The Loss of Numbness

They fell like drops of rose water
Reminding me what passion was like,
Each drop returning that familiar pain
That the pale body so sorely needed.

I cut myself the other day
Just to be able to feel again.
I had forgotten that sweet feeling
Numbed by this sterile world.

I took a giant leap down
From the lofty height of my balcony
Just to see if I had learned to fly yet
Only to meet failure, that prisoner of war.

Cut and broken, but alive again,
I'll let these wounds heal themselves
Until the numbness has returned
And then I'll cut and fly again.

New York Stories

I don't mean to sound racist, but you must have seen Asian men in red hats and beige shorts that show off their legs, balancing heavy backpacks and expensive digital SLR's, snapping their better halves in front of every building in every city. I didn't want to be that guy (yeah, I am technically Asian too!) on this trip to New York. So, the camera didn't make it along with the laptop and the boxers (I travel light).

The weather was playing spoilsport as I landed, and especially because I had a few hours to kill in the real part of the city - the streets. However, by now conditioned to the sunniness and generally awesome California weather, I welcomed the smell of the wet earth, though you would probably argue that it was psychological since an urban center like New York is a 100% cement. As usual everyone was in a hurry, running away from the rain, leaving me like that sole upholder of contrast.

The unusual warmth at least allowed me to gorge down "to go" sandwiches from a brown paper bag, perched on unknown steps to an unknown residential building, shared with an unknown saleswoman from an unknown roadside store. I couldn't have been farther away from an almost laidback Sunday brunch later that weekend, in a greenhouse that had been converted to a pretty pink dollhouse in Central Park, with the rain pelting the glass walls like a little boy throwing stones to gain his parents' attention, or from Mr. Walker providing shelter from loud trippy techno, or the best cheese pizza I have ever had, in a trendy, almost Baroquian Manhattan apartment at 4 in the morning - like Merril Streep in the Bridges of Madison County - large and simple.

After some pretty decent Turkish coffee in the Village over a conversation spanning topics as diverse as Dubai's construction horizon to Italian neorealist cinema, I smoked my migrane out with sheesha accompanied by some instantly made friends. Spent the night or should I say, next morning, on an alien couch, too fatigued to fear the two canine beings pouncing around. It's fun when you aren't the weakest link though. Now I understand the humor my friends derive from watching me squirm at all the neighbors' dogs. Some of my new friends made me look like The Dog Whisperer and I guffawed till sunrise. Good thing I don't believe in Karma.

Manhattanians are inflicted by this manic virus called the Haute Couteur. Its everywhere you go within the confines of that island of fashion. The first evening I felt like a bum dressed in my black Led Zeppelin t-shirt and khakis. It was seven or eight finely dressed urban men and women, looking like they were the Godchildren of Giorgio Armani and me, going places, ordering stuff, consuming them, breathing in, breathing out, chitchatting, existing. Thank God I had worn shoes on this trip. Weather permitting, I usually prefer my floaters since they offer the lazy prospect of not wearing socks.

Times Square is a wonderland for a lighting nerd. The different colors, different temperatures, different intensities, different heights, different angles, light reflecting off the million Eastern European tourists milling about loudly arguing over maps, off the tops of those brightly colored jaundice cabs, off the carts of roadside sheesh kabab sellers, off the creatively adorned cycle rickshaws (it is an interesting sensation watching an obviously educated young man about town pulling those things, fighting the initial involuntary reaction of sympathy that welles up from growing up in Calcutta). That to me is the picture of New York. I don't really care that people dress normally in Queens or the Bronx, or that you can take romantic ferry rides to Ellis Island, or go watch the Yankees on a hot summer day. That sums up the visual energy of the place - dispelling physical loneliness far west, promising you an unending supply of bodies and their involuntary warmth at any hour of the night.

Guitar Blues

I am sure you have watched those movies before where an old person takes up a new hobby and excels at it. Like "The Visitor". It's escapism I tell you. A non-suspecting me accompanied The Rabbit and Sambaman to the Guitar Center. Now, Sambaman is no mean musician. Son of a musician, he is one of those people who can play something that he hears randomly playing on the radio. The Rabbit is pretty good for a self taught guitarist, and then there is me - the deaf sheep of the troika.

Don't get me wrong. I consider myself a connoisseur of the finest guitar solos ever played. If I wasn't such an atheist, I might have even considered worshipping the likes of Hendrix, Page, Clapton, Gilmour and Santana. Now, Rabbit and Sambaman are flirting with a couple of flashy bright things. Soon they have these beauties around their necks and are literally rocking out and playing the blues as if their granddaddies were in a band of waiters in New Orleans that entertained guests during breaks from serving them giant Cajun shrimps. Tired of watching little kids serenading their parents nearby, I decide to jump in. It takes me five minutes to figure out where the cable from the amp connects to the guitar and then half an hour to figure out the amp itself. When I finally hear the sweet sound of my escort, it's scratchy - like Hendrix playing with arthritis or something, staccato all the way. A couple of Gothic babes pass by and I shut my eyes tight, pout my lips and nod my head a la Page, and give all the strings a go, giving them a preview of my cacophonous symphony. They flee.

