Life and other weird things

Tintin Mania - 1

2011-12-10T23:15:00.001-08:00

I can't imagine a world without Tintin. Period.

That's possibly because ever since I have been conscious of the world, I have been exposed to the brilliance of Herge. My mother probably read out the stories to me when I was 3 years old, and they have been a part of my imagination ever since.

What is it about Tintin that continues to captivate me all these years ? Comic heroes have come and gone. I seem to have outgrown Phantom, Mandrake, Bahadur, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and so many others, all of whom I was pretty enamored by at an earlier age. But Tintin continues never to age. His adventures continue to throw up some new meaning, and some new facet which I had not thought of earlier.

I don't know what are the reasons for this. Maybe if I studied literature, I would know how to deconstruct Tintin.

Today, I thought of going through each of the Tintin adventures and take up one frame from every book which I think is a salient point of why Tintin continues to enthrall.

1) Tintin In America

For me, Tintin starts with his American adventure, for the simple reason that his Soviet and Congo adventures were unknown to me much till much later in my life.

The American adventure is a fast moving western, with less of a 'story' and more of 'exploits'. Tintin and Snowy are more of the equivalent of modern day swashbucklers than the suave detectives of the later adventures.

The humor is slapstick for the most part, but a frame that always gets me is where Tintin climbs out of the window of a skyscraper and climbs in through the neighboring window. More than anything, this daring and ingenuity is an indication of what our hero is capable of in his later travels around the world.

The frame depicts the sheer drop which Tintin crosses. with a slightly nervous expression on his face. The depiction of perspective, along with the authenticity of architectural elements (which would turn out to be Herge's forte) are so impressive that I can never flip this page by in the book without looking at this frame for a long time. This is probably the one place in all the Tintin adventures where we have a 'never say die' moment.

The boy reporter has burst onto the scene. It's all uphill from here.

2) Cigars of the Pharaoh

This is probably one of Herge's weakest stories, in my opinion.

There are ridiculous plot points and highly un-Herge-esque factual inaccuracies.

India is depicted as a land of snake charmers, maharajas and fakirs, something that matures tremendously by the time Tintin makes his epic adventure to Tibet.

In the story I find this frame memorable - where Tintin, our hero shows his vulnerable side by falling to Senhor Oliviera de Figueira's 'patter'. The sheet absurdity of Tintin buying a top hat, a ski-ing kit, a garden shower and a parrot in the middle of what is probably the Arabian Sea, is hilarious.

I think this vulnerability is one of the reasons why Tintin stands out. he is not a superhero, and he has many of the failings of his readers.

3) The Blue Lotus

Herge's first masterpiece. The Blue Lotus is a standout in many ways. it's the only Tintin comic to make use of real events in it's plot point without disguising them as happening in fictional countries (like Syldavia, Borduria, San Theodoros and Kehmed of future adventures). Japan is the aggressor here, and very evidently so.

I don't know why, but this frame always makes me stop and look. I think it's the sheer detail and authenticity of the drawing. Everything, from the small lights on the 1930 lamp posts to the way the backpack of the man in the foreground is pressed by its weight against the ropes adds to the mood of the frame.

Undoubtedly, the hard work Herge applied to making his depictions of life 'excellent' and not just 'acceptable' is one of the reasons why his fan following only grows 82 years after he wrote his first Tintin adventure.

4) Tintin and the Broken Ear

The Broken Ear kicks off the adventurous run of Tintin in the real sense. Here, Tintin lands up in the thick of a South American revolution. What better adventure than that ?

Most of the gags in this adventure still border on the slapstick, though we can see the plot getting better.

The most recurring point of interest I find myself hung on to, each time I go through this book is where Tintin is listening to a conversation between Dr. Ridgewell and Avakuki (the chief of the Arumbaya tribe). What looks like gibberish is actually immediately comprehensible when we read it aloud. I still remember the first time I discovered this (fortunately no one had told me this before, to spoil the fun), and how absolutely thrilled I was.

To explain, Dr Ridgewell is saying "Now look. Do you remember the brown idol ? Tintin's looking for it. Can you help him ?'. And Avakuki replies "The brown idol ? Yeah ! Yeah ! It's like I told you. The tribe gave the brown idol to Walker. He was a nice guy. But his fellas took our precious jewel. And if the Arumbayas catch him they'll have his guts for gutters. No messin !'.

I don't know about others, but I found this to be insanely clever. Apparently Herge did something similar in French, but whoever translated this to English must have been a genius.

5) The Black Island

With this adventure, Herge officially let's go of the slapstick, and Tintin moves into a whole new era. The redrawn version of the Black Island transports the reader to the Island of Eire. The drawings abound with the minutest of detail.

Nowhere is the sense of adventure more evident than this frame, where Tintin and Snowy are approaching the Black island with a sense of determination to find out its secret. Notice the difference in lighting in the gorge and the sea beyond, along with the eerie effect of the birds circling the tower of the abandoned castle.

6) King Ottokar's Sceptre

This adventure introduces us to the interesting world of Baltic politics, with Syldavia and Borduria as the representatives of warring European nations of the day.

Syldavia is portrayed as a benign monarchy, with a typically East European history, while its neighbor Borduria is clearly a representation of the Italy of Mussolini.

The story, though slightly dated, still is relevant in the present day as long as we have constitutional monarchies in Europe.

The frame that captivates me, is the one where Tintin has messed up by allowing the royal sceptre to drop out of his pocket, and Snowy has to choose between picking up the sceptre or a tasty bone. Snowy enters the scene with the sceptre, clearly not very pleased about having to leave his bone behind.

Again, an example of the real failings of our heroes, along with their determination to choose the right path.

7) The Crab With the Golden Claws

To me, nothing depicts the spirit of Tintin better than this vignette.

Even in the empty desert, with no one to turn to, Tintin, Snowy and the indefatigable Captain Haddock have each other. One of the reasons I was happy with Spielberg's recent film is that he managed to capture this moment perfectly.

This adventure is a particularly crucial one in the Tintin stories, as this is where Tintin meets Haddock, who will remain his lifelong friend. The fact that Herge manages to portray beautifully in this frame is that in the desert of our life's journey, it is important to make and cherish those few friends who will stand by us in times of hardship.

8) The Shooting Star

I am not a particularly big fan of this adventure, but it does have its moments.

I always crack up at this sequence where Herge, in a typical Tintin-deprecating moment, shows our hero in a confident moment breathing in the sea air (and advising Snowy to do the same), and a moment later getting drenched by the sea.

9) The Secret of the Unicorn

If there was any adventure of Tintin's that could be filmed, this is it. This is an adventure par excellence, which throws the reader between the middle ages and the present time. Between the villainy of pirates and of present day hoodlums. Between the swashbuckling heroism of Sir Francis Haddock and the steadfast friendship of his descendant Archibald.

The drawing above is an unusual Tintin frame. For one thing, it happens in flashback. For another it shows a fair amount of death and carnage. Both not depicted so starkly in any other story.

Somewhere, deep within us, we all yearn to be heroes like Sir Francis, with a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other, saving His Majesty's treasure.

10) Red Rackham's Treasure

Another crucial adventure, where we are introduced to Professor Cuthbert Calculus, who will remain an integral part of most future stories. Much as the wholeof this story is filled with superb depictions of Carribean Islands, underwater wrecks and old manors, my favorite vignette remains the one below.

Calculus is clearly the inspiration of Lalmohan Ganguly (Jatayu) in Satyajit Ray's Feluda series. Here we see that many of Jatayu's traits are also those shown by Calculus. In this frame we see Calculus instantly offering to help Haddock buy back his family home with the money that the government has given him. The surprise and shock on Haddock's (and Tintin's) face is evident, as they considered Calculus to be a rather eccentric scientist for most of the story.

This incident turns our adventurers into an inseperable trio.

Empires to Dust

2011-07-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend delving in history, so thought of putting up a few pictures that I have taken over the years, of empires that thought they would last forever.

Sometimes I find going through this line of thought somewhat refreshing, as it reminds me that the things we spend too much time thinking about - like money, bills, traffic, office and such are terribly small considerations in the scheme of things.

Would even Marcus Aurelius ever have imagined that common plebs would walk into his palaces and defile them ? Would the Devaraja's of Kamboj ever tolerate feisty gaggles of tourists climbing up the ramparts of their sacred temples at Bayon ? How about the Rajas of Vijaynagar - what would go through their mind had someone told them that their powerful city, at it's time mightier than Rome, would be a city of ruins a mere four centuries later ? And I bet the price for telling a Mughal royal in the 1600's that common folk would walk around sipping range juice in the Diwan-i-Khaas would be nothing less than a sever flogging. Finally, who among the stalwarts of the Honorable East India company would believe that an Indian millionaire would own the symbol of their pride anytime before Judgement Day ?

So. The things that matter are almost certainly not power, money, fame and all that goes with it. What matters is there here and now. What matters is having support from one's family and friends. Death eventually comes to everyone and everything - individuals and empires. What matters is the peace of the moment.

The fortress built by the Nuraghi in Sardinia, sometime more than 5000 years ago. Most people today don't even know about it and it recieves minimal tourist attention in the beach resort island of Sardinia.

The Sarcophagus of Cleopatra, contemporary of Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony, now lying in the British Museum in the list of 50 'must-see' items.

The once mighty Roman Forum, now serves to satisfy millions of tourists who throng among its cobbled ruins trying in vain to feel the tinge of empire.

A section from the walls of the Chennakesava Temple at Belur; a structure clearly built to impress the viewer with a riot of art. The lady seems to be looking into a future in which she knows she will be forgotten.

The magnificent Vishnulok, built for the Devaraja's at Kamboj, lost in the dense jungles today.

The once glamorous city of Vijaynagar, home of the emperor Krishnadevaraya, now is a sprawling ruin with creatures like this carved in stone with listless eyes.

