in Joyce the other, in silky Mozart on a calm Sunday morning, or in hoarse Dylan when we seek shelter from storms, both within and without. Beauty defies association, resists description;beauty is transient, always on the move, beauty is frozen in time.

The only universal thing about beauty is that it's always intensely personal.

Hence, I will simply tell you what happened when I went looking for beauty, retracing my steps, to a time when I thought my life itself was truly beautiful.

As is often the case with these questions, I found myself returning to my childhood, and those first, fleeting memories which one searches for, years later, only in vain. I hail from Ranchi, one of those quaintly in-between towns, a bunch of villages really, unsure whether they like the word "city". I've lived here ever since I was five, which means, importantly, that I don't really remember living elsewhere. Ever.

Hence, it is nearly impossible for me to view this place from an outsider's point of view, although the four years since I left Ranchi, (and went to college) have also, coincidentally been the years in which it has most rapidly and visibly changed. (read: "Expanded", that lovely bourgeouis usage which encapsulates so much and reveals so little)

I went ahead, anyway, to the neighbourhood I grew up in (my parents live in a different locality now) just for kicks, mind.. I had no intention of seeking out my old haunts, or going to some of the places which held a special meaning for me. My friends were supposed to pick me up from there, on a bike (the number of bikes on the road was another revelation, by the way)

But wait.

There were no old haunts anymore. In fact, the entire place looked too sanitized, and could have done with a bit of haunting.

The places which held a special meaning for me had become a meaningless pile of rubble, in most cases. The fields and the empty stretches of land had been filled up with something or the other, an ugly house, a shopping mall, a call centre in one case.

This is the chief paradox of beauty: quick to dazzle, and quicker to disappoint.

Have we not felt this again and again, this terrible aesthetic burden of having to look back upon the past with rose-tinted glasses? Note that when I see the whole thing now, with the curse of postmodern sensibilities, there's a small voice inside which says: It was never that good, you were too small, you were too stupid, and now you know better.

Whenever we're confronted with terrible beauty of this sort, it is this same voice which tells us: you know better, you know better, you know better... don't give in, don't fall for it, you know better.

This rant goes on and on, and at the end of it, we're still no better.

This is another tell-tale sign that you've fallen for something beautiful: Time ceases to flow in a strictly linear fashion. In the graphic novel "Watchmen" , Alan Moore writes about how a superhero character Doc Manhattan experiences everything simultaneously, all the time. Yet he is able to influence the future through his "present" actions. I know now that this is undoubtedly a curse.

When I was a kid, I used to sit down beneath a particular tree, exhausted from all the running I'd be doing on the field, wanting nothing more than a few minutes of respite. I used to secretly hope for a rabbit-hole to materialize, down which I'd happily disappear to escape this world, which was already proving no match for the ones inside my ten year-old head.

That tree was intact, miraculously.

I sat down, unsure of my feelings. I was convinced I wouldn't spend much time there at all. I wanted the disgust I felt, the outrage, to sweep everything else aside. I wanted to mourn the death of a beautiful place with its last surviving member.

But again and again, I'd see the plainest wild flower, and my affinity for the place and the familiarity I enjoyed with it, would transform it into the most beauteous rose you could ever hope to see. (Sometimes, you have to call it by another name to realise its worth) I'd see shabby little hillocks in the distance, but the moment the first drops of rain fell, they would rise before my very eyes and become Himalayan in stature. I was at home, you see.

Every child, every dog, every noisy car began to speak to me, as if to console me: It's all right, you don't know who we are, but a part of us is this right here, this mitti that you can smell now in the rain.

It was a truly beautiful feeling, there's just no other way to put it. This was beauty at its most inscrutable, and like all Art, it was inherently easier to understand than to describe.

The rain picked up pace and I stood up from where I sat. It took me a while to realize that I'd been grinning non-stop since it started to rain. I wasn't even trying to go back beneath my tree, let alone scamper for a shelter.

Presently, my friends showed up, bikes revved, wheels making a splash of an entry. One of them took off his helmet,frowning, and said, "Why were you standing in the rain?"

I said, "You were late. " I paused, before continuing, "So I decided to light up my day". As I said this, I broke into a dopey grin once again.

"How was it? " asked my friend.

I considered this in silence. How would I describe my day after all?

Beautiful, I murmured... just beautiful.

(This post is written as an entry for the Yahoo/Dove "Real Beauty" Contest. If you like this post and would like to promote it, just use the Facebook "like" button here. You can click the blue badge below to see more such stories, about what beauty means to us.)

The Age Of Irony: "Edward Scissorhands" and the cult of the cinematic “freak”

2011-06-02T12:44:00.002+05:30

(previously published at passionforcinema.com )

My earliest memories of watching an English movie were that of seeing Johnny Depp clakkety-clak snippety-snip his way to Hollywood stardom in Tim Burton's superbly quirky "Edward Scissorhands". I was eleven, maybe twelve, but I quickly formed two conclusions: the first, (which proved to be right), that I wasn't appreciating this nearly as well as I should; and second, (which was just as easily proved to be erroneous) that the shift in language from Hindi to English was the driving facor behind the shift in quality of the film.

Before the language Nazi gets ready to sharpen its knives, might I point out helpfully that this article has nothing to do with cinematic idioms vis-a-vis language or nationality of filmmaker. What I actually want to talk about is that elusive something which passed my eleven-year old avatar by completely. In "Edward Scissorhands", Johnny Depp plays the eponymous Edward, an unusually gentle, kind young man who just happens to have scissors for hands: the reason being his creator, (Vincent Price), died before giving him humaneiform hands.

I draw your attention to the last sentence, where I mentioned the fact that Edward was in fact, a Frankenstein-like creature of sorts, towards the end, in a deliberate manner, without fuss, without the slightest build-up. This is reflective of the manner in which Edward's character has been treated by Burton: his deformity, his quirks, the very thing which makes him different, certainly, grotesque to some, fascinating to others; above all, the thing which makes him worthy of our attention as viewers, the scissor hands in question; have been treated time and again with nonchalance, with a cinematic straight face, so to speak. He is adopted into a nice, quiet American suburban town with almost comical ease, his mad scientist creator living conveniently atop a nearby hill. A very Betty Crocker-ish lady fawns over him, often exclaiming her happiness aloud when Edward uses his metallic appendages to snip her lawn, cut her hair or generally pull off some feat of aesthetic worth. She shows him off to her gossipping, incestuous group of suburban cougar friends, one of whom actually becomes sexually interested in young Edward.

Why was Tim Burton hell-bent on making us feel as if Edward had been seamlessly integrated into the ideal suburban family, not despite his seformity, but perhaps because of it? Consider this: Burton purportedly envisioned this film on the basis of a single, telling sketch he made when he was still a teen, a troubled misfit growing up in suburban California. He himself has a very perceptive comment about this: "I get the feeling people just got this urge to want to leave me alone for some reason, I don’t know exactly why.." Burton, whose "freakiness" tended to err on the side of silence rather than cacophony (Caroline Thompson, the scriptwriter of the movie, said that Burton was "the most articulate person I've ever met who couldn't string together a sentence.") could not figure out why he was being ostracised. He must have stumbled intuitively upon the reason behind this (but in true Burton fashion, he couldn't express it well enough): that we, as a society do not know how to react to anybody who does not fit in with the mob; or rather we lack the capacity for a balanced reaction, and opt instead for a kind of perverse celebration, a morbid and ultimately tragic fascination that does none of the parties involved any good whatsoever.

To look at this in a broader way, one is tempted to plump for the easy option: that storytellers all over the world have been known to embellish, to paint their characters in such a way that we see nothing but extremes all around, to use caricature as a means of generalisation, to use the characters (and not the story) themselves as fuel for polarization and ultimately, confrontation. But this phenomenon, this cult of the "freak" or the "beautifully ugly" outsider is too conspicuous a phenomenon in world cinema to ignore. Some of the early examples include Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose 1970 film "El Topo" (The Mole) inspired filmmakers like David Lynch, who'd go on to make the delightful "The Elephant Man" based on the life of Joesph Merrick, a severely deformed 19th century London man. It is instructive to remember that although Lynch had, by that time, directed "Eraserhead", a future classic, it was only after he directed the Merrick biopic that he achieved mainstream success. To quote a desi example, "Meri Surat Teri Aanken" (1963) dealt with a character (played by Ashok Kumar) which had both the deformity and the otherwise desirable attributes, of Burton's Scissorhands.

The American writer Susan Sontag, in her seminal work "On Photography" painted an unforgettable portrait of Dianne Arbus, her celebrated compatriot and photographer, whose snapshots of dwarves, giants, gypsies, and other assorted "freaks" gained her fame and notoriety in equal measure. Sontag argued vehemently against the "ugly is beautiful" easy ironism which was much in vogue then, and which Arbus and others of her ilk exploited to the hilt. Arbus' suicide in 1971 was a poignant footnote to this debate, which already risks getting lost in a web of semantics. Were Arbus and the others really saying "Gee! Isn't that just the ugliest thing?" or were they really saying "I find that ugly thing to be so beautiful!" Sontag opted for the latter... and it falls upon each of us to make up our own minds, whether towards the literal, or the ironic.

But the fact of the matter is that irony, once a powerful device in the hands of master artists, risks dying a premature death because of lazy and indiscriminate usage (of which "Edward Scissorhands" is not, I repeat, not an example). David Foster Wallace, the virtuoso American writer whose microscopic examinations of the human condition make him one of the most important authors of recent times (and whose suicide in 2008, like that of Dianne Arbus, sent shockwaves through artistic circles everywhere) warned against the role of television, and the pitfalls of irony in fiction (it is worth noting that Wallace himself used several forms of irony in his fiction, often to devastating effect) in his essay "E Unibus Pluram". Wallace had this to say about postmodernism and its ulterior motives: "one can define postmodernism as it exists today thus: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean!" "

One feels that something of the kind is in play when one switches the television on to see, say the Wayans brothers pretending to be criminally inclined midgets, or Billy Bob Thornton play a thieving dwarf Santa, or John Travolta with his over-the-top interpretation of Hairspray, or even good old Tyra Banks slapping on a fatsuit in real life "just for kicks". If this is not enough, we have the altogether more sinister cult of reality TV shows like "The Biggest Loser" , "Beauty and The Geek" and others, which take this opportunity to parade people who are easy targets for being labelled "freaks" of sorts. Wallace further explains his thesis: "I want to convince you that irony, poker-faced silence, and fear of ridicule are distinctive of those features of contemporary U.S. culture (of which cutting-edge fiction is a part) that enjoy any significant relation to the television whose weird pretty hand has my generation by the throat. I'm going to argue that irony and ridicule are entertaining and effective, and that at the same time they are agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture, and that for aspiring fictionists they pose terrifically vexing problems".

In this respect, I should mention the odd beacon of hope, like Judd Apatow's TV series "Freaks and Geeks" which handled several issues of this kind (I distinctly remember a transgender storyline) with humour and sensitivity, aided of course by a more than capable cast including the amazing James Franco, the swaggering Seth Rogen and the ever-reliable Jason Segel. But as we all know, the show didn't quite click with the audience and was subsequently cancelled after just one season, all of 17 episodes.

Coming back to "Edward Scissorhands", it is actually Edwards's other, more conventionally "human" (I mean close to the image of an ideal young man, in a very Sooraj Barjatya kinda way, to borrow an altogether different cinematic metaphor) aspects that have been treated with a sense of bewilderment, disbelief even: What is it that makes him so kind, so unbearably, undeniably decent? What kind of freak does that anymore? Nobody is ready to believe Edward’s version of the events throughout the story. Even more disturbingly, every attempt which Edward makes to fit in, to be more like the strange creatures who inhabit the town in the guise of human beings, is nipped in the bud: one such attempt leads to his ultimate manhunt.

What does all of this mean for the future of cinema, and indeed all narrative art? One might be inclined to think that this is merely a business-like response to, rather than a direct descendant of, the prevailing populist sentiments of our time. But there is no doubt that we’re all at the risk of losing our way a little, because we just can’t seem to keep off the straight and narrow path. And if you think that last statement is ironic, Lord help you.

The Bohemian Anthem

2010-07-14T21:53:00.002+05:30

(While I generally take a more calculating, measured approach while writing prose, poetry is an excuse to let my hair down, so to speak. Whether it's my fondness for the great comedic poets like Ogden Nash, or Franklin Pierce Adams, or my general laziness, I'm not sure, but I'm generally more freewheeling when I'm writing poems. This one, for example was scribbled down when I was watching a yawn-inducing football match between Portugal and Brazil)

None can resist the call of the wild,
Good sense, logic and forethought, begone!
In each of us resides the Devil's child
Who bays and snarls till the crack of dawn.

You may walk the straight and narrow path,
("God bless" you say when you see me sneeze)
Fearful of incurring the Lord's wrath
Afraid of doing as you please.

Be warned though, it'll catch up with you
That imp of the perverse
Bearer of mischief, anarchy or just the truth
For better or for worse.

Best be rid then, of doubt and guilt,
That vicious pair, cursing, spitting bile
Give in to yourself, (just hear me out)
Because you know resistance is futile.

Karna's metamorphosis

2010-07-07T15:27:00.003+05:30

Yesterday, I read a whole bunch of poems by Indian authors via links on The Middle Stage, author Chandrahas Choudhury's excellent blog. One of them, "Moult" by Gieve Patel, really captured my imagination. Before you continue to read this article, here's the poem itself:

Moult

The sodden dripping weight which he moulted

and offered to the god who received it

in cupped hands—was it skin

really, or rather something amphibious,

half metallic scales, half mutely screaming

integument smelling of fish, while

flayed Karna shivered from a cold

he had never thought to endure, shivered

animal-like, a mere beast

prepared for the cooking pot;

and walked to the battlefield certain

to be pierced by the first lance

aimed at him. But the burden!

Amazingly it had lifted,

and might it not be one’s heart’s desire fulfilled

to die unrehearsed of lightness.

For the uninitiated, the incident from the Mahabharata being described here goes something like this: Before the battle of Kurukshetra started, Lord Indra, the king of the gods, and father of Arjuna, the mightiest of the Pandavas, started getting worried about the possible threat to his son's life, if he faced Karna. Now Karna, the son of the Sun-god, had been born with an armour (kavacha) and earrings (kundala) which were blessed by his father. These made him practically invincible. Indra, therefore planned to cash in on Karna's famed philanthropy (he had earned the epithet of daanveer, or the one who gave generously) by simply disguising himself as an old Brahmin and asking Karna for his armour. The Sun-god knew of Indra's intentions and was quick to warn Karna, but Karna, being the man that he was, obliged Indra, anyway, when the moment came. (Although not described in this particular poem, Indra was so impressed by Karna's gesture that he granted him a boon, upon which Karna asked for an amogh shakti, an unbeatable weapon.)

Now, the very first reason that this poem is fascinating is its basic premise: that what Karna gave away that day was quite literally, a part of his body. Note the use of words like "sodden" and "dripping" from the outset, to lend it an almost organic air. Every single edition of the Mahabharata I've ever read has coyly suggested this, cloaking it under various metaphorical blankets. The most common of these versions insists that the reason why Karna was so weakened and vulnerable after this act was that "the armour, on account of having been worn for so many years (Karna would never take it off) had stuck to his body, like a second skin."

What if it was literally a second skin?

Consider this: Karna and the five Pandavas were all born in the same way: Kunti would use a special mantra to summon any god she wanted to, and said God would then yield Kunti a son. The twins Nakula and Sahadeva were born when Kunti passed on the mantra to Madri. Why then, was Karna the only one abandoned? According to the Mahabharata, Kunti was terrified when the mantra worked for the first time, and plus, she was a maiden and not married. But the Karna-as-mutant theory would definitely explain this irregularity better: because Karna was the only one externally marked by the god's divinity, because he was the only one who you could look at and tell that this child was not a mere human; Kunti, afraid of social ostracism, and perhaps more than a little personal disgust, abandoned him. Was this another of the infamous "revisions" done to the Mahabharata done to make certain situations and characters look more "decent" or "human"? (The late Irawati Karve's magisterial book of essays on the Mahabharata, "Yuganta" abounds with examples of such possible "revisions")

The poem then continues to describe Karna as "flayed" while he "shivered with a cold/ he had never thought to endure" which clearly suggests that this is as unexpected and as brutal to Karna, as losing a limb would be to any of us. Patel, however, is not done yet, and he says that after this selfless act, Karna "shivered animal-like, a mere beast prepared for the cooking pot." The straightforward iterpretation of these lines is that the now-vulnerable Karna would be easily defeated and killed on the battefield. However, I think Patel has used both "animal" and "beast" to suggest that Karna, after shedding the elements which made him a mutant or a semi-divine entity, is now finally human, a "mere beast", so to speak. Referencing "Yuganta" once again, the author Irawati Karve argues that the central tragedy in Karna's life was his inner dilemma "Who am I?". According to the Mahabharata, Karna, a Kshatriya (the warrior-caste) by birth, was raised by a Suta (charioteer) family, and his foster parents had told him that they were not his biological parents, and that he had been found with a Kshatriya-like armour strapped on to his body.

It was because of this dilemma of Karna's that he found his judgement impaired, all-too often in crunch situations. Like Drauapdi's swayamvara, where he was berated for being lowborn, and he was not allowed to take part in the challenge. (This, by the way, is another one of the "revisions" I was talking about. This has been omitted in later versions of the Mahabharata.) "Yuganta" also says that this dilemma culminated in the final momets of Karna's life, when he was busy getting his chariot wheel out of the mud, and urged Arjuna to stop fighting until he had done so, calling upon the Kshatriya's code, a set of ethical war practices. But the omniscient Krishna, pointed out that Karna had not followed the same when he dishonoured Draupadi or when he took part in the unfair slaughter of Abhimanyu; and instigated Arjuna to kill the temporarily defenseless Karna. Karna died wondering "Who Am I?"

The caste-identity crisis which the Mahabharata wants us to believe, is an old one, and seems rather too simplistic for the otherwise complex and fascinating character of Karna. But if Karna was really confused about the infinitely more frightening and perplexing question of his humanity, I think it would make a lot more sense.

Patel acknowledges explicitly, towards the end of the poem that Karna is now destined to be killed swiftly in the battle. But then, he suggests something truly marvellous: consider the parting shot with which Patel leaves us

"But the burden!

Amazingly it had lifted,

and might it not be one’s heart’s desire fulfilled

to die unrehearsed of lightness."

Is he hinting that Karna deliberately cut off his "second skin" in order to settle, once and for all, the question of his humanity, or lack thereof? It would certainly seem so, as the last two lines suggest. I would definitely want Karna to finally take control of his identity and his destiny, even if his actions led to speedy and inevitable destruction. I think, if this were indeed the case, then Karna, after his metamorphosis, died what Albert Camus called "a happy death" .

Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho"

2010-07-05T13:04:00.002+05:30

(originally published here at passionforcinema.com)

Gus Van Sant has been, in my humble view, one of the most important filmmakers in the world, over the last twenty years or so. Although his career really took off after Good Will Hunting(1997), which garnered over 200 million at the box office, (as well as Oscar nods for the then-unknown Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for the screenplay, and a long-overdue one for Robin Williams as Best Supporting Actor) Van Sant’s first truly great film was “My Own Private Idaho” , which was released in 1991.

“My Own Private Idaho” is difficult to sum up in a few words. Indeed, to abbreviate it thus would be an exercise in futility. For it combines elements of the classic road film, high Shakespearean drama, the bildungsroman, and some which defy description, in a heady cocktail which stays with you long after the end credits start rolling. Starring River Phoenixand Keanu Reeves as a pair of young hustlers, it remains one of Van Sant’s finest films, and mind you, he has made some very fine ones indeed. Mike (River Phoenix) is a young gay hustler, who suffers from narcolepsy, a condition which causes him to fall asleep during stressful situations. He also has a troubled past, leading to his having frequent visions of his absentee mother. His best friend, Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves) is the son of a mayor, but chooses to live the life of a street hustler, hobnobbing with low-life urchins and petty thieves, one of which, Bob Pigeon (William Richert) becomes a mentor to him. Scott confides to Mike that he will inherit his father’s fortune when he turns 21. The crux of the film lies in the trip the two take, in order to find Mike’s mother, who he hasn’t seen in years. The trip makes the pair confront some uncomfortable truths about their lives and their relationship.

Due to his frequent narcoleptic episodes, Mike often wakes up to find himself in places he doesn’t remember going. Early on in the film Mike comments, “I can always know where I am by the road.. this here road.. there isn’t a road anywhere which is like this, I mean exactly like this. It’s one kind of place… one of a kind. Like a face… like a fucked-up face.” During the last part of the dialogue, we are seeing the road through Mike’s point of view, where he watches it in between his first and second fingers, and the shot zooms out to make it seem like we are watching it through a lens, or an ocular device, with the road converging to a point in the distance, the sky with clouds which are too picturesque, a clear reference to the standard ophthalmologist’s test which we take to check our eyesight. From the outset, the often conflicting and overlapping nature of narratives, depending upon the “impediment” which we place on them, (i.e. the different points of view) has been hinted at. That Mike is a classic drifter, is emphasized by the frequent shots of clouds speeding by overhead, a mechanism familiar to movie buffs, and one which would have been banal and superfluous in a lesser film.

But what really makes all this come together, and also plays a large part in making this the film that it is, has to be River Phoenix’s jaw-droppingly good performance as Mike. The gossamer vulnerability of Mike…. the way he aches for his long-lost mother, Phoenix makes it apparent, during the first fifteen or so minutes of the film, that he had gone under the skin of his character (a term used and abused by every Tom, Dick and Harry nowadays, on both sides of the ocean). When he begs an old client, a middle-aged man, for a few dollars more, we feel Mike’s quiet desperation. When he’s with the oddball street thieves, dancing away the blues, we see Mike and his presence for what it is, an elaborate self-parody. So involved was Phoenix during the production of the film, that he re-wrote a critical scene of the film( Van Sant did not have storyboarded scene sequences in any case, choosing to improvize, as he would a decade later, in the bleak desert drama, Gerry) where his character Mike professes his love for his best friend, Scott. Looking at this scene today, as well as the film in general, one cannot help but draw parallels with Heath Ledger. Two truly awesome talents, both making waves with their superlative, unusually sensitive portrayals of homosexual characters, both dying tragically early, from drug-related episodes. (Phoenix died, all of 23, in 1993, a couple of years after the release of “My Own Private Idaho” )

That doesn’t mean we take anything away from the brilliant Keanu Reeves. Yes, that’s right. I said “brilliant”. Over the years, Keanu Reeves has been one of the most criticized mainstream actors in Hollywood. Described variously as “plastic” , “stone-faced” and “cold” Reeves has faced a lot of flak, both for his style of acting, and for his choice of roles. The fact that he isn’t your typical Hollywood star didn’t help. (He’s fiercely private, doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and doesn’t take pains to go on well-televised PR trips) His story arc in this film placed him in the shoes of Henry V, upon whom his character is loosely based(the Shakespeare play Henry IV, both parts, is the basis, hence the rich father and the son who’d rather be a vagabond, a wastrel than to follow his father). Bob, his mentor, then is Falstaff, one of the unforgettable Shakespearean characters, a fat, flamboyant, cowardly fool, who leads the future king astray. In the superb sequences between Scott Favor(Reeves) and Bob(William Richert in a delightful cameo), most of which are taken directly, or in a slightly modified manner, from Shakespeare’s original text, Reeves turns in a razor-sharp performance, swaggering his way through the Bard’s inimitable puns, and the wordplays, barely breaking a sweat. Far from being plastic, this is Reeves finding his calling in Shakespeare.( He went on to play Hamlet, in a prominent theatrical production, to rave reviews, a few years later in 1995)

It is instructive to note that Gus Van Sant initially had separate scripts for each of the two main story arcs, i.e. Mike’s story and Scott’s(which was basically a modern-day retelling of the Henry IV plays). He then utilized the “cut-up” technique made famous by William S. Burroughs and his seminal 1959 novel “Naked Lunch” which is cited by many critics as one of the starting points of post-modernism in literature.(Yes, “cut-up” means exactly that: to cut up and rearrange an already existing text; Burroughs had previously co-written and appeared in Van Sant’s previous film“Drugstore Cowboy”) Overall, the film also has formal similarities with Burroughs’ work, the meandering storylines, the lack of a “resolution” or a denouement, and the fact that one could go through the individual segments in a different order, without affecting the efficacy of the narrative.

But obviously, as with Burroughs’ work, this did not go down well with a section of the critics, particularly those from the old school, so to speak. Richard Schickel, reviewing the film for TIME magazine, said “What plot it has is borrowed, improbably from Henry IV” (if borrowing from classical sources is such a heinous crime, then “Throne Of Blood” ,“Maqbool” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou”, should all stand in the dock), adding for good measure, that “even this is a desperate imposition on an essentially inert film” . Remember, it was the sagely TIME magazine which went on to include Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Devdas” in its Top Ten list for the year 2002, citing “the pretty frocks worn by Aishwarya Rai” as one of the stellar reasons behind its choice. Another critic said that “My Own Private Idaho” was (and I quote) “nothing but set-pieces, tossed into a mix whose meaning is almost certainly private”.

These are, almost certainly, the same critics who famously articulated the “Good Gus/Bad Gus conundrum” , attributing to Van Sant a schizophrenic output, which according to them, veered between the very, very good, and the absolutely horrid. Predictably, the films which they hold up as being examples of the Bad Gus persona of Van Sant turn out to be the ones which do not follow the Great Hollywood Plot (Elephant and Gerry are two such notable examples), the ones which are truly exuberant artistic expressions of a master, but are trashed because they defy genres and do not conform to stereotypes, thus making them tougher to “pin” down. Perhaps these critics do not understand that art is innately easier to understand then to describe.

“My Own Private Idaho” exhibits the assured yet playful brushstrokes of a master artist, who would go on to make the superb “Good Will Hunting” , the minimalist masterpiece “Elephant” (which was inspired by the Columbia high school massacre) and most recently “Milk” which has to be one of the films of the decade. He has continued to tinker with the medium, experimenting boldly, his cinematic instincts sharp as ever, and his buccaneering spirit intact.

Harvey Pekar's "The Quitter"

2010-07-02T15:53:00.005+05:30

Harvey Pekar has been the definitive working-class hero of the comics world over the last thirty years. His autobiographical series "American Splendor" , which started in 1976, ignited the underground comics movement which brought to prominence a whole generation of talented writers and artists and inspired many, many others like modern-day superstars like Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware. "American Splendor" was noted because of its focus on Pekar's everyday life, often featuring the ordinary, even mundane concerns of Pekar, who worked as a file clerk all his life (even after he became famous), his family and his neighbourhood. Followers of the series lapped it up, fascinated as Pekar's no-holds-barred, bare-all approach gave the comics a hitherto unseen gritty edge, and a realistic feel which was conspicuously absent in the superhero-dominated mainstream comics world inhabited by giants like Marvel Comics. His divorce, his struggles with cancer, his exasperation with brain-dead Hollywood producers..... all these and more were incorporated into the books, delivered with Pekar's trademark bitter, satirical voice, and his fierce appreciation of the trials of the underdog.

"The Quitter" was released in 2005, under the Vertigo imprint of DC comics, a label which had been producing a judicious mix of conventional comics like Hellblazer and Swamp Thing, along with some seminal works like Neil Gaiman's acclaimed Sandman series, and Alan Moore's V For Vendetta. It focusses chiefly on the pre- American Splendor Pekar, (although towards the end, we are given a glimpse into the making of the iconic series) specifically on his own impetuous nature, and his tendency to take failure hard.

From the first panel itself, it's clear that this is Pekar in a different, more playful avatar. To this end, the decision to rope in young upstart Dean Haspiel (who has worked with Pekar in the past on recent "American Splendor" books) was a masterstroke. In the very first page, Haspiel shows a bitter, wary Pekar, seemingly making a hurried exit, but then stops on an afterthought and says, nonchalantly, "I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, five weeks after the start of World War II... for what it's worth to anyone.." and then disappears to let the story unfold.

Pekar's childhood is portrayed in a very evocative manner, as Haspiel's crisp, sharp caricatures while drawing Pekar's Polish Jew immigrant family, segue smoothly into free-flowing curves, and cinematic, wide-angle action portraits of the frquent scraps that young Harvey gets into. In fact, the latter reminded me a lot of Eduardo Risso's superb, hard-as-nails depiction of ghetto neighbourhood fistfights in the Vertigo series "100 Bullets" , with which he made his name. Pekar himself delivers a few resounding punches, like the scene where he admits to feeling a dark, vindictive pleasure at thrashing a kid, with little provocation; a sort of karmic payback for all the times he'd been beaten up by groups of black kids in his old neighbourhood.

Pekar has always been a huge supporter of comic books as an art medium, exemplified by his now-famous assertion (which makes an entry here as well), "Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures." He also has noted, on occasion, the many similarities between comic books and movies, asserting that comics could achieve everything that movies have, till date. This "cinematic approach" is prominently on display, both in the frequent appearances of the adult Pekar, offering bitter homilies about the many mistakes he committed in his youth. He serves as a narrator, a peddler of after-the-event wisdom as well as a kind of deliberate de-lineating device, pointing out among other things, that "things do not always change all that much" which has been a recurring theme of the American Splendor series as well.

