why aren't we in goa?

Teja fiddles with his camera.

He says: "I don't like palaces and forts. Unless I'm studying them for some particular reason."

Dhanno says: "We should go to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Ajmer. I mean, we should really see the place."

I say: "It's only 15 minutes since we landed here, people. Why did you say yes to Rajasthan? I knew we should have gone to Goa."

Dhanno drools: "Hmm. Prawn curry rice. Pancakes in the morning. Cinnamon apple pie at night."

Teja says unconvincingly: "Oh, I'm OK. This will be fun, too."

Dhanno grumbles: "Yeah. But why are we staying in Udaipur for 3 days?"

I look at the Lonely Planet guide yet again to find out why. I begin to read aloud from it.

Dhanno flops on her bed, and says: "This is like sleeping in a hammock. I'm sinking."

Teja wears his reading glasses, just because I am wearing mine.

Dhanno says: "Both of you act like they are new toys."

I say: "I like the room. It has the same curtains as our bedroom."

Teja laughs: "We should have stayed at home then."

self indulgence

photos by Dhanno

a 'bad hair life'

A group of college students enters 10 minutes late. Of course they are chattering. Loudly. As they shuffle across me.  A girl who has actually (really?) seen the film earlier gives them a vague update on what has happened so far.

The vagueness of her story-telling makes them ask more questions and the chatter goes on for some more time. When they finally settle down, the girl who has seen the movie before dials a number and starts cooing into it. I stomp off and change seats. I can hear them sniggering.

Another group enters late and sits down to the left of me, thankfully a few seats away. Yet another group enters late and sits down to the right of me, giving me a wide berth. I am khush.

The people on the right tentatively deposits an infant in the seat nearest to me. But perhaps my scowl is fluorescent.  It makes them change their mind. They take the infant and place it in the aisle near their feet, presumably to be trampled upon by hovering popcorn vendors.

I look at them in horrified disgust. They ignore me. The man then spends the rest of the film talking to his clients. From the various instructions about a car in Mira Road, and a driver in Vasai, I gather he runs a transport company.

Suddenly, a man 2 rows behind starts yelling abuse. I turn around thinking that finally someone has lost their head in the way I've been wanting to for the last 40 minutes. But the man is raging with eyes in space. Ah, a hands-free phone. "Tell the bastard that we won't do anything till we get the money." He starts walking towards the exit, yelling all the way, his 'b******d's and 'f******'s lighting his way.

I burrow into my seat and think viciously that an audience like this deserves a film like 'Tum Mile'. We have become so desensitized as a society that we deserve to pay obscene amounts of money to watch complete shit about 2 people who make the most boring couple in the world.

Why write a script where two ex-lovers meet after 6 years on a day that is bound to give them bad hair?

Soha Ali Khan is gutsy. Her hair goes from wet rats tails to dried frizz. Perfectly natural when one has been pelted by the rain for hours. But since the 26 July 2005 deluge is only a pretext for the two ex-lovers, Sanjana (Soha) and Akshay (Emran Hashmi) discovering that they are after all, just right for each other, surely a background kinder to the heroine's hair could be chosen for this reconciliation of kindred boring souls?

Sanjana is rich and modern. She lives alone, then lives with her boyfriend. She enters a room and takes off her shirt and does the rest of the scene in her slip. She lounges around in teddy shorts. She displays a beautiful cleavage whenever she can. Soha is comfortable with her body. She does little things with her eyebrows and a flick of her hand that tell us she knows about acting. And yet, I spend the better part of the film wondering why she does not allure, why she remains an ordinary girl. Surely I should admire her for acting an ordinary girl, but I find myself resenting the total lack of glamour.

Even her supposedly rich father lacks glamour. Sachin Khedekar does not look like rich Sanjana's rich father, but in his black shiny coat, a lawyer soliciting clients for 100-200 rupees outside Bandra Court.

Emran Hashmi seems to have put a cap on his sleaziness. But that unfortunately just makes him flatter than a paper dosa. He's nothing without his torrid kisses. He plays an inexplicably bitter painter.

Inexplicable because in fact, he paints for the common man. Melting moons and beautiful sad women by windows, which in the real world, should sell like hot cakes to hotel lounges. Instead he is poor. Even though the 'common' electrician too loves his painting. There is much talk about the opinion of the common man. It's a message to all those out there, yes, the critics may bash our work, but the common man loves us.

Sadly, the 'common men' watching 'Tum Mile' did not seem too happy on the ride.

There is no point in even elaborating on the illogicalities in the plot. There are many but they float like dead rats in the dirty water. However, because this is a love story, and not a documentary, we do not see the dead rats.

What remains is a sense of terrible boredom. The two narrative threads, the past and the present, play like two different stories. The trouble is that Sanjana and Akshay are just not interesting enough a pair for us to be interested in their love, hate, love lives. You feel sad that Sanjana hasn't found anyone more worthy in all these years.

