This time my trip to US ranged from uneventful to enlightening, all at the same time. Houston, a city where you drag your life along, is quite a turn off after my first trip to California last year. But interesting it has introduced me to a new perspective to watching television. I love the comedy timing of a lot of Americans. Particularly, the one sitcom that rocks is Sienfeld. I dont know how many of you have already seen it before -but its the most hilarious yet so subtle sitcom I have ever seen. It makes 'Friends' look like an overkill - (except for Joey :))
What's the sitcom about? As put in the words of George Costanza in one of the episodes - "It's a sitcom about NOTHING. Everyone is making sitcom about something and we would just create one with a refreshingly new idea - NOTHING". To get into details when asked who the characters would be in that Sitcom, as the 'Lord of Idiots' George Costanza would say "I can be a character. Dont laugh. Seriously, I can be a character. Lot of people told me that I am quite a character". And now that explains it. This George Costanza is a friend of the protagonist, Jerry Sienfeld, a NY city stand-up comedian. Subtlety is the word for this guy. No making faces or stressed consonants to make the dialogue sound funny - just a plain witty retort. Elaine, is a female that Jerry once dates but is now some really close friend. She takes Jerry for granted and has a knack of getting into some really trivial and sometime dangerously hilarious relationships. Stealing the show with his characteristic entrance and a confused soul is Kramer (No one knows his first name for long time only to find out later that it is Cosmo!!!). He doesnt believe in knocking doors when entering, asking people before eating at their place, infact any conceivable etiquette for friendly interactions!
As his friend George Costanza puts it "Kramer wants to go to a fantasy camp ? His whole life is a fantasy campm ! People should plunk down two-thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating. *That's* a fantasy camp!"
I love George in the sitcom - thanks to this sitcom I could bear this dull and otherwise really boring city of Houston. It made me realize the essence of life.
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no reponsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating... then you finish of as an o*$^%sm !!!Amen"
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
The Forbidden Apple (24th March, 05)
The Forbidden Apple (24th March, 05)
-Written as a parody targeted at people getting married :)
God said to Adam:
How many times will you enter the grapple?
Miss the snake for the lure of the apple
Advised not to, you thought it was just being prissy
Raring to jump into the same old fancy!!
Wake up Adam! I have created you on purpose
And it is that foxy Eve or the evil Satan, I suppose
That taught you all this “Importance of Yin and Yang”,
And made you forget how to enjoy, dance and sing a song!!!
I guess that was a story from the yore
When someone tells you “Don’t”, you want it even more
My grandpa told my dad and my dad told me
But I just got married, and there was my dad to see!!
Smiling, there He was – who created the apple and the snake
All for an enigmatic cosmic plan’s sake
For in the first place, the apple is there to be eaten and a snake to bite
And knows well, poor Adam, you can barely resist an Eve with all your might!!
-Written as a parody targeted at people getting married :)
God said to Adam:
How many times will you enter the grapple?
Miss the snake for the lure of the apple
Advised not to, you thought it was just being prissy
Raring to jump into the same old fancy!!
Wake up Adam! I have created you on purpose
And it is that foxy Eve or the evil Satan, I suppose
That taught you all this “Importance of Yin and Yang”,
And made you forget how to enjoy, dance and sing a song!!!
I guess that was a story from the yore
When someone tells you “Don’t”, you want it even more
My grandpa told my dad and my dad told me
But I just got married, and there was my dad to see!!
Smiling, there He was – who created the apple and the snake
All for an enigmatic cosmic plan’s sake
For in the first place, the apple is there to be eaten and a snake to bite
And knows well, poor Adam, you can barely resist an Eve with all your might!!
Monday, January 03, 2005
Excruciating Silence
Excruciating Silence
I was surprisingly silent that day. Sitting in an auto-rick, listening to the continuous screeching turns, the banging of loud honks, hollering lorries wrenching the guts of their age-old engines, ringing bells of hawkers on the road, shouting kids – inspite of all I was silent. Or for the first time in my life, was it BECAUSE of all??