In a particularly striking sequence, the young Harvey is advised by his mothers to apologize to the kids who'd been bugging him, and were subsequently beaten up by Harvey. She advises him to compromise because "sometimes it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, as long as you get along with your friends". The young Harvey notes the irony of the situation, because his mother was supporting Henry Wallace, the under-fire Communist-backed presidential candidate at the time, and zealously at that. His internal monologue in this regard (see picture) has been shown depicted brilliantly by Haspiel, who deserves full points here.

The pace of the book mirrors Harvey's growth as a person. At first the frequent rants against errant coaches, unhelpful parents or snooty kids get a bit repetitive, but the story gets a shot in the arm as Harvey starts his final year in high school, and the burden of the approaching future starts getting too much for him to handle. In one of his appearances as the present-day Pekar, he confesses that all these years later, he is still every bit as insecure as ever, worrying about bad reviews, the dipping sales of his comics... you name it. In a very interesting move, Haspiel draws a starkly different, wraith-like Pekar, eyeballs popping out, wrinkles grossly overdone, perhaps to show the effect negativity and worry has upon a man. This is just one of the many artistic flourishes which can be seen every now and then in "The Quitter", both in the writing and in the artwork.

This is classic Pekar fare, enhanced both by his own increased maturity and his famed proclivity for taking artistic risks. In Dean Haspiel, he has a worthy partner-in-crime, and one can only hope that we see more of him in the days to come. It is important to mention here that "American Splendor" boasts of a tremendous ensemble of artists who made it big as comic book creators in their own right. Apart from Robert Crumb, who went on to become the patron saint of the underground comics movement, as well as a prominent counterculture figure, the series boasted of names like Alison Bechdel (whose 2006 graphic memoir "Fun Home" made it to the NYTimes Best Books Of The Year List), Gilbert Hernandez( co-creator with his brothers Jaime and Mario of the amazing and iconic "Love and Rockets" series, one of my all-time favourite comic books), Chester Brown ("Ed The Happy Clown"), Jim Woodring, Gary Dumm and Eddie Campbell (artist of "From Hell" , writer Alan Moore's magnum opus and one of the most important graphic novels of all time.)

Harvey Pekar remains one of the most important comic-book creators around, and in his own words, he hopes to "bring out "American Splendor" for as long as I can".

Amen.

Seven For The Summer

2010-06-28T15:42:00.002+05:30

It's been a long lazy summer as usual, and the reasons I've been away from the keyboard are simple: First, there were too many great books left unread, and long overdue.... well, summer's sweet that way. Second, I seem to have shifted my loyalties to the old-school methods: namely, those consisting of a largeish diary, and a really fast ballpoint pen. (The latter have yielded half-a-dozen stories over the past two months or so, let's see how soon I overcome my inertia and type them down...) Managed to finish about two dozen books which had been staring at me guiltily over the bookshelf.... and believe it or not, I still have about a dozen unread! (I do have about two weeks left before college starts again... ah well...) Following are some of the highlights of the summer, in all matters literary:

1. Oblivion- David Foster Wallace - Where does one begin to describe a man like David Foster Wallace? Perhaps the most succinct description came from an NYTimes article somewhere in the eary 90's, when Wallace, not yet 30, was already the toast of the literary world, following the release of "Infinite Jest" , his massive 1079 page postmodernist tome, which apart from many other oddities, was about a film so entertaining that anyone who saw it lost interest for everything else, literally being entertained to death. The article said that "Wallace is a genius who happened to be a writer, not the other way around..."

Drawing from the tradition of the spiralling, metafictional , sprawling narratives of Thomas Pynchon(he'll make an appearance very soon in this article), John Barth(whose "Lost In The Funhouse" is as entertaining a collection of shorts as you'll ever come across) and William Gaddis, DFW captured the imagination of critics and readers across America, with his cruelly accurate insights into pop cultural cliches, and the little tyrannies of our everyday lives. Having made his mark with his Big Novel, he began to redefine the way the shorter format is perceived with his stunning collection "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men". I read the book this January, and watched the excellent John Krasinski adaptation, and was sufficiently moved to concentrate my energies over the next month to bring forth a stage adaptation, which was a tremendous high for me, acting in and directing something my hero wrote.

Oblivion, Wallace's last completed book (before he hung himself in 2008) is destined to be a future classic, and Wallace's inimitable style is on ample display here: the ferocious intellect, the deadpan humour, the juxtaposition of pop cultural elements, both high and low, and of course, his signature serial digresser tendencies, choc-a-bloc with footnotes, which are sometimes more extensive than the main text itself. One story "Good Old Neon" (which I believe is available online) in particular is an eerie, yet darkly funny account of a suicidal man and his own stock-taking of his life.

2. A Suitable Boy- Vikram Seth - This book and I have had a tedious, sometimes edgy relationship even before I read it. When I was sixteen, I had first thought I was ready for Seth's best known work, having enjoyed "The Golden Gate" his virtuoso verse-novel, and his various travel writings. That was five years ago. But everytime the sixteen-year old me stepped into a bookshop, I found myself troubled by two observations: One, operating on a limited budget, I could buy two, sometime three novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a writer I had just discovered then (I was tremendously enamoured then, as I am today, only thing is, I've read most of his stuff now ), at the same price. And second, yes at times I was overawed by the sheer size of it, 1349 pages daring me to take the challenge. In my defence, I was preparing myself for a gruelling two years then, trying to get into IIT.

So, for these somewhat farcical reasons, I'd steered clear of Seth's whopper of a book so far. This time though, it was the first book with which I kicked off the summer( and what a summer it has been!). I suppose the best compliment one can give to A Suitable Boy is quite simply, that it is massively entertaining. It does not comprise of a single uninteresting sentence. And that, in itself, is no mean feat, across 1300 odd pages, and topics ranging from the Partition of India, the controversial land reforms in the 1950s, the decline of the erstwhile princely states of the country, Hindu-Muslim conflicts, the relative merits of the English and the traditional methods of shoemaking(this has actually been given quite an extended run in the book!) and the proper way to maintain a good garden in an Indian summer.

A Suitable Boy deserves all the hype, and enthusiasm it received, both in India, and in the West, when it was first published, nearly two decades ago. It was said about Joyce's Ulysses( a book Seth criticized in an interview for being overblown and unreadable, by the way) that one could recreate Dublin from scratch, just by reading it. Well, the same thing can be said of A Suitable Boy, and the unforgettable portrait of 1950's India it paints.(not just Purva Pradesh, Seth's literary alter for Uttar Pradesh, but also Calcutta) Seth channelizes the spirit of Tolstoy, Austen and Dickens, to name but a few masters of yore, with not just his purity of style, but the shining sincerity of his ruminations. Think Rushdie's scope and vision, but stripped away of the excesses he's often guilty of, and filled instead with the gentle humour of R.K. Narayan; the polished erudition of a Milan Kundera or an Umberto Eco married with the easy likeability of a Wodehouse. This is the kind of book which has the depth and the comprehensiveness of a whole, magnificent body of work. I began to read it, thinking I'd give it as much time as it demands, but ended up limiting myself to 100 pages a day max, for fear of finishing it too quickly! P.S. Seth has a sequel, "A Suitable Girl" lined up for 2013!

3. A Mercy - Toni Morrison - From the biggest book on the list(indeed, on any list for that matter), we move on to the smallest. This slim volume from Nobel Laureate Morrison (weighing in at a svelte 160 pages) has seventeenth century America as its setting. Slavery, and the crushing of the human spirit, the difficult and sometimes unimaginable choices one has to make in the toughest of situations; these are some of the epic themes Morrison covers, many of which she has dealt with in the past, in a masterly manner, with "Beloved" which is one of the most celebrated American works of the last century.

A Mercy can be called a sequel, or perhaps prequel(a term much in vogue these days, mostly due to Hollywood head honchos short on inspiration but big on enthusiasm) in spirit to Beloved, but it is rather different in tone. I believe Morrison has absolutely no peers when it comes to delivering loaded, crushing one-liners immediately following a pregnant pause or a especially tense or poignant showdown.

In the past, she has been called Shakespearean for the stark emotionality of her plots and her penchant for supremely lyrical dialogue. Here, the lyrical flights of fancy have been toned down somewhat, but the sheer tautness of the book, and its ominous overtones make for a compelling read. Make no mistake, this is the mature work of a master supremely secure of her skill, and on top of her game.

4. Moth Smoke- Mohsin Hamid - I had previously read and enjoyed "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" , Hamid's wickedly clever post 9/11 cautionary tale, which had remarkable restraint over its plot, giving away just the right amounts at every stage, and ended on a thrilling note, all the while exploring the culture of mutual distrust which has taken root in the deeply polarised world we live in today. In the process of reading more about Hamid, I came across Moth Smoke, which was Hamid's debut novel. (At Princeton, he had enrolled in a course taught by Toni Morrison, and apparently she had given her blessings to the first finishded draft of Moth Smoke, writing in the margins her own thoughts and suggestions!) Moth Smoke's protagonist Darashikoh, or Daru, as he is known to his friends, traces a rollercoaster ride, a journey which can only be described as a bildungsroman in reverse, as his decline is brought about by his penchant for heroin and his ill-advised liasion with his best friend's wife.

But this is no blood-and-guts noir gorefest. This is murder with a silk scarf(a phrase I once read in an article about Rahul Dravid scoring a half-century in 20-odd balls in a one-day match), as Hamid dissects the nature of obesession, jealousy and despair. I felt that one problem with Hamid in The Reluctant Fudamentalist was that at times, he took the background and the political aspects of his work a trifle heavy-handedly. In this respect, Moth Smoke scores over its successor, as Hamid's light touch and devastating satire do not desert him anywhere, whether he is talking about the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor, or about the disconnect in mindsets between the nascent generation of yuppies in Lahore, as opposes to the fundamentalist youth (called "fundos" in the book). A passage where Daru, at first disdainful about the "fundos" , gradually softens up and says carelessly at the end "they're right of course, in their own way.." is a dark precursor of both Daru's own decline and Hamid's ever-growing concerns in this direction which are explored at length in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. At any rate, Hamid along with Aravind Adiga, signals exciting times ahead for subcontinental literature, despite what naysayers like Hanif Kureishi would have you believe.

5. Collected Stories- Saul Bellow - The enfant terrible of British literature, Martin Amis, commented once that Saul Bellow was "the greatest writer America has ever produced". Now, Amis is quite niggardly with praise at the best of times. So we can safely claim that Amis had been genuinely moved. James Wood , one of the most respected critics in the business, and another lifelong admirer of Bellow, wrote in his foreword to the edition I have, " I compared all modern prose to his, perhaps a tad unfairly. For before him, even the fleet-footed, the Updikes, the Roths, and the DeLillos seemed like monopodes." I had previously read Bellow's novella "Seize The Day" and while impressed with the dazzling prose and the philosophical digressions and arguments put forth, the book seemed a trifle didactic to me at times, and even though it was a slim book, tedious in portions.

No such troubles here. This is the collection of a lifetime, as we are treated to 13 of the best, selected by the master himself. Some of the stories often seem like stillborn novels(this volume does in fact include two of his works which were originally released as novels) , but that is part of their charm as Bellow casts a piercing eye to even the most banal of things and turns it into a mirror, reflecting our most insidious weaknesses, and sometimes our most redeeming qualities. Bellow is a writer capable of laugh-out loud humour and cruelly honest introspection in the twinkle of an eye. His characters are often high intellectuals with hollow inner lives, or down-on-luck losers who have an epiphanic experience, which is not always uplifting or redeeming, but always fascinating in a subtly cerebral way. Jewishness and the American experience, while they do feature prominently in his work, do not quite overwhelm it, like say, Philip Roth. In this, as in many other respects, Bellow is the perfect marriage of the intrinsically local and the obviously universal. Add to this his physical descriptions of his larger-than-life characters and the visual aspect of his writing (sample this: "His baldness was total, like a purge" OR " A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance, when the need for illusion is deep." ) , and he makes for a compelling reading experience.

6. Naked Lunch- William S. Burroughs - Some commentators believe that the origin of postmodernism in literature can be traced back to the exact moment that William S.Burroughs released "Naked Lunch". Such was the impact of this path-breaking novel. Although at first, the term "novel" itself seemed inaccurate, and maybe even inadequate to describe this work. A series of vignettes about the travels of William Lee, junkie, a.k.a The Agent, from U.S. to Morocco, to some places not on the map at all, strictly speaking, like the psychedelic "Interzone" , Burroughs had written these segments separately in a drug-induced haze, and used the now famous "cut-up" technique to assemble the book with the help of his friend, the legendary poet Allen Ginsberg.

A nightmarish journey about the horrors of addiction, the fascism of authority figures and the smothering of personal freedom are some of the major topics Burroughs touches upon. He incorporated elements of pastiche and science fiction, especially, in the otherwise uber-gritty narrative, which alternates between "hard" realism and phantasmagoric imagery, leaving the reader spellbound. One of his unforgettable characters, Dr. Benway, is the most wickedly funny caricature you'll ever see: dripping saccharine, utterly unscrupulous, and charmingly operatic, Benway is the kind of doctor who'll smash your kneecaps with a sledge-hammer and then ask, pearly white teeth shining, "Did that hurt?"

Burroughs enjoyed iconic stature as a counter-culture messiah for several decades (interesting factoid: the band Steely Dan takes its name from a character in Naked Lunch), until his death in 1997. I look forward to reading his other works, especially Cities Of The Red Night.

7. Mason & Dixon- Thomas Pynchon -- Thomas Pynchon, one of the leading lights of American literature, renowned not only for his big, ambitious, jaw-droppingly diverse narratives, like Gravity's Rainbow, or the more recent Against The Day; but also for his famously reclusive nature. I'd earlier read "The Crying Of Lot 49" which is perhaps his most accessible book, and also quite short compared to his other work, including Mason & Dixon.

But after nearly 800 pages, I can tell you that it's well worth the effort, for Pynchon weaves elements of classic adventure stories, the Victorian social novel with his postmodernist sensibilities and his treasure trove of allusions from astronomy, philosophy, literature both popular and obscure, trade practices, little-known dialects, etymology (this seems to be one of his pet peeves, actually), nautical science..... it goes on and on. Critics of Pynchon complain that his novels are way too dense, overwritten, arcane and unreadable. But to them, I say, "You're missing the point". For beneath all this, Pynchon is a terrific humorist, a formidable intellect with an unerring ear for dialogue, and above all, more than capable of spinning a bloody good yarn.

In Mason & Dixon, Pynchon weaves a fable of the two astronomers who met on a scholarly mission to map the transit of Venus, at the Cape Of Good Hope in South Africa, but ended up being the architects of the ubiquitous Mason-Dixon Line in America, which is now a cultural line demarcating the erstwhile slavery states. This is a book which demands a lot from the reader by way of attention to detail, but delivers rich dividends. I have the massive "Against The Day" as well, on my shelf, and I look forward to a new adventure there(although not just now, actually: I finished Mason and Dixon yesterday... and am in no shape to start another 1200 pages of Pynchonalia :P )

Honourable Mention: Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr.Norrell" , (an unusual, thrilling mix of fantasy and social satire) , Alexander McCall Smith's "2 1/2 Pillars Of Wisdom" trilogy (at his best, Smith manages to evoke memories of both Wodehouse and Narayan), Douglas Adams' "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" (no explanations needed!) Jess Winfield's "My Name Is Will" (a superb coming-of-age tale about "sex, drugs and Shakespeare" as written on the cover), "Yuganta" a book of bold and insightful essays, by Irawati Karve about the Mahabharata , and finally "Seven 6s are 43", the 1974 debut novel of Kiran Nagarkar, who gave us the wonderful "Cuckold", yet remains one of India’s most underrated authors.

The Time Of The Voyeur

2010-03-26T18:10:00.001+05:30

Chronicling one's own existence and the endless meanderings thereof are a time-tested method of taming one's inner voyeur.

This space has been lying idle for quite a while now, and on a stormy evening, this is all I can come up with by way of explanation for its recall.

The past few months have been eventful enough, not the least because I re-discovered the delights of writing old-school, scribbling away in quiet nooks and crannies, watching everything, speaking nothing. But why the voyeur? Is a writer simply a very dignified onlooker, seeking his jollies in the vagaries and the foibles of those around him? This question actually signalled a very significant shift in the literary mores of the past century, when the writer learnt that detachment from the world he created around him was simply not gonna cut it, and the world was as much a product of the act of his watching it, as his own perception. And it most certainly has signalled a shift in my own thought process.

The past few months has produced four fragments, which are still not the way I envisioned them to be inside my head.. but I have been told they do not suck too badly. Let's hope I find the drive to publish them here, soon...

Although there have been several books in the past few months which have captured my imagination, like Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News" , Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End Of The World", "Bluebeard's Egg" by Margaret Atwood, "Herzog" by Saul Bellow, "Pnin" by Vladimir Nabokov, "A Mercy" by Toni Morrison... the ones leaving the deepest imprint were "Oblivion" and "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men", both short-story collections by the scaringly brilliant David Foster Wallace, whose tragic suicide at 46, left the literary community heartbroken in late 2008. The latter was recently adapted for the screen by John Krasinski, and was a big hit at the Sundance film festival. I cannot recommend the book, as well as the movie(of the same name) highly enough.

Cabin 30B

2009-11-12T15:19:00.002+05:30

"I do not like hospitals" .... this is a bit like saying "I do not like a friggin' boil on my ass" .... but very honestly... there is something in those long corridors and the swathes of whiteness which creeps me out. I am hardly the first to express discomfort at an encounter with mortality, and I'm sure I won't be the last.... the thing is, when you're 20, you have a very well-constructed veneer of invincibility around you..... and when the illusion shatters from time to time.... well, confrontation can be... tricky, if you get my drift. The past month, in a set of weird coincidences, four of my close friends had to visit the horror house for myriad accidents and illnesses, and I found myself waiting in those long corridors far too many times for my liking.

"Cabin 30-B"

What do you do when the talk dries up?

When all you're left with is silence,

The stillness in white, and before you

The devouring endless night?

How do you define loss?

Would it be better if she were snatched from you,

Suddenly, and with an iron fist

The matter settled before you resist?

"We can manage her pain" , they say

As if it were a simple chore,

A minor inconvenience, a sleight-of-hand

And all the while, the hours slip by like sand.

You nod your head, as if it were a trifle

The choking lump which you tried to stifle,

In your throat, growing, rising

To the surface, threatening to give way.

Sudden surge of faith, you pray

For strength, and the will to stay

By her side, and be the one

You ought to be.

Little did you know, 'tis all a haze,

You fooled no one with your show-and-tell

And least of all her, a simple gaze

Did crack the facade, how the mighty fell!

She looks at you with a reassuring smile

And takes your hand, "It's okay, you know,

To be afraid, to show your fear

It's a phony man, who knows not a tear.

The gods themselves do envy us

And play their games, so mischievous

For we, with our wondrous fragility

Outshine their immortal misery.

Our love does shine in a brighter light

And these fleeting moments which are given us,

Than any divine eternal sight,

For 'tis Fate's hand, so ravenous

That brings us this sweet parting... "

Riddle me this, ye wise old men?

If you remember, tell me when

Was the last time you heard or read

Of the Dying consoling the Dead?

I

2009-11-05T01:25:00.004+05:30

I wasn't brought up with a silver spoon

I knew I would strike gold on my own

I never asked anyone to break my fall

I knew one day I would soar above them all

I did not fall in with the crowd

I knew they would turn to me in the end

I was asked to wear faces like masks

I knew I had to look in the mirror someday

I was asked to fall in line more than once

I knew exactly where that line ended

I was told about caution and prudence

I chose integrity and passion

I was expected to wither, to crash and burn

I was sorry to disappoint them

I am everything I could be

I choose to be everything I can be

Today is the first day

Of the rest of my life.

“Unbreakable” and The Three Shyamalans

2009-07-15T17:28:00.000+05:30

It has been well-established by now, that there are at least two individuals who go by the name of Manoj Night Shyamalan. The first is the maverick auteur, the Hitchcock of modern times, the writer-director of stunning films like “The Sixth Sense” , “Unbreakable” and “Signs” . Following the release of the latter, it is widely believed that aliens abducted said auteur and carried out horrific genetic experiments on him, turning him into the second Shyamalan, the peddler of cheap thrills, the maker of pseudo-profound commentaries on society( The Village) and fourth rate fantasy penny-dreadfuls like The Lady In The Water. This second Shyamalan liked to feud with Hollywood studio bosses who wouldn’t let him cast himself in key roles.

There are those, of course, who believe that the two Shyamalans are merely figments of the gullible public’s imagination, and that the real Shyamalan is the third one, the figure who has carefully cultivated an air of mystique about himself, with wild rumours ranging from the Hitchcockian (apparently a big black bird can be seen following him around), to the conspiratorial (they say that Shyamalan drowned in a childhood accident, and this one is really a ghost. So there.)

But I digress. No matter which Shyamalan you take to be genuine, I for one would choose to dwell upon some of his earlier masterpieces rather than curse him for his current sorry state.For me, Shyamalan reached his pinnacle as a writer and a director with “Unbreakable”. I know this might seem strange, given the long shadow cast by “The Sixth Sense”. The story basically involves a crippled comic-book collector(Samuel L. Jackson) trying to convince a security guard with a bad marriage(Bruce Willis) that he is, in fact a superhero. But as I shall elaborate, “Unbreakable” had quite a few remarkable things about it, which made it into a cross-genre, quirky-yet-believable SF film.

The first was the mythological aspect of the script. Shyamalan put forth a very compelling argument for comic-books as a sort of unbroken historical chain of information. At the time I saw the film, I was not the comic-book maniac that I am now. But when I saw the film again recently, some of the more daring statements about the art of comic-books resonated strongly with me. If you’ve ever read the so-called “Silver Age” superhero comics of the 60’s , you’ll know exactly what I mean. Take a character like Captain America for example. The story arcs of this hugely popular character have functioned as a virtual barometer of public sentiment over state policy down the years. While the Captain punched Hitler in the 40’s , in the wake of the outrage over Watergate, the Captain lay down his shield and helmet in shame. This was a masterstroke at the screenplay level, one which elevated it beyond the realm of the conspiracy theory or the urban legend. Coupled with the spooky dialogue delivery of Samuel L. Jackson, an inspired casting choice for the role of Elijah the cripple; the overall effect is chilling indeed. Elijah has been born with osteogenesis imperfect, a rare condition which causes his bones to be extremely brittle. He believes that there must be someone at the other extreme as well, someone who is invulnerable, unbreakable.

The second aspect was that of Shyamalan’s endlessly fascinating usage of light and space. The first scene of the film involves the birth of the Elijah character on a train. The claustrophobic nature of the train, accentuated with a huge mirror, serves well the template for the moment where the doctor announces that the baby was born with broken arms and legs. Also, late in the film, there is a scene where Bruce Willis, who is afraid of water, is almost drowns while struggling with a huge tarpaulin. The technical work and visual artistry on display here is simply staggering. Shyamalan is one of the great indoor directors of our time. He has a highly acute sense of the power exercised by the four walls, of the paranoia and the primal fear which can be depicted indoors(Signs is an excellent example of this, too, as is The Sixth Sense…remember the famous sequence featuring the young Mischa Barton playing a dead girl?)

I didn’t really like “The Usual Suspects” despite the most famous plot twist in cinematic history. The reason being, a)You feel kinda cheated about the previous two hours and b)The “twist” doesn’t really chime well with the remainder of the plot, and is as such not integral to the ethos of the story. Five smartass minutes do not a movie make.

This is where “Unbreakable” works wonders. As I don’t want to spoil the story for first-timers, I won’t discuss it at length, but I will say is that the “twist” is, in this case central to the cascading mythos of the whole film, as well as being thoroughly satisfying on its own. The third aspect, then, is the ubiquitous Shyamalan twist which was better than ever before.

While Shyamalan’s film haven’t been typically known for exceptional performances(I think Mel Gibson’s performance in Signs was perhaps the best of the lot), Jackson and Willis bring in their experience into play, turning in solid outings. And who better to play an ‘unbreakable” man than Bruce Willis? The scene where Willis tries to lift increasing amounts of weight to try and test his limits is comical, with a dangerous undertone, something which Willis pulls off quite well, in the end.

Alas, this brilliance was to be short-lived, and the other two Shyamalans would soon take charge, leaving in their wake whispered dialogues, insipid plots, multiple Razzie nominations(and two wins, for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor for Shyamalan in “The Lady In The Water”) and bemused critics.
So, the jury is out on when the first Shyamalan decides to grace us with his presence once more. Watch this space for updates.

Out And Proud: 377 Overruled

2009-07-02T14:14:00.003+05:30

After 62 years of wilful ignorance, the Indian Government has finally seen the light. Delhi High Court today finally struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes gay sex. This ruling today came after years of campaigning, parades and lobbying from intellectuals.

Section 377 was written in 1877, during the British Raj, and was representative of the prudish Victorian mores of the age. The gay population of the capital overflowed onto the streets today, as the historic decision came after years of ostracism and victimisation for them. Overcoming the social taboo is quite another thing, but this is a brilliant start. Gay rights activist Lesley Ashley said on NDTV today, "When I grew up, it seemed to me that I was the only (gay) person." She added, "Today, our nation has taken a huge step to being more of a liberal democracy."

As expected, religious spokespersons from all around the country have reacted strongly against this ruling. The Deoband School of Islam has been quick to declare that homosexuality is a sin and is "against the tenets of any religion, not just Islam." (note the sudden solidarity with other religions here..... lesser evil and all that, I guess.) Spokespersons from the Catholic Church have found the decision to be "shocking and disappointing." They said that "Indian society" would face the repurcusions of the decisions soon.

This confidence of the Catholic Church in "Indian society" and its inevitable rejection of today's ruling is interesting, given that the Church itself has come under fire recently over sordid tales of rampant sexual abuse and corruption.

A Few Good Ones: Lit-Adaptation Wishlist

2009-06-15T23:50:00.001+05:30

(Originally published here on passionforcinema.com)

“Thou, of the blogger’s faith, shalt not revert to the “list” post, ‘cept if ye haven’t banged thine keyboard for a while, or the Indian cricket team has been knocked out of the World Cup, or both….”
– The Underground Bible Of Bloggers

Seeing as both of the above criteria are fulfilled, I think I’ve got this covered. I remember reading in a PFC article about how “The White Tiger” was voted the most “filmable” among a host of recent books in a film festival not long ago.(There ye go, Danny Boyle!) That set me thinking about some of the books I read(or re-read!) in the past few weeks, which are on my silver-screen wishlist. This is in no particular order, with little rhyme or reason, except for an effort on my part to make the list as varied as possible, as far as genre is concerned.

1. Netherland- Critics around the world hailed Joseph O’ Neill’s 2008 novel as a post 9/11 masterpiece, or alternatively as a masterly post-colonial interpretation of “The Great Gatsby”. Call it what you will, but “Netherland” is poignant, precise and hauntingly effective at revealing the many pitfalls of relationships and the ultimately fickle nature of mankind. The story revolves around a Dutch banker Hans Van der Boek whose personal life takes a tumble after 9/11, and his uneasy frriendship with Chuck Ramkissoon, an entrepreneur with stars in his eyes, who wants to set up a cricket enterprise in New York. My choice for director would be Robert Zemeckis, with Ewan McGregor and Forest Whitaker as Van Der Boek and Ramkissoon, respectively.

2. The Reluctant Fundamentalist- Young American of Pakistani origin works in a hotshot financial firm, settles down into the yuppie shell…..and when the two towers collapse on the TV, he just laughs. Intrigued? Mohsin Hamid’s slim novel packs quite a lot of narrative punch in its 180-odd pages, and maintains to keep us all on the edge. Mira Nair has expressed interest in this one, and I hope she does get to be the one who dons the director’s hat for this film. As for the role of Changez, the Princeton-educated Lahore boy…. it is a tremendously subtle role, and one which requires some serious head scratching on the part of the director…as far as physical attributes are concerned, Neil Nitin Mukesh comes to mind.

3. The Zoya Factor- After two very literary novels, the next one on my list is firmly in the realm of what is popularly called “chick-lit” . Anuja Chauhan’s debut novel chronicles the adventures of Zoya Solanki, a girl born on the exact moment of India’s World Cup victory, the deal being, whenever she has breakfast with the team on the eve of a match, we win. So there. Despite such an obviously contrived backdrop and some pretty standard chick-lit set-pieces, the author raises quite a few laughs with its caricatures of Indian cricketers, bureaucrats and numerology-toting holy men. Following the release of Billu Barber, the Internet was strife with reports of Red Chillies Productions, SRK’s banner producing the film. Let’s hope Shah Rukh’s second innings with cricket goes slightly better than the first….till then “Korbo, lorbo, jitbo re!”

4. The Plot Against America- Philip Roth imagines an America where Charles Lindbergh has defeated Roosevelt in the 1940 elections, and the resulting rise of anti-semitism in America. The lingering questions posed by the master novelist are tough to answer, as Roth turns his microscope towards the America which voted for George W. Bush not once, but twice. (If you ask me, this is almost as outrageous as the alternate history devised by Roth.) To capture the escalating paranoia and tension, I would go for Steven Spielberg(this has nothing to do with his being a Jew). On an unrelated note, another Roth adaptation to hit the screen recently is “Elegy”( starring Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz) based on Roth’s 2001 novel, “The Dying Beast” a poignant tale about love, the fear of ageing and its inevitable physical toll.