The most progressive of all kings, probably in the world, was Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar, who lies in this tomb. He was a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare. While Europe lay in the grips of fanaticism and turmoil, Akbar's court thrived in art, culture, discussions on land reform and progressive theology. To sit next to his tomb, at one time would require royal sanction.

The last great Queen of the last great Empire, Regina Victoria's shadow reminds us of the inevitable transition of power and time.

I guess, the right thing to do would be to not get overwhelmed by all the trappings of modernity. Time makes sure that everyone has their chance.

What happened in my birth year

2011-07-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

I've been off this blog in a while and have been thinking of putting pen to paper (figuratively of course - it's been years since I actually WROTE anything) for a while now.

Today, I stumbled on this website - http://whathappenedinmybirthyear.com/ .

This is what it had to say about me :

In 1980, the world was a different place.

There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo. Or Newtab, for that matter.

In 1980, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.

Remember, that was before there were DVDs. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D computer effects.

Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to Ordinary People. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. The top actor was Robert De Niro for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. The top actress was Sissy Spacek for her role as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter. The best director? Robert Redford for Ordinary People.

In the year 1980, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time wasThe Covenant by James A. Michener. Oh, that's many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it? Look at the cover!

In 1980... U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. Nigel Short, 14, becomes the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master. The president of Sicily, Piersanti Mattarella, is assassinated by the Mafia. Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific railroad is ordered liquidated due to bankruptcy, and debt owed to creditors. Robert Mugabe is elected Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. The Silver Thursday market crash occurs. Spain and the United Kingdom agree to reopen the border between Gibraltar and Spain, closed since 1969. The Dominican embassy siege ends with all hostages released and the guerrillas flying to Cuba. Mobster Henry Hill is arrested for drug possession. Pac-Man, the best-selling arcade game of all time, is released. U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs Proclamation 4771, requiring 18- to 25-year-old males to register for a peacetime military draft, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Ford Europe launches the Escort MK3, which ditches the traditional rear-wheel drive saloon in favour of a more practical and modern front-wheel drive hatchback. The St. Gotthard Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles, 16.32 km, stretching from Goschenen to Airolo. The Washington Post publishes Janet Cooke's story of Jimmy, an 8-year-old heroin addict, later proven to be fabricated. Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel and Xerox introduce the DIX standard for Ethernet, which is the first implementation outside of Xerox, and the first to support 10 Mbit per second speeds. The Staggers Rail Act is enacted, deregulating American railroads. The video game of the day was Space Panic.

That was the world you were born into. Since then, you and others have changed it.

The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to Czeslaw Milosz. The Nobel Peace prize went to Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. The Nobel prize for physics went to James Watson Cronin and Val Logsdon Fitch from the United States for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons. The sensation this created was big. But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?

The 1980s were indeed a special decade. The Soviet-Afghan war goes on. Eastern Europe sees the collapse of communism. Policies like Perestroika and Glasnost in the Soviet Union lead to a wave of reforms. Protests are crushed down on Tiananmen Square in China. Ethiopa witnesses widespread famine. Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown. The AIDS pandemic begins. The role of women in the workplace increased greatly. MTV is launched in the US. There is opposition against Apartheid in South Africa as well as worldwide. Heavy Metal and Hard Rock bands are extremely popular. The rise of Techno music begins. Originally primarily played on campus radio stations, College Rock enters the scene with bands like the Pixies, REM and Sonic Youth. The Hip Hop scene continues to evolve. Teletext is introduced. Gay rights become more widely accepted in the world. Opposition to nuclear power plants grows. The A-Team and Seinfeld are popular on TV. US basketball player Michael Jordan bursts on the scene. Super Mario Bros, Zelda's Link, and Pac-Man gain fame in video games. People wear leggings, shoulder pads and Ray-Ban sunglasses.

Do you know what was on the cover of Life that year?

Do you remember the movie that was all the rage when you were 15?Seven. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when you were 15? Maybe it was This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan. Were you in love? Who were you in love with, do you remember?

In 1980, 15 years earlier, a long time ago, the year when you were born, the song Rock with You by Michael Jackson topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.

Girl, close your eyes
Let that rhythm, get into to you
Don't try to fight it
There ain't nothin' that you can do
Relax your mind
Lay back and groove with mine
You gotta feel the heat
And we can ride the boogie
Share that beat of love
...

There's a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid.

When you were 9, the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was playing. When you were 8, there was Willow. When you were 7, there was a Disney movie out called Oliver & Company. Does this ring a bell?

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... it's 1980. There's TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show playing on TV is Too Close for Comfort. The sun goes down. Someone switches channels. There's Magnum, P.I. on now. That's the world you were born in.

Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading towards? The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1980. Do you know what was invented in the year you were born? The Compact Disc. Flash Memory.

It was the fearful night of December 8th
He was returning home from the studio late
He had perceptively known that it wouldn't be nice
Because in 1980, he paid the price
...

That's from the song I Just Shot John Lennon by The Cranberries.

In 1980, a new character entered the world of comic books: Bananaman. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In the real world, in 1980, Christina Aguilera was born. And Christina Ricci. Venus Williams, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life.
It's 2011.

The world is a different place.

What path have you taken?

at path have you taken?

Double Brilliance on a Sunday

2011-01-30T05:29:00.000-08:00

Today was one of the best spent Sunday's in recent memory.

The morning started off with my 7th Chinese lesson. It's only the second time in my life I am attending a language class outside of a formal setting, the first being a course in French that I took on the insistence of my grandfather when I was about 13. It's amazing how fresh one's mind feels when one is doing something as a hobby, as opposed to something that is required for school/work. There is definitely something to the concept of 'doing what you like'. And even in the case of one's job, the moment I start 'liking what I do', the whole concept of 'job' turns into something totally different; something that at times even becomes 'passion'.

Anyways, soon after this, went down to watch Kiran Rao's debut film 'Dhobi Ghat' at our local multiplex. And what a debut it is. This is, by far, one of the best films to be made in India since Satyajit Ray crafted out his study of human civilization in 'Aguntuk' way back in 1991. And what a joy it is that someone of the caliber of Aamir Khan is associated with this. Films like Dhobi Ghat is the stuff what students of cinema yearn to master. It is the craft of motion pictures at its best. A well thought story line, well crafted characters, near perfect casting, a haunting background score, and editing that makes people forget they are in a movie theater.

The film takes us into the lives of 4 residents of Mumbai - an accomplished painter, an ambitious dhobi cum rat killer with aspirations of making it as an actor, a down-to-earth western educated daughter of a Parsee millionaire, and (my personal favorite) Hasina Noor - a lower middle class Muslim woman resident of Mohammad Ali Road. I am a fan of stories which take the approach of defying time lines and sequential storytelling, and was immediately drawn to Dhobi Ghat right from the opening scene - where the audience takes the vantage point of an invisible Yasmin Noor who is videotaping a rainy day out of her taxi window.

Khan plays the divorced artist who is a self confessed loner, with clear people issues, who, one night, finds himself sharing common thoughts with an NRI daughter of a millionaire builder who is on a sabbatical. Soon after she walks out on him after their brief encounter, he finds a few tapes left in the back of a cupboard in his rented apartment left behind by the previous occupant of the place. With Khan, we begin a crucial journey into the life of Yasmin Noor - as the tapes are her home videos, made as recorded letters to her brother back home.

We are also quickly introduced to Munna, the 'dhobi', who services the apartments of both our painter and our NRI daughter-on-sabbatical. He represents about 95% of the population of Mumbai - a migrant with hopes of making it big in the metropolis of dreams. He is a dhobi by day, and rat killer by night, with dreams of becoming an actor in this unforgiving city which he has chosen to call home. He is also the 'glue' in our story, and serves to swivel the screenplay from one life to another.

Dhobi Ghat is one of those films where one can interpret several layers, so I will stick to the things that appealed to me. To me, the film is largely about loneliness in a big city. It's the kind of loneliness that was depicted almost to perfection by De Niro in 'Taxi Driver'. It's the loneliness which can make a person lose his humanity, the loneliness which can make human beings lose touch with reality. And in my experience, the more crowded the city, the more lonely is the person in it. Just like Travis Bickle, the character of the painter Arun struggles to fight his inner demons, and shows a spark of his inner human being when he finally connects with someone. In this case, that someone is a person he has never met. Yasmin Noor, who exists only in the forgotten video tapes, is the only person who seems to be able to reach out to the troubled painter.

In two hours, the film takes us through a few weeks of these four peoples' lives, in such an adept way, that at times, we almost feel like a voyeur. We are taking a look at people at their most vulnerable moments, as well as at moments when some of them almost find themselves.

On hindsight, one of the things that I really liked about this film is that, it showed us, for once, regular Muslim folks who lead regular lives. Not the innocent guy who gets pulled into hardline politics, not the honest police officer fighting discrimination, not the terrorist fighting the never ending 'jihad'. Here we see regular folks - with the same aspirations as anyone else, and the same demons as well. Again, on hindsight, something that I really liked about this film was the fact that it leaves the audience to make their own inferences about each person. Nothing is 'dumbed down' with an explanation, or with some obvious hint. Just like life itself, nothing is black or white, it's all shares of grey.

Full respect to Kriti Malhotra for essaying the role of Yasmin so amazingly well. And more so to Kiran Rao for envisioning this masterpiece.

I just hope Kiran doesn't do an Orson Wells and disappear into mediocrity after this. Dhobi Ghat is a tough act to follow.

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The second film I watched today was 'The King's Speech'. This is another one of those films which is a rare find these days - one with a soul. though Dhobi Ghat and The King's Speech could not be set in more different surroundings, there is something that is a common thread between these two films. What that something is cannot be explained very easily. I guess the simplest way to put it would be to say that both films are about the ability of human beings to rise above themselves in their own small way. Only, in the case of the second film, the human being is a King - of what was then the largest empire in the world.