Sambaman tells me we are starting a band. I tell him I will write and sing. Sambaman doesn't know that I write songs as well as Clapton does advanced calculus. One of my musically inclined cousins tried once. The deal was that I write and she puts music to my contribution. The words have remained poetry ever since, and she has changed careers, probably drowned by the guilt caused by me and has become a Russian translator. Later, Sambaman develops paternal instincts and starts teaching me on a big beautiful acoustic thing. Short term amnesia sets in, not to mention a very early stage of arthritis wherein my fingers, stubborn as my refusal to keep going, become asymptotes, and that too, without any kind of harmony amongst themselves. I somehow convince Sambaman that I do not need to learn how to play chords in order to become a successful guitarist and that humans aren't designed to learn anything new after 25.

Flashforward to tonight. I get a duster out, and toil on my dark as cocoa guitar. I start implementing the single string theory that I sold last evening as well as Dennis Hopper sold cocaine to the American public. I am not even sure I can tell the difference between the last two strings. It's gotta be either high or low. There's no B flat and B sharp in my world. They sound like Victoria's Secret units to me. Frustrated, I run to the safety of Youtube, and its tempting plethora of useless drivel. And finally, I vent it all - here.

Home?

There's no point bathing the Blue Lady here. She gets downright dirty by the next day in LA's smoke - an obscene, familiar gray halo that greets you as you approach the city from the outskirts, soon to engulf you in its twister of dust. It's frustrating, and yet in some way, I feel closer to home than in any other US city I have inhabited.

The north is phasing out gradually and the word "home" is only able to conjure up this mess of a city with its scarred highways and traffic jams during unearthly hours. With companions equally laid back and novel unparalleled laziness, I don't have urges to make the Blue Lady run up with me anymore. Gluttons rolling in penury, we know where you can find the 10% student discount, or when the kitchens of the buffets close. Who said you needed motorcycles to find zen! Ask the Blue Lady as I lean back ultra-low and traverse the backstreets under a warm sun.

#308 is nice and welcoming as we hurry up the protected stairway to escape LA's unpredictable icy winds in the evenings - basking under the sun all day from its perch so high, engulfing me in the large black cushion on the futon as Antonioni and Kubrick display their art. The pool below sparkles its blueness sometimes under that sun, tempting us to dive the three floors into its cool depth, but sloth is not something that should be thus underestimated. However, the trunks are at least within view, just in case, some day, on some impulse, we jump.

Grass Valley

When I looked up from my comfortable perch in the back seat, none of the other cars were in sight. A close, squinted look at the speedometer told me why. X was driving at 5 miles below the speed limit. After some unpublishable swearing in Mandarin, the little white creature lurched forward. After a deep-fried Taco Bell meal, I took over the reins, and punctuated by only greasy belching, we threw ourselves into the silent folds of the rural underbelly of North California.

The first thing to hit me when we parked at the house, apart from an irrepressible urge to micturate, was the silence, which accompanied by the blackness of night that only rural areas can offer these days, was the visual representation of a typical, soothing Pink Floyd song. The sky, visible through my frozen breath, was sparkling, inviting like an intoxicating wine. If only the D200 could capture this spectacle!

The next seven days were jam packed. I spent the most time with the Sun, urging him like Kunti, pleading at times, to not move so much during a shot, silking the actors from his glorious wrath, and at the end of the day each day, pleading him to stay a little longer. Clouds waltzed in at times, to supplement the tired silks. Windy felt ignored and made her presence felt. She broke our dispensable bounce boards on a couple of occasions and ultimately, bent one of the stands of the giant silk. Thank god (sic) for gaffer's tape!

The family opened up their homes and hearts to us for the entire week, meticulously attending to some of our special dietary situations with utmost charm and smiles. We hadn't eaten this healthy in years, possibly since leaving home. Then there was Jack, unaware of the family's presence, bootlegging our morale as the days got longer, and muddier, at times. Made some new friends and spent a lot of time with some old ones, highlights include a random ice-cream break, assuming peacocks at night were just crying cats and a miniature mute bear.


I scorned at the ladies for getting sentimental when it was all over, but I would be lying if I said each one of us didn't leave a tiny part of ourselves in Grass Valley, whether it was in the river flowing by the barn, dressed by us in the biggest Nazi flag the world has seen since 1945, or the gobbling turkeys next door, as we headed back to the noise pollution and starless skies of LA. I drove the whole way this time.

Ragged Doll

I promise we'll only laugh
So that you don't push me away
Like that ragged doll that made you feel,
Only to haunt that poor little girl
And all of her helpless mates.

We'll escape to the moon
And bounce off mushrooms
As we see the earth burn away
Far away, reversing time
To its nude infancy.

I won't call you from your tree
While the others drown down here
In toxic pools of quicksilver
Until there isn't anyone to bounce off
Up into lonesome inner space.

But quicksilver is my kryptonite too
And my sturdy wings fail me
At this fortuitous Neanderthal end
As everything burns itself
And hides me in the engulfing smoke.

The Incredible Americans

Crossover literature, or that of the Indian diaspora scattered all over the US has been done to death. This is probably why I was apprehensive about "Inscrutable Americans". Nevertheless, it was authored by Anurag Mathur in 1991, whose hilarious "Making the Minister Smile" had made me more than smile when I read it, and if anything, "Inscrutable Americans" was one of the few books to probably start the genre anyway.

