English Arani – an American Story?

As I finished the last few pages of “English, August, an Indian story”, I found myself feeling exactly as I would during the twilight hours of a great high. I didn’t want it to end, yet I couldn’t stop to keep it for later, all the while without the luxury of rehashing on the same influence in the future. It was turning into a tragedy but ended on a rather pleasant note, which seems a little abrupt if you are not distracted from the surprise. The fact that I have been reading this book for quite some time now, as companions ready to hear out my ‘Augustian’ rants would attest to, is a testimony to the consistency of brilliance that Upamanyu Chatterjee has managed to produce in his virgin novel though not always through a consistency of mood, as was the desired effect, I am sure.

The first time I heard of this book during adulthood was when a friend copy pasted a particularly funny excerpt from the book in an email that he sent a couple of people. To this day, I do not know whether I was in subconscious depression at the time, or whether the erstwhile planet Pluto had aligned itself to my birth planet. Whatever the reason, I decided to buy the book based on that excerpt. Those who know me well, would be extremely surprised by this very unmiddle-class like act which mainly involves buying second hand books and selling them right back. In hindsight, it was a good decision shattering my initial apprehension of doing a book report for fun.

From the very first few pages, I started identifying with the protagonist – a city boy newly instated in the Indian Administrative Service having to move to a smaller town which was a mecca of loneliness. Our worlds were poles apart or at least on the surface. Here I was – a gulf kid still reveling in the hangover of his liberation during the latter two years of college packed away into the heart of the American landscape. Maybe I was reading more into what truly was real, with what I like to refer to as the lovey dovey audience syndrome, and the only things common between us was really our last names and our first initials. Not that it matters, but his mother was Goan Catholic and my Mum is a probashi Bangali having grown up in Bombay and that we both have unpronounceable Bangali names with complex meanings that would appear exotic to the average non-Indian. August is a loner and has absolutely no problems spending days and days on end by himself and usually blocks out ‘irrelevant’ conversations with the most hilarious of inner thoughts, something that I practice from time to time too. There are differences as well, as you would imagine. He seems to be clutching to his ‘Bengaliness’ with both his hands, certainly not the case with me. He is also a lot more philosophical than I am which might be because he is able to get high more often but I cannot be a hundred percent certain. Right about the time I was moving to San Jose, August moved to Jompanna, which was smaller than his previous location Madna and he disliked it even more. I, on the other hand, quite like San Jose, which is of course bigger than Boise (my Madna).

What I really liked about the book was whenever Chatterjee dealt into heavier philosophical wonderings; he always preceded and followed such sequences with those with uncanny humor. There is no place for political correctness in ‘English, August’, which is probably what endears it to most of its fans, trapped in a politically correct world. He shamelessly uses August to tell us that it is okay to fantasize about your boss’ wife or to fib a little about yourself with respect to needless details to people who only exist for a few trivial minutes in your life. Chatterjee never preaches, but uses more subtle techniques to speak his mind through August, thus running the risk of appearing crazy to his readers. I quite like his idea of giving the otherwise silently rebellious August ‘conservative’ interests such as affinity to the mainstream Bengali Rabindrasangeet and Nazrulgeeti (thus an affinity to his Bengali roots) and an interest in the Geeta to go hand in hand with Ella Fitsgerald and Marcus Aurilius. Even though he seems to criticize the policies of the Naxal movement showing them under the glow of pseudo-intellectualism at times, there is an underlying, almost grudging respect for the same and the work they have done with the tribal people of India.

He also does a great job of selling the work of an IAS officer using a round about yet effective approach. Almost throughout the book, he keeps complaining about the job with all its affinity for protocol and pettiness, but towards the end, there are a couple of very nice segments that show us how much power an IAS office actually wields and can engineer a lot of change in the rural areas. Maybe it is a sort of justification for Chatterjee’s own career choice. He also gives us a couple of characters who are honest despite being in this profession, which is rare. Again, you will not find Chatterjee screaming this fact from the rooftops, but mentioning it more subtly in passing. An interesting point to note is that the novel was written in 1988 and yet, people today can identify with it, leading us to believe whether all that jazz about India having changed considerably over the years is really true. I am obviously not talking about the country, but rather that of her best and even worst asset – her people.