The King's Speech takes us into the private life of King George VI, or Bertie, as we come to know him in the film. We learn of his struggle with his stammering, resulting from childhood traumas, and the pressures of public life. We also look at the relationship between him and his therapist, played so marvelously by Geoffery Rush.

Very soon into the film, we stop seeing Prince Albert (later to be Geroge VI) as a member of the royal family. He is, like us, just a human being - with similar (perhaps more complex) mental anguishes, and similar shortcomings. His struggle with his stammer, leading to a near-total breakdown of self confidence is played to perfection by Colin Firth (one of the most underrated actors - watch Shakespeare in Love and Bridget Jones' Diary).

The final few minutes of the film, which show the newly instated king of the realm speak to his subjects over the radio at the onset of World War II, is the high point of the film. Watching Rush and Firth go through the King's speech almost like a tango is an absolute joy, and is sure to go down as one of the most finely crafted sequences in cinema ever.

In short, another masterpiece. The 12 Oscar nominations are not unwarranted.

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The icing on the cake, was that I was not alone in enjoying these films. The missus too thoroughly enjoyed them.

Strange Days ..... and the genius of James Cameron

2010-12-20T22:10:00.000-08:00

Sci Fi had never been my favorite genre of book or cinema. I have always had access to sci fi literature from as long back as I can remember, but people like Arthur Clarke never really made an impression on me in school or college. I always found the complexity rather meaningless.

Later on in life, I was exposed to the films of James Cameron, and the more I watched the first two Terminator films, and the Abyss, the more I felt the need to delve more into this genre. Then came Minority Report, which sealed the deal for me, and in about a month, I read everything I could by Philip Dick.

A few dozen books later, I decided that these kinds of stories required a particular breed of storyteller, and I don't think that there has been a better science fiction storyteller than James Cameron. Ever. Though Minority Report was a terrific film, reading Philip Dick made me realize the level of sophistication in the story which never made it to the film. Also, another film based on Dick's work - The Scanner Darkly, ranked way above Spielberg's work in my book.

Recently, I got my hands on a film of his that I had never heard of. Strange Days, written by James Cameron. The film was made in 1995, and it is, in short - a classic.
The film deals with the classic science fiction theme - that of a technology built by the government being put to questionable use. This time, it's the technology to record a person's experiences directly from the cerebral cortex, to prevent police from carrying wiretaps that gets out into the black market. And what better black market than the pornographic industry.

Cameron manages to turn this (rather) simple premise into a taut thriller, with one such 'SQUID' recording which shows rather sordid facts about the LAPD making its way out into the open.

Ralph Fiennes plays the ex cop Lenny Nero almost to perfection - with his every move showing his vulnerability and his nervousness. Fiennes plays a cop who was fired and now pays his bills by selling people's 'experiences' in the black market using contraband technology. His love interest is played by Angela Basset in what is most likely her best character role yet. Other people in the stellar cast include Juliette Lewis (of Cape Fear fame), Vincent D'Onofrio (brilliantly under rated actor who made Full Metal Jacket a memorable film), William Fitchner (who played the blind scientist in Contact) and Tom Sizemore (aka Michael Cimino of Heat).

What makes this film different from other works of Cameron is that there are no noticeable special effects. It's all about the story, camerawork, and characters. Not to say that other Cameron films are not about those things, but - what the hell, it bears mentioning.

This is one of those movies which have sunk into obscurity, but which deserve to be seen by everyone interested in quality cinema.

Rome and New York

2010-11-02T06:47:00.001-07:00

Back in April, I visited Rome, and in September I was lucky enough to visit New York.

This is a long overdue post, and I have been meaning to pen down (though the expression has become a bit of an anachronism) some of my thoughts about both places.

When I first entered Rome, after about a 20 minute drive on a rather rainy April Sunday morning, I was quite overwhelmed. The entry to the city is through between the ramparts of a wall built (I later read) sometime in the 3rd Century AD, apparently under the reign of the emperor Aurelian. So it didn't take long to get to grips with the fact that the city was going to be a paradise for a sucker for history.

Fortunately for me, my rooms in the city were located at a short distance away from the old Roman Forum. The city is a complete treasure trove of evidences of times gone by, of a city which was in its heyday the HQ of a superpower.

The imperial forum is littered with ruins with names like 'The Temple of Saturn' and 'Palatine Hill' - names which for many us conjure up scenes of 1950's Hollywood movies made in Technicolor, with actors like Richard Burton or Robert Taylor making their entry in purple dresses and metal miniskirts. But here it was - the reality - which was much grittier, where the foundations of important buildings in close proximity bore witness to the ongoing competition between succeeding rulers.

The market built during Hardian's time is still magnificently preserved, and it's a chilling feeling to know that the same roads in the market were used by common Roman plebians two millenia ago.

The highlight of old Rome was of course the Colloseum. It's one of those monuments to human achievement which have to be seen to be experienced. It's remarkable how well preserved the structure is, considering that it's estimated date of inauguration was sometime in 80 AD.

My visit was just long enough to include a trip to the Vatican, which was like walking into a treasure chest. Masterpieces from folks like Michelangelo, Boticelli and Rafael glare down at you from all corners, and it's crazy to think about the amount of talent which was housed in the region during the Renaissance years.

In some respects, a visit to Rome is like an earlier visit I made to the city of Angkor Thom. Both these places once housed ruling powers far in advance of their times, which made them undisputed superpowers. Just reading about the aqueducts of Rome, which was used to transport water to the city from tens of kilometers away is enough to make one dizzy. The perfection of the architecture of the Pantheon (built more than a thousand years before the Taj Mahal) leaves one open mouthed in wonder.

I came across some CGI recreations of what Rome would have looked like during the time of Julius Caesar, but something tells me all of it was very lame. I don't think we can begin to imagine the sophistication and grandeur of the city as it existed then. Someone interestingly described the erstwhile Roman Forum to be something like a cross between the powerhouse feel of today's Washington and the seediness of Times Square in the 1980's.

Besides the historical aspect of the city, Rome is a delightful place to be in. Lovely weather, warm people and the general laid back feel of Goa. Everything about the place is a bit lyrical, starting from the language, to the names to people and places, to the Tiber flowing between narrow roads playing host to thousands of manic drivers.

For me, the city will be a reminder to the impermanence of power. I wonder what the Ceasars would think of the idea of Bangladeshi trinket sellers wandering around selling replicas of the Colloseum and Pantheon, or the numerous Asian tourists wandering around what used to be their temples. Most of all, I wonder what they would make of the Colloseum, which for a long time was where thousands were entertained by watching 'heretical' Christians being impaled, burned and eaten by animals - and is now under the ownership of the Catholic Church !!

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My trip to New York, was in many ways like a trip what a common trader in the 2nd Century AD would have made to Rome. I was, in effect, trading in knowledge, and New York is - by far - the most powerful city the world today !

The trip from JFK airport into the city, is quite uneventful, as most of the ride is through the residential areas of the borough of Queens. Mid and Lower Manhattan can, in many ways be likened to the old Roman Forum. Both are littered with temples of their time. Rome had its temples to Juno, Vesta and Saturn, which served both religious and powerful political purposes - and New York has its own temples to Chrysler, JP Morgan, AT&T and Rockefeller.

The City (as I have heard most locals refer to it) is definitely infused with an overdose of 'life'. There are people everywhere - and not in the sense of being everywhere like in Bombay. Here, the people visible are often always moving with purpose. I am acutely aware that I did not get a chance to move around other areas of the City like Harlem and parts of Brooklyn - else I would have more comparisons of New York City to Rome - especially the areas of ancient Rome near the Aventine Hill. Two things are certain - I have never been in a city where I have heard so many languages being spoken on the streets, and I have never been on a train system which is as interesting. Just like in Bombay, one has to take a few rides on the New York subway on a working day to feel the pulse of the city. There's no easier way to see the different residents to this amazing place - from the iPad carrying I-banker to the weathered African American lady with her bag of groceries headed uptown - than to take a ride on one of the 24 hour lines of the subway.

The amount of hard work and determination which has gone into building this megapolis is experienced nowhere better than by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge - a marvel of engineering and innovation. Pretty much what New York is all about.

When we remind ourselves that even today the highest building in Bangalore is the 24 floor Public Utility building, and that New Yorkers had finished constructing the Empire State building in 1931, it speaks volumes about the grit, innovation and hard work of the people on that tiny island.

If there's just one thing one were to say about New York which leaves a mark (other than the skyscrapers) - it has to be the food. It's the best variety and I daresay the best priced food in the western world today.

While I was flying out of the city and looked back at it for a last time - the thought that (predictably) crossed my mind was what would happen to this place in about a thousand years from now. Would we have tourists from Africa, China and India walking through the rubble of what used to be 5th Avenue, and walk over to see the insides of the Waldorf Astoria ... a place which played host to the 'kings' of the times ?

Places

2010-07-31T05:42:00.000-07:00

On this boring Saturday, thought of writing down a few things I remember about some cities and towns I have visited or lived in. Was trying to see what was the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of each of these places. One of the many weird things about me is that I have no city/town which I can call home, and hence have an outsider's view of wherever I live.

Bangalore:
Twenty years ago, the phrase that would come to mind while talking about Bangalore was : 'Summer Holiday'. Today what comes to mind is 'Change'. Everywhere you look there is a new construction, a new flyover, a new road where there is a new traffic jam.

Pune:
According to me, best described as 'Intellectual'. Everyone here speaks like they have been there and done that. The true blue Pune-ites assume that the universe was created with them in mind, and that the rest of the world have a debt to pay to the city - what with sharing the same oxygen as them. At the same time, the city has a degree of culture which is fast missing from most modern metropolises.