The initial pages didn't help in allaying my fears. I found it too corny to be funny. True, the story revolves around Gopal, who is after all from a small town called Jajau, known as the "Paris of MP", and his reactions to America forcing itself on him culturally, would elicit a different reaction than a product of a bigger city like me. And this is acknowledged by Mathur through Gopal's distant cousins, who hail from Bombay. Having said that, I would be lying if I said that nostalgia didn't make passes at me and take me back to my first year in the US as a freshman on a college campus - 2002 in Atlanta.

Gopal is relatable to since he is the quintessential horny desi Engineering nerd (the phrase is probably a redundancy), using his brains to come up with innovative ideas of reaching out to women, and yet, when the opportunity presents itself on multiple occassions, there is a lack of courage to ride on. Randy, Gopal's host (read partner-in-crime) is a stereotypical American young man most of the time, who warms up to Gopal instantly and makes it his ambition to get Gopal laid. There is also a range of other American characters, some colorful like the Peacock, some bland like the Dean, some polite, some rude, but all of them very interesting.

Mathur uses Gopal's letters to his brother in rustic Indian English wonderfully to show his character arc. As the story unfolded, I started falling in love with the book, with the pace rising to a climactic crescendo as the last few pages go by in a whiz, much like Gopal's reactions towards the new country. What starts out as a series of slapstick events slowly turns into mature introspection and more importantly, a very honest comparison between the two countries. This book is a must read for any Indian who has studied in the US.

Too Long a Halloween

As I have mentioned in some of the recent posts, the great aspect of The Dark Knight was its focus on the villains, or specifically, the circumstances that led them to their villainy, at least for me. Bandit referred the graphic novel The Long Halloween to me keeping this in mind. However, after Watchmen and The Killing Joke, this one was a disappointment, in comparison. I found it uni-layered, and very serial in its storytelling, probably because it is not a work of Alan Moore.

The story starts off intriguingly with the Falcone crime family of Gotham and its brooding head, known as The Roman, bearing too much of a resemblance to The Godfather Don Vito and his Corleone family. Some of the storyboards, like the sequence where Gordon, Dent and Batman meet on the roof of the police HQ, seems straight out of the Dark Knight, or the other way around I should say. At the end of the day, it is a whodunit of a series of murders, with the deranged murderer striking only on public holidays, like Christmas, Thanksgiving etc., starting on Halloween. There are way too many characters with little cameos, including a whole bevy of crazed criminals attracted to the city by the big Bat, as each one passes under the investigators', and thus, the reader's suspecting magnifying glass.

I kept wondering when the story would end, after I had gotten over the initial hook of excitement. Also, found the gimmick of a murder every holiday too blasé and "oh look, I am a crazy murderer"-y. Personally, I don't enjoy whodunits as much as the ones where we know the killer all along, but the real mystery is how, or why. There is a certain element of chill in that. The last couple of pages had something I wasn't expecting, but still didn't do enough for me to change my view of the entire novel, much like Farhan Akhtar's Don. It seemed like a stroke as a result of an afterthought of how to salvage this a bit.

The Thrilling Joke

When I entered the theater to watch The Dark Knight last summer, I had expectations since the previous Batman film had been the best one and director Chris Nolan seemed to be making the characters layered. What ended up happening was that I almost forgot Batman was in the movie and was completely emotionally vested in the bad guys, especially The Joker. Recently, Bandit told me that the character of the Joker in the film was inspired by a comic book called The Killing Joke. I just had to read it.

The Killing Joke is a short story about The Joker escaping from a mental asylum after he had been put there by Batman. The Joker proceeds to take revenge on Commissioner Gordon, to prove his theory that everyone is bad, and can be made to do bad things, if pushed hard enough. He makes it personal and his methods are so violent and dark, that it makes the film look like a children's Disney movie. The Joker takes over a theme park and turns it into a nest for all birds of dark feathers. There is also a chilling epilogue to the story, that doesn't involve any of the usual Batman villains, but a common man, like you and me.

Written by Alan Moore, it uses his parallel story-telling technique that he employed to great effect in the Watchmen; this time concentrating on The Joker's past, circumstances that led a sane man to become The Joker. A lot of the dialog in the film, especially those between The Joker and Batman were reminiscent of the movie. Questions are raised in the reader's mind whether the two characters are just two sides of the same coin. The illustrations by Brian Bollard, are very 3D-like, making the characters pop out of the book, and making it more real. The end, again, like Watchmen, champions the cause of the human spirit.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Mandrake the Magician - that was the name of the last comics I enjoyed. Also, read a few of the Tintins. However, these were around 18-20 years ago. Pop culture graduated me to adventure stories, and finally, "more mature" literature over time. Recently, through peer pressure, and aggressive movie marketing, I ended up reading Watchmen and discovered that there is a whole parallel universe out there for the adult comic book reader.

Written by Alan Moore, Watchmen is essentially a tale of morality at the end of the day. It questions our act of handing power to the watchdogs of society. Set in NYC in the simmering political period of the Cold War - 1985, with Richard Nixon leading the country, everyone is convinced that the world is pummeling towards World War III - Armageddon. The events are observed by a group of middle-aged ex-crime fighters from the background in their own individual homes and perspectives. And then, one by one, the "watchmen" start dropping dead like pins. The conservative ones among them, start extremely private investigations, and over time, uncover the monstrous truth.