Lost in an awkward quietness of thoughts, I suddenly bumped onto the idea of how much I am used to this noise. How much I am attached to this noise and how much do I inherently love it. I am used to those loud voices with loud expressions of love and hatred. In all this as I grew up, I became a part of the sounds around me, of nature and of people. Without that noise, I feel lost. I feel left out. I am used to equating silence with death and the noise with life so much so that I started to think silence as a word that succeeds ‘crematory’.
I started to count the number of times that this has happened to me. I sit in a loud environment and I hear nothing - Just the stillness and me. The calmness of thoughts shutting me in and I feel one with life. How many times have I encountered this feeling before! When it doesn’t matter what is around me and all I see is what I was looking for an answer for. Such alacrity of thought in a place where you least expect it to see.
As a kid, I always used to wonder if I am not living the life as I should be. Should I not be allowed to be myself? Should I not be allowed to sit in my house, in quietness secluded from the rest of the world? Why should the neighboring aunty care to ask at the top of her voice, if my upset stomach is alright now, with the cute-looking girl who I had crush on, overhearing it? I thought we in our country don’t value privacy. ‘Loud people, intrusive neighbors and relatives’ – I used to curse to myself. However, I had no choice. As a kid, living in a semi-urban locality, we had some painfully friendly neighbors, who wanted to know where I stood in my class in my half-yearly examinations, why I got such less marks in social studies and why wearing short pants even in your ninth grade is a symbol of humility and no humiliation. And on numerous occasions, I cried out loud with my voice muted, “Why do you care?”
As time passed, I got used to this noise- the loudness and complete lack of silence and privacy. Concentrating inspite of all the noise is a skill that the kids in India develop. I was no different. I was glad that I can complete my math homework and physics assignment inspite of the loud whistles from mom’s pressure cooker in the kitchen and wailing dialogues of soaps from my neighboring aunty’s TV. Incidentally, after my education I had to fly abroad on a business trip. I have reached my childhood’s ideal place, though a little late – the place where there is little noise, no intrusion and your privacy is respected.
I had to enjoy every moment of it – silent reading of my favorite novels, a calm drive down the road and a complete stillness all around. That was what I always dreamt of. But strangely, how much ever I told myself that I am enjoying it, my heart was breaking with pain. The silence is too heavy for me to bear - the stillness unnerving me. I had to talk to someone; I had to laugh out loud. I switched on to listening rock music – I had to admit that till then my love for rock music was fleeting. My ideal environment for good and clear thinking turned out to be wrong. I couldn’t think when everything around me is so calm and I couldn’t concentrate. However, rock music wasn’t filling in for that missing feeling in me.
That was the point when I realized what is the difference between noise back home and the noise of rock music? Thoughts flew back home and I realized how everyone cares for you back home - The loudness of care and warmth; the noise of emotion not of a boom box. I realized that I remembered that aunty humiliating me before my childhood crush and forgot how she got me that medicine later. I wanted to get back to the mad-rush back at home. I could not fit in to that structure of quiet culture and an un-intruded private life. I wanted to belong, loudly so, with every moment.
I was rocked back to life when the auto-driver switched on to the song - “Naatho pettukunte ……!!” from a Telugu movie. The glimpses of that song I watched a while before on TV flew over my mind – hero dressed in a yellow shirt and white trousers, with a maroon hanky around his neck, dancing heavily to that beat, whistles strewn all over the song, drums blowing at full volume. Just for a minute, I thought it was loud and awful. When I inadvertently started tapping my feet to that rhythmic beat, I just smiled to myself. I indeed am a loud guy and I love to remain so, forever!
I was surprisingly silent that day. Sitting in an auto-rick, listening to the continuous screeching turns, the banging of loud honks, hollering lorries wrenching the guts of their age-old engines, ringing bells of hawkers on the road, shouting kids – inspite of all I was silent. Or for the first time in my life, was it BECAUSE of all??
Lost in an awkward quietness of thoughts, I suddenly bumped onto the idea of how much I am used to this noise. How much I am attached to this noise and how much do I inherently love it. I am used to those loud voices with loud expressions of love and hatred. In all this as I grew up, I became a part of the sounds around me, of nature and of people. Without that noise, I feel lost. I feel left out. I am used to equating silence with death and the noise with life so much so that I started to think silence as a word that succeeds ‘crematory’.