Bombay:
The most lively, and the most dirty city I have ever lived in. The energy of the city is contagious, just as the filth pervading it is disgusting. The city is like the microcosm of India. It is even more contradictory that Bangkok, which I describe later - it's true that a train ride on the central line takes people through the most horrible living conditions imaginable, just as it's true that driving through South Bombay on a weekend is a remarkably beautiful experience. The most interesting conversation I had in the city was with a sweeper in the local trains at 1am, who told me that he works 6 hours cleaning trains at night and then works the whole day to sell pens at traffic junctions, and ends up making Rs 12000 a month. It was more than the starting salary of most IT firms. Given my rather mixed feelings about the place, the one thing that comes to my mind while trying to describe Bombay is 'hope'.

Goa:
To me this place symbolizes 'untapped potential'. Goa has the ability to make me feel happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because it would be difficult to find a place as beautiful and unique as this. Sad, because it shows pretty much everything that's wrong with India today. A government that does little for its people. A place blessed with abundance from nature, but with rulers without the will to use this for the benefit of the people. There are places in the world with a fraction of what Goa has, which make millions through tourism just by good governance, while the moneyed tourists of the world give Goa a miss. Yet, there is a magic about the place and the people which make it my favorite place in India today.

Calcutta:
Somehow, as much as I would like to, it's difficult to say anything that is very definitely positive about this city. A place with obvious past grandeur and majesty, it is simply 'depressing' to go there today. I'm sure residents of the city would disagree, citing many cultural aspects, but the fact that the people running the city managed to drive out almost all it's educated workforce all through the 1980's and 1990's is testament to the depression one sees in the place. Yet, in the last 4-5 years, there are pockets of the city where one sees real development, and one feels hope for the once great city. It just takes once CPM or MC led strike to get rid of that feeling.

Delhi:
'Regal' is definitely the adjective best suited to Delhi. Everything about the city oozes culture and history, whether it is the stately architecture of the Mughals or the glitzy malls of today. Undoubtedly the city with the best infrastructure in the country, it's fair to say it's the best place to live in India at present.

Singapore:
This city is an embodiment of 'discipline'. A place which was essentially a town in comparison to Bombay even in the 1950's, is today arguably south asia's most important and ultra-modern metropolis. The visionary leadership of Lee Kwan Yew and his team have not just borne fruit, it has probably exceeded anything they thought they would achieve. What makes one think, is that in the race to be modern and the most disciplined city - a model city - there is an extraordinary amount of history and culture that has had to be sacrificed. Now, with the first generation of Singaporeans who have never known anything other than extreme modernity in the workforce, this will surely start making relevance.

Bangkok:
Coming to this city is much like coming to an Indian city. A constant contrast between poverty and modernity. Fantastic infrastructure, fabulous tourist attractions with an equally dark underbelly, what comes to my mind when I think of this city is 'contradiction'.

Phnom Penh:
A unique city, by any standards. The smallest capital city I have seen, but with all the ingredients of a growing city. Full of activity and business, the city is filled with young men and women of all ages. Most men of the 70's and 80's were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Still, with the friendliness of the people in the city and way I was not ripped off a single city, I would describe this place as 'promising'.

Hong Kong:
Undoubtedly the most 'buzzing' metropolis I have been to. The beautiful thing about Hong Kong is the fact that one can go from totems to total modernity to a rustic village in less than an hour. The energy of the place is best experienced on Canton Road on a weekday morning, where one has to fight for space on the roads. Seeing the immense crowds, as well as the surprisingly clean roads they travel on, is a learning experience.

Jakarta:
Haven't seen much of the city, but it was exciting enough to leave an impression. One word - 'crowded'.

Zurich:
The thing I will never forget about Zurich is it's transport system. I have never been as amazed by trains, trams and buses before I visited this city. I used to take the number 10 tram from Felsenrainstrasse every day at 8:03am. I still remember the kick of seeing the tram take the bend at the end of the road every morning at 8:01am and stop in front of me 2 minutes later. Every day for the three months I was there. So the word I use to describe Zurich is 'precision'.

Geneva:
Again, didn't spend too much time here, but just about enough to set an impression. And that impression is 'multicultural'.

London:
Ah. London. Words are not enough to describe this city. Once the greatest city in the world, ruling over two thirds of the world's people. Today, is arguably one of the most happening cities anywhere. The museums, the theaters in Covent Garden, the art galleries in Kensington, the musicians in the underground, recognizable names like Baker Street and Whitechapel all around which we have read in so many books, people queuing up for anything and everything, the majesty seen in the City of Westminster...I could go on for a while. How do I describe the place ? Probably the best way is to call it 'cultural'.

Dubai:
A city which is testament to vision, in my opinion even more so than Singapore. Singapore was an important port from the mid 1800's, but Dubai was much less until very recently. To have the vision to transform a desert outpost into an ultra modern city with the biggest and tallest of everything (along with making it the transport hub for more than half the world ) is truly stunning. I think of Dubai as 'incredible'.

Rome:
By far the biggest tourist paradise I have ever visited. I doubt if there are too many places in the world where there has been a powerful city in existence for a straight four millenia. Cliched as it sounds, to me Rome is 'eternal'.

Houston:
Just one word. 'Big'.

Colombo:
A city in the center of a three decade long inter-communal conflict would not arouse much emotion in people visiting the place. Yet, a visit to Colombo feels like a happy misunderstanding. The place is CHILLED OUT. An inexpensive place with a vibrant night life, what comes to mind when I think of Colombo is 'relaxed'.

Frankfurt:
Again, not much time spent here, but the impression I got of the city and its people was - 'hardworking and industrious'.

Well, that was it. A small venting of thoughts. Will try to update this list when I visit new and interesting places.

Doordarshan's curious habit of discarding our heritage

2010-07-05T04:47:00.000-07:00

It has frustrated me since ages that Doordarshan has produced some of the best television programs ever, and then proceeded to just let them rot in their archives.

These examples are particularly live in my memory as having been great television mini series which I fear will be lost forever unless someone at DD has the good sense to bring them out in the form of CDs or DVDs :

> Buniyaad, Hum Log (Fantastic family stories)
> Kakaji Kahein (Om Puri's foray into television - first rate comedy)
> Karamchand (Pankaj Kapur's carrot chomping detective)
> Lekhu (Mohan Gokhale's immortal role of a talented simpleton)
> Stone Boy (don't remember much but something about a boy with supernatural powers)
> Indradhanush (about a group of boys who travel back in time to pre independance India)
> Byomkesh Bakshi (Brilliant serial by Basu Chatterjee which I feel is still not lost completely to memory)
> Mujrim Hajir (Utpal Dutt and Nutan's saga of 19th century Bengal. Terrific)
> Mungeri Lal ke Haseen Sapne (day dreaming saga starring Raghuveer Yadav)
> Mr Yogi (something about Mohan Gokhale playing a rich man searching for a simple wife)
> Bharat Ek Khonj (Shyam Benegal's adaptation of Nehru's Discovery Of India which I think will soon be out on DVD)
> Kissa Katmandu Ka (Starring Shammi Kapoor as Satyajit Ray's Feluda)

The frustrating thing is that each of these serials/TV series were phenomenally popular and the doyens at DD don't think it commercially worthwhile to sell these masterpieces on DVDs. Western TV series of much older times like 'The 3 Stooges' and 'I Love Lucy' from the 1950's and 1960's are widely popular till date because of DVD releases.

Frustrating.

My new top 10 scenes list

2010-06-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

One of my first blogs, was a list of my top 10 scenes from movies I had seen. I didn't know what to write about, and thought of penning down a list of some moments in movies which I enjoyed.

Now, almost 6 years after that list, I thought of revisiting it to see how much that has changed.

Well, here goes.

10) The Michael-Vito Corleone conversation in the garden(The Godfather). This hasn't changed and still finds it way into my top 10. To me, this is a showcase of Brando's genius. Even after multiple viewings, I still find something new to marvel at each time I see this particular sequence. I am sure - almost positive - all the nuances which Brando puts into the character of an aging and concerned Don Corleone could have been in the shooting script. Much of the work was his own. Which is why it remains timeless.

9)Vijay coming home from jail after his mother has been shot and killed(Shakti). It was in the last 3 years or so when I have come to appreciate the genius of this sequence. In the world of Hindi movies, where overacting and hyperbole are the order of the day, a performance like this from the most definitive leading man of the time is in itself a joy to watch. The sequence is one where Bachchan's character is given permission to attend his mother's funeral (he is imprisoned at the time). When he gets home, he manages to share a quiet moment with his father with whom he shares a very difficult and strained relationship. No words. In an amazing moment of virtuoso acting, Bachchan and Dilip Kumar convey (or rather don't convey) what they have been keeping buried within themselves.

8) Goopy Gyne discovers he can sing (Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne). I don't know why this was not there in my first list. This has been a sequence I have been fascinated with ever since I remember. I first watched Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne when I was, maybe 4 years old, at Nandan in Calcutta. Ray's genius (not that I knew anything about it at the time) left such an impact on me, that I remember small details about the movie experience even today - like the lights in the hall going off in the middle of the final sing in the film. I remember that we were sitting somewhere to the front of the hall towards the left, as I had to lean a bit to the right to see behind the heads of the people in front of me. This particular scene has Goopy singing furtively to find that the king of Ghosts has indeed gifted him with a voice that can bring joy. The expression on his face speaks a million words, as it is something that all of us feel at those very rare and special moments in our lives - when we get something we really have wanted. Absolute Poetry.

7) Girl in the red dress (Schindler's List). This is one from the old list. In all the darkness and depression of the holocaust, Spielberg introduces an unnamed little girl, walking aimlessly between the SS and German troops. She is the only piece of color in this dark tale shown to us in monochrome. I guess it's Spielberg's way of giving a name to the millions who died there. There - he shows - this could be a girl you knew. So profound is the impact of the girl, that no one I have spoken to till date who has seen the film, has missed the sequence, when the girl is shown for a fleeting moment in a pile of bodies ready to be interred. In my mind - that is cinema. Never has an Oscar been more deserved than for that kind of thought.