There is the Comedian, whose name and character combo itself, is a not too funny joke. He is the all-knowing street smart, who is smart enough to know, but too lax to do anything about it. There is the unlikely Silk Spectre II, who reluctantly joined the line of work after her mother. She feels used by the system. The Night Owl is the technical guru. Along with Silk Spectre II, he represents the naive common man on the street. Rorshach is a conservative like the Comedian, but doesn't know as much, and his curiosity actually starts the investigation. Dr. Manhattan used to be a man, but again, got taken advantage of by the system, and was turned into a warhead and a bargaining chip in the Cold War. He is going through a midlife crisis, so to speak, and is fed up with the vagaries of the human nature. Finally, there is Ozymandias, my favorite character. Initially, much isn't explained about him, and he seems to be a flame in the past, misusing his fame to collect fortune in the present. Later in the book, his whys are explained. He is the Comedian's adversary, possibly because they are the same people with exactly opposite political alignments.

Brilliantly written, Time magazine calls it one of the top 100 novels of all time. There are a lot of passages in the book where the writer uses literal parallelism to get his point across, which can be a little confusing, but all ties in together at the end. There are also visits to the past, and various mediums other than comic strips - like newspaper articles, letters, journal entries and excerpts of autobiographies, used to convey the back story and thus the mental state of the protagonists. I believe the writer is telling us that it is the system we need to change, and that all human beings are not white and black characters, but essentially gray. The most important thing in the world is the human element, and thus, can be molded like clay, to profit. Some readers will find the end very preachy, but I didn't have a problem with it and actually loved it. It identifies the greatest problem today, and provides a very unlikely solution, again taking advantage of the human element.

Jack

Hello,

I was gonna write something on the Watchmen novel, but don't feel like it right now. Promise to do it before the film releases and I catch the phirst day phirst show at midnight on Thursday. I like Ozymandias. Jack is awesome. He makes the world colorful. I think alcoholism is born out of boredom. Life is unboring. There is Jack at 6 in the evening on a weekday and I am watching Knocked Up for the umpteenth time, after just watching the commentary version just now.

Had some Trader Joe's Biryani, actually it's just called "Indian Fare" since TJ, unlike most of it's customers who I would imagine are politically correct. Some products of their creativtiy include "Trader Giotto's", "Trader Ming" (which doesn't even sound like Joe) and "Trader Arabian" (no that doesn't sound right, but something equally politically incorrect). This is essentially a diary entry. I don't think anyone apart from WIAN reads this, but he seems to be on vacation, but maybe some stalker somewhere does, coz the hits counter (read, blogger ego booster) go up every time I visit to write something. Hello stalker, I like cricket and Indian food, the latter of which I miss off late.

Jack even helps you financially. I mean sure, 750 ml costs x amount of dollars, but it keeps you warm, and then you don't need the heat, but that's only in winter. I mean, right now, I am warm, but I am lazy enough to not open the balcony door. Story of my life - the fight of laziness against boredom. The laziness almost always wins, preventing me from playing video games I like. I think that's why I really like movies. You just sit there and are fed information and all you have to do is think, but nothing physical. Oh stalker, if you are a straight female, I do like sex though. Genetic burden! Darwin and all. Jack made me eat that extra cookie, coz everything tastes great, or alright, if it's bad, with Jack. But hey, lemme ask you this, if I got 750 ml for the sake of art - for a shoot, is it wrong? One shouldn't waste, hell no, that's the biggest faux pas of our generation. Does Jack take pleasure to the next level; that's true with almost everything else he does? He is like Lucious - hovering around like a bog brother, making sure you are happy.

They are showing Geisha House now on Knocked Up. Pssst, go there if someone else is paying. A little expensive - a Sushi place, you know. However, it is dark, not well lit, as they show in Knocked Up. Great desserts too. Hahahahaah. "I am pregnent. Fuck off". Funniest response in the history of cinema. Sorry, female stalker, if that makes me sound like a chauvinist, I am willing to watch Sex and the City, the movie to make up for my chauvinism.

Two Existential Films in a Day

Khush Hai Wahi Jo Thoda Betaaab Hai
Zindagi Mein Koi Arzoo Kijiye

Some of us are pot-bellied contented folks, resting our fat asses on cushioned lives, and then the creativity goes away, leaving us disillusioned and ignorant of our loss. But then, happiness hardly ever lasts forever, and then we get hungry again and start creating. So, technically, if you are happy and satisfied, you can't really create anything of significant value, thus the adage of the hungry artist in rags - the brilliant poor, intellectually rich, but materialistically void.

Happened to see a couple of superb existential films yesterday - Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist and Blade Runner (I know the latter is a classic and I am a film student, but I am weird like that - I just saw the Back To the Future trilogy for the first time the other day!). Nick and Nora takes place in the course of a single night in NJ/NYC. It also champions the cause for gay rights, effectively IMO, but then again, apropos to my companions these days, I am extreme left, so maybe my opinion is biased. There is also the universal search for essentially nothing but Lewis Carrol's century old White Rabbit, and a time when two right people meet each other during the wrong time in their lives. As the script suggested, Michael Cera was rightly overshadowed by Kat Dennings. The movie was not a commercial success and only has a rating of 6.9 on IMDB (that oracle of an invention).