I started to count the number of times that this has happened to me. I sit in a loud environment and I hear nothing - Just the stillness and me. The calmness of thoughts shutting me in and I feel one with life. How many times have I encountered this feeling before! When it doesn’t matter what is around me and all I see is what I was looking for an answer for. Such alacrity of thought in a place where you least expect it to see.
As a kid, I always used to wonder if I am not living the life as I should be. Should I not be allowed to be myself? Should I not be allowed to sit in my house, in quietness secluded from the rest of the world? Why should the neighboring aunty care to ask at the top of her voice, if my upset stomach is alright now, with the cute-looking girl who I had crush on, overhearing it? I thought we in our country don’t value privacy. ‘Loud people, intrusive neighbors and relatives’ – I used to curse to myself. However, I had no choice. As a kid, living in a semi-urban locality, we had some painfully friendly neighbors, who wanted to know where I stood in my class in my half-yearly examinations, why I got such less marks in social studies and why wearing short pants even in your ninth grade is a symbol of humility and no humiliation. And on numerous occasions, I cried out loud with my voice muted, “Why do you care?”
As time passed, I got used to this noise- the loudness and complete lack of silence and privacy. Concentrating inspite of all the noise is a skill that the kids in India develop. I was no different. I was glad that I can complete my math homework and physics assignment inspite of the loud whistles from mom’s pressure cooker in the kitchen and wailing dialogues of soaps from my neighboring aunty’s TV. Incidentally, after my education I had to fly abroad on a business trip. I have reached my childhood’s ideal place, though a little late – the place where there is little noise, no intrusion and your privacy is respected.
I had to enjoy every moment of it – silent reading of my favorite novels, a calm drive down the road and a complete stillness all around. That was what I always dreamt of. But strangely, how much ever I told myself that I am enjoying it, my heart was breaking with pain. The silence is too heavy for me to bear - the stillness unnerving me. I had to talk to someone; I had to laugh out loud. I switched on to listening rock music – I had to admit that till then my love for rock music was fleeting. My ideal environment for good and clear thinking turned out to be wrong. I couldn’t think when everything around me is so calm and I couldn’t concentrate. However, rock music wasn’t filling in for that missing feeling in me.
That was the point when I realized what is the difference between noise back home and the noise of rock music? Thoughts flew back home and I realized how everyone cares for you back home - The loudness of care and warmth; the noise of emotion not of a boom box. I realized that I remembered that aunty humiliating me before my childhood crush and forgot how she got me that medicine later. I wanted to get back to the mad-rush back at home. I could not fit in to that structure of quiet culture and an un-intruded private life. I wanted to belong, loudly so, with every moment.
I was rocked back to life when the auto-driver switched on to the song - “Naatho pettukunte ……!!” from a Telugu movie. The glimpses of that song I watched a while before on TV flew over my mind – hero dressed in a yellow shirt and white trousers, with a maroon hanky around his neck, dancing heavily to that beat, whistles strewn all over the song, drums blowing at full volume. Just for a minute, I thought it was loud and awful. When I inadvertently started tapping my feet to that rhythmic beat, I just smiled to myself. I indeed am a loud guy and I love to remain so, forever!
Swades - Review
Swades: We the people
A movie from Ashutosh Gowariker and I knew even before I landed in the theater that it’s not going to be ‘yet another Bollywood movie’. Swades, as a movie, I would say is certainly different. However, if you are reading this review, to find out if you should go watch the movie or not, the verdict is – “You should go see it”.
Swades – is the story of a NASA engineer coming back to India is search of his childhood nanny, Kaveri Ma, and then being touched by his experiences in a small village - Charanpur - which gets him to think. At some level, probably Ashutosh Gowariker believes and drives home the message - that we, the as citizens of India, have to do something as our part about this country to make things happen. However, I felt Gowariker has lost track of his message, entangled in the sheer numbers and astronimity of the issues gripping India today – Illiteracy, caste system, poor power infrastructure, corruption and the (clichéd) brain-drain. To handle a myriad of these issues, and to logically drive home a point I felt Swades could have done with a lot more intelligent editing. Coz, the movie is too long, a little flat at times, and when songs break out in the second half out of the blue, you can hear people in the hall sigh, yawn and hoot.