6) Apu throws the necklace into the pond (Pather Panchali). I probably did not have the mindset required to appreciate this sequence when I first made up my list. One needs to realize how difficult it is to sometimes face the truth to know the beauty of what Ray shows us here. Years back, Apu's sister Durga, was accused of stealing a neighbor's necklace. No one (including the audience) believed she had stolen it. Many things happen after that, like Durga dying of pneumonia and the family house being reduced to ruin forcing them to migrate to take the tough decision to migrate to Varanasi, and this necklace thieving is lost to everyone's memory. On the day when the family is moving, Apu digs into a high shelf and topples a small container from which the necklace tumbles out. It's a moment where we see Apu's innocence disappear, as he throws the necklace into a pond, which swallows the memory. Completely wordless, this is a sequence which is something of a case study for students of cinema.

5)Kuribayashi's death (Letters from Iwo Jima). Very few movies are made about the 'enemy'. The few that are, eventually show one among the enemy as a good guy, while showing that he reluctantly falls in line which the larger 'bad' agenda of his lot. I remember McNamara once saying in an interview that if the Allies had lost the war, all the generals would be have been tried as war criminals. Anyway, during WW2, it was evident to all but Japan and Germany that they were in the wrong. The tragedy of the story is that the heroism of Japanese soldiers was very like the heroism of the American ones - something that director Clint Eastwood brings out in his film. My favorite sequence in the movie is when General Kuribayashi asks his junior soldier with his last breath 'Is this still Japanese soil ?'. The futility of the question brings to mind Leo Tolstoy's Pahom running around for land, when all that he needed was six feet of earth. When the soldier answers 'Yes, this is still Japan', you can see the light in Kuribayashi's eyes (played brilliantly by Ken Watanabe for his much less powerful performance in The Last Samurai), as he shoots himself. The scene with the junior soldier's expression, who has come to accept the horrors of war, makes the viewer do a quick introspection. Nothing major - just a nagging feeling of worry that those who we see on the television firing weapons while we sip coffee, are actually real people.

4) Are you talking to me ? (Taxi Driver). Cliched though it is, this scene really is a spark of genius. To me, this is what loneliness is. In a later film (Heat) DeNiro would say the line 'I'm alone, I'm not lonely'. But in Taxi Driver - he is LONELY. And crazy. The film is made to suck the viewer into the lonely hell in which Travis Bickle (DeNiro) resides. He talks and thinks to himself as he goes through the dark underbelly of 1970's New York City in his yellow cocoon. He has an opinion about everyone, and soon the viewer is living with him in his utterly aimless existence in which he is trying to find meaning. Many of us film fans took life for granted till we saw Taxi Driver, after which we get creeped out when we find we are talking to ourselves at any time. DeNiro of course, stepped into the shoes of the Taxi Driver living on the edge of reason and brought out the thoughts in his troubled brain to perfection in this chilling sequence.

3) Gift of a thistle (Braveheart). This is one from the old list, and something whose charm hasn't faded away. And after all these years, I must say it is one of Mel Gibson's oddities. Nothing else he has made has had anything like the impact of Braveheart. And in that movie, this particular sequence, towards the beginning of the film sets the tone for the film. That no matter what violence one saw later, most of that would be overshadowed by this one moment of silent humanity shared between two young children. Historical inaccuracies and gore aside, this sequence, with it's beautiful backdrop, editing and music, made the film worth the recognition it got.

2) The montages from Citizen Kane and Up. This is a tie for me. In Citizen Kane, the 24 year old Orson Wells takes us through the deteriorating marriage between Kane and Susan Alexander using this brilliant cinematic technique. An ordinary breakfast conversation is turned into a multi effective tool. First, it serves as a fast-forward device showing Kane aging. Second it shows his increasing power through the news that he reads. Third, it shows the growing distance in the relation with his wife. Never has any director since been able to convey so many powerful ideas through a single sequence. In Up, Pete Doctor achieves something nearly as effective. An early montage in the film beautifully shows the audience the relationship between a man and his childhood sweetheart, and the loneliness he feels now that she has passed on. These two sequences are marvels in themselves, and are a must watch for anyone who is looking for quality cinema.

1) After a lot of thinking, I realized that the best sequence I had ever seen was something from my old list - where Neil McCauley was deciding whether or not to take Waingro out - from Michael Mann's "Heat". I couldn't think of any other film, or actor whom I could remember where one could read the actor's thoughts through just twitches in his face. DeNiro is such a genius that the whole audience follows his face during this scene and gasps as he takes the final decision which will lead to his inevitable doom. Acting and directing at its most harmonic best.

Well, there it is. I don't know what to make of my change in choice over the years, but I like my current set better than my last one.

This was fun !

The New World and 2 movies

2010-03-09T06:36:00.000-08:00

The wife has taken a one way ticket to her hometown, and having nothing better to do, decided to pen down (figuratively speaking) a few lines about what has been going on.

I came back a few weeks ago from a trip to the US. Wait, correction. Came back from a trip to Texas. Which, as everyone tells me, is different from a trip to the United States of America.

What I saw there was, predictable, different from anywhere else I've been before. In a way, I was fortunate that the first sights of the US had to be Texas. I saw the good and the not-so-good things all in one shot - and in widescreen technicolor. Because, if anything in life is big - it's Texas. Now I can't pretend to be an expert on life in the USA, this being my first visit there - but after what I saw of the place, it's difficult for me to imagine anything bigger and more rich in abundance than Texas.

My ride from the airport to my hotel in Houston was about 70km, and in all that distance on a fine sunny Sunday evening, I saw just one person on the road who wasn't in a car. He was a beggar at a signal with a sign which said very succinctly 'I am hungry. Need money.'. Every other human being was cocooned in his or her car. It was surreal, like being in a scene of the 'Rise of the Machines'.

Everything what I encountered there was so different from India that it would take days to note. The roads for one. Massive. Once I was on the road the other side seemed somewhere in a galaxy far far away. Once in a food court in a mall, everything seemed to be 3 times the size I was used to. But then again, having only traveled well in Europe and South East Asia I am not really used to seeing Coke being handed out in 24 oz cups(almost a liter).

The supermarkets were full of 'stuff', as George Carlin would put it. Too much stuff. And the weirder thing was, people were buying them. People who were so obese that they had to use motorized vehicles to move in those huge complexes.

That was the most part.

Now for the good bits. Made a visit to the Johnson space center near Houston. Everything progressive about America is in that one facility. Ingenuity. Hard Work. Enterprise. Science. Technology. The drive to be the best. I saw the room from which the first moon mission was launched, way back in the late 1960's. The thought that people using slide rules and computers with 1 MB RAM could send a man onto the moon and bring him back was a thought that gave a tremendous adrenalin rush. Only today, I read in an Indian newspaper that India 'plans' to put a man on the moon in some years from now. Hello people, it's been done more than 50 years ago. And in the same paper I found an article about how India produces the highest or second highest number of engineers in the world. Ironic. Everyone I saw in the Johnson Space Center seemed PROUD of the place. And rightly so. Which other nation had the grit and determination to do what they did ?

Next, went to a small town outside San Antonio called Bandera, which calls itself the cowboy capital of the world. It was there that all my preconceived notions about Americans went out of the window. The people in that small town (population - 957) were so warm and so amazing, that they had me at the word go. Hard working people, who build their own houses, prize their culture and love their music. The next time I hear the phrase 'American's have no culture', the speaker gets a mental hammer on the head from me. Of course there's culture there. And a very attractive one too. Cliched as it may sound, it bears repeating that television paints as biased a picture of America abroad as it does of India. Of course I met people there who thought Indians spoke 'Indian'. Equally true is the fact that I know many Indians who think that Americans have no sense of value and their favorite hobby is to marry and divorce every few years. Both these views are, of course, a load of crap. I was fortunate enough to land in Bandera on Mardi Gras, where my kind hosts introduced me to what seemed like half the town. I met real cowboys who talked with me like they knew me for years, and met librarians who were so proud of what they did that it brought a lump to my throat.

Most importantly, I met some great people on the professional front. Heard a CEO speak live for the first time. And was duly impressed. Met people at work from various countries and appreciated the difference in cultures of people from all corners of the world. Never had a chance to chat up with a Bolivian, a Canadian, a Portuguese, an Englishman, a Swiss, a Frenchman, a Chinese and a New Zealander, among others, all in one room.

So all in all, it was a great trip. Great learning, which I am hoping I will remember for a long time.

Now back to fun.

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On the last day in Houston, caught Martin Scorsese's latest work - 'Shutter Island'. A great film, if not the master director's best work. Leonardo Di Caprio is definitely the Robert De Niro of this generation. The movie is a 'picture perfect' (pun intended) example of a psychological thriller. It's been long since I watched a film which can scare the audience just with the clever use of music and silence. Yes, Scorsese does have his moments of blood and gore in a couple of scenes in the film, but those are the most forgettable. The originality of the portrayal of a diseased mind is what you remember at the end. As trends go, I can predict that Leonardo will never win an Academy Award till he makes an utterly second rate film (like Denzel Washington's Training Day). Once he does that, people in LA will wake up with a jolt realizing it's time to give him an Oscar. I hope that day comes many years later, and we can keep getting to see his inspired performance till then.

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Watched Norman Jewison's '...And Justice For All' this evening. One of those under-rated great films. Al Pacino acts an unusual role - one in which he is clearly not in control of a situation. An idealistic lawyer, who believes in the things he fights for. The film is an ironic look at the US justice system, or indeed, any justice system in the world - where corruption and systematic injustice results in innocent people landing up behind bars. Pacino puts up a brilliant performance of a person pushed to breaking point after seeing everything he knows pushed off the brink. The ending of the film, like so many other great films (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Pushpak, Taxi Driver) is not really an ending. It leaves it up to the viewer to imagine what happens to the protagonist, in whose future the audience really feels interested in - thanks to a clever screenplay and effortless acting. In short - an amazing film to watch when you are feeling a bit thoughtful about life.