Taipei

8/18/2007

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Patience’s End

You know how people with a malignant cancer await death to put them out of their misery, or search for the silver lining in the form of a human hand overcome by euthanasia? I felt precisely that way as I sat through the movie waiting for Johnny Depp to rescue the movie along with the “damsel in distress” (Orlando Bloom), and as it became increasingly clear that that wouldn’t happen, I broke out of my atheistic state and started praying for a Miltonesque fire to burn down the theater.

The movie starts off on a very somber note with the execution of many pirates, the scene ending with a child breaking into a song with a fake British accent and hideous pirates joining in. The director, Gore Verbinski, fresh from a spring internship with the noted Indian director Karan Johar, must have really impressed his mentor as tears rolled down the despicable faces of grown pirate men. I was half expecting Spiderman to jump in, save the child and join in the sorrow, but he disappointed me for a second time this summer. The original music from the first movie is inspirational enough to distract you from stealing popcorn from the person sleeping beside you.

Kiera Knightly looks adequately spunky with her high cheekbones sufficiently tanned and matching her fiery attitude throughout the movie. Unfortunately, the damsel in distress, Orlando Bloom’s attitude was as pale as the sand in some of the beautiful locations the film was shot in. Verbinksi went a step further than his mentor Johar in order to embody twenty-first century feminism in this epic two hour forty minute Rajdhani journey by showing an aggressive female lead and a homosexual (err, weak) male one.

Johnny Depp delivers comedy very effectively through some abstract backdrops in the movie, making you wonder whether they would have been better off being just single acts on Saturday Night Live. The actors playing members of his crew are funny as their great chemistry is justified after three movies together. Bill Nighy is accurately disgusting as usual as Captain Davy Jones. Chow Yun Fat overacts most of the time in a role which is totally different from anything else he has done in his career. Naomie Harris as Calypso has hardly any screen presence, leave alone that of a goddess, and Stellan Skarsgård as Bootstrap drags his acting, much like the movement of the starfish stuck to his face. Keith Richards makes a powerful entry in the movie and is good, till Verbinski, again as a sign of homage to his mentor – the great Karan Johar, makes him strum a classical guitar in a Victorian Romeo style. The world council of pirates are hilarious, especially Mistress Ching with her mannerisms and the Sikh Bhangra pirates.

Geoffrey Rush steals the show from Johnny Depp in this one. He strikes the right combination of villainy, comedy or aggressiveness as the inimitable Captain Barbosa, and I am glad they actually brought his character back to life in the second movie. Tom Hollander is also very good as the ruthless and stone cold Lord Beckett.

I am told the movie has one of those publicity stunts where they have a 30 second scene after the credits roll, but even that cannot prevent it from scoring a disappointing 4/10 in my book.

Slackers United

Those who know me even remotely are aware of my extreme attraction to inactivity. And those who know me well probably share the same attraction, except for a few blood relations that fall on the other side of the genetic spectrum. I must mention that this is very common amongst Bangalees who even have a term called ‘gentomi’ loosely translated at mental laziness. I hear that Goans too have something similar called ‘shusheghaat’, though I am still ignorant as to its exact meaning. Maybe this ‘condition’ stems from generations of eating fish – both kinds – river and sea water fishes since Bangalees hunt the former with as much fervor as Bangalees can muster while Goans are the main reason for the extinction of the latter. I had read some theory once which said that we are so similar because apparently we migrated from Kashmir. I find that hard to believe just because of the immense travel involved (not that travel has become easier. I mean think of the numerous pieces of clothing you have to remove at the airport security checks and how far you have to walk between terminals in bigger airports). Assuming that is true, geography tells us that Bangalees are lazier as they stopped moving a lot earlier than the Goans. Why do you think unemployment is so high in Bengal? I guess it is no surprise then that Agastya Sen, the protagonist of ‘English, August’, the epitome of this quality (I consider him a personal guru, which means I have a fictional guru, which makes me crazy, which is still better than being active) was a product of the combination of these two great cultures.

We are the denizens of society who accompany teams to nearby cricket tournaments not to play with our enthusiastic fellow riders but just so that we can laze around on the grass under a shy sun shining down with timidity and producing what photographers call ‘diffused light’. We are the people who do not correct newspaper journalists when they get our fellow player’s last names comically wrong wondering as to the point of the whole publicity stunt in the first place. We are the people who drive around downtown Salt Lake City admiring the architectural magnificence but not stopping to take out our cameras to capture them. We are also probably the only drivers in the world who start a journey on a sports car on cruise control and then curse every time there is a curve in the road. It’s not that all of us love to sleep. Personally, there is nothing more satisfying than lying at an angle of 135 degrees on my La-Z-Boy and doing nothing. Maybe read a little sometimes, but that too can be taxing after five pages or so. As the protagonist of ‘Office Space’ puts it so effectively, “I would just do nothing if I had a million dollars.”