However, the Gowariker magic of the protagonist cajoling the ignorant/adamant villagers to be motivated to help themselves and better their village still worked as well as it did in Lagaan. The emotional scenes where Mohan Bharagava is moved by what is the state of rural India was very well handled. And the dilemma of Mohan Bhargava is something a lot of educated Indians can associate with. Gowariker should be appreciated for his refreshing subtlety in narration.
Gowariker once again proved that casting is as important to the movie as the script. Shahrukh Khan (as Mohan Bhargava) has acted extremely well - no hamming, no over acting, just the regular intelligent thoughtful educated Indian guy - the idealism of Mohan Bhargava shows through. Gayatri Joshi is brilliant in her debut too. She looks very much the part she is playing. Actually, all characters have acted extremely well. In that sense it feels very real.
Music is just above average. I felt the charm in the music is lost mainly due to the misplaced because of some poor editing. However, I liked "Chala Chal Rahi" and "Yeah tara, woh tara...", and background score by A. R. Rehman ranged from being good to excellent in some scenes. Javed Akhtar as ever has written some enchanting lyrics. Cinematography is good too; it is a good looking movie without making you awkwardly feel that too much of effort has gone into to making it look good. (Like the movie “Devdas”!!!) On the whole, Swades could have been a lot better. That was my first reaction when I left the hall. And yet, somehow, I can't stop thinking about it. It stirs the Mohan Bhargava inside you because sometimes the Honesty of the expression is more important than the Polish in expression.
A movie from Ashutosh Gowariker and I knew even before I landed in the theater that it’s not going to be ‘yet another Bollywood movie’. Swades, as a movie, I would say is certainly different. However, if you are reading this review, to find out if you should go watch the movie or not, the verdict is – “You should go see it”.
Swades – is the story of a NASA engineer coming back to India is search of his childhood nanny, Kaveri Ma, and then being touched by his experiences in a small village - Charanpur - which gets him to think. At some level, probably Ashutosh Gowariker believes and drives home the message - that we, the as citizens of India, have to do something as our part about this country to make things happen. However, I felt Gowariker has lost track of his message, entangled in the sheer numbers and astronimity of the issues gripping India today – Illiteracy, caste system, poor power infrastructure, corruption and the (clichéd) brain-drain. To handle a myriad of these issues, and to logically drive home a point I felt Swades could have done with a lot more intelligent editing. Coz, the movie is too long, a little flat at times, and when songs break out in the second half out of the blue, you can hear people in the hall sigh, yawn and hoot.
However, the Gowariker magic of the protagonist cajoling the ignorant/adamant villagers to be motivated to help themselves and better their village still worked as well as it did in Lagaan. The emotional scenes where Mohan Bharagava is moved by what is the state of rural India was very well handled. And the dilemma of Mohan Bhargava is something a lot of educated Indians can associate with. Gowariker should be appreciated for his refreshing subtlety in narration.
Gowariker once again proved that casting is as important to the movie as the script. Shahrukh Khan (as Mohan Bhargava) has acted extremely well - no hamming, no over acting, just the regular intelligent thoughtful educated Indian guy - the idealism of Mohan Bhargava shows through. Gayatri Joshi is brilliant in her debut too. She looks very much the part she is playing. Actually, all characters have acted extremely well. In that sense it feels very real.
Music is just above average. I felt the charm in the music is lost mainly due to the misplaced because of some poor editing. However, I liked "Chala Chal Rahi" and "Yeah tara, woh tara...", and background score by A. R. Rehman ranged from being good to excellent in some scenes. Javed Akhtar as ever has written some enchanting lyrics. Cinematography is good too; it is a good looking movie without making you awkwardly feel that too much of effort has gone into to making it look good. (Like the movie “Devdas”!!!) On the whole, Swades could have been a lot better. That was my first reaction when I left the hall. And yet, somehow, I can't stop thinking about it. It stirs the Mohan Bhargava inside you because sometimes the Honesty of the expression is more important than the Polish in expression.
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