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Now, back to work.

Top 10 quotes/incidents from SP Jain Dec 08 batch - please feel free to add on.

2010-01-21T03:38:00.001-08:00

10) ModigilaniMiller won the Nobaell Prize.
9) Take your hands out of your pockets - same VP
8) We will devise a Mehndi contest - AD in response to a contest as to what CSI activity to do with $50m dollars. Yes. $50m.
7) AS - Hello good evening. Me - good evening sir. AS - What are you doing ? Me - Sir applying for Visa to Dubai. AS - Oh, you are going to Canada ?
6) Take this seriously, we will make a fart neutralizer - KG suggesting to his group what product they would market in MM class.
5) This is what you will have - an MBA degree. This is what will distinguish yourself from the other regular BComs and BEs in the crowd.
KG - Sir, what happens when all of them also get their MBA's ?
4) HM addressing rest of class on seeing SRR sleeping with mouth open and toppling over - Please stabilize him. Up to 130 degrees is ok, but he is at about 160 degrees now. He may break his neck.
3)Mars ? It's closer than Moon ? - AS in response to an answer as to what the closest planet to earth was.
2)Did you take my chocolate ? - HG in 613

And, the top quote/incident from SPJain Dec 08 Batch -
1) I'll string you up by your b*** and play with them - VP to AK

Also in the race :
- AS to MM - You want me to give you banana and peel it also ?
- BP arriving at SG Campus shirtless and closer to heaven than any of us have been.
- Saale ekdum Bukharr hai.
- MM to PS - Aeeee, muh me daalne ke liye kuch de na (on seeing PS eating mints in class.....just to preempt those thoughts which the line evokes).

Racism ????? WTF

2010-01-06T01:12:00.000-08:00

Today's TOI carries a news article which links to a Times Now new clipping, with the headline 'No Apology, Only Insensitivity from Aus'.

To this is say - WTF ????

There has been some Indian students being beaten up in Australia. I know nothing of what led to those beatings - thanks to our bullcrap media machine which churns out sensationalist news after sensationalist news [On an unrelated note, I saw a THIRTY MINUTE news feature the other day in a restaurant which was discussing a dormant volcano under the Himalayas the other day in a restaurant. Really.] All I can assume is that Indians are as safe in Australia as in the US or UK, or any other developed metropolis outside India. I have a few friends who have lived for years there and I didn't hear a peep out of anyone claiming that the country was racist.

Can Times Now please point their self righteous fingers at the Government of Goa from time to time, what with comments from the chief minister there asking tourists to follow 'codes' and such like. Rarely does one hear such unadulterated rubbish. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be the Government of Goa apologizing to the country - for not removing the corrupt inbreds who call themselves policemen in the state, and for allowing a beautiful state to be vandalized by land sharks, and for allowing the state machinery to languish while conducting rape investigations, and for who knows what else. But nooo....we want to the AUSTRALIAN government to apologize.

Self righteous rednecks is what we are if we support this line of thinking.

5 Point Idiots

2010-01-03T00:46:00.000-08:00

Come on Chetan Bhagat.

You are a successful author, with two of your books inspiring films with top actors in it. Do you really need to get all worked up about what is quite obviously a non-issue ?

I agree - that I have no idea of what went on behind closed doors when you signed the contract with the producers of 3 Idiots. But from what your blog says, I gather you want to be credited for the story of the film. Come on, that sucks !

I went through Five Point Someone today, and found that it's just not true that 70% of the film script was taken from your book.

There are a few moments from your book which are shown 'as-is' in the film, but dude - the message of the film is way off from what your book tries to say. And let's face it - the film clearly centers around Racho/Phansuk Wangdu, who is clearly a brilliant mind trying to show the flaws of an existing system of education; the similar character in your book - Ryan - does nothing of the sort. In your book his role is not of a genius trying to change the system - he is a student who occasionally rebels and is generally obsessed with friendship.

The relation between the student and the HOD's daughter in your book is also way different from the way the relation between Aamir and Karina's character are treated in the film. In the book, you treat it as a passing first-time romance which ends, while in the film the relationship starts off as fun and takes a serious turn after Rancho's qualities come to light.

I see the following ideas taken from your book :

-> The idea of 3 friends in college together
-> The idea of one friend moving out and then rejoining the group
-> The idea of a student having an affair with a faculty's daughter
-> The idea of a student from a poor background and having a paralyzed father, a working mother and a sister of marriageable age.

And the way I see it the crux of the film is in the following plot points :
-> The idea of a friend being found after a decade
-> The idea of the unhealthy competitive nature of one student
-> The idea of parents allowing their children to study what they wish and take up a career of their choice without obsessing about professional courses
-> The idea that success will follow people if they just pursue excellence

Your book, Five Point Someone was great. It was an entertaining read which folks in the 20-30 age group (like myself) enjoyed reading - as it was about people like us.

But hey, the film makers have clearly has used your book as a starting point, but the story is their own. Aamir Khan's has made the character his own. Rancho is nothing like Ryan from your book.

I ask myself - did everything go smoothly with the film called 'Hello', which was also based on one of your books ? No hitches with copyright there ? I mean, I know that the film was terrible, but still - was just curious to know.

I also ask myself - How did you not watch the film before its release. Let's forget the legal aspects of the matter. If one of my books was being turned into a film with Aamir Khan in the lead, and I was invited for a preview show, I would run to the nearest flight and make a dash for it to Chattrapati Shivaji Airport. Apparently you were called and you didn't attend, and chose to make your views about the film felt after it was clear that it was going to be a blockbuster.

In any case - the film credits clearly say that the film is based on your book. So what's the problem here ?

The script is not your making. You were credited for inspiring it.

So stop making a fuss about nothing, and give us another interesting book to read, instead of these idiotic news tidbits.

Avatar

2009-12-21T02:39:00.000-08:00

What's the difference between a Mercedes Benz and a Bentley ?
Or the difference between a Creative mp3 player and an iPod ?
How about the difference between any A Class city in the world, and Singapore ?

In each case, one is as good as the other, except for the fact that the latter has pushed the proverbial envelope somewhere down the line.

It would be a similar analogy to compare any A list science fiction adventure movie with James Cameron's latest offering 'Avatar'.

To say that Avatar is a different kind of movie would be like saying that Sachin Tendulkar plays good cricket. It's groundbreaking - superlative in terms of marrying technology to the art of storytelling.

I've watched a hundred movies with aliens in their story, of which maybe less than ten are not laughable. Some, like 'Close Encounters of the third kind', 'Terminator 2' and 'The Abyss' make you gasp at moments. And then there is Avatar - which completely makes you forget these other masterpieces.

It's no coincidence that when I was thinking of the 3 best Alien movies I had seen, two of them (Terminator 2 and The Abyss) were made by James Cameron. The man is, frankly, a diety - an avatar, as it was, of some creative super being. Like Steve Jobs, Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar or Ravi Shankar, his only competition seems to be himself. It's like he just decides that he is going to prove that he is the 'king of the world' again and gets on to doing something for the next 5 years with a single minded determination to be the best there is.

Avatar is fairly straightforward in narrative style - nowhere near the complication of the script of Terminator 2. The tale here is set in the mid 22nd century where the earth has run out of energy resources, which has forced humans to travel out light years into space and colonize planets which have anything that humans could use. One such planet is Pandora, which is the source of a mineral impossibly called Unobtanium - something that sells for 'twenty million a kilo'.

Humans would mine the planet for all it's wealth except for one problem. The richest deposits of Unobtanium lie beneath a huge settlement of the indigenous humanoids, called the Na'vi - who inhabit Pandora. Tha Na'vi are brave warriors, standing well over 10 feet tall, with skin like amphibians and amazing abilities to read and connect with nature.

Research has given rise to a technology wherein scientists can blend into the local populace by controlling synthetically grown Na'vi bodies (Avatars) with their minds . The hero of our story is Jake Scully, who pilots one of these Avatars into the Na'vi village - ostensibly to help the scientists learn about the Na'vi, but also to clandestinely help the military establishment in trying to persuade the villagers to evacuate the area, so that Unobtanium mining can commence.

Predictably, Jake Scully falls in love with the beautiful Neytiri - the chief's daughter. What follows is the even more predictable 'going native' of Jake - as he sees first hand the injustice being perpetrated on the tribals, and eventually ends up leading a defensive attack on the corporate driven humans.

All this sounds pretty routine for an action movie. Except, there's James Cameron behind the camera here. He takes us through Pandora without the customary hoo-haa of medical scores. It's not the first look at the Brontosaurus moment we saw in Jurassic Park. This is more like being thrust into one of the most spectacular natural reserves of the universe (literally) where everything is spectacularly alive. You have plants which curl up from a huge bracket fungus into nothing. You come face to face with creatures the size of small houses with heads like hammerhead sharks. You fly on huge reptilian birds and ride six legged steeds, by talking to their minds with your hair tied up in theirs. The imagination behind all this is breath taking.

What stuck in my mind that here was a movie - like Terminator and the Abyss - where technology was not used for the sake of showing how big a toy the director had. The technology was part of the story. And it wasn't about using what was already there - but bigger. This is about creating a new technology just to tell this one story. See what I mean by clicking here. It's 300 million dollars well spent.

The film tries to be as contemporary as possible, in terms of theme. There's a lot of talk and emotional content to do with the need to preserve the environment. There are phrases like 'Holy Daisy Cutters!' through which Cameron obviously shows which side of the political fence he is on. And of course there is the whole theme of a powerful corporate driven machinery with no sentiments except the joy of profits, attacking an under privileged group of people who have done them no harm, simply because they can.

The animation, needless to say is the best ever seen in movies so far. Everywhere - from the time Jake Scully walks in his avatar the first time, to the time Neytiri is distraught at the destruction of her village - you have tight close ups of Na'vi faces with flawless expressions.