So, it is needless to mention that we are agitated more than active (abnormal) people when we ‘google’ for a South Indian restaurant, find the directions on Mapquest and drive the Goliathan (yeah yeah, tautology) distance (relatively speaking of course) to find it closed on Sundays. Then there are dilemmas in life like is it better to go all seven floors down (yeah, I know there was an elevator, still) to the hotel Jacuzzi and spend a couple of hours basking in the taboo thrill of watching beautiful Morman women in bikinis, or whether the bed in which you are lying in considering this will suffice. The latter situation always wins. We are also the only people in the world who don’t touch wood when talking of bedpans, and hail the remote control as the greatest invention of the last century. We grow our hair not to make a fashion statement but till the time we realize that combing the damn mane is actually more work than making our way to the nearest Great Clips. We criticize the Nintendo Wii for the realistic feel it brings to video games because the whole point of this sport is to only move the tips of a couple of fingers up and down. Right now you are probably wondering the reason for the randomness of the order of the contents of this post. I would go ahead and read it and organize it, but then I would rather sit back, zone out and increase La-Z-Boy Inc.’s share prices.

Kabul Express Review

I think we are currently in a phase of the Indian Film Industry (steering clear of the menial “Bollywood”) that film historians will write about as revolutionary times in the years to follow. I say this because of the shift from candy floss garbage movies we were making during the turn of the century. The fact that films like Yahaan, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Black, Black Friday etc. are being made and appreciated, even if, by a small section of the audience, bears testimony to this.

One such film is Kabul Express, made by Kabir Khan, an erstwhile documentary film-maker. The story revolves around a few days in the lives of two Indian journalists, played decently and superbly by John Abraham and Arshad Warsi, respectively. The movie begins with a chopper dropping the protagonists off somewhere within the borders of Afghanistan. What follows is a adventure that our guides will probably never forget, undertaken in a 4x4 called Kabul Express.

The main plus point of the film is Khan’s use of local people for the fringe roles and the liberal use of the local language by the same, and casting actors from their respective character’s background. As far as the characters go, Abraham’s Suhel is not bad, but doesn’t stand out, especially next to the perfect comic timing of Warsi’s Jai, which cuts the tension in the film as successfully as a good actor like Warsi can, making good use of catharsis. However, I must mention Abraham’s one scene, the one in which he stands up for Indian Muslims and gives Salman Shahid’s Imran a pat reply to his under the belt blow. However, both Abraham and Warsi are completely overshadowed by Shahid. He plays the loyal veteran Pakistani Army officer to the hilt. In fact, I am really curious as to what he is like without the whole get up and the Pushtoon accent. Hanif Hum Ghum manages to convey the anger the Mujahideen feels towards the Taliban with aplomb. Linda Arsenio has no major role, and is only in the film as a source of sex appeal, and reaction from the other characters.

Anshuman Mahaley’s cinematography is very good, justifying that you do not need architecture to beautify a place. Very early in the movie, he wakes you up in case you were drowsy, with a scene where Suhel invites an angel-like kid to exercise with him only to find that the kid has only one leg. I guess the credit should really go to the director Khan, but Mahaley manages to capture the emotion of the moment with his camera very effectively. The bright blue sky against the yellowish dirt brings back memories of Ray’s shots of the desert in Sonar Kella, and also conveys the pointlessness of the whole Mujahideen-Taliban conflict. I think the Buzkashi sequence could have been shown better, like in Rambo III, but maybe that was done on purpose, so as not to come off as flashy. The scene where Imran is showered with Pepsi cans serves as a humor element and is beautifully shot, and also shows off the clout of the huge corporation in style.

The lack of substantial music in the film had its pros and cons. While I agree that songs would have been redundant and unnecessary, a stronger background score would have been effective, especially in shots when our adventurers are scampering across the country in the Kabul Express. Like most modern films, it has a song that is not in the movie – a peppy number called Kabul Fiza.