5. After Dark- In a world of acolytes and factory-made zombies posing as writers, Haruki Murakami is a bona fide original. He has his influences, but he leaps beyond them to create a dazzling palette all of his own. This eerie tale of two sisters, one of whom is mysteriously in a month-long coma-like sleep, is a classic Murakami tale, with themes of urban loneliness and a gripping sense of unease and alienation. For this film, I would choose stylistic chameleon Ang Lee as director, or alternatively, David Lynch, because as I was reading the novel, scenes from Mulholland Drive were flashing through my head, for some strange reason I am yet to fathom…..

6. The Sandman- I could go on for ages(and pages) talking about this comic-book series….and it still wouldn’t be adequate. Suffice to say that British writer Neil Gaiman revolutionized the way comic-books are perceived(with all due respect to Alan Moore!). Erudite, complex both visually and literally, and constantly pushing the bar ever higher, Gaiman helped usher in a new wave of “comic-books for intellectuals” as Norman Mailer, the grand old man of American letters described Sandman. On the surface, Sandman is about the adventures of Morpheus, the Dream Lord who controls the Dreaming, and his siblings Death, Despair, Destiny and others, known as the Endless. But really, Sandman is about the power of the human imagination, and the myriad landscapes the mind draws to often blur the line between fact and fiction. Drawing on mythologies and historical figures of several lands, as well as Western canonical literature, films and pop culture, Sandman is as “essential” as Lord Of the Rings. No surprises, then that my choice for director would be Peter Jackson. (Neil Gaiman himself stated that he would like the potential director to be “as obesessed as Peter Jackson was with Tolkien’s works.)

7. Preacher- Irish comic-book writer Garth Ennis wrote this mature comic-book series under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics, known for its quote-unquote serious titles. But for once, the hype was justified. The series is a scathing critique of religious conservatism, and the modern uber-American identity. Stylistically influenced by old-school cowboy westerns(it even has John Wayne as a character, which is an apparition guiding the hero, who in turn is a very Waynesque character.), Preacher kicks some serious ass, and is among the wittiest comic-books I’ve read. In January, Columbia Pictures finalised the film rights, with Sam Mendes, whose work I greatly admire, directing!

To round off the list, I would like to draw the reader’s attention towards “Between The Assasinations”, Aravind Adiga’s second book, a collection of short stories set in a fictional South Indian town called Kittur, and as is obvious from the titles, chronicles the time between the assasinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. These sketches from small-town India, often characterized by Adiga’s acerbic wit and black humour, manage to capture the zeitgeist of the mid 80’s India very well. I found it a kind of a twisted riposte to “Malgudi Days” which had charming little vignettes which were gentle even in their criticism. In my opinion, it is a far superior work than “The White Tiger” which had periods of brilliance marred by hackneyed, myopic portrayals of rural poverty which strove for cheap thrills rather than insightful examinations of the lives of its subjects.

I would love it if “Between The Assasinations” is adpated for a television miniseries, inviting some of our top directors to make 40-minute episodes, a la “Star Bestsellers”. Alternately, three or four of the stories could be taken to make an ensemble film, much like “New York Stories” which had Scorsese, Coppola and Woody Allen at the helm, or Boccaccio 70, which had Fellini, de Sica and other Italian directors. I scarcely need to point out the need for quality made-for-TV works in India, although I admit I haven’t seen the much touted “Specials at 9″ series with names like Madhur Bhandarkar, Anurag Kashyap and Mahesh Manjrekar to boast of. Let’s hope that we, too can see something like “John Adams” or “Angels In America” on our telly screens soon!

I would really appreciate your own ideas for books which you think will make for some compelling cinema :)

Chronicles of World Cinema II : "The Mirror"

2009-05-10T07:18:00.002+05:30

(Originally published here at passionforcinema.com)

The second on my world cinema series is a film by Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Western audiences know Panahi, most recently through his 2006 film “Offside” which depicted the efforts of two Iranian girls to get inside a football stadium, disguised as men. This film created enough of a buzz in the Western critical circles, and also bagged the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. (Although Panahi had in the past, been honoured at Cannes and Venice among others)

This post, however, is not about Offside, but about one of his earlier works, “The Mirror”(1997) which I saw last week. “The Mirror” begins with a little girl, Mina(Mina Mohammed-Khani), who is desperately hoping for her mother to come pick her up after school. She has one arm in a sling, her school is located in a fairly crowded locality in Teheran, and she isn’t really sure about the way home.

As the clock ticks by and no one comes for her, Mina sets off on a journey which will take her through the heart of the city, and us, for the camera remains faithfully, unmovingly fixed on her. Mina is stubborn, fidgety, and walks a tricky line between being intrepid and vulnerable. Did I mention she has the most angelic singsong you could ever hope to hear? If you were one of those who were wowed by the cute-as-a-button-kids in another Iranian film, Majid Majidi’s “Children of Heaven”, chances are you’ll love this one, too.

But I digress. As Mina begins her quest to reach her home, she encounters the big bad world in all its scary sights and sounds. Using the wide-eyed child’s point of view as a template, Panahi paints a compelling portrait of Teheran. For a movie which has very few cuts, there is little shortage of action as Mina encounters different sorts of people along the way. The conversations which she listens to are sometimes a surprisingly lucid insight into some of the pangs of modernized Iran. One scene in particular, where she listens to an old lady is particularly touching. The old woman laments the fact that she is not allowed to spend time with her Americanized grandchildren, because her son thinks she’ll “spoil their accent”.

Just when you think the film has reached a plateau of sorts, something very surprising happens. Little Mina Mohammed-Khani gives us her best pout, takes off her sling and declares that she’s “not acting anymore”. A group of men with cameras and stuff, ostensibly Panahi and his crew try to persuade her to return, but Mina has decided that enough is enough. This meta-fictional twist takes the film into a completely new direction, and needless to say, makes it all the more ambitious.

Upto this point, this looked very much a film in the hysterical realism, or as they say in cinematic lingo, neo-realist mode… but this took the film into altogether different territory.
From then onwards, the little girl is the real Mina in some scenes, and the reel Mina in others, only both of them seem to be equally clueless about how to reach home! The crew of the film follow her as she tries to make it on her own. At some point, her microphone seems to get disturbed, which brings into play all the street noises of Teheran, lending an intriguing edge to the already unconventional narrative.

Writers like Italo Calvino (If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, read my review here), Vladimir Nabokov(Pale Fire) and Thomas Pynchon(The Crying of Lot 49) have displayed the immense power of meta-fiction(fiction that is aware of its fictional status, i.e. a self-conscious bit of narrative) if done properly. In cinema, the names which come to mind off the top of my head are Barton Fink by the Coens,the horror thriller Donnie Darko and the Spike Jonze-directed Adaptation by the celebrated writer Charlie Kaufman.(Kaufman seems to have a weakness for this : see his debut directorial venture Synechdoche, New York, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman)

“The Mirror” is, ultimately a beguiling statement on the nature of art, and the subtle tricks it often plays on the mind.Believe me, you wouldn’t want to miss this for anything.

Later this week : More on Aki Kaurismaki, and a documentary on one of my favourite comic-book authors, Alan Moore.

Chronicles of World Cinema I: The Man Without A Past

2009-05-06T11:04:00.003+05:30

(Originally published here at passionforcinema.com)

(Been home for a full five days now….. time to kick-start the blog again)

When we finally got rid of the friendly neighbourhood cable guy and his spider-web of wires, hooks and assorted paraphernelia; and switched to a DTH service, the best thing which came with it was the World Movies channel. Now, this was a channel dedicated to showing quality cinema from around the world to an Indian audience. A couple of days back, I saw this brilliant Finnish film called “The Man Without A Past” by director Aki Kaurismaki.

Like many other great films, this one, too has a very simple story. A man, newly arrived in Helsinki, gets so severely beaten up, that he develops amnesia. The rest of the film deals with his attempts to start a new life and try and find out more about his past. This leads to some darkly funny, sometimes poignant scenes. The central character is played by the late Finnish actor Markku Peltola.

Several things about this film impressed me to no end. Kaurismaki doesn’t go for big flashy camera movements, but he does just enough to make sure the net import of the scene is conveyed to the audience. His films are people with funny, sometimes spooky characters with seemingly complex inner lives. In this film, you have a faux-sinister cop with a brutish dog he keeps threatening M(the titular character) with. When asked the name of the dog, he says in a deadpan whisper, “Hannibal”. Later on, we are told that Hannibal, is in fact a female, and a pretty docile and clingy one at that.

A couple, Nieminen and his strong, independent wife Kaisa take M in and help him get back on his feet. Nieminen is the kind of gently funny character who embodies the spirit of the film, yet you cannot help but think that there is much more to him than meets the eye. In fact, (and this goes for most of the film) Kaurismaki’s work tends to resemble avant-garde theatre more than anything else. The scenes where M starts to live in a container and makes friends with others like him are superbly done. M gets help from the Salvation Army, and even starts to go out with one of the officers there.

Kaurismaki likes his music, and indeed, many crucial or particularly poignant moments in the film are marked by distinctive music. In this film, music is also an important plot device as M starts to manage and organize rock’n'roll concerts in the neighbourhood with some of his Salvation Army friends. (Remember the the three roving balladeers in Dev D? )

Without giving out spoilers, I’ll say that the manner in which M discovers his past and the action which ensues is unlike anything else you would have seen. I thought that in a film like this, there was no easy way to bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion, without seeming to be contrived or over-written. But Kaurismaki’s treatment completely floored me.

You’ll find it hard to categorize the film, and I’ve got a sneaky feeling this is true for Kaurismaki’s body of work as a whole. There are existentialist moments on display here, a dash of Thoreau when M turns backyard farmer. The delightfully quirky side-characters brings to mind the Coens, and the overall humanity which pervades every minute of the film has something of Ray about it. This is heady company, but one which Kaurismaki deserves, I feel.

After finishing the film I found out that it won the Grand Prix, the second most prestigious award at Cannes, and was also nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar.(Kaurismaki refused to attend the ceremony in protest against the US, which was in a state of war at the time)
UTV World Movies is, in fact, screening more of Kaurismaki’s work, every Saturday night, all this month, and there’ll be plenty of repeats, too.(I caught this one on the second repeat, I believe) I’ll be sure to catch all of them, and I urge you to try and catch’em, too !

The Year Of The Graphic Novel

2009-04-13T18:31:00.002+05:30

[Originally published here at passionforcinema.com]

(It’s been a weird kind of semester. Starting off at full steam, it seemed like it’ll all be over and done within two shakes of a dog’s tail… but it’s ended up dragging on and on. Mercifully, it’ll be over soon… my exams are starting in a week, and this will be the last entry in this blog for 15 days.)

Every year, around this time, I have a lot of reading to catch up with, (as the summer approaches) and as I start to look back at all the stuff I read, I notice a pattern. There are typically one or two writers/schools of writing to which I get attracted… and then I start to read up most or all of their work. And although I try to be as heterogeneous as I can while buying books, these writers inevitably end up on my list.

So,while the period around my tenth standard was mostly about magical realism(Rushdie, Marquez, Grass… the whole shebang…), after giving the Engineering Entrance Exams a couple of years later, I buried myself and my I/Me/Myself pangs into Camus and others of his absurdist ilk. Going even further back, I recall that I more or less saturated the Wodehouse rack at the local library in the summer vacation when I was in the seventh standard, before proceeding to do the same to the Asimov and the Stephen King racks.

Looking back at this year(Yes, being a student, I tend to treat an year from April to April) if I have to label it, it would undoubtedly be the Year of the Comic Book/Graphic Novel . I’d read some pretty good comics before, but the credit for introducing me to this wonderful world goes to my friend Arvind Sowmyan here on campus, geek extraordinaire, and brilliant artist himself. One day, when we were sitting in his room trying to beat the sticky Kharagpur heat, I commented on the drawing he’d made of a hooded, goateed figure (curiously resembling Colin Farrell!) he’d drawn on the wall, something which I thought had clear manga influences. He remarked, “It’s closer to Sandman than manga….”

It was then that I discovered Neil Gaiman’s stunning Sandman series, a huge, sprawling achievement in every way, something which has the density, maturity and texture comparable to the best of modern literary fiction. After that, there was no looking back. Afte completing Sandman, I quickly moved on to Alan Moore’s Watchmen, which is considered the definitive graphic novel of our times. By now, I’d well and truly caught the bug. I read up everything I could by Moore, including the massively entertaining LXG(League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) series and From Hell the stylistical masterpiece set in Victorian times. Later this year, I read dozens of prominent writers like Frank Miller(Sin City and Ronin are my faves). Among standalone graphic novels, I read “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi and “Maus” by Art Spiegelman, two memoirs about different childhoods in different parts of the world, both of which are throbbing with poignance and utter beauty, as is the magisterial “Blankets” by Craig Thompson. Honourable mentions go to Sarnath Bannerjee, whose witty and ambitious novels “Corridor” and “The Barn-Owl’s Wondrous Capers” I enjoyed immensely; and also to Amruta Patil, whose dark and shadowy “Kari” serves as an intriguing advertisement for her future work.

I feel that as visual artists, graphic novelists have a lot to offer to the world of cinema. While it is a bald and mundane topic that the comic-book medium is inherently similar to the silver screen, things cannot be put in such a simplistic manner. The stylistic innovations brought to the genre by messrs Moore, Gaiman and Miller are testimony to the fact that comic books today can be as challenging as the best offered by Scorsese, Stone or the Coens. Read any “Sin City” title or any of Gaiman’s Sandman books , and you’ll know what I mean. Iron Man was the film which started pushing the barrier last year, before Christopher Nolan set the cat among the pigeons with The Dark Knight. Inspired from classic Batman titles like Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”, Alan Moore’s “The Man Who Laughs” and Jeph Loeb’s “The Long Holloween”, he made what is sure to be an enduring classic among movie-goers everywhere, helped generously by a hauntingly macabre performance by the late Heath Ledger.

And yet it wasn’t good enough for the pundits. I won’t start a tirade about the quibbling idiots at the Academy Awards.(I loved Hugh Jackman’s song-and-dance routine “How come comic-book movies never get nominated/How can a billion dollars be unsophisticated?!”) What I’m surprised about is the people who’ve actually been lavish with their praise have managed to make it patronising and ultimately holier-than-thou. Roger Ebert is a critic I admire immensely, not just for his forthright reviews but also for his often self-deprecating humour. Now, he gave the Dark Knight four out of four stars, recognising the brilliance for what it was. But even his review came with a rider.

Towards the end, he says that The Dark Knight is “a haunting film” which “leaps beyond its origins” and that it “redefines the possibilities of the comic-book movie” , the implicit argument being that the origins of the film were inherently inferior because they were, at the end of the day, comic-books. The air smells of intellectual snobbery when people like Ebert come up with stuff like this. I dare these people to see “Persepolis” (the film version was co-directed by Marjane Satrapi, the writer of the graphic novel, herself) and not be moved to tears by the end. The power of comic-books as a storytelling medium was explored by the Manoj Shyamalan thriller “Unbreakable” which had some pretty cool theories about comic-book sensibilities.

Part of the problem is that filmakers in Hollywood are still not ready, for the large part, to think of comic-books of anything other than huge, flashy colours and “Kaboom” sound buubles. The “Wanted” comic-book series by Mark Millar was a brash, in your-face crime thriller, with plenty of spunk and bold brushstrokes all over the place. But the movie turned into an excuse to show off every last one of Anglina Jolie’s curves in devout super-slo-mo sequences. Later in the year, “The Incredible Hulk” too, disappointed on most counts. Ed Norton, an actor I like immensely, gave a shockingly ineffective performance. Neil Gaiman has expresed his disappointment at several abortive attempts at making a Sandman movie… but he also said that a project like this was only possible with a director who was as obesessed with the subject matter as Peter Jackson was with the LOTR saga. This is one of the reasons why writer Alan Moore distanced himself from “V From Vendetta” , which was actually a pretty good effort in the end. He had faced bitter disappointement earlier with the film adaptations of his books “From Hell” and “The League of Exraordinary Gentlemen” (I think we can all agree that we never want to see Naseeruddin Shah beat up people with his boots again!).

I fervently pray and hope that there’ll be a brash maverick out there somewhere who’ll replicate the magic of people like Moore, Spiegelman and Gaiman. I haven’t yet seen Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” , but the initial rushes look very impressive indeed. Remember Watchmen was called “unfilmable” ….. Closer home, I’m eagerly waiting for the silver screen adaptation of “Doga”, one of Raj Comics’s more enduring titles, a Punisher-like ruthless vigilante wearing a dog-mask. At the helm of the project is Anurag Kashyap, who is currently the toast of the town with Dev D and Gulaal.Kunal Kashyap is said to be playing Doga. Having read a bit of Doga comics, the dog-man does kind of fit the bill as a typical Kashyap character…. Let’s wait and watch :)

Black Sunday at IIT Kharagpur

2009-03-25T11:11:00.002+05:30

(With so much happening on campus for the past few days... I haven't had time to post here. Check this campus mag here, that I work for.....and once you are done reading this, you can check it out for the latest updates on this issue.)

Kharagpur readers.... you are not strangers to this. For others: On Sunday, the 23rd of March, a 3rd year student of IIT Kharagpur, Rohit Kumar died while on his way to the hospital in Midnapore, the district headquarters. He had sustained a head injury after falling off a rickshaw... but due to the callousness and negligence of the authorities at B.C. Roy Hospital on campus... was not treated properly. There was a 90-minute delay in issuing an ambulance.... there was no trained paramedic with him..... the horrorshow goes on and on.....

The students here had been angry about the pathetic medical facilities here for some time now.... (25 beds for over 7000 students, no MRI, no CAT scan...not even a 24-hour pharmacy) a few months back, about a thousand people attended an Open House meeting to demand the revamp of the hospital. Promises were made..... and forgotten.

This time, the students had had enough.

In a now-famous move, thousands of students gathered near the gate of the director's house and demanded that he come out and talk. After some aggresive and arrogant posturing by the guards and later, the Director, Dr.Damodar Acharya himself, the students decided to take matters into their own hands. They started to smash the window-panes of the bungalow. Bricks, stones, tree-branches.... whatever they could lay their hands on. Pretty soon, they were inside his drawing-room, which was soon to be a sorry mess of broken glass shards.

His car went next.... as it was upturned, and everything which could've been smashed in it was smashed with gusto.

Finally the Director was forced to come out of hiding.... faced with thousands of angry, indignant students, he immediately announced he was stepping down. Later on in the night, there was another massive Open House meeting, one which saw an unprecedented number of people.... The Dean of Student Affairs also resigned in this meeting, on principle of course.... (the principle being "Save Thy Neck" .... when he roared on mike " Behave yourself!" and "Kya problem hai! Iddhar aa kar bataao(translated: What's your problem,eh? Come here and tell me!); hundreds of sudents immediately obliged him by climbing on stage and literally breathing down his neck.)

The vandalism was unfortunate...but the anger and the outrage were genuine and justified in every way. Let's hope that nobody else has to lose his life for want of better medical facilities on campus.

May Rohit's soul rest in peace.

Gulaal and The Future of Indian Cinema

2009-03-16T11:10:00.003+05:30

(Originally published here on passionforcinema.com)

I saw Gulaal today in a crumbling, fading, bleeding ramshackle masquerading as a cinema hall….at least from the outside. Gulaal was sandwiched between two contemporary gems “Dil Ko Churaanewaali” and “Maa Kasam Badla Loonga”. (I would have uploaded the posters as well…but wasn’t entirely sure where PFC stands on this…) The name of the theatre(Bombay Talkies) was emblazoned in massive letters, which were slightly dangly, at best. The balcony seats were the prized possessions, at thirty bucks apiece.

So far so good…..

The tangy aftertaste of “Dev D” hadn’t quite left the palate, and the prospect of another Anurag Kashyap film meant I was schoolboy-on-springheels excited and a bit apprehensive, too… for what if it flattered to deceive?I’ve seen hardcore Sachin fans solemnly declare that their man is going to smash every record in the book; everytime he goes to bat. I’ve a friend who has more than a thing for Federer….everytime Nadal overpowers the Swiss ace(as he does so often now) my friend declares that this would be undoubtedly the last time such a travesty would take place….

As the marquee started, my thoughts were, this better be good.

150 awesome minutes later, all I could think was, “Which do I like better, Dev D or Gulaal? “

Anurag Kashyap said in an interview that Gulaal was his “angriest film”. Sure enough, anger of all sizes and shapes can be found… Kay Kay’s alternating quiet menace and searing blazes, the laidback sarcastic anger of Abhimanyu Singh , who is a revelation as Rananjay “Ransa” , the prince who loathes his royal family and everything they stand for. As he acknowledges himself, he drinks, womanizes and generally is a wastrel, but he has a mind of his own and is sickened by the dinosaur that is his father, His Highness and others of his ilk.

In fact, so good is Abhimanyu that he manages to outshine(briefly) the man from whom we’ve come to expect bravura performances as a matter of course.

By now, it is more or less accepted that it’s humanly impossible to blink while Kay Kay Menon is on screen. Yet again, he captures the imagination, like few others can, as Dukey Bana, the man who is willing to get his hands as dirty as you like, for his dream of a united Rajputana state.
Newbie Raja Chowdhary(who is also a co-writer) plays Dilip Singh, a bespectacled, serious young Rajput, who is initially disapproving of Dukey’s political machinations. Raja looks the part so much that for the most part, we don’t mind his often amateurish performance, which only gains steam in the second half. Aditya Shrivastava, another Kashyap favourite, plays Karan, who is the illegitimate son of the Maharaja, Ransa’s father. He and his sister Kiran(played by newbie Ayesha Mohan) are the alternate power centre to Dukey Bana.

Before the films starts, we are told that Gulaal was inspired from the song “Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye” by Sahir Ludhianvi…… (there is a song of the same name featured in the film)and also the other poets who had a vision of India. They would’ve tipped their hats to Kashyap, I’m sure…..because the writing here is some of the best I’ve seen in Indian cinema. The outrage articulated by these poets of yore has been captured brilliantly by using the idiom of the lost glory of the Rajputs.

In Sarnath Bannerjee’s wickedly funny graphic novel “Corridor”, a character quips, “People are like onions, baba….they have layers and layers.” He might have been talking about Dukey Bana, Kay Kay’s character. Dukey is genuinely outraged about the state of his people, and has seen his family suffer the anguish and the alienation associated with the transition to democracy. To that end, he is ruthless in order to gain the power to reverse this position. However, all too often, he becomes painfully aware of his limitations. Kay Kay’s blazing eyes are pitiless, masterful, holding us all in the illusion of immense power.

Kay Kay’s not-so imposing physique is slyly used here by Kashyap. There’s a scene where Dukey Bana screams in frustration, standing at one of the windows of his mansion. The frailty of Menon’s body is nicely dovetailed with the aggressive instincts of his character, coupled with the natural machismo of the Rajputs in general.

The female characters in the film are a study in contrast. Jesse Randhawa, previously seen in the “Jab Bhi Cigarette” number from No Smoking, plays Anuja, a character which is low on dialogue but high on impact, and Randhawa acquits herself reasonably well. The cool conniving bitch is played competently by Ayesha Mohan, while Mahie Gill, playing Dukey Bana’s mistress, has a couple of songs, a couple of funny scenes and that’s about it. But as I said in the Dev D post, at this point I’ll be happy just to see her at all. She has an intriguing mix of abandon and assertiveness….heady stuff.

Some brilliant supporting hands, by Deepak Dobriyal in particular,ensure that the action never slacks. (Seeing Dobriyal in this film, I couldn’t help but think of Kashyap’s post-filmfare comments about two years ago about how Dobriyal’s performance in Omkara was “*****ing better than Abhishek’s performance in Guru” :) )

The music of the film has to be commended. Theatre veteran Piyush Mishra, (remember Kaka from “Maqbool”?) has written and composed the songs. He also plays one of the most macabre cameos I’ve ever seen on screen. When I say he’s the boss as far as music goes, I mean that quite literally. For he is the sole character upon whom music is picturised…. A sort of deranged minstrel of reworked folk ditties and patriotic hokum, with a typical Rajasthani bahuroopiya, or masquerade artist, in tow. As the John Lennon-worshipping bard, Mishra is haunting, to say the least.

As things start to get out of hand on screen, Mishra gets more and more manic, becoming a sort of a collective conscience for us. If the use of music in Dev D was innovative, here it’s a masterstroke. In the anthemic chant “Aarambh” Mishra claims
“Jis kavi ki kalpana mein

Zindagi ho prem geet

Us kavi ko aaj tum nakaar do”
Perhaps fittingly, a couple of days back, Anupama Chopra called Kashyap the “Anti-Yash Chopra” !

The cinematography of Rajeev Ravi, who wowed us all with Dev D, is back with a vengeance here. The red coloured gulaal smeared over the faces of the Rajputs like war paint is an image which will stay with you long after the closing credits. Red is clearly the colour of choice here, whether it is the colour of the frequent bloodshed pervading the film, red is the fiery colour of passion……

Gulaal works above all, because of its searing honesty…. a throwback to the times when outrage was still considered cool. Films like this have the richness and the scope comparable to the best of modern literary fiction…. and to my mind few films fit this bill better than Gulaal. Answering my own question earlier in this post, I would say Dev D is still my favourite Kashyap film… but I suppose at the end of the day… I’m just barely out my teens, and the urbane chic “coolness quotient” of Dev D coupled with the natural chutzpah of Abhay Deol is irresistible right now. Perhaps, ten years down the line…..

Seeing how Anurag Kashyap has stamped his authority all over 2009 with Dev D, and now Gulaal, one of my favourite quotes springs to mind. In 1974, Jon Landau, music critic for the Rolling Stone magazine was sufficiently moved to say
“I’ve seen Rock and Roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen”.
Now this is precisely the kind of soppy prophesizing which was in vogue back then…..but Springsteen did become the Boss after all…….

So maybe, I’ve seen the future of Indian cinema after all.

Onyeka and I

2009-03-10T23:07:00.004+05:30

Around August last year, when this blog had just about started to gather some momentum, I posted a really cheesy poem without giving much thought to it. As the blog didn't quite elicit too many comments, I was rather surprised to see a comment coming all the way from Nigeria.

That comment, the first of several since then, came from my friend Onyeka Nwelue, who at the ripe old age of 21, has got his debut novel "The Abyssinian Boy" , released by Dada Books. I haven't had the opportunity to read it, but I can tell you this: the man is undeniably, unbelievably talented...(check out his superb blog here)

Onyeka lived in India for six months on a "self-imposed" exile a few years back, where he was taken in by Abha Iyengar, the eminent Indian writer and social activist. The influence shows in "The Abyssinian Boy" which is the story of a child with a Tamil father and a Nigerian mother.

Over the past year, I've had the pleasure of interacting with him over several issues, both literary and otherwise :)Not only does he have a keen intellect, he has a self-effacing way and a child-like sense of wonder which make him special.

Recently he was at at a book reading at Abuja(the capital of Nigeria), talking to secondary school students. (The photos that you see are taken from another reading session at Abuja) . Also present there was Felix-Abrahams Obi, a writer based in Nigeria. He wrote this piece which I'm reproducing here... along with my response to it.

The Unsung Nigerian Writer in a Hip-hop World
- Felix-Abrahams Obi

She was staring at the computer when I grabbed a seat beside her to rest my tired body after a long stretch of activities to mark the World Book Day in her school; Regent School Abuja. With her right hand on the mouse, she clicked and navigated through various websites and top on the list was a social networking site. To kids in her generation, social networking, instant messaging, and music websites are the most popular because they are the shapers of today's culture. They are designed to attract and hold the attention of the young and even the older generations. We are now in a world where everyone aspires to become a celebrity; a kind of super star with the rare privilege of walking down the red carpet with the flashing lights of the paparazzi forming a halo around them. But it seems the contemporary Nigerian writer is seemingly wary of enjoying the spotlight like his peers and pals in the music/movie/comedy industry whose shows and concerts pull the crowds into opens fields and overcrowded halls. Yet the writer is as much an artist as all others. Upon whom the burden of recording of history and transmission of knowledge and wisdom rests upon their weary shoulders. This young girl was clad in a costume depicting her favourite book character like other pupils in the school. It was a special day to celebrate writers and lovers of books, and the school had opened its doors to some writers and lovers of books. As I settled into the chair, I engaged her in a short chat and asked if she would love to be a writer. She answered, 'Nope! I just love reading books'. Then I quipped, "But if no one writes a book, what then would you be reading?" She then got my drift and the message berthed in her heart, I supposed; that it takes a writer to write a book that others would have to read. And books are created and made by writers who have to depend on the goodwill of their literary agents, editors, publishers and the general public to remain afloat in today's world.

Most Nigerian writers and authors are not so well-celebrated and the economy has been harsh on their art. Many manuscripts are lying still in the hard drives of their computers, and many resort to self-publishing after series of rejections by the mainstream publishing houses. Unlike the 'full-time' hip-hop musicians, the Nigerian writer has to keep a 9-5 job to keep hunger pangs at bay. He has no access to government or private funds to attend literary conferences, arts residencies or fellowships where he can develop his art of writing. After a prolonged haul of frustrations, many give up their dreams and take up a career that ultimately leads them to the boardroom like the Toni Kan's of this world, and many others who are working in banks, Telecom andIT firms, the Oil Gas industries and many more.

To Mrs. Chiamaka Kalu-Uche, the librarian of the Regent School Abuja, the Nigerian writer needs to be encouraged and his books should also occupy prominent slots in the school's unique library that boasts of books that range from Greek classics to modern English and western writers. The children's costumes showed that they knew little about African writers as only a few dressed like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Niyi Osundare, Tanure Ojaide , Mamman Vatsa or our female writers like Zainab Alkali, Chika Unigwe, Chimamanda Adichie , Akachi Ezeigbo , Mabel Segun etc. To domesticate the World Book Day which is celebrated internationally on the 4th of March and in the UK and Ireland on the 5th of March, she desired to have Nigerian writers read from their works to the kids at Regent School Abuja.