All said and done, 2009 is closing with a movie which will become the new benchmark for all attempts to make a science fiction film. Watching this, especially in 3D, makes you forget the outside world for a while. And when you see the fantastic floating mountains of Pandora or are following Jake flying the magnificent Duruk, for a few moments you are out there - being a Na'vi, and having a little more respect for nature.

For those who haven't watched it - delay no further. This is how movies should be made.

MBA

2009-11-08T02:06:00.000-08:00

Just got back to India after a year of studies.

The last two years have been, without doubt, the most important for me in terms of learning.

For starters, I got married. After living it up with friends for more than four years, and doing exactly what I wanted to without being answerable to anyone, it has been a huge learning experience. I've begun to slow down and think before taking decisions, and have started to think less about myself.

Then came an opportunity to work in a good role in my last company. After months of trying, I managed to land a role as a pre sales consultant. It gave me an opportunity to step into a field which I was interested in, with a lot of challenges thrown in. I interacted with colleagues who were experts in their own fields, and were ready mentors. I tried to do my best at work, and it has paid off now, more than a year later.

Then came the MBA. A crash course in life. For starters, it was tough getting back to student life after 5 years of work. Next, I had never been thrown in a situation where I had work till there was only a couple of hours of sleep possible in a day- week after week. Further - the whole experience was a lesson in building human relationships. I was tossed around from one team to another - to work on various assignments and projects. I learned to work in teams all over again.

For me - the MBA experience was given meaning when I finished reading Subrato Bagchi's new book 'Professional' today. As I join a new job tomorrow, I have been trying to tell myself to remember as much of the learnings from the last 2 years as possible. This book by Bagchi will help. His experiences give more meaning to business administration than any course can hope to do.

Here's hoping for more learning in the years ahead.

Inglorious Basterds

2009-09-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

I love movies which explore alternate realities. Which is why I thoroughly enjoyed films like 'Watchmen' and 'Forrest Gump'. The experience of watching what might have been is refreshing.

Isn't that what movies are supposed to be about anyways ?
Back in 1903, it was enough for an actor dressed as a robber to fire into the camera and at the audience to become the talk of the town. It takes a whole lot more to excite audiences today. Surprisingly, the answer to that one still is, and will always remain - a great story with strong characters.

Which brings me to the subject of 'Inglorious Basterds'. The film is quite easily one of the best films of the last decade, and the principal character SS Colonel Hans Landa is right up there in the list of top 10 movie villains of all time.

Although all the movie's posters show Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine as the 'hero' of the film, viewers may be mislead into believing that he is the protagonist. Quite untrue. The smooth talking polyglot and self styled detective Hans Landa takes center stage in this film. In style.

The eponymous 'Basterds' are a group of American Jewish soldiers out on a mission to destroy - read 'kill' - as many Nazis as they can. They are led by the most American man one can imagine - Lt. Aldo Raine, who speaks as though he stepped out of an audition for the local chapter of the rednecks.

As in all Tarantino films, this film has multiple story lines which converge. Here, we meet the seemingly frail Shosanna Dreyfuss - a French Jew who witnesses her family being massacred by the Nazis. At the time of the Basterds' exploits, she runs a cinema in Paris, which is earmarked as the venue for the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film to be attended by the entire Nazi high command including Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Bormann. Unknown to each other, the Basterds and Shosanna plot independently to get rid of the entire Nazi establishment in one night.

The film pays homage to many westerns and war movies, of which one scene that stood out for me was a homage to 'Guns of Navarone'. The cinematography is excellent; the use of bright colors keeps the audience from moving away from the 'suspension of disbelief' mode that Tarantino creates so well.

The strongest thing the film has going for it are the performances. Every single character is as well etched out as can be. Even though everyone plays a caricature of sorts, the depth and wit in the dialogs prevents this movie from becoming a spoof of itself. And towering over the characters is Colonel Landa, played brilliantly by an Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, none of whose earlier works I had watched. His portrayal of Landa is simply genius - an addition to the list of characters in cinema that overshadow actors who played them. Like Vito Corleone, Randall McMurphy, Charles Foster Kane or The Joker. An inspired performance.

The movie ends with Brad Pitt speaking into the camera and echoing, what is most likely, Tarantino's message to the audience when he says, 'This has got to be my masterpiece'.

Scoundrels...

2009-08-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Blogging after a long time, mainly driven by the sheer dissapointment of having just seen the latest Vishal Bharadwaj film - Kaminey.

Till this evening, I thought Vishal Bharadwaj was one of those rare Indian directors who was more or less infallible. Maqbool and Omkara were works of art which I was personally proud to talk about to my non-Indian friends. They were works which were of world class quality, and were brilliant adaptations of two of Shakespeare's most gripping tragedies.

Kaminey, in complete contrast, is a mind bogglingly disappointing experience. Especially so, since the product comes with a Vishal Bharadwaj tag. It's like purchasing a Rolex watch and finding a 'Made in China' tag under it after paying the bill.

I think what killed the experience for me was the atrocious first 30 minutes of the film. A film which aspires to reach the levels of a Guy Ritchie/Tarantino work has, in my opinion, no business showing us two simpering lovers purring lines like 'Mai tumhe Mumbai se jyaada pyaar karti hun, Calcutta se bhi jyaada, Thiruvanathapuram se bhi...'.

The plot of the film is, to be fair, fairly original. Even if one chooses to ignore the obvious 'inspiration' from Enemy of the State for its climatic sequence. The whole problem is that Shahid Kapur cannot act. And we are treated to a double dose of his hamming in this film, as he plays twins. So, for all the colorful supporting cast - some of whom are genuinely funny - and Priyanka Chopra's sincere acting, every time Shahid or Shahid appears on screen, the tempo falls flat. Sorry. Just not happening. If anyone in the production team thought he would bring the energy of Brad Pitt or Jason Stratham on screen, they were quite quite mistaken.

I have had discussions with a few friends before about Indian films which try to imitate the styles of western ones. Sometimes, folks have told me that it's unfair to constantly criticize Indian films which try to get 'international'. My thoughts on this are - how is it possible, that every single 'remake' or 'inspired movie' is quite brain dead compared to the original ? And the result is the same whether Mahesh Bhatt does it, Sanjay Gupta does it, or as has sadly happened in this case, when Bharadwaj does it.

Maybe I expected too much from the film, but there's no doubting the fact that things like unnecessary songs, contrived romances and lack of acting skills in lead actors make things worse, not better. And 'Kaminey' is most definitely a film that is worse than it could have been.

My new favorite movie and a few other snippets

2009-06-06T06:09:00.000-07:00

I can never have a favourite movie permanently. Sure - there are a few movies which I like a whole lot more than I do others, but I can never name a single favourite movie.

My current favourite is Majid Majidi's 'Children Of Heaven'. It's definitely one of the best films I have seen.

The story deals with the relationship between two pre teen siblings, and is held together by the theme of the children's desire to own a pair of new shoes.

Amazingly - that's the whole story : Two children yearning to own a pair of shoes.
But Majidi, along with the fantastic lead actors of the film - Amir Hashemi(as Ali) and Bahare Siddiqi(as Zahra) - manage to tell a tale of such simplicity with such beauty that it is just breathtaking.

The film shows the children coming up with a plan to cover up their loss of an old pair of shoes from their parents, who are hard up and cannot afford a new pair. Most of the film is about this plan, which eventually leads to a climatic sequence where Ali stands to make up for his loss of his sister's shoes.

The film makes use of a lot of close ups and tracking shots, which make the viewer feel part of the flow of the story. The excellent camerawork and intelligent editing all contribute to the smooth, almost lyrical flow of the story. The film does not aim at being a tear jerker - but as a viewer, you cannot help but connect to the pain and pleasure felt by the protagonists.

This is one of those films which make the viewer think about the complexity which humans infuse into life. The film is - in that sense - a study of human beings in the real sense.

If you inhabit this planet and care about the fact that you are human, this film is a must see.

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Visited the Pench Wildlife Santuary a few days back. What stood out in my mind after the visit was the sight of a bison in the wild. I have never seen such a picture of pure strength pass by. The animal was bristling with muscles and moved around with such obvious physical power that it was impossible not to feel a lot of respect for the fact that I was in a jeep and not facing it on foot.
I later read that these animals weigh more than a thousand kilograms and that they have no natural enemies. The latter part of the sentence means, of course, that they do have an unnatural enemy - humans. It's a hugely saddening thought that this magnificient species is at the brink of extiction today. All I could think of saying to the one which showed up in front of me was - to quote Ali G - 'Respect'.

Snippets

2009-05-30T18:09:00.000-07:00

Just watched Danny Boyle's 'Millions'(2004). I must say, I am becoming a fan of the man. The film is fantastic. The man has child psychology down to a T. The whole story can be summed up in a line : 'What two little kids do with a million quid'. I would especially recommend this film to all religeous nuts who think they have it all figured out.
Two thoughts :
I have never heard a better explanation of the 'fish and bread loaves' miracle.
and
The halos on the saints are uber cool.
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I don't know why Anandamela does not publish more Satyajit Ray stories in comic form. The few they have done are very good. I especially liked Boshpukure Khunkharapi and Unicorn Expedition. We could do without the sad Archie translations.
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What's half an MBA done for me ? I'm sure it did something. But I can't remember it at this time. It's been about 10 days since I've been in India on vacation, living a life of sedentary ease.
I'll be able to answer my own question after the 7th of June, once I'm back in a hostel.
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What are some other 'must-see' films that have been seen by yours truly in the last week ?
The Other Boleyn Girl. Mississippi Girl. Children of Heaven.
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Nothing in Cinema comes close to matching the genius of this and this.

Bush's Legacy

2009-03-13T01:33:00.000-07:00

In 2000, when Clinton stepped down, the wealthiest 1% of USA shared 9% of the country's GDP.