Akshay is given a chance to vindicate his earlier 'loser' status, someone who had to let his girlfriend pay the bills, by now flying business class, buying art galleries and going to Tokyo to pick up awards for his design company. He is also given several chances at displaying his manly heroics during the flood, while Sanjana is suitably, femininely helpless and afraid.

What is conveniently forgotten is that things went wrong in the past because Akshay didn't communicate. That Sanjana just got tired of dealing with someone who was so self-obsessed.  All doubts about compatibility are washed away in the deluge.

A shorter version of this review published here.

BTW, header photo by Teja.

pure gold

candy floss, anyone?

So I'm going to be traipsing the streets of Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land again for a fortnight, going darker and darker in the white glaring heat of October. Thought I'd leave you with a few photos by Dhanno, taken at Juhu beach, a couple of weeks ago.

The header photo is by her, as well.

two girls with hats

The worst thing you can do to a girl is saddle her with a sister early on in life. The sister is always going to be more beautiful or more intelligent or more virtuous or more cheerful or more obedient or wear better hats - none of which helps in the making of the confident, tough personality that one ought to be.

Because however rich or famous you become, one little bit of you always knows that your parents love your sister more than you do, which in my case, my mother pooh-poohs till date. And however old your sister becomes, she will always claim that she stuck to the safe and tested path because you were wild and rebellious enough for the entire family, which in my sister's case, I refuse to acknowledge now that we are both in our 40s. Though we took different paths to reach here, I find that we haven't wandered too far away from each other.

My sister and me, here we look happy enough in our hats.

But we spent all our growing up years fighting to the point of driving our mother to tears. It's only when we both got married and left home, that we came to realize what we mean to each other.

Sisters and hats feature largely in 'Holiday' (1938) by George Cukor. Read the rest of the review on Upperstall.

what do bullet holes say?

Dhanno has her hair streaked purple to match her purple cell phone, both gifts for working incredibly hard all year, giving her Std. X exams.

Teja gets ready to board the 'Ladies Special' local train. No, he is not abandoning me, not just yet. Only prepping for a TV show.

I, meanwhile, try to make sense out of bullets.

 

Bakery Wall, opp Nariman House, Colaba

  

          Bakery Door, opp. Nariman House, Colaba

 

Lift door, 6th Floor, Cama Hospital, Azad Maidan

The bullet holes make pretty patterns, but no, they don't make sense at all. 

 

catnaps

I find the best way to work in the sun is to accept the heat and the sweat pouring down every inch of your body. Of course, it doesn't hurt if you can grab a few winks every now and then in a little bit of shade.

Western Express Highway, Santa Cruz, April 2009

 

Paper shredder unit, Colaba, April 2009 

  

Cats in an alley, Colaba, April 2009

uncle, make-up and films

Guaranteed to banish the doldrums is Jacques Tati's 'Mon Uncle' (1958). Google Search throws up 4,190,000 search results for the film, so am not going to add my 2 bits about it.

But here's a photo of my make-up box. Brought for me by those migratory birds that come in from Paris every year. Placed on Dhanno's dressing table which is way more stacked than mine. Shot by Teja.

Make-up is yet another thing that makes me happy. Well, no, just a kohl pencil and a pink lipstick, really.

While Dhanno and I watched Tati yesterday, and marveled at how each frame tells a story all its own, I remembered a film I saw at IFFI, Goa last year. Milky Way/Tejut (2007) by Benedik Fliegauf, Hungary. Curiously, the review I link to, mentions Tati too.

Fliegauf puts together  a series of sketches within a frame. None connect to the other in narrative and yet weave together seamlessly to create an experience of time and space. When Pu and I came out of the theatre, I jotted down a few sketches that I remembered.

1. An old woman walks across a playground, swing in foreground. She sits on a bench, then starts moving back. Midway, she collapses. A neighbor comes to look at her. He picks her up and carries her back.

2. A woman walks across a boat jetty with a pram. She leaves the pram and walks back. A boat comes towards the jetty. A man gets down and looks at the pram. The woman comes back and takes the pram.

3. Two cyclists practice on a pile of rocks on a mountain top. They stop to look at a crane working down below. Dogs bark somewhere. The cyclists disappear below frame.

4. A man walks out of a tent on a field at night. He walks across the field and pees. He walks back to the tent. There is a lot of wind. Two men come out of the tent and struggle with it. The tent flies away. The men chase it and disappear bottom of frame.

5. A truck enters an open ground. Two men get down. They unload big rolls of plastic, red, green, yellow. One man sets up a table. The other man starts pumping up the plastic. Soon, there is a plastic playhouse. A little girl and an old man enter. They pay the man on the table, and enter the playhouse. They lie down on the floor and disappear from frame.

6. Two boys practice dance on a rooftop overlooking the city at night.

There were more, the images striking enough to have stayed with me after these many months.

What stayed with me also is a conversation I overheard while I scribbled - between two film students, a Mallu from FTII, Pune and a Bong from SRFTII, Kolkata. Both chose to speak in Hindi.

"Yeh film kya thee?" (What was that film?)

"Isko samajhne ke liye akkal chaahiye thee." (You needed brains to understand it.)