Top on my list was one of Nigeria's youngest novelists, Onyeka Nwelue whose trajectory as a writer has been on the rise since his maiden novel titled 'Abyssinian Boy' was launched couple of weeks back. He had made a strong impression on me when he eloped with another teenage friend from his home in Imo State to attend a literary meeting that was held at the National Theatre Lagos as a 17years old boy sometime in 2004.His passion to write was palpable to all and I wasn't surprised when he chose to go on a self-imposed 'exile' in India to write the manuscript of his novel, rather than proceed to the Senior Seminary to continue his training as a future Catholic priest. I contacted Onyeka and his publisher about the possibility of featuring at Regent School and the idea made sense to them even when the librarian could not promise any stipends or 'appearance fees' to any featured writer due to funds constraints, Onyeka still showed his willingness to attend the world book day event on self-sponsorship. And on Wednesday the 4th of March 2009, Onyeka landed in Abuja, proving yet again how far he can go to promote the cause of writers and writing in Nigeria.

There was a buzz of activities at Regent School and the excitement among the kids was palpable. They grinned from ear to ear, and like models clad in colourful costumes, they filed out to the blue-draped assembly hall for the session with writers and celebrities. Earlier they had a parade at the school's field and had fathers read favorite books for the kids in their respective classes, made bookmarks/door hangers, juggled with cross word puzzles and book character games. Some were made to be on the 'hot seat' to answer questions from their peers as a book character to elicit the emotions and thoughts of each character in their favorite book. The children also visited the book stands set up by Bibi Bakare-Weate, the founder of the publishing house, Cassava Republic, and was the official judge of the writing contest for the kids. Mrs Emem Okpashi's "All for Kids" outfit also displayed their educational products at their stand, as well as other exhibitors. Jerry Adesowo who reports for the nearly-launched NEXT Newspaper was on grounds to cover the event.

The expectant kids sat calmly on the rug-covered floor of the hall with their teachers flanking them on both sides like a defense shield. After an introductory speech by Mr. Robinson, a Briton and Head Teacher of the school, Mrs. Kalu-Uche introduced the special guests; Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu (erstwhile legislator and Minister of Information and Communication), Mr. Collin Connelly (Deputy High Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. Onyeka Nwelue and I. In an earlier session Hon. Nike Oshinowo and Mr. Denja Abdullahi had read book excerpts for the lower primary pupils in the same hall. In this session for the upper primary pupils, Mrs Kalu Uche publicly recognized a little girl, Azume Ajayi , and a boy , Ogechukwu Flagg-Igbo respectively for their avid interest in reading books, and they were asked to recommend their favourite book to their peers.

Chief Emeka Chikelu read excerpts from his all time favourite book, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and another inspiring book titled 'Say it Like Obama" by Anna Lee, while Mr. Collin Connelly read excerpts from the book, "The Little Blue Boy". During the authors' interactive session, Onyeka Nwelue talked about his debut novel, Abyssinian Boy while I gave a synopsis of my short story, "A Date with Area Boys" which was featured in an anthology of short stories titled "Eko ni Baje" by Nelson Publishers in 2008. The kids asked questions that bothered on writing and there was the issue of what gains as an individual from writing. In my opinion, the writer has the rare privilege of documenting history and etching himself on the hearts of living long after he's dead and gone. We still read and interact with dead writers through their works and travel with them to remote climes and milieus that their astute minds had created.

Onyeka added a new dimension by reminding the kids that it is a hip thing to be a writer, and being hip is no longer the exclusive preserve of hip-hop stars and other celebrities. The writer is also a celebrity in his own right, and to 21 years old Onyeka, the older writers had adopted bland and unattractive lifestyles that may have seemingly made the young not to see writing as a hip thing. I may have been one of the culprits in Onyeka's as I was dressed formally like most writers in one of my best fitting suits. To engage the young and feel their kindred spirit, Onyeka made a fashion statement with his afro hairstyle. He also had a nice short-sleeved green top over his blue jean with a brown bag strapped across his shoulders and wore colourful beads on his right wrist. And it was this image of the writer as a hip celeb that he wants to project to the world and he has in some sense made that impression in the hearts of kids at the Regent School Abuja.at a personal cost with no one sponsoring his long trip to Abuja.

After the authors' interactive session, Mrs. Kalu-Uche had promised the kids a surprise, and from behind the curtains that shielded him from their bated eyelids, Jeremiah Gyang emerged and the kids roared in excitement at the sight of the popular singer and multi-instrumentalist whose debut album "Na Ba Ka" had hit the top charts few years back. He strummed his guitar as the children and their teachers, and guests clapped and sang the song 'Allah Na Ba Ka' along with him. He then read excerpts from the Cinderella story to the delight of the kids, who asked as well as answered questions that on the Cinderella story. It was obvious the children also want to be stars like Jeremiah Gyang as they asked him questions about his music career and none bothered to ask if he also writes, for Jeremiah writes passionately and this is evident in some of his blogs that I have read on facebook and hi5 in the past. The event ended on a celebratory note after the kids sang 'Happy Birthday" to their amiable Head Teacher Mr. Robinson who said that he has grown old enough to not answer the kids, the quizzy part of the song that goes " How old are you now..?

Jeremiah at my humble behest had agreed to Mrs. Kalu-Uche's request and invite to feature at the World Book Day for free, and he did that for the sake of the children ; an event that would have featured the Abuja-based R & B trio, StylPlus had they agreed on time. Jeremiah thereafter toured all the respective classes to read, sing and play with the cheery kids. The free appearance and alliance between writers and musicians must have made a strong impression on the children, and it wouldn't come as a surprise if these kids in the future turn out into hip writers and musicians. Though it's a lot more attractive for the kids to end up as musicians, they would really see writing as a hip thing when they can see politicians, business moguls, models, musicians, movie actors and other superstars also making exploits in the literary world. They would then realize that the culture of reading is a hip thing and they won't have to wait till another March 5th to wear the costumes of a favourite author or book character on World Book Day.

Though the reading culture is on a downward spiral nationally, writers must find a way to engage the teeming youthful population if we must remain relevant. Jumoke Verissimo, an eclectic poet and journalist with The Guardian last week lamented at an event hosted by Abuja Writers Forum that the gathering of writers oftentimes has writers as the audience. So we cook our literary food and consume same among our selves whereas arts should be shared with the public for whom the menu was designed.

We may have to find more creative and innovative ways to translate our writings from the present height to such a point that book reading will become fun like it used to be in the past. We may have to recruit premiership starts, supermodels, TV goddesses and music stars to cross over and become novelists and writers to have their fans root for our writings. For instance, once a music star crossover into acting like Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce Knowles, the movies charts at Hollywood. In Nigeria, our movie stars would rather crossover to music to gain more popularity.

I would have wished they crossed over into writing to show how creatively versatile they truly are, or is writing such a hard job that only a few have been able to tap into the mastermind of the Muse? If the playwright and dramatist, Tyler Perry could become a multi millionaire by turning his writings into movies, maybe writers should start thinking of diversifying their creative expressions to match the changing trends in our changing world. Most of the blockbuster movies and academy award winners have been adaptations of writings of novelists of the classical and modern era. And in today's hip-hop culture that is ruled and governed by the dictates of celebrities, the writer has to somehow find a way to become as relevant as the other mainstream artists. The time for a sequestered lifestyle is over for the writer belongs to this modern era. The 21st century writer has a duty to either write what will make him popular or write about what makes others popular and influential without compromising his creativity, intellectuality and more importantly, his spirituality.

Onyeka asked me what I felt about this particular piece..... here's my reply:

Hi Onyeka!

Obi does put forward several valid points. His chief concern is the poor health of the reading habit across youngsters in Nigeria. I, for one would take this one step forward and say that this is a global problem, and not just restricted to Nigeria or, for that matter, India. Soothsayers point at the rising number of young novelists coming from the subcontinent. This phenomenon has two explanations:

a)If you look closely, many of them are either foreign-educated or working abroad... or both. Look at Mohsin Hamid, Daniyal Muenuddin, Rana Dasgupta...
b)When you look at our sheer numbers, you get more of a perspective about the whole issue.

But I digress... Obi suggests that part of the problem is the image young Nigerians get when they think about professional writers. And from what I gather, you seem to share this opinion. The logic being, writers are just not upto scratch when seen from the judging eyes of your typical westernised pre-teen. They are mostly introspective, even the young ones, seldom flamboyant, and not all that gregarious. Adoloscents are more likely to be drawn towards actors or pop stars. Hence, Obi thinks you made a conscious decision to dress and present yourself in a certain way..... and you yourself think that "writers ought to live more popular lifestyles"

The thing is, I'm not sure if this can really happen, or if this is even the right thing to do.

In an interview, the Indian journalist and author Raj Kamal Jha once said two things which really got me thinking.... The first was "The few people who are damaged enough to love reading are essentially those who are comfortable with solitude..." and continuing in the same vein, he said, "People who feel the need to read will read. It's personal. Even a writer who is very full of himself will never say, "There are 150000 people who need to read me." With regards to this issue, I would especially stress the latter point.

So, while I'm not saying that any effort made to get youngsters to read is ultimately futile; I do think that trying to package writing and writers in a certain way is certainly pushing it a little.

And to suggest that actors or movie-makers should take up the pen in order to popularize reading is just wishful thinking.... to date, the only readable thing I've heard of in that direction is Ingmar Bergman's collection of screenplays...... and even he lamented the fact that he wasn't a novelist per se..... he thought that the novel was inherently a superior art form. (a view I don't subscribe to, by the way...)

By all means, encourage local writing, especially writers who practise their craft in their native tongue. There are few better ways to tell youngsters about their rich heritage....a seamless, coherent record of everything worth knowing about their past.

I can understand the fears of people like Obi and Verissimo..... I have seen some unbelievably talented regional Indian writers languish in oblivion simply because.........well, they never really left oblivion. But pragmatically speaking, trying to make writing "cool" can only be successful upto a certain limit.I'm sorry if I'm a wee bit pessimistic... but from what I've seen and felt...this is my opinion. For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing by presenting yourself the way you did at Abuja :)

Your friend,
Aditya

Novels have OST's...

2009-03-08T02:29:00.001+05:30

I just became convinced of something I'd suspected for some time now: novels have soundtracks.

I just completed "Blankets" the superb graphic novel by Craig Thompson which I was reading on the laptop, while simultaneously listening to dozens of Coldplay songs. "Yellow" changed to "Politik" effortlessly, and then segued along merrily to "Lost", "Life In Technicolour" , "Sparks" , "Speed of Sound" , "Scientist" ....

The incredibly touching memoir and coming-of-age tale seemed to merge seamlessly with the soft strains of the alternative rock; coupled with the soothing yet darkly introspective vocals of Chris Martin....

Heaven.

Dev D on V-Day

2009-02-26T23:12:00.002+05:30

Originally published here on passionforcinema.com

(Statutory warning: This reviewer has got an incurable Nostradamus complex and is prone to spouting pseudo-profundities just for the heck of it…..)

Valentine’s Day is not my favourite part of the year……. I have an extraordinarily strong mush-radar, which was going haywire at about midnight on the 13th of February. My college(IIT Kharagpur) stands out for its laughably skewed sex ratio(at last count, it was about 8 per 100 in my year), and because of that, guys who do have girlfriends on campus, feel obliged to throw bucketfuls of mush right in my(and every other blissfully single guy’s) face. So, as I was saying, around midnight, there was a buzz in the air. I was walking along the long stretch on campus which has most of the hostels on it…..

I felt like some poor sod victimised by the living dead in a zombie flick. There they were, in twos, sometimes in groups of four or even six. This was a cold-blooded, calculated attack. These were professionals…. the worst part was these were guys and gals I actually hung out with on an average day, who felt compelled to subject me to this.

Well, that was that. The severity of the attack left me with two options: grab a saffron headband and join the Sri Ram Sena…..or grab the first local train out to Kolkata. Tempting as the Ram Sena was, I decided to go with the latter. I didn’t even return to my room…..I phoned a friend who was similarly reeling under the attack, and we just headed out to the station…..and we decided to watch Dev D.

Now this was one film which I had been looking forward to for months…… following Anurag’s posts on the making, then the “Emosanal Atyachar” wave which swept us all, after the music release … my expectations had started reaching ridiculous levels….never a good sign. Films have flattered to deceive all too often for my liking, and given my own propensity for hero-worship….

Nothing of the sort happened. :) Dev D lived up to all my expectations, and then some. Anurag Kashyap has raised the bar a notch higher, confirming his status as one of the finest minds in Indian cinema today. Years from now, when we talk about the films which changed the face of Indian cinema, the name “Dev D” will slip off easily from our tongues. At nearly three hours long, the film seemed if anything, a little on the shorter side to me, believe it or not.But Kashyap’s brilliance, combined with a masterclass performance by Abhay Deol, kept me hungry for more.Dev D is that rare kind of film, which clicks on so many fundamental levels, and draws you deep into its world……the film excites, infuriates at times, tickles you silly, is intimate one second and shuts you out the other.

To say Dev D is audacious is like saying Salman Rushdie likes to scribble little somethings every now and then. When Heath Ledger died, I remember Chris Nolan wrote a stirring obituary titled “Charisma as natural as gravity…” . Something of the kind is in play here. It is in vogue to be tongue-in-cheek nowadays, slipping in rookie double-entendres in otherwise anaemic screenplays which are meant to underline their wannbe status as “alternative” cinema. But in the hands of someone like Kashyap, it works magically, never once do the sleights-of-hand seem forced or fake…..and believe me, he gets away with plenty here…..

Since this is not your average Taran Adarsh review, I will not try to break the film down into manageable quarters, which can then be converted to BO collections. The initial portions focus on Dev’s return to Punjab after his padhai-in -vilayat. Right from the beginning, it was obvious that nobody was gonna pull any punches. I might mention at this point that I had a girl with a very annoying ringtone sitting beside me(I hate the Black Eyed Peas more than any band after this…). When Dev asked Paro if she touched herself, the female in question dropped her cellphone, after the most audible gasp I’d heard in some time. There is some justice in this wicked world after all…. After I saw Oye Lucky Oye, and its superb usage of the rustic lingo, unlike its usual abuse in Bollywood for cheap thrills and a quick chuckle or two; Dev D gives us Paro, who is the Punjab-di-kudi from hell, when she wants to, that is.

And yes, the much-talked about mattress-in-a-khet was every bit as awesome a scene as you’ll ever see.

A word about Amit Trivedi’s soundtrack here. The music is used in liberal doses here, throughout the film, sometimes nearly back-to-back. Of course, big fat Punjabi weddings do give you license that way. But the score is just so versatile, you are surprised constantly. From the earthy strains of “Hikknaal” to the wistful “Dhol Yaara Dhol” , we segue merrily along to the special from Patna Ke Presleys…… “Emosanal Atyachar” has achieved cult status on my campus, as it has, I’m sure on college circuits elsewhere in the country. The in-your-face brashness, straight-laced parody and cool-as-you-like Hinglish has struck a chord, and I dare say it has already become an oft-used catch phrase. However, my personal favourite is “Nayan Tarse” , the slightly-wasted sounding vocals of Trivedi himself resulting in a very grunge-like effect on this soul-meets techno track.

A frequent complaint about the film I’ve heard since then is that Anurag Kashyap has slipped back into uber-indulgent No-Smoking-territory again in the second half. To them I say, “Kaun kambakht bardaasht karne ke liye peeta hai? ” Dev’s descent into the seedy world of “connoiseur bars” , seedy undergound bars, and one psychedelic pharmaceutical after another is wonderfully captured here, in some virtuoso cinematography and camerawork. (To know more about that you can read this post by the man himself , about how Danny Boyle advised him to use a special camera technique…..no wonder he is credited in the film). Dev and Chanda’s first encounter is filled with deliciously funny dialogues, where newcomer Kalki Koechlin more than holds her own against Deol’s carefully cultivated rage and indignance.

That brings me to the two women in Dev’s life. To call the interpretation radical would be stating the obvious…. Paro in particular was brilliantly sketched out as a character. Mahie Gill is quite a handful, for both Deol and the obvious. If Paro was supposed to be a docile, demure character, nobody told Mahie…

“These boots are meant for walkin’ ,
And that’s what they’re gonna do..
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!!”

This is what she seems to tell Dev with every fiery glance, every defiant silence, and every sailor-like outburst of the choicest… check out her balls-out shaadi-ka-dance in the Emosanal Atyachar number(did I mention it’s her own wedding….?) Anurag sir, if you’re reading this, please cast her again in your next!

Chanda is alternately vulnerable and dominating. Half-child and half preying-mantis-seductress, Dev is intrigued by this strange and exotic creature who seems to be just as damaged as her. The use of the DPS MMS-scandal in Chanda’s backstory is a masterstroke…and tells us some very inconvenient truths. Kalki makes a solid debut with an utterly believable, if not compelling performance.

Which leaves us with the Curious Case of Abhay Deol. With every movie, the man has utterly reinvented himself. Perhaps fittingly, he was likened to a young Johnny Depp, by Anurag Kashyap in a blog post. Here, he has delivered the performance of his fledgling career. He has already put together a very impressive filmography, what with Manorama and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye….I have no doubt that he is the one Indian actor to watch out for in the days to come…would love to see him share screen space with Kay Kay Menon, another Kashyap favourite.
The great Frenchman Francois Truffaut first coined the word “auteur” in a famous essay, arguing that the director was in fact, the real “author” (auteur means author in French) of the film, leaving his handprints on each and every frame of the movie. He said that all great directors had a distinct visual and narrative style, which is unmistakeable, which is something separating the truly great from the merely good. I am not fond of singing paeans to anybody, but with Dev D, Anurag Kashyap has earned the right to be called one of India’s few true auteurs. I’m eagerly waiting for “Gulaal” and with every passing day, curse our luck and the Censor board for “Paanch” (someone, anyone please get in touch…how does one watch “Paanch?)
After this wonderful cinematic experience, I bummed along Park Street for a while, browsing through bookstores, munching down junk food……and come night, returned to a post V-Day Kharagpur, which was still as endearing , and still as much a pain in the ass as ever.
And now it’s my turn to annoy people, especially the committed kind, asking them about their V-Day. When they politely ask me about my own, I put on my best I-know-what-you-did-last-summer smile, and answer “I watched Dev D in Kolkata.”, like it was the most obvious, the most natural thing to do. Most of them give me a “what am I missing here” nervous chuckle, while their partners stare at me with undisguised loathing.

Come to think of it, at midnight on that Friday the 13th… it seemed the most natural thing to do, after all.

'Twas a Saturday...

2009-01-30T03:20:00.004+05:30

(Meant to write this a lot earlier, but fest time is always lean for blogging.... anyway, had a whale of a time at the Spring Fest at my college....but the higlight was undoubtedly my creative writing workshop with Jadavpur University professor and author Rimi B. Chatterjee.(see pic above.... Check out her blog here.)

Much of what I've written over the past year and a half has been divided into roughly two parts: this blog here and the stuff I write for the campus mag. Even so, the overwhelming majority of these has been non-fiction, that is if you discount the odd play or two I've written as part of a theatre troupe in college. Therefore, as someone whose first love is, and has always been fiction, I was really looking forward to this session, at the end of which I would, hopefully, gain a new insight into the ebbs and flows of spinning a yarn.....

In the spirit of things, I'll narrate this like an old-fashioned Chandamama story. On the day itself, I reached the huge lecture hall, which, unfortunately, was the appointed venue for our day. I say unfortunately because that hall used to be my one-size-fits-all classroom in my freshman year....and it suffices to say, that room and I have a history.

Apart from about half a dozen people, most not from my college, I saw a bespectacled lady, not quite middle-aged, with cheerfully streaked waves of hair, and a general air of joie de vivre about her. Bingo. Later, during the course of the day, as I would find out, she had an infectious(and very mischievous!) smile..... Our session began with a round of introductions while Ma'am would talk to us about our individual stories, respectively.(Here's mine) I remember Ma'am talking about my story which she said was "Pretty delicately done......especially by someone who's not a practiced writer.. " (If that seems a tad too self-congratulatory, remember....a blog is the ultimate ego exercise!)

At this point, a few shady-looking guys sauntered into the room and sat in one of the back rows. Ma'am requested them to sit at the front as she had apparently caught the Kharagpur cold. At this point, they got up, as if in sync, and said they would be back. That would be the last of them we would see that day. My guess is that they were just plain curious, or plain dumb. Anyway, soon enough, we were all assigned a colour each and asked to write a page about how that colour made us feel. ("Emotional temperature" was how Ma'am put it.) Now, the thing about assigning colours to 20-odd people is, after a point of time, you have to get real inventive real soon. My friend Tiyasa, who's quite a character at the best of times, was assigned "tangerine".
This exercise was simple, yet surprisingly stimulating. (My piece, on "Moss-green" will be put up on this blog real soon.....and I hope to expand it into something more substantial...) I realized that there has to be some method to the madness, when it comes to writing fiction; indeed, seasoned pros, thousand-words-a-day guys like Roth or Coetzee will tell you, the discipline is all in the head. At this point, Ma'am decided she'd had enough of the depressing lecture hall, and in true Tagorean fashion, suggested that we take the session outdoors, on the rather splendid lawn at the Vikramshila complex. We must have been quite a sight to the people who were in the thick of things at the fest, busy with their cheerful revelries, slightly bemused to see such a passive group in an otherwise ebullient atmosphere.....

By lunchtime, we had gone over nearly all the stories.......some were abstract, some were nostalgic, a few had silver donkeys from other galaxies..... the good times were well and truly rollin'!

At this point, I should mention that I'm an avid quizzer, (as can be seen from the previous post) and we, that is me and my teammates have got quite a decent racket going, travelling around the country and winning quizzes. The day before the workshop, we had won both Biz and Cyber Quizzes, events which were our weak spots, traditionally(Entertainment, movies....that's much more down our lane!). Naturally, we were cock-a-hoop about the next quiz, the big one, The Mary Bucknell Trophy, which was the general quiz held at Spring Fest every year. The event had a lot of history behind it, and has been the stage for some legendary battles.

The catch was, it was the same day as my workshop.....

From here on, the serendipitous part of my story begins. My teammates had cleared the prelims without me, albeit not very convincingly. Just as the quiz was about to begin, Ma'am decided it was time for a lunch break! In the distance, I saw Ankit, one of my teammates gesturing wildly towards me, and shouting something unintelligible. I broke into a sprint towards the auditorium where the quiz was about to begin. I think I narrowly escaped knocking down about three people, at least one of whom called me something unprintable. I entered the auditorium, much to the surprise of some of my friends, and skipping three stairs at a time, hopped onto the stage, and into an empty chair.

The rest of the quiz went according to script.......staving off a ferocious challenge from the IIM-C team, we got our hands on the Mary Bucknell trophy at last.... ( the next day, we won the Movie Quiz as well, making it four quizzes out of four at SF-2009, a rare Grand Slam of sorts)
The adrenaline still pumping, I returned to the lawn, where Ma'am and the rest of the people were settling down after their lunch.Ma'am had apparently refused the SF guys' offer of lunch at Kharagpur's best restaraunt, preferring to eat at the hut-like canteen near the lawn, with its quaint fried offerings and its too-sweet tea. Even this, the smallest of gestures seemed to me incredibly charming and down-to-earth.

Next, we were each given a picture which had one or more than one person in it, and we had to pick our person and create a back-story about that particular person. This exercise reminded me of the premise for an anthology published last year, selected by Zadie Smith, called "The Book Of Other People". Anyway, this again proved to be a lot of fun, and not just creating stories, but listening to characters made by the other participants. I got a rather elegant-looking lady in a typical red Bengali sari.....again, who knows, someday she might pop up in one of my stories....
Ma'am said she was in the process of writing the story for a graphic novel called "Kalpa". At this point I told her about my fascination for the genre(see this, this and this) and my admiration for writers like Alan Moore and our very own Sarnath Bannerjee(my starry-eyed expression grew wider when she said she'd met the man himself!), author of the magnificent Corridor and The Barn-Owl's Wondrous Capers. It was amazing to discuss literary or cinematic stuff with her, like Moore's magnum opus From Hell, the noir style of filmmaking...... and loads of other stuff.
The round of build-a-story yielded some pretty wacky tales, with the Chinese whispers style format ensuring that there was never a dull moment.....we would jump from romanticism to science fiction to detective thriller to high fantasy in the blink of an eye!We rounded off the workshop with a unique exercise. We first named six characters/personas, places, props, emotions and locations. Then, Ma'am would roll this huge cardboard die and decide who gets which set of people, locations etc. So while I got something pretty feasible(A tragic writer.....in a pub, with a lighter!), people did get all sorts of crazy combinations(like a hopeful dog, in a jungle with a handbag!!!). We then wrote a plot or a full-fledged short story based on our respective sets. This one was the most intellectually challenging of them all....I did okay, I guess. (Ma'am said it was "very noir" :) )

When people talk about "a day to remember" and "experience of a lifetime" , it sounds and feels pretty banal and cliched, but I guess spending an entire day at the workshop, with Ma'am, falls firmly into that category. In a place where the average lecture is clinically drained of anything remotely resembling fun......I felt truly rejuvenated last Saturday.

Back from quizzer's paradise...

2009-01-20T04:32:00.000+05:30

Just back from a 4-day trip to Allahabd, at the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, where Gnosiomania 2009, the quiz-fest was being held. Well-known in quizzing circles around the country, Gnosiomania had a total of seven quizzes spread over three days this time around. Had a blast for the most part, winning a couple of quizzes and runner-up in a couple of others....the only irritating bit being an insanely arduous return trip, courtesy a six-hour train delay.

The quizzes themselves were a lot of fun, conducted by Mr. Avinash Mudaliar, who is a pretty popular and respected figure at quizzes around the country. I could have listed some of the more interesting questions on this post.....but I guess that would be a bit of a bore.(Reminder to self: MUST set up a quiz blog this summer....) So here's the deal: I'll just give you some intriguing team names I came across(My team was called "Mostly Harmless" after the Douglas Adams madcap SF book of the same name)

1. Pamela and her Sons (I kid you not!!!!!)
2. Tum Ek Kaam Karo, Tum Kal Aao..... (my personal fave)
3. Brokeback Mountaineers
4. Gecko Geeks
5. Name at the back(Mudaliar thought this was their actual name till the helpful fellows pointed out that their team name was actually at the back of the paper.....but the damage had been done...)

The only bright spot about the long train delays was I caught up with some of my reading....finished two books I'd started some days earlier: J.M.Coetzee's masterpiece "Disgrace" and Philip Pullman's "Northern Lights" which is the first part of the reknowned "His Dark Materials Trilogy"....more on that later.

P.S. I got into the creative writing workshop!!! (see previous post)

Juvenilia, with apologies.....

2009-01-12T01:59:00.004+05:30

(Later this month, it's carnival time at my college IIT Kharagpur , as the Spring Fest gets underway. Rimi B. Chatterjee, an Oxford alumnus is conducting a creative writing workshop in the fest. She has done so in the past with people like Amitav Ghosh, which upcoming writer Anjum Hasan attended.....so I'm pretty excited about it. The catch is, there are only 25 seats, hence I was obliged to send in a 1500-word story, on the basis of which one gets selected for the workshop.......here's my entry for the same. I'm afraid it's a rather hurriedly put together, amateurish and embarrassingly juvenile piece.....I'll keep my fingers crossed!)

"Cancers and clockwork"

He woke up to find that the world was still suffocating him. All its noises, smells and flavours assimilated their way into a big bolus which snuck up his throat till he felt like throwing up. It was the persistent yet circumspect knock on his door which finally roused him. Good morning, Sir. Would you like breakfast in your room? A voice, with the practised and polished saccharine dripping off the edges, like milk which has been boiled a little too much. On other days, he would have even shut the door to her face, but today, in a display of politeness which surprised him, he gently refused, even thanking the girl, in her ridiculously starched white-and-red uniform.

On days like these, his usual recourse was three-pronged: Beethoven, cigarettes and his trusty old Parker pen. As of yesterday, the latter two options had been taken from him. His manuscript had been just been trashed by his editors, and his fiance had given him an ultimatum to quit the "cancer sticks" as she called them. He permitted himself a smile over her choice of words, recalling how he, as a college geek had been enamoured by Anthony Burgess's "The Clockwork Orange" ; the book which had its own lingo, "nadsat" .....(the word for "cigarette" was "cancer" !!). She had met him for the first time when he was sitting under a tree, engrossed in what had to be his seventh shot at the book. They had hit it off rather well, considering his propensity to lapse into long reveries and stubborn silences.

"Come on, say it...what's your favourite nadsat word? ", she insisted with an impishness that was already starting to grow on him.
"You mean apart from cancer?", he slyly asked, a nearly worn-out Marlboro still hanging lazily from his fingertips. "Yes, apart from cancer, and for Christ's sake will you chuck it away already!", she said in faux-anger, pretending to hit him playfully. "Okay, okay, there....it's gone...." , he said, tossing the cigarette in an exaggerated flourish. "All right, let's see... I'm rather partial to "ultraviolence" ....and then there's "chai", (the word for tea) and "tolchock"..... but I think I'll go for "Charlie".. you know, the word Alex used for his prison chaplain... I think that one really tickled me...Get it? "Charlie Chaplain" ...ha!" ....and they had chuckled about it for ages, as if it had been the joke of the century. Passing each other by in the corridors, they would mouth "Charlie" at one another, much to the bemusement of their friends, who had by then suspected that there was something in the air about these two.....