In 2009, when Bush stepped down, the wealthiest 1% of USA shared 19% of the country's GDP.

That's what I call - EVIL.

Heartbreaking

2009-03-01T23:42:00.000-08:00

Here I am doing my MBA.
Rather, here I am with the luck and freedom to do my post graduation after 5 years of work.

And here is another part of the world. Not very far away.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/02/22/world/asia/1194838044017/class-dismissed-in-swat-valley.html

I sometimes think, is what I'm doing worth it ? Worth anything ?
Or is it better, and more moral to go to one of these places and try to help a young child find their way through.

Maybe a few lives are worth the trouble to try.

Der Vorleser - a study in morality

2009-02-27T04:10:00.000-08:00

Who is a 'good person' ?

Who is 'moral' ?

What is 'morality' ?

I can't speak for everyone, but these are questions that pop up in my mind from time to time. Colonel Kurtz's classic monologue from 'Apocalypse Now' comes to mind :

"I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us."

This, and watching Stephen Dalry's briliant 'The Reader' today, made me think today. How can we judge people by our moralities ? How can we pass a sweeping statement about an act being right or wrong, or a person being 'good' or 'bad', based on what WE consider right ? Is it possible to pass such a judgment? And is it right ?

'The Reader' is based on the award winning German novel "Der Vorleser', and takes us through the lives of two people, from the mid 1950's to the present decade. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Michael Berg - who appears first in the story as a school student and ends up being a moderately successful lawyer. The second, and vastly more interesting character is Hannah Schmitz, who appears in the story as a lonely tram ticket collector, before one realizes that there is more to her than her present lonely life in West Germany.

Without giving too much away, the gist of the story is as follows. Michael and the much older Hannah have an affair for a summer, during which she makes him read out many classics of literature. Her abrupt departure from the city leaves Michael emotionally scarred, from which he never really recovers. A chain of events after Hannah's departure leads Michael to find out certain startling facts about his temporary flame, which changes his life forever. The facts revolve around Hannah's past in a very different Germany of the 1930's and 1940's, at which time moralities were different, as was the sense of right and wrong.

The movie goes on to show Michael Berg's attempt at personal redemption from the shackles of his own mind, which refuses to let him off the hook from what he considers to have been an immoral affair in his youth.

Kate Winslet, and Ralph Fiennes have come up with stellar performances as Hannah Schmitz and Michael Berg. The pain in their lives is not seen overtly through actions, but is visible in their eyes.

Many times in life, it becomes easy to blame a person for being 'immoral', or 'bad'. Life being what it is, such judgments are never quite that simple. The perceived morality of an action by an observer is almost never representative of the point of view of the actor. This is more true while judging actions taking place in a time frame when the entire society's sense of right and wrong was different from what exists at the time of judgment. Like Colonel Kurtz, or Michael Berg, or Hannah Schmitz, there are people who justify their actions, and are, in their own way, in their own space of events, quite right.

To me, that's what The Reader is all about. A brilliant movie. Must Watch.

Silenced by technology

2009-01-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

I remember a few incidents when I was completely bowled over by technology that I witnessed first hand.

The first time when modern technology truly silenced me was when I first saw an ATM machine give out money. It was sometime around 1994 when two HSBC ATMs were installed near the Orange County at Dickenson Road in Bangalore. I remember very clearly the astonishment I felt when my uncle punched in some numbers at the machine and the contraption spat out a few hundred rupee notes.

Some other instances when I was stunned by technology include :
- the first time I saw personalized TV screen for flight passengers(1996)
- the first time I saw trains stop in front of doors in underground stations and align themselves perfectly with the marked 'door zones' (1996)
- The first time I booked a train ticket online (2003)
- The first time I saw a cellphone display the names of places where I was passing through using the 'cell info' option (2002)
- The time I used the cell phone to buy an item from a vending machine (nearly shit myself when it worked - 2006)
- The time when I realized that the fare machines (EZ-Link) in Singapore buses were all controlled by GPS (2007)

And these are just the incidents that are on top of my mind. It happens a lot these days.

Today it sort of 'blew my mind' to see a somewhat unusual technology at work here in Singapore.

I have always lived in places far from the LRT systems in Singapore, and thus had never used the system before, except for one very short ride.

The LRT, or Light Rapid Transit, is a public transport system that is designed to get people from the bigger MRT (Mass Rapid transit) train stations closer to their public housing. They are small driver less vehicles that wind their way about through HDB blocks on elevated lines, dropping people off at important junctions. Today, I traveled by LRT to Bukit Panjang.

On the way from Chua Chu Kang to Bukit Panjang, I noticed the glass windows of the LRT suddenly go opaque at times. One moment I can see the city outside, and the next minute it's like someone pulled the blinds on me. And it's not like all the windows in the train behaved this way at the same times. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what on earth was going on.

Later this evening during a conversation, I learned what this was about. Since the LRT system passes too close to HDB dwelling, the buildings have sensors on them to let the trains know they have come too close and will now be passing near people's windows. The LRT windows have some kind of LCD sandwiched between their double sheet panes which change state to become opaque for the time the vehicle is between residential blocks, to protect the residents' privacy !

What a wonderful use of technology ! What an absolute thrill to actually see it !

Unfortunately the next time I see this happening, it will just be another one of those things I pass by. Writing it down will hopefully help me remember that it takes brains and fantastic creativity to come up with a design solution such as this.

Ghajani-itis - the disease one gets from watching Aamir's pecs from too many angles

2009-01-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

Triple disasters do happen.

The day started off with two disasters, each worse than the last, in the form of two quizzes at college. Within moments of laying eyes on the question papers, I felt my mind drawing blinds on itself and quietly going into a semi hibernation mode.

To try and end the day on a happy note, plans were made to head out of campus to catch the latest Aamir Khan thriller - Ghajini. In retrospect, this was a plan roughly equal in its folly quotient to Mamata Banerjee's "plan" to get political mileage by holding the Nano hostage. In other words, Ghajini was the third disaster of the day.

There are quite a few words to describe Ghajini, and none more appropriate than the old Anglo Saxon adjective - 'Horrible'.

How a person like Aamir Khan with his acting and production prowess could agree to be part of this unadultrated mass of tripe is beyond my understanding.

Cut to the chase. Sanjay Singhania(Khan) is a man who runs an uber-successful telecom company in his spare time. What he during the rest of his waking hours is not clearly shown in the movie, but there are suggestions to indicate that he suffers from a form of mania involving an obsession of carving his body into an incredible mass of muscle, making him look more like a renaissance statue than a human being. A completely random set of coincidences and chocolaty circumstances result in Mr Eight Pack Dollar Millionaire falling in love with a melodramatic twit played by Asin (in her first, and hopefully last, Bollywood role).

The more observant among you will notice that the movie did not really make the impression on me that the producers desired.

Moving on. Another set of random incidents ensure that the aforementioned twit heroine ends up on the wrong end of a knife wielded by a tribe of villains, all of whom seemed to have escaped from The Hospital for the Steroid Enhanced. The leader of this bunch of bulges is a man who speaks in rural snarls, and who has 'badass' written all over him in each scene. This man is of interest to us, since it is he who lends his name to this....err.....film. After dispatching Singhania's girlfriend to the afterlife, the arch villain, Ghajini decides to use Singhania's head for a golf ball. The man had barely begun to get into the mood after teeing off with the Singhania skull using a rather rusted rod, when Singhania decides to take control of the plot and promptly gets 'Short Term Memory Loss', wherein he is unable to remember events for longer than 15 minutes.

Not that any of this matters, for director Murugadoss does not seem to have heard that little thing called 'logic' which helps movie plots along.

To make a molehill out of a veritable mountain, Sanjay goes out to take revenge on the reprehensible Ghajini for paying golf with his fiancees and his own heads.

The flowchart of the movie 'plot' can be summarized as :
Sanjay is beaten up by Ghajini -> Sanjay get short term memory loss-> Sanjay takes revenge on Ghajini despite his condition.
Murugadoss takes upwards of 3 hours to articulate this, what with asinine songs liberally inserted into the screenplay, and hamming heroines whose acting prowess made the hemispheres of my brain clang against each other in frustration.

The thing that completely got my goat in the film was the STML affected hero go into complete pyrotechnic mode at regular intervals, with no identifiable reason. Eek.

I tried hard to think of ONE redeeming feature of Ghajini. Unfortunately, other than the few seconds of joy in realizing that the movie had ended, every moment spent watching this bundle of cinemanure was spent in stress and agony. Stress on realizing how much better the evening could have been, and agony on watching one of my favorite stars walk deeper and deeper into a morass of bad scriptwriting. The music was average, and the camerawork - shoddy at best. Acting was not really noticed in this venture, so comments about it are irrelevant.

Well, that was the long review of Ghajini.

The short review is - 'Watch it at your own peril.'

Butterfly Effect

2009-01-02T04:19:00.000-08:00

Time has lost it's conventional meaning.

I'm back in Singapore, this time as a student. And this time, the regular menu of 'things to do' do not include taking off to Pulau Ubin, or hanging out in Bugis Junction, or walking through the sultry forest of Bukit Timah.

This time, it's to live in a blur of space-time, where day and night exist simultaneously, where a wasted minute can seem like an hour, and a pleasant hour can go by like a minute.

I always knew it was going to be like this, but living through a two year MBA course crammed into 11 months is showing itself to be a challenge. The light dawned rather brightly on me today when I realized that I had sat through a 2 week course in Accounting and have rather credibly covered the amount of study material an undergraduate student would study in half a year. I never thought I would see myself do that. A single block of time wasted sets one back by a mile.

The overall MBA experience has been educational so far, if not entirely satisfactory. Some genuinely new things have been learned. Some genuinely capable people have been met.

What's lacking so far is people to have a serious conversation with.

I hope at times that the obscene amount of money invested in this course pays off - if not by getting me a plum job, by at least making me a more rounded human being.