I don't know if it was the Jack or not, but Blade Runner, I thought, was phenomenal. I had read Asimov as a kid, and thought it to be pretty straightforward - let's not get carried away with technology, it'll fuck us over some day. Peter K. Dick's Bladerunner is that along with a few more layers. Harrison Ford doesn't play Harrison Ford for a change. The director's cut helped, doing away with the redundant voiceovers, I am told. In any case, I think it was a very mature piece of art, especially, for 1982. Little details like the blood mingling with the liquor into a shot glass when a bleeding Ford drinks from it. Set design was phenomenal, and the film was almost like a film noir set in the future. Would have loved to light that film. Didn't pinpoint the ending because it is a departure from the mental thriller that the rest of the film is, IMO, or probably, because the twist was so huge that it turned 360 degrees. Indeed, the greatest trick the Devil played was to make the world believe he didn't exist.

Almost Always Wright

It is interesting that India is still viewed as a land of great religion and mystic charm, while she has produced a generation of Godless beings such as myself, and yet, we aren't running amok tearing our hair out, because we have something equally mystifying - cricket. The game may have started on the cold English green lawns, meant to be enjoyed amidst polite cups of tea, but it has certainly evolved into a passion of the pajama, as can be read on the sleeves of a billion people. An important figure in this evolution, at least, from an Indian perspective, along with Sourav Ganguly, is the quiet, resilient Kiwi opening batsmen of yesteryear - John Wright. Over the years, we have always heard media speculation about him, with almost no returns form the man. Professional to the core, he chose to do it in his book, after retiring. Written with the help of Sharda Ugra and Paul Thomas, his autobiography "John Wright's Indian Summers" is mostly excerpts from John's diary and is a very straightforward and realistic account what actually happened in the golden years of Indian cricket and the profile of a much loved lonely man.

The book begins with the end of John's cricketing career and talks about his body telling him to stop, but his mind not agreeing, leading him to his coaching career. He started off with the English county team Kent and produced results. After failing to land the job as the Kiwi coach, John landed arguably the second hottest seat in world cricket. The Kent job couldn't have been more different from the India one.

From the outset, the decision to hire a foreign coach was met with a lot of resistance, especially from ex-players, who thought they could do a better job. However, John did make friends as well, in Raj Singh Dungarpur, and was also, in Jagmohan Dalmiya's good books. He doesn't talk about Ganguly all that much, treating the relationship as more professional than personal. Kaif seems to be a favorite of his, along with Javagal Srinath, VVS Laxman and Anil Kumble. According to the book, he was very drawn to players who weren't from the big cities.

I think the most important reason that his tenure as coach worked was that he recognized the fact that cricket was a religion in India, and identified answering the hungry public with results, as one of his action items. There are passages in the book that talk about people lining up for hours in small towns to wave at the tinted windows of the passing bus with their heroes in it, and rendezvous' with the cab driver, or an enthusiastic teenager, who had grave justification for shuffling the batting order.

He also recognized that each player needed different one on one coaching, such as Tendulkar needed more direction, while some of the younger players needed more technical tips. He was the first coach to push for and succeed in getting the Indian team a trainer and a physio. One of his regrets is not being able to manage a bowling coach. I am sure he is glad that since his departure, that has been taken care of.

The Pakistan tour receives more attention than others in the book, not just because of the Indian team's astounding success there, but mainly because of the off-field activities, like the warm hospitality or the affinity in culture that John observed. What makes this book appealing to even non-cricket enthusiasts, I would imagine, is the lack of cricket data and an emphasis on the emotions and the little humorous anecdotes of the players while on tour. The great Aussie series at home is mentioned, but again, Harbhajan's state of mind is discussed more than how many wickets he took. Ganguly waving his shirt at the English is discussed but not how much he scored. John doesn't talk about the statistics from the disastrous Kiwi tour, but instead chooses to talk about his chagrin at having to play on crazy pitches and defend his team in front of his friends. The ambition of the man comes to the fore as he calls the World Cup campaign mostly a failure by citing the crushing defeat to the Aussies in the final.

The media often showed John to be a meek man. This is far from the truth and nothing but a revelation of the myopia of the media in failing to recognize professionalism. John says he tried to maintain his grim face during games, and after a while stopped caring about the media reports calling him cold. He accepts mistakes like loosing his temper with players initially, with the maturity reflected by gray locks.

The depressing parts of the book deal with internal politics in Indian cricket, mostly in selection committee meetings, about how, real talent is getting overlooked at the grass root level. He was also very lonely during the weekends in India, when all the players went home, but he couldn't. He spent a couple of Christmases alone - a quiet meal, a lonely beer, the same hotel room, and also lost his father during his tenure as coach. The loneliness ultimately got to him and he quit after transforming the team in six years.

Marlboro Incense Ad

A film-noir style advertisement for an imaginary product.

The Flying Feather

I want Forrest Gump's feather to flow and glide and go where my GPS tells it to go. Forget gravity for a while, and stop telling me that it can't move like that when there is no f@#kin' wind, that it's a feather, that due to its weight and the atmospheric conditions of the place at that time of the year, it is bound to fall limp to the ground. And stop introducing mechanical fans that would cause the feather to fly like I want it to. If feathers really did that, why would I put them on celluloid?