The sound of the telephone, an annoying tinny monotone, snapped him from his trance. He picked it up, warily. It was his publisher, Joseph K, a man who was barely tolerable when one was in the best of spirits, and quite insufferable at all other times. He was rambling on something about “ young readership” and “catering to all tastes” ….
”Gregory….are you with me? Hello? “, his publisher asked, his nasal twang piercing his ears like needles.
“Yes, I…uh, I’m with you ..uh, Joe.”
“As I was saying, times are changing since you wrote “The Lotus”..…. attention spans are at an all-time low.. and your subsequent book was … a disappointment, as you are aware… . you know the old saying, don’t you? People aren’t reading nowadays. And if they’re reading at all, they’re not reading fiction. And if they’re reading fiction…”
“They’re not reading literary fiction…yeah, yeah I get it . Would you do me the courtesy of cutting to the punchline, Joe, please?” , he asked, gritting his teeth.
“Yeah, well.. let me say, Greg…. I’ve always liked you… but we’ve got a business to run here.. you know how it is, my friend…..”
“Right, right ….well, I’m not feeling the love here, friend! So would you please cut the crap? “
“I’m not sure I appreciate the tenor, there, Greg…. We’ve decided not to publish your manuscript. Our people here said, and I must say, I agree…… it’s not exactly what people would call a page-turner…. The readership is increasingly rejecting overly “intellectual” stuff….and we just can’t ignore that…”

By now, the words were getting lost on him…..it was as if they were bouncing right off him, entirely devoid of rhyme or reason… for the second time in the conversation, Joseph had to rouse him.
“You there, Greg….hello? “
“Yes, Joe…I’m still here” , grinding out each word, the effort clearly proving to be difficult for him.
“Yeah…….as I was saying… Wordsmith House has decided not to renew your three-book contract, which as you know, expired with your last book….”
“So…who are you selling me out for, Joe? “ , he asked, no longer caring to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“Yeah, well……I thought that’d interest you. It’s Trevor Hardwood…..”

Two words. That was all it took for Greg to slam the receiver down with a resounding bang without further ado. Trevor Hardwood………of course, that cheap peddler of two-bit “penny dreadfuls” about psychotic college kids and slick, oiled-up super sleuths. Greg had written a scathing review of Hardwood’s body of work(which already consisted of twelve novels in the space of six years) , calling them “B-Grade Hollywood on paper” and “lurid in every way imaginable” , upon which Hardwood had politely declined to comment(oh, the slimy silver-tongued bastard!) , saying that everyone was entitled to an opinion.

His mind wandered to two weeks earlier, when he was having a fight with Simona(his fiancé) …..or rather, she was screaming her lungs off, and he was staring morosely in the distance, taking in monstrous puffs of his umpteenth fag of the day.
“……it’s like living with a stranger, Greg! Don’t you get it…I can’t take it anymore…..For Chrissake, when was the last time we had an actual conversation?? Everytime I try to talk to you……you just hide behind your books, or your notes……or your freaking cigarettes! “
Her voice now had a dangerous edge to it.

“I’m serious, Greg. You have to prove that you still give a rat’s arse about how I feel… that I’m not just another whackjob character in your psycho-babbling, mumbo-jumbo stories……I give you a fortnight…..at the end of that period, you’ll have to choose between your precious “cancers” and me! “

And that was that. Tell you what, honey, Greg thought. At this moment you’re the whackjob, not me. Anyway, today marked the end of the aforementioned fortnight. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water over his stubbled, weary face. His eyes looked shot and distant, as if they were looking for something that couldn’t possibly be there.

He would go and try to talk some sense into her. This wasn’t precipitated by love so much as…….habit. He was a creature of habit, and she, slowly, imperceptibly, had become a part of his minutae, like a favourite doodle one likes to make on the edges of notebook pages, or a particularly catchy piece of nonsense verse. And right now, what with this jerk-off of an editor humiliating him…any further disruption in his environs would be too much for him to take in.
He figured she would be there, by Reno’s on Park Street. Everytime the two of them had a tiff during the early days of their relationship, she went and sulked there, which would be his cue to beg and plead.

And there she was………right by the window sill, at her usual table. But hang on…could it be….yes, she definitely had company, Greg thought as he hurried forward across the street to get a good side-on view. He froze. The street and all its cacophony seemed to replay itself in slow-motion for his benefit. For their, in all his glorious idiocy, was Joseph K. himself. No trial for you this time, Joe…Greg smirked to himself.

A gush of memories, suddenly unbound.
“ ….that a creature who can perform only good or evil is a “clockwork orange” –meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice…”

The two of them…together…suddenly everything is lucid and fluent in his mind.
“…but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil..”
In a single, languid move, he went forward, wished the clearly flabbergasted couple a good day, and sat down on an adjoining chair.
He then brought his right fist down in an exquisite whiplash motion, making good contact with Joseph K.’s nose, upon which said Joseph went from “screamed like no tomorrow” to “babbled like a baby” pretty soon.
“How’re you doing, honey….” , he asked, giving her his grandest smile he could summon. He took out a Marlboro, lit it with elan, and blew a ring of smoke close to her face.
And, from that moment on, he knew everything was falling into place….

"Revolutionary Road" : Bleak, Bold and Brilliant

2009-01-06T17:54:00.004+05:30

(Originally published here on passionforcinema.com)

Once you are done with your board exams, and the laundry-list of competitive exams which follow, there is a lull-period of almost three months before you actually join college. People do all kinds of stuff during that time: some learn how to drive(and then proceed to channelize messrs Schumacher, Hamilton and Raikkonen), some take to uselessly useful stuff like the odd fag or the infrequent tipple. A few smart alecks actually manage, God forbid, to get laid(assuming they haven’t already). Some foolishly starving autodidact losers like me bummed around the house, nose buried among yellowed pages, vacant expression in place.

It was during this time that I read Richard Yates’s cruel gift to mankind…. “Revolutionary Road” was bleak, bold and brilliant. I remember my first reaction at finishing the book was “Thank God it’s over….” , and I mean that in the best possible way. Seldom does one come across such a clinical negation of everything a man hopes to live for. All the reviews said how it was meant to be a rebuttal of The American Dream, how the institution of marriage was the palette through which Yates took his potshots at the vagaries of the human existence; how the author attacked the human need for conformity…..oh, how they rambled. But all I could feel was how alone the man must be, how utterly and profoundly alone….it was much later that I read Yates’s interview on an archive somewhere, where he said

“If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy.”

It took me three Mithun-da films and two Harry Potter readings to get over my gloom after reading this pessimistic masterpiece. And I thought I’d seen the last of it. Only that idiot Sam Mendes had to come up with a masterpiece of his own……

For “Revolutionary Road” is a masterpiece, a work by a major auteur whose artistry is evident in nearly every frame. For the uninitiated(here’s the part where your reviewer gives a bald, perfunctory plot summary, giving just enough to keep you on tenterhooks, taking care not to give away too much), the film is about a young and ambitious suburban couple, Frank and April Wheeler(played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) They have half-baked, romantic notions about “living life as it’s meant to be”. April manages to convince Frank that he should quit his boring behind-the-desk, same-as-everyone-else’s job, and that they should move to Paris, where he “could be all that he is”. She herself studied to be an actor, but found out, embarrassingly enough, that she’s not especially gifted. Frank, too, desperately wants to break free from his suburban shackles(and the memory of a mediocre father), but does he want it bad enough?

After World War II, where America faced the threat of Hitler, who had the means to take down their nation, there was a sudden rush for conformity and a cosy, coccooned existence among the American middle-class. The Wheelers are representative of that middle-class, only this
time, they want out.

Clearly, the road to redemption is paved with thorns, and it’s as if everything the Wheelers do to escape their nondescript existence comes back to hanut them. The token All-American neighbours Milly and Shep Campbell are played to modest perfection by Kathryn Hahn and David Harbour(whom you might have caught in a bit role in Quantum of Solace earlier last year). I remember, in an earlier post about Road To Perdition, I mentioned that Mendes had brought back the Titanic troika of DiCaprio, Winslet and Kathy Bates for this film. And I meant the last part….sure enough, veteran Bates is pitch-perfect as Helen Givings, the realtor next door who sells them the house at the ironically named Revolutionary Road.

The wafer-thin veneer of domestic bliss that the Wheelers maintain on the outside is shattered when the Givings’s son, John comes for dinner. A former mathematician who is now institutionalized, he rips their charade apart with his merciless, and cruelly accurate observations about the Wheeler’s pathetic attempts to find a semblance of meaning in their existence. Michael Shannon, who plays John Givings, turns in a simply outstanding performance as he outshines his more illustrious colleagues in the brief time he is on-screen. His character is perhaps the best example of Sam Mendes’s thetrical sensibilities coming to the fore. Shannon’s carefully cunning half-smiles, his sudden and alarming fits of energy, his rants are all classic bits of theatre histrionics. On the writing level, his character is the perfect “enforcer” used in plays….one might even go as far as to describe him as the Chekhov’s Gun here( a Chekhov’s gun is a character or an object introduced earlier on in the play, but whose significance is revealed only towards the end.)

The lead pair are in fine form themselves. Kate Winslet, whose character is the pivot around which the story revolves, gets full marks for her performance as April Wheeler, a tormented, complex character who seeks romance in her life elsewhere once her dreams of becoming an actor are all but shattered. She seldom puts a foot wrong, especially in the flat-out high voltage showdown scenes. Is there anything she can’t do? Nominated but ignored for the Big O a staggering five times, will this be the performance that gets her the pot this time…..one certainly hopes so. And where do I begin about Leonardo Di Caprio? There is little one can say which will add to or change his status as perhaps the defining actor of his generation. In 2006, he did two unbelievable roles in The Departed and Blood Diamond. Most actors would be happy to pull off one of those in an entire career, let alone in the space of an year. His collaborations with Scorsese have already prompted people to call him the next De Niro…..and with good reason. Be it Gangs of New York, The Aviator or The Departed, Di Caprio has stamped his class all over the films, and has proven that he belongs among the big boys. His performance as Frank Wheeler will be tough to ignore once the Oscar season hots up, and while for me, Sean Penn ought to scoop up the big ones this year for Milk; it is another feather in Leo’s cap.

Where does Sam Mendes go from here? A theatre director, who dabbles in cinema every now and then, he has given us three absolute gems in Road To Perdition, American Beauty and now Revolutionary Road(Jarhead, while a decent effort, isn’t in the same league for me) He seems to know just the right mood every scene requires. The biting satire of American Beauty is tempered here by a sombre gravity…….One of the things I’ve always enjoyed is his distinctive visual style……the grim black-and-white trench coat Depression era palette of Road To Perdition, even the dusty, sandy , khaki-peppered bleakness of Iraq in Jarhead. Here, we have heavy interior decors and suffocating indoor shots which bring out the themes of suburban claustrophobia brilliantly.

Perhaps the only things which I can say against it are these: both the Wheeler’s infidelities seem a trifle contrived, and the film doesn’t quite bring out the zeitgeist of 50’s America that well(we just have some vague dialogues from Leo about his joining the war in a fit of adrenaline)But then again, I thought that the novel focusses more on the internal conflicts of the central characters than anything else, so I guess that’s excusable.

Revolutionary Road is a haunting piece of art, one for the collection, really. In a week where I had some very diverse cinematic experiences (starting from Slumdog Millionaire, then The Wrestler, Gran Torino and now this…), I cannot recommend it highly enough….

"Ghajini": Aamir Khan and joie de vivre

2008-12-27T18:59:00.004+05:30

(Originally published here on passionforcinema.com)

I'm part of a theatre troupe in my college. I remember, about 18 months ago, it was my first day in the group, and the very first thing I was told was "exaggerate"...... A.R. Murugadoss sure seems to guy who knows the meaning of that word! For "Ghajini" is exaggerated with a capital E.....and this is likely to be the bone of contention among those who love it and those who trash it. It is a throwback to the "good old times", where Bollywood films were very much the sum of their parts, comedy, action, romance, tragedy; each emotion drawn out with a measuring cylinder, and doled out in the requisite amounts....(I understand many Tamil and Telugu films still rigourously follow this regime)

First, the obvious questions and the banal stuff out of the way.....Ghajini is NOT, repeat NOT, Memento, nor does it aspire to be. Ghajini is your more conventional revenge saga, with the anteriograde amnesia angle only adding the sting in the tale. Aamir Khan plays Sanjay Singhania, a telecom tycoon who falls for a bubbly, vivacious girl-next-door(who just happens to channelize the spirit of Mother Teresa every now and then),Kalpana, played by Asin. After the usual comedy of errors and rollercoaster-like romantic sequences, they are set to be married, when Kalpana rescues a bunch of girls who were being trafficked as part of an organ racket(if you can believe it), gets into trouble with the big bad wolf, gets whacked and Sanjay gets hit on the head.....voila amnesia!

So far so good. The screenplay is cliched, there are head-scratcher moments liberally strewn and the lingering, gratuitious close-ups and flashing pan shots are, I'm sure, cringe-worthy for many. But the bottom-line is: In spite of all this(or as I'm about to elaborate, because of all this :) ) Ghajini works........over the three hours, you cannot take your eyes off the screen. Here's why:
1. Aamir Khan: There's a considerable slice of the media which is enamoured by Khan because of what they perceive is the "different" cinema he pursues....he has long been painted as the "thinking actor". What they don't realize is that while Khan's versatility was never in doubt, his films have always strived to excel while staying very much within the general purview of "commercial" cinema. Take a good long look at Dil Chahta Hai, Rangeela, Lagaan, Sarfarosh, Mangal Pandey......of his mega-successful trio of DCH, Lagaan and RDB, RDB is perhaps the furthest off the line. Aamir simply imbues his films with his searing honesty and intensity, never, NEVER pulls his punches and has an effortless skill for getting under the skin of his characters. These qualities are on ample display here in Ghajini.....plus this time......there is an unmistakeable sense of...I suppose the right word is joy; about him.

He excels in the romantic portions, bringing to mind the chocolate boy of yore, as well as the loveable imp of Rangeela, especially in the song Behka Behka, (check out the half-a-dozen Aamirs dancing in step!). And, my God, when he gets all bald and brutal, the angry, adrenaline-pumped, yes with all eight packs in place(and how!).....Aamir is mesmerizing. Again, there are no half-measures with Aamir. When he screams, he screams till his veins are about to pop, when he howls with pain, he sounds like a staked animal. Just can't take your eyes off that guy........

2. Joie de Vivre- If I had to describe the film in one catchphrase, this would be it. Ghajini is a film which steers clear of any pretentions about its artistic status......, I'm just too much in love with Gunda (Mithun-da's cult classic....if you've yet to see this one, your cinematic education is incomplete, trust me....) to call this one Aamir's Gunda......but yes, the spirit is very much there. When the baddie swings away with his bolted iron rod, he cackles in delight. Khan himself despatches scores of goons with a Rajni-like flourish and I swear, once or twice, I thought I even saw a shadow of a chuckle beneath Khan's gnashed teeth! Sometimes this leads one to laugh out loud even during the gory portions, but it's all part of the show, rest assured.

No one embodies the spirit of joie de vivre better than Asin. You will find it incredibly difficult not to like her....... She matches Khan shot for shot when they share screen space, and is effortlessly ebullient throughout. All this and minus the annoying accent inflicted upon us by the likes of Genelia D'Souza. The director gives her plenty of scenes to show off her acting chops, and for the most part, she's upto scratch.

3. Rahman- Rahman follows up the magnificent score of "Yuvvraaj" with another good soundtrack. "Guzarish" is incredibly easy on the ears, and its opening strains are used pretty frequently. "Behka Behka" is Rahman at his experimental best, with quirky and unusual rhythms. It helps that the cinematography of the songs, especially, is brilliant. "Kaise mujhe" is superbly sung by Benny Dayal who has already made waves with his spirited rendition of "Tu Hi To Meri Dost Hai" from "Yuvvraaj". "Aye Bacchu" is a snazzy, upbeat number which captures the cheerful spirit of Asin's character to a T. Ghajini's score might not be among Rahman's more memorable ones, but it is very much in sync with the film.1

There you have it, then. Aamir, joie de vivre, and Rahman is the recipe for success as far as Ghajini is concerned. A word about the director. I watched an interview recently in which Aamir described the "pocket rocket" A.R. Murugadoss. Aamir described how diminutive in stature Murugadoss was, before going on to describe the unbelievable energy levels of the man. That frisky, restless energy which pervades the film, I believe has its sources here.You can feel it in the way he approaches even the most trivial of scenes. The simple act of drinking water from a plastic bottle has never been rendered with such outrageous urgency, for one! The hero as well as the villain crunch and gnash their teeth with gusto, the bad guy is complete with gold chain and faux-comical accent......it's all there! For me, this is the masala film of the year.....a film which doesn't fight its lack of erudition, but embraces it.

In an year in which we've watched some brilliant and intelligent Bollywood films like A Wednesday, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Dasvidaniya, Welcome To Sajjanpur, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye et al, let's celebrate the new year with the ultimate no-brainer of them all....Ghajini!

Kafkaesque turns one

2008-12-26T12:16:00.002+05:30

Here's something which escaped my notice......a week ago this blog turned one! An year ago, in December 2007, I was on vacation after my first semester in college. That was when I finally broke through my hitherto undefeated laziness and started to bang away at the keyboard....... and an year later, I'm happy to note that I'm still at it! Who knows what lies ahead.......

Cheerio!

Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns"

2008-12-25T18:17:00.003+05:30

When Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" was published in 1986, the Batman franchise, owned by DC Comics was not in good shape. Ratings were steady but never competitive with those of the rivals, Marvel Comics. Miller was a young superstar whose work on the Daredevil comic strip had already drawn rave reviews. The onus was on him to resuscitate the dying series.

So what does he do? He begins by making the Batman an old, bleeding, fading man grappling with his own inner demons. We are told that the second Robin, Jason Todd, died in combat, which caused, among other things, the caped crusader to call it a day. Where lesser men would have brought fresh villains for Batman to bash up, maybe even exaggerated the Batman's skills, Miller opted to tone them down. And then trained his eye on Gotham.

Miller's Gotham city is eerily disturbing and fascinating in equal measure.It is a city which doesn't have huge arch-villains, it has 15-year olds committing acts of unthinkable violence. Where the cost of a human life is shockingly low. It is a city where anarchy is always waiting in the wings, just in case..... Above all, it is a place ridden with paranoia and ignorance.During a news broadcast, it is actually suggested that "the heat wave in the city has led to the recent spate of violent crimes"

Batman's old foes Harvey "Two-Face" Dent and the Joker have both been locked up in Arkham Asylum for years. Harvey's half-burnt visage and his twisted alter-ego have both been apparently put to rest by a duo of doctors who seem curiously keen to let him loose among society again. At the same time, a gang of nihilist young goons calling themselves the Mutants are growing in power and influence on the streets of Gotham. Meanwhile, veteran cop Jim Gordon(Batman's old ally, one who apparently knows his identity has Bruce Wayne) is nearing retirement and contemplates the fate of Gotham in the days to come.

Clearly the stage is set for a comeback. For me, here's where the novel transcends the genre. Bruce Wayne's monologue about the bat, whom he describes as "the ancient one, the purest warrior, the ultimate survivor..." is chilling. Here's what he has to say about the revival of the bat within "You are puny....you are small....you are a rusty trap which cannot hold me......feel me within your soul......for I am your soul....smouldering, I burn you....burning you, I flare, hot and bright and fierce and beautiful." All this is set accompanied with images from Bruce Wayne's past.....with a series of stunningly vivid black-and-blue ink sketches, the incident of a young Bruce falling down a bat-infested cave; as well as that of the brutal murder of his parents, is reconstructed in breathtaking fashion. On an unrelated note, I couldn't help but notice how faithfully Christopher Nolan has followed Miller's sketches while filming the aforementioned scenes in the stunning "Batman Begins" !

Batman does manage to quell Dent, who though cured of his scars, has found out that some scars are too deep to heal..... In fact, in the scene where Batman finally confronts Dent, he says "At least, now both sides are even ...." and the frame shows Dent with both sides of his face scarred. Batman, realising this is how Harvey Dent sees himself, thinks....."Not fooled by vision, I see him as he is..." and then "A reflection....." as we are shown two adjacent frames, one of the Batman, and one of the fierce-as-ever bat.... this intelligent juxtaposition of words and art is sometimes hard to follow, as the visual tricks keep getting more and more subtler.

The next issue of the four-part novel deals mostly with how Batman takes down the Mutant gang and also the emergence of a new Robin, thirteen-year old Carrie Kelly. Frank Miller, in the tenth-anniversary special edition, says in the preface, "One of the first things we decided was that Robin has to be a girl." However, the underlying problem addressed is not about the mutants; it is "escalation" , the idea that Batman's presence might actually increase crime and attract criminal sociopaths from all directions. We are shown a visibly aged and watered-down Joker quietly watching television at Arkham asylum. When there is news of the Batman's return on the news, something seems to wake the Joker up from his lull........the gleam in his eyes his back, and he slowly breaks into the same old ear-to-ear grin......A pompous psychiatrist, Dr. Wolper, who is treating both the Joker and Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, comes on television to go on a long-winded rant against the Batman.

"Every anti-social act can be traced to irresponsible media input. Given this(the Batman), the presence of such an aberrant, violent force in the media can only lead to anti-social programming. Just as Harvey Dent, who is recovering fine,thank you, assumed the role of ideological doppelganger to the Batman, a whole new generation, confused and angry will be bent to the matrix of the Batman's pathological self-delusion. Batman is, in this context, a social disease....." In the climax of "Batman Begins", Commissioner Jim Gordon explains the problem of escalation to the Batman, introducing the character of the Joker which was portrayed memorably by the late Heath Ledger in the sequel "The Dark Knight"Gordon says "This guy, for instance......he has a penchant for theatricality not unlike your own..... leaves a calling card..."
The weakness of the media and the blinkers-on attitiude of the government are also key themes Miller addresses here. The government, in Miller's universe, is openly and notoriously cares only about "public perception". The newsreader on the TV says, "The Political Performance Commission has just awarded the President an unprecedented five credibility points for his handling of public perception during the recent economic crisis..." Here, Miller dons the hat of an unlikely prophet as he introduces the President, a pandering, bumbling guy who speaks almost entirely using cowboy metaphors. The President explains to Clark Kent/Superman (who has now become a government agent) why Batman must be reined in.

"Son, I like to think I learnt everything about running this country on my ranch....it's corny, I know, but I like to think it. And well, it's all well on a ranch, I mean, for the horses to be of different colurs and sizes.....long as they stay inside the fence.....it's even okay to have a crazy bronco now and then.... does the hands good to break him in.....but when that bronco kicks out the fence and drives the other horses crazy....well it's bad for business...."

Clark Kent(yes, nowhere has the word "Superman" been used....apparently the Government has kept the existence of the Superman under wraps. Bruce Wayne refers to him simply as "Clark" ) then is kept in the shadows for a while as the Mutant leader is captured and put in a jail cell, where the mayor goes to see him " for negotiations, with all the ceremony befitting a military procedure..." as Jim Gordon puts it.The weakness of the authorities is sensed by the Mutant leader, who brutally murders the mayor in his cell. The seething outrage of Gordon is captured beautifully in the next scene where he is restrained "by some idiot, who stops me from doing the obvious thing..." Very soon, there is a broadcast by the local authorities who literally plead the Mutants to reconsider negotiations.

Eventually, Batman manages to overpower the Mutant leader.....seeing their leader maimed, the Mutants disband into different splinter groups, among them the "Nixons" who wear Richard Nixon masks! Ironically, one such group becomes the "Sons of Batman" who resort to extreme violence against even petty crime(like breaking up an illegal card game with napalm). By now, the Joker is gearing up for his first public appearance in years, and something big, blue and fast is flying towardsGotham City....

The action hots up when the Joker announces his arrival in style, killing hundreds of people in the television studio at one go, with his killing gas(including the insufferable Dr.Wolper). The Batman shows a twinge of regret at not killing the Joker, "I'll count the dead, one by one. I'll add them to the list..... of all the people I've murdered by letting you live...." Meanwhile, Clark Kent(yes, if Miller doesn't use "Superman" neither will I!) comes to warn his old ally Bruce that sooner or later, he will be forced to take the Batman down. This encounter between the Man of Steel and Bruce Wayne is a treat.....there is the gratuitious page-length sketch of the Adonis-like Clark Kent, albeit minus the costume.Watching him, Bruce thinks to himself , "There he is...there's the sun and the sky and him. Then he ruins everything by talking..."
Clark Kent saves America from a Soviet nuclear missile, harmlessly exploding it in a desert, weakening himself considerably in the process. He is rueful of how Bruce was "ruining it all" with his obesessive ways.....I thought this was Miller's way of cocking a snook at other, more "conventional" heroes like Superman himself.

"The rest of us learned to cope.The rest of us recognised the danger-- of the envy of those not blessed.....Diana went back to her people.....Hal went to the stars..and I have walked the razor's edge for so long now. But you Bruce......with your wild obesession.....". (For the uninitiated, Diana and Hal refer to Diana Prince and Hal Jordan, alter-egos for Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, respectively. They were both part of the Justice League, which also featured Superman and the Batman.)
Later on, even as Superman is finally unveiled in all his red-and-blue glory, he says " We must not remind them that giants walk the earth...." It is hinted that superheroes have been all but stamped out due to public outrage against the growing vigilante justice,and that Batman was one of the major culprits in this. Clark says,

"You were the one they used against us, Bruce. The one who played it rough....when the noise started from the parents' groups and the subcommittee called us in for questioning......you were the one who laughed....that scary laugh of yours... "Sure we're criminals" , you said... "We've always been criminals....we have to be criminals..."

Make no mistake, the operative word in the title of the novel here is "dark" , not "knight". Bruce Wayne is darker, more violent and even cold-blooded at times. He has no qualms about his methods and is a powerful allegory for rule of anarchy.
The Batman finally subdues the resurgent Joker, but not before he has killed dozens of children at a fair. Oh, yes, the bloodtrail is ever so thick right throughout the novel. The final action sequences between the two arch-enemies are superbly scripted and drawn. Reading those pages made me realize some of the madness comic-book aficionados are associated with.....it was just so thrilling and sheer fun! Being a recent convert at the comic-book-cum-graphic-novel cult, perhaps the effect was more pronounced for me. And finally, it all boils down to Armageddon, the final battle, the last showdown between the two titans: Batman and Superman.

The settings are spectacular: Gotham has descended into anarchy as the disbanded splinter groups of the Mutants are wreaking havoc on the streets. Meanwhile the entire police force of Gotham, led by a new commissioner, is after the Batman. When a 747 crashes into a skyscraper(again, eerily prophetic) it's the last straw: ordinary people are at each other's throats, clawing, fighting for food..... Bruce Wayne must rally around the people of Gotham to sanity, and gear up to face the Man of Steel.....
Without giving up the ending, I'll say this: in a novel which steers clear of the cliches of the genre while embracing its strengths, the ending is true to form. Who prevails in this clash of titans? Grab your copy to find out! For "The Dark Knight Returns" is undoubtedly one of the landmarks of its genre and paved the way for a grittier, smarter and denser brand of comic-books and graphic novels, as the same year, Alan Moore released a brand new series called "Watchmen" .....and there has been no looking back since.

Millar and Miller: Graphic Novels rule!

2008-12-21T23:00:00.005+05:30

I have been reading three books simultaneously for the past few days....... Orhan Pamuk's "My Name Is Red", along with two graphic novels, Mark Millar's "Wanted" and Frank Miller's iconic 1986 graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns". Will soon post reviews of the latter two(Pamuk's book is about 500 pages.......and I'm reading this one at a leisurely pace).While "Wanted" was very loosely adapted into the Angelina Jolie starrer recently, Miller's unforgettable work was one of the key inspirations for Christopher Nolan's " The Dark Knight" , which was undoubtedly the film of the year for me.

Graphic novels, as a rule, are more difficult to review than regular novels, because there is just so much to take in with every page.....and when you have someone like Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman or the inimitable Alan Moore at the helm...best of luck! Visual tricks, cultural allusions, mythological overtones and modern-day allegories fly thick and fast. I still can't bring myself to review Moore's "Watchmen" which I have read thrice....maybe someday I'll split the thing into a series of posts. So far, I've reviewed Amruta Patil's "Kari"(here) and Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis"(though that was a kind of a clubbed review along with that of the film). But given the amount of graphic novels I've been reading of late....something's gotta give!

Italo Calvino's "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller"

2008-12-20T11:25:00.003+05:30

"You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel If On a Winter's Night a Traveller. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade......"

With a beginning like that, you kind of know you are in for an intriguing read.
Italo Calvino has always been difficult to categorize for readers and critics alike. He was a raconteur one moment, a poet the other. He could write about anything, and he could write about nothing in particular. With a Calvino novel, you never quite know what you're gonna get. But this one was easily one of the best reads I've had for some time.