In totality, a good film, barring a couple of holes in the script, such as the sudden arrival of Khyber on the scene and his (as far as I can tell better that mine) Hindi and the fact that Suhel and Jai spend a few days in the remains of a castle when it gets pretty cold at night without any apparent blankets or even Jai’s unending battery supply for his camera. It makes a very slight bow to Coppola’s Apocalypse Now in that the protagonists have to undertake an adventurous journey, but one of the big differences is that the larger than life character travels with them, unlike in Apocalypse Now, where the protagonist undertakes the journey to meet the demigod. I would recommend this movie to all off-beat film lovers, and being one myself, will give it a 7.5/10.

Succumbing to sub-conscious Forces

A very good friend is leaving town, and I am not exaggerating when I say that life at this place will loose some of its color. The decibel levels in corridors at work seem to have gone down. You don’t hear Japanese, albeit pseudo, conversations anymore, or hear of any broken fingers as a result of exchanging punches against each other’s fists, or the sound of dislocated shoulder bones because of the very unique shoulder high fives that were common. No one walks with exaggerated skips anymore, or matches the pink shirt I wear sometimes. Certain pundits on the ways of bedding women have lost their keen (to the unobservant eye) audience. No one swears 30 times in a minute at the lunch time anymore, and hence the atmosphere there is almost as bland as the food.

Let the rant in the previous paragraph not be misconstrued as “senti” crap. At the end of the day, I realize that humans have to constantly seek greener pastures, and if you add the human ambition quotient to the equation, it just justifies something very clichéd – the only thing permanent is change, thus explaining the human tendency towards Brownian or random motion. Ergo, humans, some more than others, are governed by random, or impulsive actions. So, for the most part, humans are impulsive. So, wait, Chief’s decision to go to business school is impulsive? How can a process, that is at least 6-8 months in the least, be impulsive?

Another reason, besides ambition, can be the boredom of doing the same thing over and over again day after day. Here I admire government servants who hold the same post for the best part of a quarter of a century or more, or even a school teacher. So, why is it that they don’t get bored? Is it a lack of exposure to the many other options they have? This raises a very serious question as to whether a lack of exposure results in occupational satisfaction.

More than an Average Middle-class Down to Earth Mustang Rider

Boise is blanketed by snow today, giving it that very northern European feel or maybe it is my mind humoring my pro-European sentiment. Idahoans in this part of the state went to bed last night (well some didn’t I guess since yesterday was Mardi Gras, but those that did) hoping to drive into the sun as they set about to earn their bread and butter for the day, and do the same roughly eight hours later when they got back home (assuming most people with jobs aren’t homeless). However, they woke up today to find everything white.

As much as I detest the snow, I cannot deny the fact that snow brings about certain calmness to the landscape. It’s almost as if the land has just smoked a joint and is fulfilling some long-forgotten vow of silence. As I was driving to work today, there was a very very very light snow falling. It was almost as light as rain. This uncovers a very sinister side behind the calm façade I just referred to. Till I explain my theory you’ll probably safely assume the snow has frozen my brain. So here goes …

This a conspiracy between Snow (if you are a visual person, think of Snow as a spitting image of the architect of the Matrix, dressed in white sinister, spelt E-V-I-L) and the authorities whose job profile is to not salt the non-Highway roads here. They are out to get the average middle-class down to earth Mustang rider on the streets of Boise (if you are an aural person, think of The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” playing in the background). The scenery is made all beautiful and stuff. Snow takes care of that, thus distracting the average middle-class down to earth Mustang rider, who of course, has a keen interest in aesthetic pleasures.

The very very very light snow makes the roads look just wet, not icy to the average middle-class down to earth Mustang rider, tempting him (yeah, I am not being sexually, thus politically incorrect here – they always are men) to rev the engine with the power of all the two hundred plus horses, as he would on a sunny day when the roads are as dry as Agastya Sen’s humor (no he is not a fourth cousin, but the protagonist of the book I am currently reading – “English, August”). However, being inherently observant, I noticed the ghostly white gleaming conniving ice waiting for the horses to roar and to see the underbelly of the Blue Lady (my Mustang). Also being inherently smart (read paranoid), I took my lady to Hasmukh Bhai (local Indian grocery store owner) to postpone death.