I am not painting the feather with a million colors and making it chase other garish ones around trees, nor is it dodging bullets. You want the feather to tickle you, or to soak up your tears, or live its predictable life of failing twice to make the Queen's bathrobe, but finally succeeding. The feather has to be cut to the size of your liking, and has to make decisions about whether to join a boa or be a bookmark. If the feather goes crazy and decides to turn itself into a tortoise shell, you decide it is way too out there to alter, but you cannot stand a free floating non-existential feather.

It doesn't matter that the feather is politely suggesting that you leave your shell and let yourself float like itself, that you are a feather, that we all are, and more like you are making us believe that we are just tortoise shells, not feathers, by introducing unromantic things like gravity and fans. The feather's not forcing you, because celluloid is made from freedom, is it not? Or am I completely naive to dream about free-spirited feathers blowing in the wind of magic realism?

"Married Life" from "The World of Apu"

This Indian Bengali film was directed by Satyajit Ray in 1959. It is the final part of a trilogy. Ray was ahead of his time. While most of his peers were still making escapist cinema, he, influenced by Jean Renoir and others of the New French Wave cinema, concentrated on realistic films. I picked this scene because in my opinion, it is the best scene in Indian cinema that depicts love in its true subtle form in Indian society of the time.

The scene starts off with a shot of a curtain blowing in the window, and dollies back to reveal our characters in bed. This separates them in their own little world, from the outside world and the gentle breeze suggests happy times. The sound of an alarm clock shatters the peace, which is a recurring cathartic theme in the trilogy.

Aparna gets up from the bed to turn the alarm off, but her saree is tied to Apu's quilt. She unties the knot and slaps him on his back in mock anger. Apu wakes up slowly and pulls out one of Aparna's hairpins from underneath her pillow and gives it a longing look, as if he is already missing her. All these elements – the tied saree, showing their connection, the little gesture (slap) and longing look show the subtle love on screen, at a time when censorship was very big in Indian cinema. The camera lingers on Apu a tad longer than usual, transporting us, the audience to our mental state when we wake up in the morning.

Aparna is framed up in a wide shot through the doorway, making her appear very small in the frame, alluding to her having to cope with worldly matters such as married life at such a young age. A train can be heard approaching. Trains are also a recurring theme in the trilogy and Apu has a very bittersweet relationship with trains, since he lost his elder sister at a young age, with whom he would run after trains. The note in the cigarette pack is also another plant to show subtle love.

While Aparna deals with the cockroach, Apu is playing a flute in the background. This outlines the differences in their characters. Apu is the dreamer, while Aparna, probably forced by circumstances, is more worldly. The train's whistle is unpleasantly loud for Aparna, and she moves away from the terrace. A melancholic Sitar tune strikes up as Apu feels guilty for subjecting Aparna to hardships. There are black crows flying – another sign of negativity.

Apu is engulfed in smoke as he steps on to the terrace – from the trains and from the clay oven, reflecting his clouded and anxious state of mind. The blocking here is key. Soumitra Chatterjee, the actor playing Apu is staged so that it appears the trains' smoke is coming out of his head. There are a series of lamp-posts in the background, signifying the road Apu and Aparna have to travel together in life.

When he comes back into the room, she is framed extreme right while he is more centered, but still to the left. He is unclear about exactly how she is feeling. There is a little doll in the background, which signifies that mentally Aparna is still a little girl. There is an inverted triangle shape behind Aparna, which traditionally signifies the divine feminine. When Apu leaves the room, we see a topor, a Bengali traditional wedding hat on the wall, which provides a stark contrast to the doll.

When Apu comes back to the room, he asks Aparna to step aside, exactly the same way she asked asked him a few minutes earlier, again showing their bond. Aparna walks up to Apu and places her chin on his shoulder reassuringly. Not only is this one of the most aesthetically pleasing shots of Bengali cinema, it suggests her support for her husband, and is a silent promise to be at his side when the going gets tough. Here we notice that the vermillion on Aparna's forehead is slightly smeared, thus showing a coming of age maturity, previously unseen in her by the audience. Sharmila Tagore, the actress playing Aparna, looks like the Goddess Durga here with the vermillion and her luxuriant dark hair open, who traditionally protects her followers. It may not be a happy accident that she has a slightly protruding chin, making her face almost an inverted triangle. As opposed to taking up another tutoring job, she asks him to quit his current tutoring job so that she wouldn't have anything to repine about, thus answering his question, and also creating another pointer to subtle love.

In the international film circuit, the film was nominated for a BAFTA in '62 and won the Sutherland Trophy in '59 and the NBR Award in '60. Satyajit Ray received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscar's in '92 on his death-bead after Kurosawa pushed for him and Scorcese threatened to boycott the Oscars if Ray was denied the award.

Note: I couldn't find the entire scene on Youtube, but this is the very end of the scene and a little bit after.

The Rules

Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. I own the DVD and have watched it on multiple occasions, notably when I have been down and wanted to reach out to anger and violence to justify my rehabilitation. Before you lean back in your chairs to ready yourself for a movie review, let me go ahead and disappoint by saying this post isn't about the movie, or the brilliantly written book. It's about cinematography, and no, not cinematography of the movie.

Last week we learned to use the 35mm camera and our guest teacher had this attitude of a rocket scientist, thus holding my attention. He had this enviable arrogance about his job as a DP, about the sacredness for the camera. It was almost as if he removed his shoes mentally before he touched the camera, and took his time - something that only a perfectionist can appreciate. And then, as he was telling us how to load the 35mm film on to the camera in the dark changing bag (so as not to expose the film), he said "Loaders are clean people. They cut their nails regularly ...", but by then I was somewhere else, mentally.