"If On a Winter's Night a Traveller" is a remarkable novel on many counts, the very first of which you will notice is that the unnamed protagonist is "you", that is the reader. For the purpose of this review, I will henceforth refer to "you" as "he" lest my grammar goes for a toss. The protagonist buys a new novel by a writer called Italo Calvino, but the novel turns out to be something else entirely, a little-known work by another author. His search for the unfinished novel leads him to another book, and then another, in what becomes a pattern of sorts. The novel is structured in that way, like a Chinese puzzle-box:alternate chapters are devoted to the book-within-the-book.

While the main action is engaging enough, it is in the books-within-the-book that Calvino showcases his full repertoire. They are atmosperic, shadowy narratives all of which contribute something to the overall impact on the reader.They are thrillers, adventure stories, psychological ruminations, erotica.... you name it. During the course of his quest for the real novel, the protagonist meets a fellow reader, Ludmilla, her overbearing scholarly sister Lotaria and finally realises he has become unwittingly involved in an international intrigue dealing with apocrypha, the concept of authorship and the impact of the written word.

Calvino uses these stray narratives to propagate some of his own pet peeves- Who is the author? What reallly is a story? The intimate and edgy relationship between the written word and the images formed by the reader's mind is a key and recurring motif as well. He satirizes the notion that a story is a discreet identity where everything has to be pristine and particular. At one point Ludmilla says, "I prefer reading novels that bring me immediately into a world where everything is precise, concrete, specific. I feel a certain satisfaction in knowing that things are made in that fashion and not otherwise....."

Right towards the beginning, there is such a hilarious description of the process of buying books, that I kept returning to it, before even finishing the novel. "But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them there extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category of Books Read Before Being Written..."This is one of many potshots Calvino takes on the pitfalls of genre fiction. This aspect takes full flight later on in the book, with the introduction of the character of Silas Flannery, a reclusive writer of assembly-line thrillers.

Flannery is a composite of many popular genre writers, among them Ian Fleming. There is a stirring passage where Flannery watches a young woman through a telescope, reading a book. He is in the process of writing another novel at that time, and he becomes obesessed with the idea that the woman is reading his novel, the work in progress, even as he types it out......this plot device is used to great effect to suggest that the book is made as much by the author as by the reader; that as we read a book, we change....subtly, imperceptibly, but we do. And funnily enough,in Calvino's case,so does the book!

These Borgesian flights of fancy notwithstanding, Flannery was the most fascinating character in the novel for me. He is a vehicle for Calvino to air his existential angst as a writer, to question the very roles of the reader and the writer. Sample this:

"What does the name of the author on the jacket matter? Let us move forward in thought to three thousand years from now. Who knows which books from our period will be saved and who knows which author's names will be remembered......perhaps all the surviving books will be attributed to a single, mysterious author, like Homer."

The themes of duplication and the author as creator gather steam when Flannery finds that all around the world, fresh translations of his novels are appearing.....but they seem to be novels he never wrote in the first place. Ermes Marana, a mysterious man working for the ridiculously named OEPHLW(Organisation for the Electronic Production of Homogenized Literary Works) seems to be behind this. He claims to have "cracked" the Flannery novel, and is now churning them out with the help of his organisation.

"A team of ghost writers, experts in imitating the master's style in all its nuances and mannerisms is ready and waiting to step in and plug the gaps, polish and complete the half-written texts so that no reader could distinguish the parts written by one hand from those by another......It seems that their contribution has already played a considerable part in our man's most recent production"

Calvino is not interested in winding things up: he intends to make things more complicated with each passing chapter.He has managed to create the literary equivalent of an anti-particle: this books is at once a homage to and a negation of the conventional novel and its norms, as we know them. While this might put off a few readers, my own take on the issue is: just go with the flow, and you won't regret it! The book is full of hilarious moments and painfully accurate satire set-pieces. The character of Lotaria is a gross caricature of "academic" critics. Following a public reading of one of the unfinished texts that the protagonist reads, Lotaria and her cronies immediately burst forth

"The polymorphic-perverse sexuality......"

"The laws of a market economy....."

"The homologies of the signifying structures"

"Deviation and institutions......"

Moreover, when Lotaria goes to see Silas Flannery, she reveals she has speed-read all of his novels in a rather unique fashion: programming a computer to sift through the words used in order of their frequency!(19-blood, cartridge, belt,commander,life,teeth,shots) She then proceeds to see those frequently used words to surmise what the novel is about. Flannery is flabbergasted and rightly confused.. "Now every time I write a word, I see it spun around by the electronic brain, ranked according to its frequency."
The overall air about the novel is "one of constant climax" (this phrase was used by David Denby of the New Yorker to describe The Dark Knight). Calvino, like Borges, is obesesed with the mystical power of books and they play a key role in this novel. As Silas Flannery says in the book,

"The romantic fascination produced in the pure state by the first sentences of the first chapter of many novels is soon lost in the continuation of the story:it is the promise of a time of reading that extends before us and can comromise all possible developments. I would like to be able to write a book that maintains for its whole duration the potentiality of the beginning, the expectation still not focused on an object."

This is a highly accomplished work by an acknowledged master(Random House certainly agrees... the edition I read was a "Vintage Classics" edition!).... post-modern, metafiction, call it what you will.....but beg, borrow or steal this one fast....I mean it! I'll cap it off with another one of my favourites from the book

"Your mind has interior walls that allow you to partition different times in which to stop or flow, to concentrate alternately on parallel channes. Is this enough to say you would like to live several lives simultaneously? Or that you actually do live them? That you separate your life with one person or in one environment from your life with others, elsewhere? That in every experience you take for granted a dissatisfaction that can be redeemed only in the sum of all dissatisfactions?"

Genius....pure genius.

Kafkaesque goes places(again)

2008-12-18T17:52:00.003+05:30

After my foray into PFC.com culminated in a full-time authorship at that totally cool forum, "Kafkaesque" found a mention , and the last post "Blessed are the Geek" was reproduced here, at techgoss.com which is an off-beat news site bringing us the latest in news and gossip from the Indian techie scene......blessed are the geek, indeed!

Blessed are the Geek

2008-12-15T18:54:00.009+05:30

(Just back from my field trip.....this is an article based on an idea by my friend Onyeka Nwelue, about "IITians doing crazy stuff with the pen", as he put it!)

The name IIT(Indian Institute of Technology) throws up a lot of reactions when asked for a word association, but most of them overwhelmingly focus on the banal stuff: words like "technocrat", "cutting-edge" , "elitist", "Silicon Valley" "creme-de-la-creme" keep whirling round and round until they are entirely devoid of meaning or purpose...... yes, IIT is perceived as a land peopled mostly by alpha-geeks, a notion that has certainly been nurtured as much by its illustrious alumni as by the Dilberts of the corporate world(remember Asok the intern?). But as a student of IIT myself, when I look at the people around me, do I see people who will take over the biz-tech domains of the world.......?

Hmmmm...tough one.

The answer is, of course I do. There are people here who have the means to do exactly that, for their talent ensures that they are not bound by many of the things you and I might be(yes, at the outset, I might as well confess, I have tech skills which are negligible, to say the least!) But that's not all there is to them. They are artists, singers, actors and yes, writers.... it's just that these aspects of IITians have only been in the public eye relatively recently.

The beginning of our story is in the late 80's when a young man with unbelievably thick glasses, an unruly mop of hair and a degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur(where I study currently) had an epiphany: he took a leap of faith and decided that the world of engineering and technology was just not meant to be for him..... and he enrolled in a journalism course in the University of Southern California. He went on to work at The Statesman, a highly respected Indian daily, and later at The Indian Express, where he's currently the managing editor.

Raj Kamal Jha had announced his arrival in style. In 2000, his first novel, "The Blue Bedspread" was published by Random House and it immediately garnered rave reviews from the high priests of the literary criticism arena. Sample this little nugget from Richard Bernstein of the New York Times:

" ''The Blue Bedspread'' is a brilliant beginning for a writer whose voice already shows a maturity well beyond his years."

By that time Jha was already an editor at The Indian Express where his haunting, razor-sharp editorial pieces were already becoming the talk of the town. When I read the novel about an year ago, I was intrigued and enthralled in equal measure..... the novel chronicles the story of a night in Calcutta, where an unnamed narrator(as Jha puts it himself, "In a city of 12 million names, it doesn't matter") is narrating to his dead sister's child, the stories of his childhood....it is in this seemingly random vignettes that he stitches together a narrative so original and so atmospheric that it seems as if the writer is right beside you, whispering in your ear urgently.... Jha has a unique talent for precise and delicate portrayals which engage all the senses, when he talks about Calcutta's odours and colours, one is moved enough to actually feel the rancid stench of the by-lanes, the sensation of the first monsoon showers caressing your bare skin. He is also a master at thought-process narratives which tend to focus more on the emotional rather than the material aspects of the story, a kind of post-modernist take on the much-abused stream-of-consciousness technique of Joyce.

His craft is based neither on the theatricality and over-the top exuberance of a Rushdie nor on the quiet minimalism of a Raymond Carver, to whom he has been compared in the past; but rather on a middle path. His work is deep-rooted in the realities of Indian life and the nitty-gritty of daily existence(that's the obvious influence of his day job as journalist) but his prose is evocative, layered and often deeply disturbing. The device of multiple narratives and dreamlike, lyrical narratives took on a whole new level with his second novel "If You Are Afraid Of Heights" where he even had "mirror characters" who tended to complement the other's narrative(they even had "mirror" names, Amir and Mira, Mala and Alam!).His third and most recent novel is "Fireproof" , a brilliant and unusual take on the 2002 Gujarat riots which Jha had covered extensively as a journalist at The Indian Express. As an aside, I strongly recommend an article Jha wrote on the riots , titled "John Brown and a dog named Chum" which can be read on the Indian Express website. This short piece will tell you more about the riots than volumes and volumes of yellow, dog-eared newspaper reports.

Around the same time Jha had his leap of faith, an IIT Kharagpur graduate with a management degree from IIM Calcutta to boot, started work at India Today, one of the country's leading magazines. Writing about absolutely anything under the sun, banging away at the keyboard, rushing to meet deadlines, Sandipan Deb felt truly at home. He went on to work in Outlook, a magazine started in 1995 with veteran journo Vinod Mehta as editor. Deb, along with Mehta, Tarun Tejpal(who went on to found Tehelka, the pioneer of "sting operations" in India) and others, shaped Outlook into a sassy new rival to India Today. Over the years, as an avid reader of Outlook myself, I enjoyed Deb's pieces on politics, business, celebrity, films, sports.....the list goes on and on.

In 2004, Penguin published Deb's non-fiction book "The IITians" which sought to explain the reason how India managed to create a world-class system of engineering and scientific education. The book explored the lives of several illustrious IIT alumni and some who had made their mark, albeit in fields light years away from engineering. It also looked at the madly overblown craze IIT has in India, especially small-town India.

What I liked about the book(and ironically enough, when I read the book, I was preparing for the IIT entrance test) was that Deb looked as much to his own experiences as to the experiences of an Arun Sarin(ex-CEO, Vodafone) or a Nandan Nilekani(Co-Chairman of Infosys, the IT giant). I remember the first lines of the book very well: "This first chapter has been incredibly difficult for me to write, absurdly so, because I make my living working for a weekly magazine, crunching out a thousand words on whatever the editor wants me to....". He then goes down to his old college with a friend, another alumnus, and starts to catch up.

He describes himself as "The Black Sheep" among IITians. It is this self-effacing humour which is one of the hallmarks of the book. Even when superlatives are flying thick and fast, you never get the feeling that Deb is getting over-the-top in his praise of either IIT or IITians. Indeed, there is a whole section on the problems the IITs are facing today, some of them involving draconian laws imposed on students.(Believe me, I know all about them!) "The IITians" is required reading for anyone wishing to know about IIT's or IITians,warts and all.

But both Jha and Deb are very much into quote-unquote serious literature/journalism. Of late, there has been the emergence of IITian writers at the other end of the literary spectrum. In 2004, the same year Deb's "The IITians" was published, an IIT Delhi graduate(and IIM Ahmedabad PGDM) Chetan Bhagat released his first novel "Five Point Someone-What Not To Do At IIT" . A hilarious take on the bildungsroman format, involving the misadventures of three friends at IIT Delhi, the book became an instant bestseller. Bhagat's underdog characters, humour which ranged from the wry to the slapstick, and snappy narrative won him a whole generation of fans, many of whom were not in the habit of reading fiction in English. The novel was the kind of book which is very difficult not to like. In effect, Chetan Bhagat did for Indian young adults what Rowling did for kids the world over: he got them to read. In India, if an English language book sells 5000-10000 copies, it's considered a bestseller....."Five Point Someone" sold lakhs and lakhs of copies.

Since then, Bhagat has published two more novels, one of whom "One Night@ Call Centre" was adapted into a Bollywood film "Hello" ,(whose screenplay Bhagat wrote). He has become a publishing phenomenon and also a bone of contention between critics who trash his work, saying that his work is basically "Bollywood on paper" and lacks any plausible logic or coherence; and those who laud Bhagat the entertainer.

Snobbery and inverse-snobbery flying back and forth, sometimes it is hard to separate Bhagat the writer from Bhagat the defiant celeb who declares he writes "for the common man" . I will say, however, that while it is a futile exercise to critically analyze Bhagat's later two novels, the overall quality of his work has taken a severe beating, ever-escalating sales figures notwithstanding. His latest book "The Three Mistakes of My Life" (following which The New York Times, no less ,did a profile feature on him) is riddled with shockingly juvenile bits of prose, highly cliched flights of fancy, and as was later found out, embarrasing factual inconsistencies. But the magic figure for Bhagat and his publishers, Rupa and co. :500,000 copies sold .......

The latest to jump onto this IITian-as-writer bandwagon is young Tushar Raheja, a 2006 IIT Delhi graduate, whose debut novel "Anything For You Ma'am" subtitled "An IITian's Love Story" was published while he was still in his final year of college. The novel, with its simple, uncomplicated storyline, became popular through word-of-mouth publicity. The 5000 copies of the first print were sold out within a month of its release, and there has been no looking back for the 24-year old who candidly admits “I have never been a writer. I find it difficult to form flowing sentences. I don’t have a disciplined approach to writing”. Now people might find this an easy buffer against criticism(“I knew I couldn’t do very literary stuff”) but clearly this is a brash new batch of authors who are unapologetic about their erudition, or lack thereof.

The novel itself is a study in over-simplification and hatchet jobs from cringe-inducing early 90's mushy Bollywood movies, with more than a dash of IIT thrown in. Having said that, Raheja is genuinely funny at times,and a natural raconteur. But the publishers went well and truly overboard with the blurbs when they dropped names like Wodehouse . Just because Raheja uses the word "bally" liberally does not warrant comparing him to perhaps the greatest humourist of all time.... Especially when the author himself distances himself from the purported norms of "literature".

So from the dark landscapes of Jha's dream-worlds to the cotton candy realities of Bhagat and co. , who is the IITian writer? Is he someone who has a unique and illuminating perspective on the world around him, or does he choose to escape into his own flights of fancy? I suppose the answers aren't so simple. From my own experience, I can say that there are plenty of people here, who are among the most culturally aware people you'll ever meet.....I have a friend who says his dream job is "pop-culture historian" ! The thing about this place is, and this is one of my favourite things about my college, no matter how weird or outlandish your tastes are, you'll always find kindred souls. Bookworms and movie-maniacs have a plentiful haven here. With the massive file-sharing network on campus, you have terrabytes of stuff at your disposal all day, everyday.

But there's also the other side. People often fight so hard to get here, they lose sight of what they really want from life in the long-term. Moreover, there's a sense of having reached a plateau sometimes. When you finally arrive here, sometimes after years of single-minded preparation, there seems to be a general disinclination to strain the grey cells, and opt instead for entertainment of the goofy, mindless variety. I, for one, am not prepared to take sides here. For all their supposed shallowness, Bhagat and Raheja are getting young people to read, and that is easier said than done. While I certainly wait for Raj Kamal Jha to dazzle us all with his inimitable prose again, I permit myself a smile when I see the likes of Bhagat and Raheja stacking the bookshelves.

And I most certainly smile when I see my name among the contributors for the annual magazine and think, "Hmmm...once upon a time, a guy named Raj Kamal Jha used to write in these pages...."

Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger"

2008-11-26T14:44:00.004+05:30

(My exams are officially OVER, leaving me with six days of absolutely nothing to do, the first of which I spent in Kolkata yesterday, mostly in the wonderful Oxford Book Store at Park Street ......among the prize catches were Philip Roth's "Sabbath's Theatre" and Zadie Smith's "White Teeth")

Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger" is a remarkable novel in many ways (leaving aside the Booker brouhaha and the fact that it is a debut novel)The first, and in my humble opinion, the most important thing is that it is, quite simply so intensely readable......I know for a fact that a lot of very voracious readers actually avoid what they refer to as the "Booker-Vooker types" because of what they perceive as complexity in tone and content, inscrutable cultural allusions and sometimes off-putting literary gymnastics in general.

No such troubles here. Adiga's voice is instantly engaging, he talks to us but never preaches, never tries to play gotcha, and manages to be racy without being shallow throughout the length of the 330-odd pages. Moreover, all too often, his character Balram Halwai, "servant, entrepreneur, murderer..." and the "White Tiger" displays often startling insight into the way the world ticks, cloaked in down-to-earth hokum and sly humour.Having a first-person narrative is slippery ground at the best of times, and it requires a very steady hand at the wheel. (In this aspect, Halwai's saccharine-like tone to Premier Jiabao, to whom he tells the story; reminded me a lot of Mohsin Hamid's " The Reluctant Fundamentalist", where the central character Changez's dialogue with the American stranger lends a dangerous edge to the already taut narrative)

For the most parts Adiga has things under control, except perhaps the parts where he desrcibes the parts where he describes the young Halwai describing his father's death due to TB: I felt that the graphic descriptions of a government hospital in disarray, were akin to emotional pornography and looked more in place in an 70's Bollywood flick where the greatly aggrieved child would morph into Amitabh Bachchan's angry young man with a deft camera-stroke.

Having said that, Adiga's portrayal of ordinary village life(in this case, in a village near Dhanbad!) shines luminously. He fleshes out his characters lavishly. One thing Adiga will never be accused of is pulling his punches. And in the feudal system which has the average Indian village in a chokehold, he has got the soapbox of a lifetime. Whether it is the landowners(called animal names like the Stork), the pathetic obsequious peasants or greasy local politicians, Adiga digs in with obvious relish. He makes much of the "other India" the land which he calls the Darkness. It is this darkness that Halwai is so desperate to escape, and he leaves no stone unturned to realize his dream. The Darkness oozes slime, it reeks....and its inhabitants with it. Whether it is Halwai's painstaking efforts to educate himelf, or his pathetic work at the tea-shop or his overbearing stereotypically matriarchal granny, Adiga makes you laugh while making you sit back and think. Sustaining black humour is easier said than done... sample this passage where he talks about the way the poor stay poor:

“Go to Old Delhi ...and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages...They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they're next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with human beings in this country.”

Here Adiga treads a fine line, for he opens a Pandora's box when he chooses to base his whole plot on the debunking of the "India Shining" rhetoric.......to blend the personal with the political, using one man's story as a mirror to the society as a whole. It has been done before, but never with such irreverent, take-no-prisoners styled wit.

In Halwai, Adiga has created a bona fide original, a truly unforgettable character, who leaps straight off the pages. He is street-smart, wildly ambitious and till the end, rigidly unapologetic till the very end. For all his supposed grief when he realized that he had to kill his employer, he never hesistated in the actual act itself. He is always very mindful of the fact that he is destiny's chosen child, the one who will make the miraculous leap from the Darkness into the Light. And for that, he is ready to do whatever it takes.......this is perhaps best portrayed when he talks casually about maybe having to kill his nephew, who knew about his crime, someday. Halwai is about as remorseful as Tom Ripley, and a lot more fun.

This is no mean debut. Adiga has at a single stroke, catapulted himself into the big league. Let's see how he fares in the days to come. A month ago, his second book, Between The Assassinations, which he supposedly wrote before this one, was released and has been doing brisk business,expectedly. I hope to get my hands on that one, soon, though I gave it a miss yesterday, in favour of Roth and Rushdie.

The Persepolis Experience

2008-11-15T13:17:00.004+05:30

(Redirected from my blog at passionforcinema.com)

Okay, so nowadays I am on a graphic novel spree. Having devoured Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” (although an outstandingly original work,Persepolis is unmistakeably influenced by “Maus”) Alan Moore’s “From Hell” and closer home, Sarnath Bannerjee’s refreshing debut “Corridor” in the last few weeks, I have read precious little apart from graphic novels lately….. One of the topics that has been done to death whenever we talk about graphic novels or comic-books in general is how the medium is in sync with cinema(although this has its opponents, most notably Alan Moore, who commented that during the 80’s and the early 90’s he concentrated on making comic-books which were , well, unfilmable…….let’s see what he makes of the upcoming Watchmen movie…more about that in a later post!)

Therefore I was pretty excited about watching Marjane Satrapi’s animated film “Persepolis” . I read the graphic novel ( both volumes of it), on my laptop in one go, so jaw-droppingly good it was. It is at once an intensely personal memoir and a mirror which looks into Iran’s troubled past and asks some questions which cut uncomfortably close to the bone. Beginning with young Marjane or Marji’s childhood, we are led on a journey which tells us more about the oppressive regime of the Shah , and the subsequent revolt, than any number of history books could. By the time Marjane is a troubled teenager, a drifter and finally a somewhat mellowed young adult , we are totally engrossed by the simply yet beautifully told story.

Given that the film is co-directed by Satrapi herself, who wrote and drew the book, the film manages to capture the essence of the 350-odd pages over a mere 85 or so minutes. The film is full of highly poignant moments, like the one where Marji realizes how utterly lone she is in France, or the one where she gets expelled from her school for speaking out against the regime, or the one where she meets her favourite uncle in jail for the last time……. The direction is warm, sensitive and funny. In fact, perhaps because I loved the book so much, I felt a bit disappointed because some of the delicious scenes in the book, especially in the second volume, never make the cut in the film. This is one of the reasons why I believe that, ideally, The Persepolis Experience firmly consists of both the novel and the film, in that order.

It is unbelievable that “Persepolis” did not win the Academy Award for Best Animated Film, (though it did win the Prix du Jury at Cannes) pipped to the post by Ratatouille, which was funny but, frankly wasn’t even in the same ballpark as this unassuming masterpiece. The film is searingly honest, as it uses the cliches of the bildungsroman(the coming-of-age tale) to chronicle the horrors of living in fear and risking one’s freedom for one’s principles. The structure of the film is such that as the child Marji grows up , previously everyday incidents now take up sinister undertones as she starts to realize the complex dynamics of her homeland. Note that when Marji is brought upto date on the events of her homeland by her father, she reacts not as the adult she has become, but as the child she once was.

Her attempts to lead a life the way she deems fit, with all the trappings of American culture (complete with smuggled Iron Maiden posters) make for some darkly funny moments. The scene where she lets go of her boyfriend’s hand at the wheel stayed with me, as is the one where her mother is verbally abused by one of the moral police hounds. The often trouble nature of Marji’s own morals is all-too clear, as shown by the scene where she falsely accuses a random stranger of making lewd advances, just because she could…… But all is not gloomy and dark, as Marjane does encounter a truly religious person, albeit towards the fag end of the film.

At this point, I must admit that I am in complete awe( and when I say awe, I mean the college-kid droolfest variety)of Satrapi as a writer and an artist……part of it because she is every bit the classic “rebel” intellectual, always stepping on politically correct toes, never giving a damn about how her works are perceived, (a later book, Embroideries, has a story line about an Iranian mother of four who has no clue what the male organ looks like…..) perennially with a cigarette on her lips( she once joked about wanting to be the “world champion in smoking”) she cuts quite a figure and she knows it.

Persepolis will stay with you long after the credits have rolled down……it’s an experience you are unlikely to forget in a hurry.

Blogger's Block

2008-11-13T00:35:00.002+05:30

It's been a lean few weeks as far as blogging is concerned, and I'm afraid the coming week isn't gonna be much better, either. My end-semester exams are round the corner, and after that, I have a week's holiday before I'm hauled off to the back of beyond for a field trip to study rocks and all the other good things in life.(I study Applied Geology) Hoping to catch up on the blog(among other things....) during that week. Some posts on the anvil are sure to involve-

1. Aravind Adiga's magnificent debut "The White Tiger" which bagged the Man Booker Prize this year.
2. The weird world of Tarsem Singh who has given us two truly unique, outrageously original films: The Cell and The Fall
3. The works of comic book writer Alan Moore: The path-breaking graphic novel Watchmen, V For Vendetta, The Killing Joke, From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
4. My new-found love for animes.
5. Some other terrific graphic novels I read recently, like Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, and the evergreen Maus by Art Spiegelman(which I re-read)
6. Boston Legal, my all-time favourite television series, which will take its final bow on the 15th of December(at which time I'll probably be surrounded by vast expanses of metamorphic rocks, and little else).

The Master At Work : A.R.Rahman's "Yuvvraaj"

2008-10-27T16:09:00.002+05:30

Okay, so I am the laziest bum that ever walked the hallowed sands of cyberspace.......can't get down to type a new post, so in the meantime, here's my post on my other blog, at Passionforcinema.com(you can catch the original page here)

There is a very good reason why I have titled this post A.R.Rahman’s Yuvvraaj……because considering Subhash Ghai’s track record of late, (the seeped-in-cliches “Black and White” and the-lesser-said-the-better “Kisna” )the odds are that “Yuvvraaj” will be another Ghai film which will flatter to deceive…..and that should not come in the way of the fact that A.R.Rahman has given us yet another masterpiece of a soundtrack, one that(dare I say it?) might be his best yet.

The last time Subhash Ghai and Rahman worked together was the ill-fated Kisna, where Rahman contributed two tracks and a few instrumentals before he dropped out in favour of other assignments. Before that, they had famously collaborated in “Taal” 10 years ago, resulting in the creation of a watershed soundtrack which is still considered to be a landmark in the history of Bollywood music. The onus was, thus firmly on the maestro ever since it was reported that he would work on “Yuvvraaj”. Like “Taal”, this too had been billed as a grand musical.

Rahman does not disappoint. The album starts off with “Main Yuvvraaj” which is basically Salman Khan introducing his character, as the familiar strains of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony play on. The next song, the one which we have been listening to in the promos, is “Tu Meri Dost Hain” marks the beginning of the fun……Rahman creates a simple yet immensely powerful melody, one based on a steady Western Classical Orchestra sound. On this template, Rahman brings on the refreshing Benny Dayal(Pappu Can’t Dance and Nazrein Churaana from Jaane Tu..) Shreya Ghoshal(and himself for good measure) to weave pure magic on a track which will have you hitting the replay button again and again. A note on Gulzar’s lyrics: The old stalwart delights again… sample this

“Awaaz ka dariya hoon, behta hoon main neeli raaton mein….

Main jaagta rehta hoon, neend bhari jheel si aankhon mein…”

Rahman’s prodigious skill with Western Classical music is on parade for much of this soundtrack, including the next song “Tu Muskura Le” which, in the spirit of reunions, has Alka Yagnik hitting the high notes ever-so-sweetly again. This is again a keyboard-based track, albeit one in which Rahman doesn’t quite let his hair down. However, the track has an amazingly haunting quality, and as with so many Rahman songs, gets better with every subsequent listen. We then merrily segue along to “Mastam Mastam” which is characteristic of the recent Rahman(Guru etc.) subtle melody combined with earthy sounds and a general sense of joie de vivre. The highly innovative and thematic nature of the lyrics as well as that of the song is a standout feature.

The same “thematic” concerns continue with “Manmohini Morey” which combines classical Hindustani vocals set to a simple techno arrangement with the signature Grand Orchestra violins and cellos of the film keeping company. I suspect that these songs will be all the more impressive, when they shall be seen and not just heard. Rahman decides to have a bit of fun with “Shano Shano” which is a very unsual disco track, one which may seem lightweight in comparison to the melodious riches strewn around the rest of the album, but a highly infectious track nonetheless.

Next up is “Zindagi” which is a typical Rahman-soft track, featuring Srinivas(remember the soulful “Kaisi Hai Yeh Rut” from DCH?) whose honest-to-God vocals lend a delightfully fragile edge to the track. Finally, Rahman signs off in style, with the nearly eight-minute long “Dil Ka Rishta” which has as many as nine singers, including Sonu Nigam, Roop Kumar Rathod, rapper Blaaze and Rahman himself. I strongly suspect this will be the final scene of the film, as the melody has that operatic sense of climax about it.

There is no doubt in my mind that for sheer brilliance, variety and originality, this is the best Bollywood soundtrack of this decade. Ghai has smartly emphasized the Rahman-Gulzar combo in the initial teasers of the film.

Rahman had already done more than enough to ensure that his would be the career that would define the past 15 or so years of Bollywood music, but with “Yuvvraaj” he just raised the bar higher….. The only question in my mind is, what will he do next? The man who has already notched up more accolades and kudos at 40 that most musicians do in a lifetime(including the slightly cheesy epithet “Mozart of Madras” given by TIME magazine) has only himself to beat……

Finally, a word about the film itself: “Yuvvraaj” seems very much to be from the classic Ghai stable, with all the allure of grandeur, and his characteristially “epic” storytelling. The film stars Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan, among which Katrina is a cello player and the rest are singers.(From the teasers, it’s Kapoor’s character which intrigues me the most, and I suspect a solid performance from the veteran will go a long way if the film is to work….) I sincerely hope that the film is good, because I’m going to watch it first day first show anyway, just to watch Rahman’s gems unfold on the large screen, where perhaps they might sparkle brighter still.