Hasmukh Bhai lived up to his name and gave me a pleasure-filled smile. Something told me that the smile was just a symbol of the happiness caused by beholding a customer this early on a weekday. For a moment, I was distracted by the pain with the realization that it wasn’t specifically my charming personality that had elicited the smile. However, focused as I was, unlike the average middle-class down to earth Mustang rider, I quickly told him about the attempt on my life. The smile vanished and I could see flashes of what I thought and hoped was determination in his eyes

Like all great leaders, Hasmukh Bhai spoke very little. You were supposed to decipher his mood from his many different smiles. Today, he just pointed to where he kept his rice to be sold. My mind, corrupted by capitalism, told me that he would only save my life if I were his first customer, but then, having inherently more vision than the average middle-class down to earth Mustang rider, I realized he was pointing me to refuge. So, I bought two ten pound bags of “Tilda pure Basmati” and placed them in my trunk, over the rear wheels. As I was pulling out of India Foods (Hasmukh Bhai’s den), I thought I noticed a twinkle in the eyes of the great man wearing that far away look when you know you have won the first battle in a long series of wars, when you try to be philosophical, not necessarily successfully, and a smile that seemed to say “Try harder Mister Snow”. What his pointed index finger had earlier reminded me in the shop was that Mustangs are rear-wheel drives. To the pedestrian, this means that riding fast in a Mustang is like running with your shoe laces tied together. Cool explanation, isn’t it? (I can’t really take credit for it. I heard this on Top Gear) Setting some kind of a heavy weight on either rear wheel unties the laces. So, I am alive, and writing this as an explanation to my boss for being late to work.

Mani Ratnam is definitely the Guru

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to watch Guru. I think it is a fascinating story of a fascinating man told in a fascinating way. After all it is a Mani Ratnam film, a name that we have come to associate with excellence in Indian cinema for more than a decade now. You notice his eye for detail in the very beginning of the film when Guru’s childhood unfolds on the screen. The actor cast in the role to play the young Guru is tall with big eyes, with an uncanny resemblance to Abhishek Bachhan.

The scenes shot in Turkey are very classy, including the dresses of the characters, which are in keeping with the times portrayed. Mallika Sherawat looks sexy, yet classy as she swoons to a number from A. R. Rehman with a heavy Arabian influence. It makes the fact that a dancer in Turkey is singing a Hindi song a lot more believable. A special mention for the singers, who did a great job singing such a complex song. The characters’ joy at winning money despite their humble background is expressed very realistically by Abhishek along with Mohan Joshi and the other actor.

From then, the movie flows at a very nice pace, correctly showing the pace in which Guru progresses though the business world and though life. The songs are picturized very well even though most of them are not necessary in the film, and tend to drag the film. Ravi Mennon’s use of color filter in the solo dance sequence enhances the viewing experience and its refreshing to hear Bappi Lahiri’s voice.

The main strength of the film lies in the acting by its carefully chosen cast. Mithun is very effective in short bursts as the righteous enemy. Most people say that Vidya Balan is wasted, but I disagree. I think she has a very important and difficult role, though not necessarily a meaty one. Madhavan is wasted in his role as the young firebrand journalist, though he excels in the romantic scenes with Balan. I am not sure whether the editing floor is responsible for his meager role, or whether Mr. Ratnam lost his character in the midst of the other heavyweights. Arya Babbar plays the ineffective brother-in-law very effectively.

Aishwarya Rai gives a solid performance, just proving that an effective director can really bring her acting abilities to the screen (like Rituparno Ghosh in the past). In any film where the title of the film is the name of its primary character, there is a fear of the protagonist overshadowing the other characters, but Ash more than holds her own, being a rock of support for Abhishek throughout the film. Also, she looks ravishing in the first half, and resembles Kokila Ben almost a 100% in the second.

This is by far Abhishek’s best performance to date. I would put this above his performance in Sarkar, when he was still growing as an actor. He has done his homework very well on Dhirubhai, as can be seen by his nuances with his right hand, putting on weight for the role and a subtle Gujarati accent. Also, the pouting of the lower lip brings a certain credibility to the character. A special mention must be made of the scene when Guru has a heart attack. It looks so real that you actually want to call an ambulance. The court scene is very moving and inspiring though you can see a little bit of his father in him.

Overall an inspiring film and like all Mani Ratnam films, technically very correct, fulfilling the long due call for biographical movies in the Indian film industry. In his illustrious career, I would rate this film a notch lower than Vellunayakan and give it an 8.5/10.