It was like Fight Club man. "Cinematography was a reason to cut your nails, have showers, manage your facial hair." Discussions during the break with fellow classmates, who were also Fight Club nerds, revealed that haircuts could also be thrown in, but the hippie in me revolted. Maybe, hair-nets, like the people who work in the grocery store. And lots of alcohol - to keep the fingernails clean, of course.

However, unlike Fight Club, the first two rules are to recruit more people. If you get stuck, you can't stop. You can't leave unless you finish it. Only one person in the bag. One role of film at a time. No watches that glow in the dark. Loading will take place as long as it has to. If you are a student and you haven't loaded, you gotta do it once.

A Silver Sliver of Emulsion

Since time immemorial, I have always been a fan of History. The only instances of our armed conflict were the eve of my History exams, back in school, but academic interest aside, we have always been more than friends. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that I fell in love with "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" since it combines her and the pretty object of my current passion - Film. This biography of Hollywood of the late 60's - early 80's by Peter Biskind talks about the birth of what we can look back today and call "independent cinema".

The book starts off chronologically with "Bonnie and Clyde" and how along with other films like "The Graduate", it ushered in a decade and a half of measured studio independence, thus producing some classics, that literally, as the full title of the book suggests, "saved Hollywood" . It transitions into an introduction of the cinematic enigma - Warren Beatty and sets the tone of the book - an ensemble cast of the up and coming directors at the time, much like a film. Peter Fonda's life before "Easy Rider" is also chronicled. Biskind talks about Pauline Kael, a hippie movie reviewer, who had a huge hand in the revolution, encouraging these new age films.

Biskind establishes the bravado of my all time favorite American director - Francis Ford Coppola early. He was a born leader and a role model for other directors like George Lucas and Spielberg. He had already directed a feature by the time he was in his late 20's (as he had vowed to do before he hit 30) and was no less than a demi-God for the fresh crop of film school graduates. Coppola wanted to move away from the studios to San Francisco and empower his later to be made Zoetrope Studio as the alternate umbrella for the artists (filmmakers) everywhere. His laissez-faire attitude is evident in films that he later produced for his friends, like Lucas' "American Graffiti".

Before Biskind talks about Easy Rider, he introduces BBS - a brainchild of Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner, a bunch of rich hippies, which was born within Warner Brothers and allowed to operate autocratically, as long as the movies it was producing cost less than a million. Dennis Hopper is also talked about, as a sort of long flash in the pan. The colorful anecdotes in the book involving Hopper paint a very eccentric genius, who was ahead of his time, and horrible to work with.

Robert Altman is profiled, as a man who did TV for ten years and then translated that into film, successfully initially. Peter Bogdanovich's film nerdy character, that someone like me would identify with, is exposed through his wide eyes as he arrives in Hollywood and meets his boyhood heroes like Howard Hawkes and Orson Welles. It is interesting to note how accessible Hollywood was back then. I cannot even imagine getting probably close to Coppola's outer entourage today.

Coppola's struggles with the studios is mentioned as he made "The Godfather", while Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson and Robert Towne worked on "Chinatown" at around the same time. Not many people know this, but Nicholson initially came to Hollywood to make it as a writer, but not seeing much success, he switched over to acting. The "character" with whom I identify the most in this book is Hal Ashby - a benign, passive aggressive, workaholic hippie editor, who started directing and won some actors and actresses their Oscars with his direction, and more significantly, crisp editing. His personal life, like that of most of his peers, was in shambles and unfortunately, he died by the late 80's.

Billy Friedkin and Gene Hackman are introduced - the former, sadly staying a two-hit wonder and the latter, one of the most underrated actors of all time, who got into it late. Friedkin was from Chicago and shared Bogdanovich's Hollywood awe, but as his films show, his dark side refused to acknowledge it. Collaboration was very prevalent with filmmakers roping in their peers who were friends, on a project and awarding them small percentages of the amount the film eventually made. "The Director's Company" was founded on the same principle by Coppola, Bogdanovich and Friedkin, but failed to stand the test of its founders' individual successes.

The book then glides into its next segment. It is the mid-70's. The hippie movement is dying out. The Vietnam War is long over. Some people are tired of intellectual cinema and want to see something entertaining again. This segment is dominated by the talented circle of friends - Spielberg, Scorcese, De Palma, Lucas and Coppola. Coppola was the daredevil leader, De Palma the intellectual, Lucas the nerd. Scorcese was the dark paranoid and Spielberg was the entertainer. Each one was different. Each one was successful, and yet, each other had personal demons. Coppola wanted to be an auteur like some of the European directors, and wondered if he would have had success had he not agreed to do Mario Puzo's celebrated novel. De Palma made the thinking man's movies, but most of them weren't commercial successes. Spielberg was the blue eyed boy of the studios and the exact opposite of De Palma. Lucas was similar to Spielberg, but hated working with actors. Also, his life was modeled on Coppola, the father figure he badly needed. Scorcese missed home in NYC initially and as a result, was too caught up in drugs to enjoy most of his early success.