A New Innings: Kafkaesque at PFC

2008-10-16T01:58:00.003+05:30

It's out in the open folks: I have a new blog! This is at PFC or Passionforcinema.com.... and I was beyond thrilled when the Editors of the site invited me to be a part of the team.....especially as I had been following this website for some time now........and had submitted a few articles(like this one , and this) which they graciously published. And I am in very good company indeed: The authors on this site include many people directly associated with the film industry, directors like Anurag Kashyap, Sudhir Mishra, Navdeep Singh, Onir; as well as prominent movie journos like Pratim D. Gupta and Khalid Mohammad. I hope this is the beginning of a long innings!

Here's my first article as a PFC author(redirected from this page at passionforcinema.com)

The Legend Of Johnny Depp

I was about 10 when I saw “Edward Scissorhands” for the first time.(It was also one of the first Hollywood movies I saw) The modern-day fairytale style of narration, I’m sure went a long way towards holding a child’s attention, and the novelty value of seeing a freakish guy with dozens of scissors dangling where his hands should have been…… all in all, it was a dazzling experience.However, even then, what really grabbed me, what really gave me shivers was the image of a chalk-faced, confused, vulnerable….. and so deeply child-like Johnny Depp. This performance would prove to be a turning point in what is already one of the most remarkable careers of his generation.

As my taste grew more evolved, I watched many more films featuring this amazingly versatile actor. The first among these, some three years ago, when I was in Class XI, was “Ed Wood”(not Pirates of The Caribbean, imagine!), Tim Burton’s marvellously funny and touching portrait of the maverick, flamboyant movie-maker of the 50’s(By then, I already had a retro fetish, for both Bollywood and Hollywood ). Depp’s performance in this film has to be seen to be believed. Talk about getting under the skin of the character…… from the moment he waltzs in on the screen, all you can do is sit and watch……and try to close your mouth. Depp’s chameleon-like ability to master, but not overdo, almost any accent(notice the finely-nuanced Scottish one he pulls off to perfection in “Finding Neverland”, almost a decade after Ed Wood) coupled with his manic energy and obvious emoting gifts are on display here.

After being completely swept off my feet by this film, I saw the infinitely more “mainstream” and “commercial” Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, in which Depp played the character for which he is perhaps best known now: the irrepressible, witty, swaggering and sometimes treacherous pirate Jack Sparrow. Now the POC trilogy very much falls into the big-budget Hollywood fare category. Consequently, it has all the pitfalls and cliches that one associates with said company. However, it is Johnny Depp, who steers the ship, so to speak, all the way along, especially in the first film “The Curse Of The Black Pearl”.(In fact, one of the principal criticisms of the later films in the franchise was that they had too little of Sparrow!) The overwhelming praise Depp generated culminated even got him an Oscar nomination, in which he eventually lost out to Sean Penn for “Mystic River” . (Perhaps it’s just my Depp bias speaking, but is this another example of an out-and-out comic role losing out in the Oscar stakes to a more quote-unquote serious role?)

In the last year or so, I have watched half-a-dozen more Johnny Depp movies, including “Sweeney Todd”, (my personal favourite among them), which was a departure of sorts for Depp. For the first time, he worked in a musical, and even though he has an untrained voice, did splendidly, garnering kudos from all over, and yet another Oscar nomination(NOT that it mattered). The cold fury in his eyes bring out the angst and the pent-up bile of a broken man to perfection…..and the songs were fun, too!

The other usual suspects included “Finding Neverland” a somewhat weary but genuinely touching and often brilliant take on Sir James Barrie, the man who created the immortal play “Peter Pan”. Once again Depp delivers in style as the shy genius who crafted amazing worlds through the sheer power of his imagination. “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory” was a joy-ride through and through, and Depp literally let his hair down as Willy Wonka, the wildly creative but reclusive chocolatier.

Some were more quirky(than usual, by Depp’s standards), like playing legendary Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s fictional alter-ego Raoul Duke in the screen adaptation of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”. Then there was “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” another gripping drama, in which Depp was overshadowed for once, by a 19-year old by the name of Leonardo Di Caprio……

Along the way, Depp has forged a highly productive partnership with director Tim Burton, one which has already given us films like Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd. I am eagerly awaiting the upcoming projects like “Public Enemies”, from Michael Mann, the director of the majestic “Heat” and “Collateral”. Also on the anvil are “Shantaram” where we have the intriguing prospect of seeing Johnny Depp and Amitabh Bachchan share screen space. But the one to watch out for, in my opinion is, Tim Burton’s next film, “Alice in Wonderland” where Depp plays the Mad Hatter(who else?).

Long live the legend of Johnny Depp!

Musings on Life and Love: "American Beauty"

2008-10-09T20:52:00.003+05:30

(Redirected from this page on passionforcinema.com)

In one of many poignant moments in Sam Mendes’ “American Beauty”, Lester Burnham(Kevin Spacey) watches his new neighbour, teenaged drug-dealer and video enthusiast Ricky tell off his boss at his part-time catering job, saying “You don’t have to pay me.” Upon seeing the boss confused, he puts on a okay-here’s-how-it’s-done tone and says ” I quit. So you don’t have to pay me.”Seeing this Burnham, who is trapped in a highly mediocre, humdrum job and a stagnant, rotting marriage, says, in unashamed admiration “You’ve just become my hero….”

Emancipation from the clutches of an “ordinary” and “ordered” existence is one of the key themes addressed in this masterpiece of a film. Lester Burnham has nothing to look forward to in his life. He has an average job, he has a career-obesessed wife and he has the All-American Surly Teenage daughter. But this soon changes when he spots Angela, the quintessential blonde, a friend of his daughter’s, and starts to lust after her. In perhaps the most famous visual associated with the film, he envisages her lying naked in a pool of rose petals.

From then on he decides to do away with the banal repetitiveness of his life. He quits his job(blackmailing his boss for a fat severance package), starts to work out, and refuses to be pushed around by his wife.But Lester is not the only one with issues. His wife Carolyn(Annette Bening) is a real estate agent trying her best to succeed at her job, only to find her efforts are in vain. She tries to maintain the facade of normalcy and happiness at home. Their daughter Jane has serious self-esteem issues and has been saving her babysitting money since ten “for a boob job”.

She desperately wants to be “pretty like Angela”. Add to this the new neighbours across the street: An Ex-Marine Corps who is obesessive about discipline, a semingly demented wife and their son Ricky, who has a flourishing drug-dealing business and is fresh out of a mental facility.

The film is choc-a-bloc with moments of startling insight. Ricky explaining the reason why he films(seemingly)everyday stuff, Lester starting to feel good about himself after quitting his job, Jane betraying a shadow of a smile after she sees Ricky compulsively filming her, Carolyn’s pathetic efforts to sell a house…….. these scenes are all carried off with a deft touch. They are very much satirical, yet somehow remain deeply sympathetic towards the characters. The quality of Alan Ball’s writing has to be commended here just as much as the obvious quality of Mendes’ vision.

What really is “ordinary” ? How far would one go to escape an “ordinary” life? Can beauty be found in the seemingly plain things of our everyday life? These are just some of the questions raised here. Twice in the film Angela, who desperately wants to be a model, says “The worst thing in life is to be ordinary”. But then we witness later on how insecure and ordinary she really is. There is much irony on display here, as the superbly done climax shows. Without giving out further spoilers, I would just say that this film is highly recommended for everyone.

The acting is of the highest order. Kevin Spacey shows why he is so highly regarded with a virtuoso performance as Lester Burnham, while Annette Bening is pitch-perfect as Carolyn Burnham. The other supporting acts are terrific too, with Wes Bentley standing out as Ricky, the apparent whack-job next door. To think that this was the debut for both writer Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes…… I had previously written about Mendes’ second film “Road To Perdition”, which I had enjoyed immensely, and I must say that my respect for his work has just shot through the roof. Now I’m gonna try and get my hands on “Jarhead” which was his third and latest film, released in 2005. Mendes fans are eagerly waiting for the Christmas release of “Revolutionary Road” in which he reunites the Titanic troika of Leonardo Di Caprio, Kate Winslet and Kathy Bates.

Anita Desai's "In Custody"

2008-10-08T22:59:00.002+05:30

I finished three books in the week: old favourite Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America", Anita Desai's "In Custody" and Patricia Highsmith's "Eleven" , a short story collection. More about the other two later, but first, I simply have to write about this luminous work by one of India's finest writers ever.

"In Custody" is about Deven, a lecturer at a Delhi college, whose obviously mediocre and banal existence is changed when he gets an assignment from his friend Murad, who runs an Urdu magazine: To interview Nur, the greatest living Urdu poet, now well past the peak of his powers, living the life of a recluse.

The trials and tribulations which Deven faces while trying to extract something useful from Nur, who is a shadow of the man he used to be; form the crux of the book. But it is really the beautiful exploration of the layers of everyday life that Desai revels in. During the course of this slim novel, there are several passages which make you gasp with recognition, such is the power and accuracy of her vision. Even when dealing with complex and nostalgia-ridden characters like Nur, Desai displays a deftness of touch and a unique, sensitive style which fleshes out the character like few others can do.

The oppression of women and their often "trapped" existence is a peripheral theme in the novel. Whether it is Sarla, Deven's wife or Nur's wives, the female characters in the story act as a sort of a barometer. Sample this simply-told yet devastatingly effective passage

"When he did get home, Sarla was standing in the doorway with her arms and her sari wrapped about her shoulders and her face bent under the thin straggling hair as she talked to a neighbour outside: the picture of an abandoned wife......"

Reading Anita Desai, we are reminded constantly that this could be any of us: the remarkable amount of details she provides; little things really, are sure to provoke a trip down memory lane. Although she has been criticised often on the grounds that plot takes a backseat in most of her books, my view is two-fold:
1) Plot movement is not always manifested in the form of actual, tangible and relevant events. The psychological evolution of a character is equally fascinating, and in the hands of a master(like Desai) perhaps even more so.
2) I couldn't care less either way: If Anita Desai decides to describe her impression of the first fellow she sees on any given day on the street; over the course of a few hundred pages, I would happily devour it.

Perhaps the best way to describe the book is a tragic comedy: seeing the pathetic Deven's futile attempts at relevance, his one shot at glory, one laughs and cries at the same time.My favourite Desai book remains "Baumgartner's Bombay" which is actually not one of her more fancied novels, like "Clear Light Of Day" and "Fasting, Feasting" both of which were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize(like "In Custody"). But after reading this one, I have to place it a very close second. Am now looking to get my hands on the 1993 Merchant-Ivory film "In Custody"..... it starred Shashi Kapoor, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi......more than enough reasons already!

RIP: David Foster Wallace

2008-10-08T12:24:00.002+05:30

Amidst the hustle-bustle of my exams, I skipped past a lot of news...... especially from the literary world. Among them was the suicide of David Foster Wallace, one of my favourite contamporary writers. Wallace's exuberant, massive, immensely erudite postmodern tome"Infinite Jest" remains a one-of-a-kind , a bona fide original in the truest sense of the word.Time Magazine included "Infinite Jest" in its list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century.

Wallace burst on to the literary scene as a precocious 25 year-old with his debut novel "Broom of the System" in 1987 which got him attention as one for the future, but it was with "Infinite Jest" that he became the rockstar of the literary world. With his characteristic flowing hair and his bandana, he cut a very popular figure among young lit-enthusiasts in America and elsewhere.
Writing on such diverse topics as tennis(he was a regional level junior player) , the food and hospitality industry, mathematics and philosophy, his writing is characterized by a quirky, offbeat style, frequent usage of footnotes and esoteric words, and a compulsive, ironic sense of humour. Many of his articles can be found online ; one of my favourite ones is this one about Roger Federer.

You can also check out this interview with Charlie Rose

Wallace suffered from depression for over two decades, and in fact had stopped taking his medication due to severe side effects. David Foster Wallace was 46, an absurdly young age to die. With his death, the literary world has lost one of its most original and brilliant voices.

Abhi Dilli Door Hai!

2008-10-03T20:01:00.005+05:30

In the wake of the Sowmya Vishwanathan murder case, I was watching a television interview of Sheila Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi. On being asked her opinion on the whole business, she promptly put on a granny-knows-best expression on her face and replied, "It was pretty late-night,no? Hmmm.... you know these companies who hire young girls, even boys also, they should be responsible for their safety.... after 9-10 in the night(the murder took place after 3!)...they are morally responsible for this.....", and buttoned this with "Especially in a city....which people find to be not....you know...." , and her expression did the rest.

Jaw-droppingly tactless and irresponsible as this statement is, what surprised me was the last part, where she seemed to indicate, "Hey, you and I both know that Delhi is crazy-crap dangerous.....of course you have to look out after yourselves....who do you think will do that for you- the police!?"

Now, I know that crime rates in Delhi have been consistently appalling throughout the past decade, and it has been home to several high-profile murder cases. While talking to my friend Abhishek, a true-blue Delhi guy in every way, I found out that the actual ground reality is much worse than the rest of India perceives it to be. I appreciate that guys like us, spending most of the year at a place like Kharagpur, basically insulated from serious crime, cannot possibly imagine what it feels like to work and live under conditions where you feel perpetually threatened.

But this sort of defeatism, and that too from the Chief Minister, is just not on. When the government starts to shrug and move on, you know you are in trouble. The image of a weary-looking Dikshit, with deadened eyes, facing the media, is not likely to boost the morale of the young professionals working in the capital. One is reminded of these lines from Yeats, through which he indicated the imminent end of Europe's then-ruling class..... they sound eerily relevant.....

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Kota Konnection

2008-09-29T23:25:00.002+05:30

One of the better widgets attached to this page is the "FeedJit" feed monitor application. Basically, you get to know where exactly is your blog being read. A couple of posts earlier, I had posted about my trip to IIT Bombay for the IIT-IIM Quiz Fest...... and since then, all hell broke loose. Now, the basic readership still consists of my friends and acquaintances here at Kharagpur, and occasionally my other friends , at colleges scattered around India, would pop up . And then you would get the odd drifter from overseas, from delightfully named places like "Nol, Vastra Gotaland" to more routine ones like "Janesville, Wisconsin" or "Middlestown, Pennsylvania". Thanks to my friend Onyeka Nwelue, "Lagos" is a regular name, too. (Check out his terrific blog here)

But since the Bombay post, the most prominent location on the Kafkaesque
map has been Kota,
a small town in Rajasthan......

for those unschooled about Kota, here are the bare bones via Wikipedia

"The coaching classes of Kota, have year after year produced exceptionally high success rates in the all-India entrance exams to the IITs and medical colleges. However, the educational institutions have faced criticism for charging high fees and thus allowing only the more affluent students a chance to prepare for IIT. Many IIT faculty and some alumni also feel that the IIT-JEE should not be prepared for so intensely and in such a gruelling atmosphere. Even so, a large number of students, from all over the country prefer to undergo training at these institutions because of the generally high success rates they boast of. This is also due to the overall, albeit often misguided zeal among students and parents to pursue professional courses, especially engineering and that too at IIT's"

Sandipan Deb, the well-known journalist( and a graduate from my college, IIT Kharagpur!) was not as calculating when he blasted the bloody-minded culture of IIT-at-any-cost that Kota and others drilled into their students. In his superb book "The IITians", he lamented

"Imagine a young man of seventeen who hasn't been in a movie theatre for three years, who hasn't picked up a magazine in three years, who has never tried to woo a girl....... what sort of a teenager would he be?"

Apparently, the hits I have been getting from Kota have a simple explanation(this courtesy my room-mate)
This means that the students at Kota, who go through maybe 16 hour-days, day in, day out, actually find time to surf the web once in a while. But even then, they are on the lookout for something with "IIT" , possibly "IIT Mumbai" in their keywords....... (and to think that their quest landed them here, of all places!)

I wonder what the kids up there in Kota would have thought of the pictures, a group of clearly wild youngsters bumming around, appearing not to have a shred of care about the "hallowed" place they are in...... I'm afraid we have busted the picture they might have had of the typical IITian.......

Fast times at Kharagpur

2008-09-19T21:04:00.000+05:30

I fall into an all-too easy trap for bloggers: The list post. Haven't found a lot of time to post lately, and my exams have started today, so I guess I'll just bore you guys with my playlist for the week:

PLAYLIST OF THE WEEK

1. Careless Whisper- George Michael
2. 1973- James Blunt
3. Iris- Goo Goo Dolls
4. Master of Puppets- Metallica
5. Come Away With Me- Norah Jones
6. With Or Without You- U2
7. Yellow- Coldplay
8. Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd
9. My Father's Eyes- Eric Clapton
10. Mr. Tambourine Man- Bob Dylan

That's it from me for this week.....adios!!!!

IIT Bombay Pics

2008-09-15T22:23:00.004+05:30

Here are some pictures from my visit to IIT Bombay as part of my college's team for Nihilanth, the IIT-IIM Quiz Fest(I'm the guy in the black full-sleeved shirt!!!!)

A Trip to Maximum City

2008-09-04T17:08:00.000+05:30

Had a whale of a time at IIT Bombay which was hosting "Nihilanth" the IIT-IIM Quiz Fest
Two days at quizzer's paradise......can't remember the last time I had such a fun trip!
(The icing on the cake was winning 3K at the Literature Quiz, cracking some real brain-teasers on the way.) More about this in detail later, with plenty of pics!

When Legends Meet

2008-08-21T00:24:00.002+05:30

Redirected from passionforcinema.com, where it was originally published.

Over the past 30-odd years, few actors have shaped the direction of popular culture like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. It was perhaps inevitable then, that one day, the twain should,indeed, meet.....( The awesome twosome did not have any scenes together in The Godfather II, which featured De Niro as a young Vito Corleone in flashback scenes, while Pacino reprised his role as Michael Corleone)

And meet they did, in style, in Michael Mann's 1995 stylish noir flick Heat. Make no mistake: The director's achievements are considerable. The film grabs you by the scruff of the neck and never lets you go till the end. The action scenes are some of the best ones you'll ever see, the sprawling Los Angeles nightline has been used beautifully for some stirring sequences, and Michael Mann the writer, too has a winner on his hands.

But more about all this later: For now let me drool over every cine-lover's wet dream: Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in action together. Watching the two of them, you get to understand why they are rated so highly, they seem to operate on a different plane altogether. They are also a study in contrast: De Niro supremely controlled, every ripple of emotion fine-tuned, every outburst cleverly unleashed, not a single muscle betraying that he could ever be anyone else than his character........... Pacino on the other hand brings a berserker brilliance with him. When Al Pacino is on the screen, you can never be sure of what's going to happen, he pulls off every scene with an insouicance and an is-that-all kind of an air, which makes every scene he is in, his very own.

To spice things up, in this film they are on opposite sides of the law: De Niro plays Neil McCauley, a career thief and heist artist par excellence, while Pacino's character is Vincent Hana, the tough-as-nails cop with more than a mad streak. Also in the film are Val Kilmer, who plays Chris, a longtime friend and accomplice of McCauley, Ashley Judd, who plays Chris's wife and cameos by Natalie Portman who plays Hana's troubled stepdaughter from his third wedding, and veteran Jon Voight who plays McCauley's fence.

What begins as a simple cops-and-robbers tale diverges and broadens out into a personal contest between the two stalwarts as they try to give each other the slip. Hana immediately realises that McCauley is no ordinary thief and the mutual respect the duo have for each other only grows. Mann knows when to keep his cards close to his chest. From the beginning of the film, it was inevitable that the two gladiators would ultimately confront each other. But instead of making it a wild-west gunslinger sequence, he has the two men meet over coffee.

This sequence, which runs for seven minutes or so is a miniature masterpiece in itself.(And it has since then been done to death in both Bollywood and Hollywood) Not only is it a masterclass in acting, it is also a perfect example of keeping things simple and not going overboard: skills many accomplished film-makers often forget they had. As McCauley and Hana reach a tacit understanding and admire each other, they both know that when the day comes, both of them would be equally ruthless.

Christopher Nolan, who is currently the toast of Hollywood, and deservedly so, said in an interview that one of the inspirations for "The Dark Knight" was "Heat". And indeed, when you look at the noirish treatment of the action scenes, or the massively lighted skyline shots of Gotham City, you understand what Nolan is talking about. Perhaps the biggest tribute to "Heat" was(I don't know if this is intentional)William Fichtener, who gets robbed in the opening heist sequences of both films!

The bottomline is: Go watch "Heat" , if nothing else, then for the chance to see two of the greatest actors of all time in tandem. I would say that this might be your only chance, but late this year, the two legends are at it again, this time both playing detectives, in "Righteous Kill" (Giving them company is Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, but that's another story.....)

"You and I" (Whispers in the Darkness)

2008-08-09T15:29:00.004+05:30

Whenever it rains I run for cover
And you go singing with the wind
Whenever I say life's a bitch
You just smile and ruffle my hair.....

When we sit and stare at the evening sky
I see the colours fading around me
And you see all the promise
Of an impending dawn.....

And when I lash out at no one in particular
Kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs
I know that you'll be there for me
Waiting for it to end....

Every day I wage war with the world
Knowing that there is someone to come back to
I live the life of a gypsy, but I always know
When I'm with you, I've reached home........

I don't know what it is
With You and I
(If there is such a thing)
All I know, all I trust is Us........

This is my first poem in months.......during the summer I wrote a few short stories the old fashioned way, that is, scratching away with ink and paper( a rather old, saggy diary in fact)
Let's hope I knuckle up someday and make soft copies........

P.S. The illustration you see is courtesy Soumen Goswami, who titled his sketch "Whispers in the darkness", so you could say this is my interpretation of this very haunting piece of art........

Darkness Unleashed: The Dark Knight

2008-08-01T18:41:00.002+05:30

The trouble with writing about a film like "The Dark Knight" is that everyone seems to talking about it, and rightly so. When you have heavyweights like Roger Ebert bending over backwards to shower a film with superlatives, what chance does your average keyboard-banger have? But then again, I have two very good reasons: One, writing for me is not only about getting read but also about getting stuff out of my system, whether it is books,movies or scary IIT Professors..... Also, with regards to this genre-bending film,its appeal has cut across the different sections of movie-goers. Hence everybody has something fresh which they found about it.

And why not? For "The Dark Knight" is at once high art and in-your-face entertainment...... attempts to pigeonhole it will prove futile. Using the comic-book template, Christopher Nolan has artfully woven a compelling crime saga which delves deep into the fundamental questions of good and evil, of cowardice and sacrifice.

At the end of the magisterial "Batman Begins" Nolan had already made clear the arrival of the caped crusader's arch-nemesis, the psychopathic Joker. From the outset, as Heath Ledger ominously announces his arrival, it is clear that we are indeed "in a world without rules". More than anyone else's this film belongs to the late Heath Ledger. From the moment he comes on the screen, he rules as few have done in recent times. The Joker turns into one of the most memorable characters seen anywhere anytime. So completely immersed is Ledger that it's downright chilling to watch him, even when he is not actually delivering his lines. Ledger oozes menace with his scarred and flaky made-up visage and his nuggets of macabre anarchy. As Ledger himself commented,"He is a psychopathic mass-murdering clown........he has zero empathy.......this Joker does not crack jokes, he cracks skulls..." The manic laughter, the deranged "logic" , even the way he stands in the middle of a burning street is pure magic.

Meanwhile Bruce Wayne(Christian Bale) is struggling to come to terms with his dual identity as Batman even as Gotham grows wary of the vigilante and roots instead for Harvey Dent(Aaron Eckhart), the dashing District Attorney, who is every bit the conventional All-American hero, chiselled jaw and all. To complicate things, Rachel Dawes, his childhood sweetheart is falling for Dent, even as Batman begins to think that perhaps Dent is the right hero for Gotham after all.

Moral ambiguities form the core of the film, right from the first skirmish Batman gets into: multiple Batman impersonators interrupt as in the end one of the disgruntled imposters shouts, "What's the difference between you and me?!" And of course, the Joker's actions are tailor-made to induce moral dilemmas: the superbly orchestrated opening heist sequence as the Joker's clown posse kill each other off is mind-boggling. Later on, he kidnaps Harvey and Rachel at opposite ends of town and dares Batman to save one of them.

The interrogation scene between Bale and Ledger will go down as one of the truly memorable scenes of all time.

The Joker teases his adversary mercilessly as fear, the one deadly weapon at Batman's disposal is rendered useless.("You have nothing that threatens me" cackles the Joker. Moreover, this scene is a chilling reminder of the innate dichotomies of the story: as the Joker says, " To them, you're just a freak...like me. I don't wanna kill you! What would I do without you? No, no........you complete me....."

Amidst all the(thoroughly deserved) mounting acclaim for Heath Ledger, Christian Bale's solid, unflinching reprisal of his role as the Batman/Bruce Wayne has gone almost unnoticed. Bale's trademark intensity and screen presence are in full bloom here as he struggles to cope up with the challenges thrown up by the Joker. A word is also in order for the old acting firm of messrs Caine, Freeman and Oldman as they turn in flawless performances.( In an interesting anecdote, Sir Michael Caine described how he, after watching Ledger perform on the sets, forgot his lines!) Aaron Eckhart(whose role was previously offered to Matt Damon) is efficient as Harvey "Two-Face" Dent while quite honestly, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes doesn't have much to do.

And finally, as a few of my friends here know, I am well and truly a Chris Nolan devotee. With this film, he makes a quantum leap, both as a writer and a director. The shots of Batman in flight amidst the glittering night skyline, or the Joker as he swings out of a police-car window are a shining testament to his outrageous gifts as a visual artist , while the inimitable dialogues and razor-sharp script only consolidate his acknowledged gifts as a storyteller. The way the film works as a post 9/11 allegory is amazing: as the Joker, the harbinger of anarchy stands by "to watch the world burn" pandemonium reigns supreme as their own fickle nature emerges as the biggest threat to the people of Gotham. I especially loved the film's decidedly ambiguous ending. In a film where everything seems to fall into place, the technical work is out-of-the-world, as is the score by veterans James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer.

With universal acclaim(it has scuttled "The Godfather" off the #1 spot at IMDB) and a record-breaking box-office performance, I suppose the only question left for Nolan is , what next? Will he continue with the franchise? Will he feature the Joker again in another movie? If so, then who will be obliged to step into the massive boots of the late Heath Ledger?(By the way, I too am rooting for a posthumous Oscar for Ledger, even though I think the shelf-value of this performance will be affected either way) Personally, I think if the Joker has to appear at all in another film, I would want either Adrien Brody(who,incidentally expressed his interest for this film) or Daniel-Day Lewis, who is one of my favourite actors of all-time. For a total wildcard(or a Joker, for that matter!), I'm gonna put my neck on the line for Leonardo Di Caprio. There, I've said it, now keep the abuse coming guys!

Hey Presto! "The Illusionist" and "The Prestige"

2008-07-23T23:44:00.002+05:30

(This is another article of mine which was originally published at passionforcinema.com )

Making films about magic has an air of convenience. You just know that there are going to be 'it' moments popping up from time to time........"Deus Ex Machina" is a term used in literature and theatre (in Latin, literally "god out of a machine" ) to describe sudden contrived plot devices. It is easy to surmise that when the focal point of a film is magic, there is no getting away from Deus Ex Machina. The trick is pulling it off, not trying to fool the audience.

Recently I watched two films which managed to do this, with different degrees of success- Neil Burger's "The Illusionist" and Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige".Both films were released in 2006, both were period pieces inspired by literary works set in the early 20th century, but the similarities end there. While "The Illusionist" is like a demure, sober,refined symphony which only lets it hair down in the final 15 minutes or so, "The Prestige" is a big sprawling ambitious romp powered by an ensemble cast.

"The Illusionist" based on Pulitzer-winner Steve Millhauser's short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist" chronicles the story of a shadowy, mysterious magician who is in love with a duchess, set to be the royal consort of the Austrian crown prince. His own troubled past haunts him continuously as he travels around Vienna performing amazing, never-before seen illusions(a paricularly spectacular one involving an orange tree is one of the high points of the film). Ed Norton as Eisenheim is reasonably subdued. The mystique his character exudes is sometimes tedious but overall this is another competent portrayal by one of my favourite actors(American History X remains one of all-time faves). The Duchess von Teschen played by Jessica Biel is not a very demanding role, and Biel manages to look radiant and has a pleasing screen presence.

But the real performance of the film comes from Paul Giamatti who plays Inspector Uhl, a crooked policeman loyal to the cruel, twisted Prince Leopold , but at the same time besotted with Eisenheim's artistry. Uhl is an intriguingly ambiguous character. He thinks that Eisenheim is a treasure but has no qualms about incarcerating or even killing him in order to further his own ambitions under the impending regime under Leopold. The scene where he tries to convince Eisenheim of the futility of his actions is a delight. So is the climactic sequence where Uhl realises the full extent of Eisenheim's web of illusions. He realises that he has been conned big-time, but at the same time he cannot help but marvel at the master illusionist's genius.

The film's cinematography has a charming, simplistic old-world charm about it. While everyone may not like the film's Usual Suspects like climactic "twist" the film manages to do just enough to hold your attention.