Scorcese met a writer - Paul Schrader, an even more dark individual with a violent upbringing, and the results were the DeNiro starrers "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull". Almost an entire chapter is dedicated to my all-time favorite movie "Apocalypse Now" and the trials of the shoot and how Coppola, Brando and Martin Sheen came back as different men from the Philippines. This really kicked off the end of the era, coupled with the box office bombing of "Raging Bull" and increasing drugs in Hollywood.

The last chapter is aptly titled "We Blew It" - uttered by Captain America (Peter Fonda) to Billy (Dennis Hopper) towards the end of "Easy Rider". The sequel to Chinatown (without Polanski from the outset) was shelved after crew and cast showed up on set on the first day of shooting. Spielberg and Lucas initially wanted to make blockbusters so that they could nurture and produce the independent work of their more intellectual peers, but the inertia of success is a terrible thing. The book ends on a whimpering note - the death of Hal Ashby. At the end of the day, it was too much sex, too much drugs and too much arrogance, coupled with some commercial failures and ensuing insecurities.

An interesting parallel that I took from the book is how similar the late 60's in Hollywood are to today's Indian cinema. I think it will take ten more years for the talent to be fully realized, for more sensible producers to sit up and take note. I believe we are at the cusp of Indian cinematic history. The ball has been set in motion by some directors. I just hope, like Hollywood, we don't blow it.

Arrrr...

A friend of mine randomly messaged me on the chat feature of Facebook the other day urging me to watch "Steal this Film" and then blog about it, before returning to her usual set-building. At the time, I was clueless as to her apparently random passion on the subject. However, now, having seen both parts of the documentary, it makes as much sense as the diet of an athlete. She probably chose me since I am a filmmaker, and was interested in my take on the whole piracy issue.

So, here's the deal folks. I don't really care about piracy. If someone copies my film and puts it on the internet, it is nothing but a stroke of my artistic ego. The "someone" obviously thought the project to be good enough to share with millions of others. It only helps to strengthen my reputation as an artist. The Hollywood studios seem to be thinking only in terms of business and overlook the artistic side completely (as expected). All those ads you see of people fed by the industry asking you not to copy stuff is absolute hogwash. All those people are salaried, including the biggest of directors, and the only people who really "loose" money are the already bourgeois studio executives.

Also, the studios have this totally pessimistic view of things. If the product is really really good, the audience will flock to the theaters to watch it a second time, because no matter what anyone says, comparing watching a film in a theater to squinting into differentiating pixels on your forced perspective computer monitor, is like comparing eating a Brazilian steak to consuming a packet of Knorr or Campbell soup at home. And I am not just saying that because I am a film fanatic, and would watch any decent movie in a theatre, and that my laziness doesn't allow me to look for fullproof torrents online and that I am more likely to be found haunting electronics stores going out of business (read SirKit Seetee) for discounted DVD's.

The filmmaker in me cannot but help analyze the documentary film. Firstly, it is too long. I kept loosing interest and hallucinating about future Oscar speeches, especially when they went down this long winded history lesson on the printing of the Bible. Also, they kept harping on the same points (which, don't get me wrong, are good) for far too long, thus underestimating the intellect of the target audience, trying too hard to impress. Having thrown all the dirty linen at you first, let me say that the ending of the second part was as clear as a sunny sky after a night full of rain. It talks about the limiting nature of anti-piracy laws on one's creativity and the shadows it casts on one's innate goodness. I was also impressed by the haphazard structure of the documentary, as if to say, there isn't really a structure to creativity.

Jobless on a Sunny Saturday Morning

It's a luxury I haven't enjoyed in a while now, but the optimist in me (like most protagonists in Ray's movies) knew that bad times don't last forever. Kishor's Kahan Tak Yeh Man Ko flashes though the head and Youtube makes a reality out of what a friend had once said was the reason for the banality of life - the lack of live playback music, like in escapist Indian cinema. The luxury, by the way, is wondering what to do on a sunny Saturday morning.

Talking of Indian cinema, just saw Slumdog Millionaire, yeah yeah, I know it was actually a British film set in Bombay, but you get my drift. I liked it, but didn't think it is the #44 top movie of all time as IMDB and most people are making it out to be. I was pissed off with all the dirt shown initially, bringing back memories of arguments with "fundamentalist" friends about the ongoing propaganda of the West to show only the dark side of India, but I thought it was paid off well in this film towards the end. The ode to The Man was amazing and my American friends raised eyebrows as I told them that an non-fanatic like me would also entertain such thoughts at that age if He was around. "Yeah Police Station Hai, Tumhare Baap Ka Ghar Nahin". Wah! Wah! Also, what emotionally stirred me was the way the whole country stopped and got behind the protagonist as he was on the threshold of everything he hadn't dreamed of.

I'll stop before this turns into a rambunkcious movie review. It's probably cliched and like most Indians, I am genetically programmed to appreciate Ravi Shankar after a certain age and subsequently use the sitar in my films, and get panned by critics, but I can't get over his "Essential Ravi Shankar" that I just bought in Calcutta's College Street. I like the fast, happier numbers. The sarangi is more adept in doling out sad melancholism IMO.

Sometimes I just want to run away to the French countryside and make Indian New Wave cinema. Just saw some Jacques Tapi (sp?) films in Calcutta, and they all reinforce what Trauffaut and even a modern film like Amelie suggest about French cinema - beauty in simplicity, much like our own Hrishida, but with better lighting and better camera work! A regret in life - to be Hrishida's DP.