"The Prestige" which hit the theatres months after "The Illusionist" tells the story of Robert Angier(Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden(Christian Bale), two warring magicians who are always looking to get the better of each other. On one level, it is a straightforward gunslinger rivalry tale, but it in fact explores much deeper questions about the nature of reality, and the terrible power of obesession. Michael Caine plays William Cutter, maker of magical apparatus who is in many ways the conscience-keeper of the story. The cast is rounded off by Scarlett Johannson playing Olivia, a woman torn between the two rivals, and David Bowie who has a magisterial cameo as Nikola Tesla, the famed inventor.
The Chris Nolan brand of storytelling first seen in Memento and perfected in Batman Begins is in full flow here, right from the opening scene where Angier performs a complicated trick called "The Teleported Man" , alternated with Cutter explaining to a young girl the three stages of a magic trick, the last being "The Prestige". Angier wants to unlock the secrets of Borden's tricks through his ciphered journal but Borden, who is a clearly superior magician technically, always has a few tricks extra up his sleeves. Journals prove to be dead ends, stories turn out to be unreliable, this Chinese puzzle-box styled plot leaves th audience gasping for breath but in the end it is Nolan who guides the ship home with an immaculate sense of timing.

One of the many interesting things about the film is its de-mysticised treatment of the magicians as opposed to Eisenheim's mystique and mastery in "The Illusionist". Angier and Borden are painfully human, they are stabbed, shot, pummelled into submission. They are petty, often insecure and always vindictive. On the other hand it is the scientist Tesla who has been portrayed as the real magician, a shaman-like dabbler in all things dark and mysterious. Case in point being Tesla's entry scene where he steps out of a huge machine, elaborate electric sparks flowing all around him. Cutter says in a scene, "We are just pretenders acting the parts of magicians but that machine was horrible.......it was real magic." , about a machine Tesla made for Angier. The real-life rivalry between Thomas Edison and Tesla has been depicted here as a sort of mirror for the Angier-Borden rivalry.

Fresh off the back of the dark reboot of the Batman saga "Batman Begins" Nolan teamed up with Christian Bale and veteran Michael Caine once again with spectacular results. The camera loves Bale's deep dark brooding gaze and his innate inscrutability shines across in the grim, determined character Borden. The "unreliable narrator" device employed by Nolan works to a tee as you are kept guessing in this lavishly told story.

On the whole, I think that "The Prestige" gains a point over "The Illusionist" for its greater scope, better performances, and for Nolan's artistry. I hope to catch his next film "The Dark Knight" real soon, which even as I write these words, has already started to draw rave reviews from around the world.

Kafkaesque goes places

2008-07-15T12:25:00.002+05:30

These are some articles of mine published at Passionforcinema.com , a website where the authors include a lot of eminent personalities associated with Indian cinema , like Anurag Kashyap, Santosh Sivan, Sudhir Mishra, Revathy and many others.......... If you are a movie buff, this is your one-stop destination !!

1. Road To Perdition: A Modern Classic
2. Bookworms and Movie Maniacs: Literary Adaptations in Cinema

Orbis Terrarum : One World

2008-07-12T12:21:00.002+05:30

Reading challenges aren't usually as much fun as this. I mean, there is only much so much Russian stuff or so much medieval literature you can digest at one go. But this is one challenge which is worth taking. This is the Orbis Terrarum challenge hosted by the lit-blog B&b Ex Libris.(By the way,the blog is beyond cool!) The rules are pretty simple- you have to choose nine books written by authors belonging to nine different nationalities. If this doesn't already satisfy your taste for variety, it gets better and better- you can change your list at any point in the duration of the challenge- which is for 9 months starting from April 2008 to December 2008. Just post about the challenge on your blog along with your list and join in the fun.

This is my list

1) Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra (India)
2) American Pastoral by Philip Roth(USA)
3) Identity by Milan Kundera(France)
4) The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass(Germany)
5) Ring by Koji Suzuki(Japan)
6) Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee(South Africa)
7) Amsterdam by Ian McEwan(England)
8) The Day The Leader Was Killed by Naguib Mahfouz(Egypt)
9) Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt(Ireland)

Affortlessly Rhythmatic Commentraitors

2008-07-04T09:12:00.005+05:30

Scenes from a commentary box during the recent IPL:

Dramatis personae: Aamir Sohail and Waqar Younis(With guest appearances from Wasim Akram and Rameez Raja)

Ishant Sharma charges in to bowl another snorter at the Kings XI batsman Shaun Marsh. Promptly, Sohail notices something hitherto unknown about the young Indian speedster.

Sohail: Waqar, I think the reason that Ashant(yeah, that's the way he says it, but I'll come to that in a minute) is getting all that extra bounce is that he is a big lanky lad.

(The sagely Waqar mulls over these musings and comes up with his own carefully-thought out analysis)
Waqar: Another reason could be that he's also very tall.
(Aamir is clearly impressed, this little nugget had escaped his attention)

Welcome to the Aamir Sohail-Waqar Younis school of cricket commentary for dummies.(Featuring such eminent guest lecturers like Rameez Raja and Wasim Akram)
Lesson 1: Linguistic Creativity
Come up with alternate pronunciations, alternate phraseology, hell even an alternate language.

Reference Text: Aamir Sohail and Waqar Younis in action during the recent India-Sri Lanka match at Karachi

Rudra Pratap Singh delivers another accurate over. The centre of attention is the UP pacer's bowling action
Sohail: His action is so smooth, so Affortless.Younis: Yes, I think the key here is that his run-up is quite rhythmatic.
(Call me old-fashioned, guys, but whatever happened to good old "rhythmic" ??)

Lesson 2 : What's in a name?
Good commentators know their Shakespeare from their.....um...Sidhu. Names are your playground, people. Kick them, smash them to pulp by the sheer force of your oratory.

Reference Text: Sohail, Rameez, Wasim or Younis in any match featuring India in the past year

Yuvraj Singh thumps one over the midwicket region. Promptly, Sohail, that astute observer of mankind, chips in.

Sohail: OH THAT'S ANOTHER ONE!!!!!! YOVRAJ !!

Younis: YOvraj ....he is really on fire today. Mister Six!!!
(With this slightly questionable epithet given to Yuvraj, Younis again relapses into an anecdote about how he chased Abdul Qadir's cat around the Karachi stadium with a pad. Or something.)
Ishant Sharma has, meanwhile begun to tear out a significant portion of his lion's mane, patiently explaining to Waqar and co. that his name is in fact, Ishant and not Ashant. Wasim reminds Ishant/Ashant that young pacers ought to focus on cricket alone.

Lesson 3: Keep an eye on your articles
What chance does the trio of "A, an , the" have when you have the deadly trio of Sohail and the two W's? Verbal anarchy is let loose. Go forth, ye dogs of war!

Reference Text: The above mentioned gentlemen in anything remotely resembling a studio or a commentary box.
India are chasing 309 under lights. Gautam Gambhir drives one towards the cover boundary only to find a sweeper already stationed. This foresight impresses Waqar to no end.

Waqar: Oh.....he is a smart bowler! He has got A Protection there.

Sohail: Whenever you are with these batsmen, you have got to be with A Protection. Otherwise, he'll(motioning towards Sehwag) hit you all night.
Waqar: The Virender Sehwag is really on the rampage tonight.

Epilogue: Admissions are open now. If you want to make it big as a commentator or better still, realise your dream of being in a commentary box with these august gentlemen, look no further. Parting lesson: Come up with jewels borne entirely of your own device. Always,always, ALWAYS call your fellow commentators funny names in a fake Irish accent.

Sohail: It's over to my fellow Commentraitor now, Waqar Younis, and with him is Danny "Denzongpa" Morrison.
Younis: Thank you Aamir. Yes, Dhoni has got a beautiful head on his shoulders.....

The Quick Ones

2008-06-30T16:05:00.004+05:30

(That's me!)

There is no such thing as a fixed reading speed, I believe. Some books just rush past more quickly than others. This does not mean that a particular book is more interesting more than others, it's just that it demands less in the way of attention from the readers. Yesterday I started and finished "The Colour Purple" by Alice Walker, which was admittedly a not-so-long novel, but still it is longer than Amit Chaudhuri's "Afternoon Raag" , which barely qualifies as a novella. Still, the serpentine nature of Chaudhuri's elaborate prose, his loving detailed descriptions of his subjects and their surroundings and, his penchant for atmospherics meant that I had to devote 2 days of intense reading to get through it.Alice Walker, on the other hand uses the informal, Afro-American working-class dialect and slangs so well that one tends to get the net import of scenes so much faster. Moreover, the whole novel is written in an epistolary format, which is much easier on the reader anyway.

Then of course, there is the factor of anticipation. I remember when I first read "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows", I did so in one marathon session, from six in the morning to five in the evening. I couldn't remember many of the side-plots afterwards, so recently I have given it another go. Now this sort of feverish reading, I think is familiar, not only to Pottermaniacs but devoted fans of other writers as well. "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" was the first Rushdie novel I had got my hands on after I was enthralled by his groundbreaking "Midnight's Children". I absolutely devoured it in less than a day.

But this can sometmes work the other way,as well. For instance, when you are aware of a certain writer's reputation for being dense or "difficult" , you might give him or her a wider berth than usual.This was in play when I read Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" recently. Aware of his massive, labyrinthine post-modern antics, his wide-ranging cultural allusions, frequent references to esoteric topics in both science and arts, I was on my guard constantly. Actually, the novel turned out to be a great deal more accessible than what many friends say about his work, Gravity's Rainbow in particular. Anyway, a relatively slim volume took rather more time than it should have.

So it's really up to the reader to decide what a "quick" read is. In this respect, my suggestions for a "quick" yet satisfying read would be(these are pretty random- off the top of my head)

1. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (my post about it here)

2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

3. Animal Farm by George Orwell

4. Everything ever written by P.G.Wodehouse

5. Foundation series by Isaac Asimov

6. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

7. Our Gang by Philip Roth

Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay"

2008-06-29T10:36:00.003+05:30

Michael Chabon,45, is every bit the modern writer. He started early(his first novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was sent to a publisher, unknown to him, by his English professor , to whom he had submitted his manuscript as his graduation thesis.), has had his brush with cinema(he has written part of the screenplay for the Spiderman sequel, and an X-Men screenplay which was turned down by the Hollywood moguls), and has a fan-following consisting of youngsters(he wrote a fantasy novel Summerland aimed at teenagers and young adults) and barmy old critics alike. Chabon was once even due to appear in People magazine's list of the Most Beautiful People in the world, a la Arundhati Roy, but turned it down , retorting, "It was like, we want to give you a prize because the weather is so nice where you live!"

But what really matters is that Chabon is a consummate storyteller, a supreme prose stylist, and a writer with a finely nuanced sense of irony and compassion. And all these qualities are in abundant display in his 2001 Pulitzer-winning masterpiece "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", a huge, sprawling epic which deals with a host of issues like Nazi atrocities, the rise of the American comic-book industry, McCarthyism, the relationship between art and real-life, and above all the nature of love and loss......

The story begins in 1939, when fleeing the horrors of Nazi aggression, Josef Kavalier , artist and apprentice magician, flees his native Prague, to New York, where his American cousin Sam Clay lives.His daring escape as well as his training as an escape artist inspires him and his cousin Sam to create a Nazi-busting superhero The Escapist, a Superman-like character modelled upon the Jewish myth of the Golem, a mythical clay figure designated to protect Jewish ghettos all around the world. The rise of the cousins coincides with the boom in the comic-book industry of America with its increasing cultural and economic influence. Reading the novel,it is apparent that this is the product of extensive research and study, as is indicated by Chabon at the end(there is an extensive bibliography in addition to the usual acknowledgemens). Chabon talked to many greats of the American comic-book industry like Stan Lee, Will Eisner(whose quote provides the epigraph to the novel), Gil Kane as well as other writers, illustrators and everyone associated in churning out comic-books.

But as it so often happens, the cousins only get a small share of the wealth they create, the majority of it going to the smart and ruthless head honchos of the comic-book companies. But Kavalier is not overly worried about this- his real worries lie in getting his family out of Prague and in the USA to join him. So he carries on a shadow war with Hitler through the pages of The Escapist.

Escapism is a recurring motif in this novel- whether it is Josef's escape to New York, or the innately "escapist" nature of the comic-book stories, or later on in the novel( SPOILER ALERT) when Josef leaves his pregnant girlfriend Rosa, grieving over his dead younger brother. Sam Clay too has several things to escape from-his polio-ravaged body, his poverty , his repressed homosexuality.......... In a particularly moving passage , Josef reflects upon the futilty of his efforts to bring his family to the USA, and thinks "Escapism, they call it. Why wouldn't he be escaping? When you are confronted with all of this, with the crushing certainty that you would never again see your family again, what could one do but escape from it all?" In this respect, Harry Houdini is repeatedly referred to, as Josef's childhood hero, the ultimate escape artist(in the opening line of the novel, Sam too invokes Houdini.)

Sam Clay's story, too, is alternately funny and sad. Brought up by a nagging, neurotic mother and a vagabond, absentee father, he suffered polio as a child, an experience which he later writes into the Escapist character(the Escapist's alter-ego Tom Mayflower uses a crutch). He proves to be the perfect foil for his austere, solemn immigrant cousin, with his careless humour and his reckless bravado. His story takes a decisive twist when he has an affair with a radio actor Tracy Bacon, at a time when homosexuals where ruthlessly persecuted. This can only end badly and Clay is prepared for the consequences.

The novel is choc-a-bloc with superbly funny set-pieces, remarkable minor characters in addition to the formidable main cast, and some unforgettably touching passages whether it is Josef yearning for his family, Sam reflecting on his doomed affair, or Rosa's guilt about inadvertently causing the death of Josef's beloved younger brother, Chabon effortlessly takes the reader under the skin of the characters.This is thoughtful, well-written and yes, literary fiction, but with all the pace and vitality of a comic-book caper not unlike the ones Kavalier and Clay devise.(By the way, Chabon hates pigeon-holing fiction in genres, he said so in an interview).Chabon's incredible ability to depict a place in a particular time-frame is right up there with some of the most memorable works of modern times, whether it is the Bombay of Midnight's Children, the "Jewish" America of Philip Roth's books, or the Kerala of "The God of Small Things".The immense research also culminates in delightful cameos by comic-book gurus Will Eisner, Bob Kane, Stan Lee and other legendary figures like Salvador Dali and Orson Welles(Citizen Kane is in fact used as a significant plot device)

Prior to this, the only Chabon book I had read was a novella The Final Solution, also set in the 1940's ,also with Nazi Europe as its back-story, but with a twist- it resurrected(in brilliant fashion, I may add)probably the most remarkable characters ever created- Sherlock Holmes, albeit a crumbling, 89-year old Holmes, who is still in possession of his most important faculties. In a charming, slim special editionit also featured extensive interviews with Chabon himself and lists of his favourite books. The Final Solution was a minor classic, but with Kavalier and Clay, Chabon had already announced his arrival as one of the foremost writers of fiction in the world.

You can check out the NY Times Page on Michael Chabon here.
P.S. Michael Chabon went on to launch his own comic-book strip which included some of the plot-lines featuring the Escapist discussed in Kavalier and Clay.

Going once....going twice......

2008-06-26T14:53:00.002+05:30

You gotta be kidding me. Foot-in-mouth disease in Americans was something I was starting to take for granted, what with their commander-in-chief , a long-time patient, leading the way, but something I read in the newspaper today takes the cake.

It has been 24 years since a leaked container of methyl isocyanate scarred an entire generation in Bhopal, but Dow Chemical, the group that now owns Union Carbide, the offending company has mulishly refused to see the light. Sample this shocker from Kathy Hunt, the public affairs specialist from Dow Chemical.(This quote is from 2002)

"$500 compensation is plenty good for an Indian."

Even if you overlook the obvious bigotry, condescension, and Third-World antipathy on display here, this statement has further damage to do when you consider the history associated with this company.In 2000, Dursban, an insecticide manufactured by Dow Chemicals was banned by the US after it caused brain damage in a child. In this case, Dow Chemicals were happy to cough up $10 million in compensation. What is even more shocking is that Dursban, the same pesticide is still "aggresively marketed" in India! A high-level official of Dow even boasted about bribing government officers to allow the pesticide to be sold in India.

Activist and author Indra Sinha is one of about 300 people worldwide who are on a hunger strike to protest the government's dilly-dallying over the issue of victim compensation.His novel Animal's People which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has the Bhopal Gas Tragedy as its focus.According to him, there is more to this than meets the eye. The government has for years now allowed this rogue company to flourish in our country, putting at risk the health of our own people, all the while turning a blind eye towards the plight of survivors and victims, most of whom do not have access to even rudimentary medical services, let alone compensation.

When Sinha brought the issue to the attention of the British media in 1993 via a massive two-page ad in The Guardian, there was much posturing and righteous outrage, but the bottomline is that the status quo was maintained.And now that some of the victims who were born after the tragedy have joined themovement, the question they are asking the government is "What have we done to deserve this ?"But I doubt that the government is listening. Botched nuclear deals and blood-thirsty hypocritical allies merit more attention than the simple matter of thousands of human lives, most of them mutilated for ever.

There you have it then, good people. All that remains is the auction itself.The first item up for grabs is the average deplorable Indian life. What bids shall I have, then? $500.....come now, surely.......Oh all right then.Going once , going twice.....SOLD! To the lady in the red,white and blue for $500!

Classics 2: "Yojimbo" and "12 Angry Men"

2008-06-23T19:34:00.004+05:30

Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo

Akira Kurosawa was one of the acknowledged masters of world cinema, making movies watched and admired the world over like Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Throne of Blood and many others. Last week I had the opportunity of watching one of his classics via a Kurosawa festival all this month on Zee Studio.Yojimbo is a homage to the great cowboy westerns of the 40's and 50's. Perhaps fittingly, it was remade in Hollywood as the Dollars trilogy, featuring Clint Eastwood as "The Man With No Name" in the role which was, ironically, to make him a household name.

Yojimbo stars Kurosawa favourite Toshiro Mifune(who also starred in Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood) as a wandering ronin, or masterless samurai warrior. Mifune lights up the screen with his imposing presence, wry laconic wit, and an unmistakeable swagger. Watch out for the scene in the beginning where he decides to go in the direction offered by a falling twig. He lands up in a small town ravaged by two warring ganglords, battling it out for stakes in the local gambling racket. He takes refuge with an elderly coffin-maker, whose business is booming because of the ongoing gangwars.But things change when the battle gets too hot ,as he puts it "When the battle goes too far, neither side bother with cofffins anyway...."

Yojimbo is a gripping story exceptionally well-told with stellar performances toplined with the awesome Mifune, in a performance which launched the template for a thousand imitators in Hollywood and Bollywood alike.Kurosawa raises the simplest of scenes to an altogether different level with devices like overly theatric, even comical music.In a particularly memorable scene,the samurai, calling himself Sanjiro(meaning thirtysomething) causes battle between the two rival dons. He then pulls out of the battle, selects a vantage point high above the battlefield, and sits there watching the cowardly troops in action.There is much posturing, a lot of battle-cries and and sword-swishing, but neither side is willing or daring enough to actually charge forward and fight. They go one step forwards and two steps back.Sanjuro watches all this, amused at the spineless behaviour of the "hardened" gangsters.

It is moments like these that make Yojimbo an enduring classic and a must-watch for all lovers of cinema.

Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men"
What would you say to a movie that is shot almost entirely indoors(the only outdoor shot is the last one which shows two of the characters talking outside the courtroom),has no major plot twists and all that ever happens is 12 middle-aged to old men talking, seated around a table? You couldn't be blamed for dismissing this as just another futile attempt at being "avant-garde" which falls flat on its face, right?

Instead, Sidney Lumet's 1957 film "12 Angry Men" is an engrossing film, tense and taut in its suspense helped along the way by superb performances by an ensemble cast headed by Henry Fonda and featuring some of the prominent actors of the time like Joseph Sweeney, Lee Cobb and Ed Begley. The 12 men as implied in the title are jurors in a murder trial where the accused is an 18 year old who has supposedly stabbed his father to death following an argument between them earlier in the evening.

Initially, only Fonda even considers the boy's innocence, because of the overwhelming circumstantial evidence against the kid, and inconsistencies in his own testimony to the police.Because this is a murder trial, nothing short of a unanimous verdict will do.Much to the anger of some of the other jurors,this means that they have to sit at the table longer(Jack Warden, playing a working class average Joe, wants to get this over and done with as he has tickets for that night's baseball game).It is then that the deep-rooted prejudices of many of the jurors spill over.

Whether it's Lee J. Cobb playing a man whose son has ran away from home or Ed Begley as the bigoted loudmouth who hates slum-dwellers and minorities, the performances in this film speak for themselves.

Talk about intensity.....

Henry Fonda is superbly economical as the thoughtful juror who coaxes the others to look beyond the bare bones of the case. But this proves to be a tricky job as some of the men are shockingly blood-thirsty towards the boy owing to their own rigid predispositions and biases. The underlying air of tension and unease is masterfully sustained by the director throughout the 90-minute duration of thefilm.The enduring popularity of the film can be ascertained by the fact that it remains #11 on the IMDB all-time ratings chart, with a rating of 8.8/10

This is a taut and terrific film, cinema stripped down to its basics and rigorously put through its paces.Go watch it to rediscover the meaning of the word "drama".

Classics 1:Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal"

2008-06-22T19:15:00.005+05:30

The Seventh Seal (1957) is one of the most celebrated films made by the legendary Swedish film-maker Ingmar Bergman.It deals with the pangs of existential angst while working on the template of the "Black Death" or the plague epidemic which wiped out one-third of Europe in the 14th century.There are several memorable scenes in the film, but none more than its famous opening scene where a battle-weary knight Antonius Block(played by Bergman favourite Max Von Sydow) plays chess with a ghostly pale, black-cloaked personification of Death.Block is white while Death, naturally, gets black, and smugly remarks," It becomes me." (SPOILER ALERT)

Throughout the film, this deadly game of chess continues, in which Death and Antonius try to outwit each other.At one point,Block confesses to a priest that he wants to believe in God, but cannot."Why must God be invisible,unspeaking? What hope is there for those who want to believe but cannot?And those who don't want to believe?" , Antonius laments. He also reveals his strategy for defeating Death to this priest, who reveals himself as Death(who else?). Meanwhile we also encounter a family troupe of actors who travel from one plague-infested village to another.Another interesting character is Block's squire, who is an atheist, and constantly appears as the cynical counterpoint to Block's spiritual concerns.

Throughout the film, I thought to myself , seeing the typically theatric proceedings, as also some macabre scenes(mutual flagellation, witch-burning and other references to medieval Europe are rampant),about how this could be adapted into an awesome play. It was only after watching the film that I found out that Bergman had made this film by adapting his own play "Wood Paintings" !

One can't help but notice that throughout the film, the mode and tone of storytelling is closer to literary fiction than to the language of cinema.Bergman himself considered the novel to be a superior art-form than the film,and in fact nursed literary ambitions. He had published a collection of some of his film screenplays but it was his life-long regret that he didn't write a novel of his own. Well, literature's loss is cinema's gain. Because "The Seventh Seal" is cinema at its most engaging, with impressive performances, a knock-'em-dead script and imaginative usage of both light and sound.

This was my third Bergman, and by far the most impressive. In the next few posts I'll talk about some more great movies like Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" and Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men".

Fear and loathing in Bombay: Vikram Chandra's "Sacred Games"

2008-06-19T23:01:00.002+05:30

Hold on to your horses people: This is it. The Big One, The Big Book, call it what you will.......Vikram Chandra, hidden for seven years from the public eye, has come up with his magnum opus.For Sacred Games is every bit the Great Indian Novel. When you have stopped gasping over the much-hyped but strangely bland Bombay of "Shantaram", come see the real McCoy through the eyes and ears of Sartaj Singh and Ganesh Gaitonde, two amazing and unforgettable characters who are at the helm of this sprawling, wildly ambitious novel packaged as a cops-and-robbers romp.

From the hilariously grotesque opening sequence through the length of its 900 pages, Chandra guides us with the assurance and sweeping style of a master.In Sartaj Singh, he has created one of the most complex and intriguing characters I have seen.As the weather-beaten, been-there-seen that, yet often strangely empathetic cop, he captures the imagination(and attention) instantly. And what do you say about Ganesh Gaitonde? As the rags-to-riches underworld Don, who chops limbs with a sword , and then quietly goes to sleep after "having a little sabudana khichdi" ; as the terrible acts of brutality are mixed with strange spiritual leanings, he will shock you, enthrall you and display above all, his frightening humanity.Through Sartaj Singh's pursuit of Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India, and his subsequent trail on Gaitonde's life and exploits, an unforgettable portrait of Bombay unfolds.....

The book is structured as a (SPOILER ALERT) howdunit in parts, the main narrative interspersed with portions titled "Inset" which showcase the oblique connections of cause and effect, and the consequences of some of the main characters' actions. It also gives us a background into Sartaj's family where Chandra masterfully captures the horrors of Partition. In a pretty candid interview, Chandra admitted that he would lose a few readers because of the "Inset" portions, but he chose to go ahead with them anyway. I think I know why- the inset portions added depth to the main narrative and were a fitting metaphor to the infinite threads of action and consequence in our lives, most of which pass us by.The end result is a delightfully polyphonic achievement.

There are some darkly funny vignettes along the way: An air-hostess being blackmailed about her adultery, a film-critic punished for blasting Ganesh Gaitonde's film, Sartaj conducting "raids" on a bar whose owner is a regular contributor to the "police fund". One of the many remarkable achievements of this novel is that it is just as sympathetic to Gaitonde as it is to Sartaj, we are almost led to believe that they both are but two sides of the same, sprawling melting-pot of a city.This is further accentuated by the somewhat gaudy cover of the book, which has the faces of Sartaj and Gaitonde sharing an eye.

Vikram Chandra has set the bar very high indeed for the Indian novel.It can be favourably compared to the atmospheric works of Don DeLillo or , to hark back to Victorian times, Dickens. Go grab your copy: beg , borrow or steal your 900 pages of fun! It will be well worth your effort and time.

A MUTATED REALITY

2008-06-13T15:47:00.002+05:30

Just finished a stash of books, most of them bought months earlier,but discarded uptil now due to the rigours of life on campus,exams or just plain old lethargy.Easily the most accomplished among them was German Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass's 1962 classic "The Tin Drum".(The others are Vikram Chandra's 900-page tome "Sacred Games" , Koji Suzuki's cult thriller "Ring", and Ian McEwan's disturbingly dark short story collection "First Love,Last Rites"........so expect some posts on these in the days to come.)

"The Tin Drum", along with "One Hundred Years Of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie completes the Holy Trinity of magic realism in contemporary literature.(Interestingly,I have read them in reverse chronological order of publication, i.e. first Rushdie,then Marquez and now Grass!).After reading this masterly work,I can appreciate how Grass has inspired the other two writers, especially Rushdie.

Where does one begin about a magnum opus like "The Tin Drum" ? First, I suppose, the bare bones: The novel chronicles the German nation during the tumultuous years of 1925-1955 , as seen by Oskar Matzerath, a dwarf by his own accord, who has willed himself to stop growing after age three,in an attempt to escape the world of adults, a world which is repugnant and dense to his sensibilities. In his own words, he is "one of those auditory clairvoyant babies whose spiritual development is complete at birth, it just needs to affirm itself".He is also blessed with a piercing shriek with which he can shatter glass at will.

Oskar is writing his memoirs in a mental hospital, where he is an inmate,via his tin drum,the like of which he has carried with him since he was three years old.Beating frantically on his drum, he remembers his entire life, right from his birth and beyond.Oskar is a complex,ambiguous and unforgettable character.The music he makes with his drum once disrupts a Nazi Party parade, causing the marchers to go at different speeds.This is an attempt by Grass to show the uplifting power of art over war,and also an anguished cry over the loss of individuality imposed by the monstrous Nazis.

At the same time Oskar is also frequently cruel and barbaric, under the guise of his apparent child-like nature (which is backed up by his stunted appearance),he commits several heinous crimes,and causing the death of Jan, his mother's Polish lover and Oskar's presumptive father. Oskar's glass-shattering voice is an obvious nod to Kristallnacht(German for crystal night),the night which marked the start of a full-blown genocide of the Jews under the Nazi regime.On a single night,9th November 1938, about a 100 Jews were slaughtered, about 30,000 were deported to concentration camps and thousands of synagogues were destroyed.

The monumental achievment of Grass is to avoid being judgmental about the perpetrators of these and other Nazi crimes.Instead the members of the Nazi Party are shown to be bakers, carpenters, cooks(like Matzerath, Oskar's father).......everyday people who commit unspeakable crimes due to the choices they make.Oskar is half -Polish, physically imperfect, and on the face of things, a babbling imbecile.......thus he is the antithesis of everything Hitler asserted about the "racial superiority of the Aryans".However, he also represents the worst of those times,the way he causes the death,one by one,of everyone he loves.

The book is filled with first-rate imagery, delightful vignettes and some memorable episodes.Some of my favourites are Anna Bronski(Oskar's maternal grandmother)and her wide,four-layered skirt, Herbert Truczinski's scarred back which told stories with each scar,the Polish Post office massacre,and how Oskar unwittingly caused the death of a group of nuns who were crossing a tense area.The line between comedy and tragedy is blurred by Grass.

This is best exemplified when a Nazi party official is sacked from the party for "cruelty towards animals".Only in a book as amazing as this can you swallow this, a party which has no qualms about massacring millions of innocent Jews, including women and children, and then sack one of its own for being cruel towards an animal.

I could go on and on about this magical work of art, about how this is undoubtedly one of the most important pieces of 20th century literature, how it inspired the undisputed literary superstar of today,namely Salman Rushdie, I could point out a dozen or so examples,offhand, in various Rushdie novels which all point towards the unmistakeable spirit of Grass hovering in the horizon........but I guess that's for another day,and another post.