"Accha hain, tu idhar dekh lee thee, udhar tere ko dekhne ko nahin miltee thee." (It's good you saw it here, you wouldn't have been able to see it there.)

All those who know a Bong and a Mallu in real life will know what's funny about this conversation. They are prone to mix up their genders in Hindi. Everything is feminine, usually.

humpty- dumpty

There are some days I just collapse. And I don't know what to do.

There I was, a pretty, silver balloon bobbing along with a few other balloons held snugly in a woman's lap riding pillion on a scootie on Ellis Bridge one afternoon in Ahmedabad.

If it had been a prank played by a child, maybe I could have laughed. How exactly does one laugh though, after one has popped?

What made it worse, that it was the deed of a lout, a common one, like many others you see on the street.

There was no question of laughing. And there has been no bobbing back.

Maybe if I had been a boat bobbing on the Sabarmati I'd stand a better chance. But no, I'd have sunk for ever more. Have you seen how dirty that water is?

What if I had been a duck? Would I have done better at bobbing then? No, that's too same to same as above. I'd just have been slain, and that would have been that.

The only thing that comes to mind is a phoenix. But a phoenix is too grandiose, and is it even real?

So while I figure out what I could be that would guarantee a bobbing back after an out-of-sorts except being a phoenix which I certainly could never be, you could have a look at some photos of Ahmedabad which may make more sense than my words.

 

Rakhiyal, March 2009

 

Painter Atul's stall, March 2009
Rakhiyal GIDC, March 2009 




Sabarmati Station Road, March 2009

 Ellis Bridge, March 2009

Lakshmi in pink

Lakshmi (Shabana Azmi) started well enough in 'Amar, Akbar, Anthony' (1977), enterprising, feisty, in bellbottoms. Luring eager, lecherous men into dark corners to be hit upon by her stepbrother (Ranjeet) and his goons. Turned out that she didn't really want to do this work. Her grandmother meanwhile protected a set of gold earrings meant for Lakshmi's wedding from her stepmother (Nadira), and seeing this, Inspector Amar (Vinod Khanna) was convinced that Lakhsmi was a good girl. Promptly, he invited her grandmother and her to live in his house, and promptly they agreed.

The next we see her, she is wrapped up in a sari, demure, picking Amar's washing from the clothesline, while he swings on a hammock, book in hand. She looks longingly at him, he sings of love, looking not at her, but at the sky. Though later, he does consent to sit back to back with her on the porch, while it rains outside.

The next we see her, she happens to be on the same road where her stepbrother is kidnapping Jenny (Parveen Babi). And like all true blue Hindi film heroines, she runs towards trouble and not away from it. She hides in the trunk, to be caught moments later by her smarter stepbrother.

The next we see her is as a reluctant bridesmaid to a reluctant bride Jenny.

And in the end again, demure in a sari, family photo time.

For a fortnight, the vision of that bridesmaid would not leave me. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see a woman in pink. Shocking pink. A pink gown, a pink train edged with white frills trailing behind her, a pink veil pinned on her head, with bunches of pink lace flowers on either ear.




She looks trapped, helpless, in a state of shock, very, very unhappy in her pink dress. She looks like a kid who has been told that the school bell is never going to ring again, and she will never be let out of the classroom. She looks like she is about to burst out crying like my brother Rolu on his first birthday, hot and scratchy in too-much-finery.

She has reason enough to cry. She's pitched against Parveen Babi who looks glamorous in whatever she wears, lemon yellow, or postbox red, with matching hats, handkerchiefs, purses and shoes. And Neetu Singh, who couldn't care less what she's wearing. Shararas and burqas are not a big deal for her, since she's even carried off checked shirts, high waisted polyster pants and square eyebrows with her bubbly charm.

I wondered how long I was to see this pink before my eyes. Until I saw blue.

Lily (Sonia Sahni) in 'Andaz' (1971). Now Sonia Sahni was a glamour icon for me in childhood, and I longed for the day I could wear dresses with holes in the unlikeliest places like her. Sadly, that ambition was fulfilled only once.

Anyway, so when she appeared at Badal's (Roopesh Kumar) party, wearing a gown made of blue Banarasi silk, I grinned with pleasure. The halter back was pretty tame, as also a small round hole on her belly. But what had my eyes popping out were the slits on both thighs that almost touched her waist. While she lurched around drunkenly and even cavorted brazenly on the floor, I went into super-protective Mom mode, wondering where are the shorts? Is she actually wearing a thong for this number? I hope she doesn't flash.

Badal however remains indifferent to her seductive charms, since he has 2 firangi babes on his arms, and even one firangi girl serving drinks, and several other firangi couples smooching around the room. Fed up of her throwing herself at him, he pushes her across the room.

However, the next morning when his pal Satish walks into his bedroom, as people in Hindi films usually do, Badal in bed, with a girl snugly ensconced on either side gives a super-quick glance under the blanket and asks: "Where's Lily?"

What? Or what?

I'm wondering what I made of this when I saw this otherwise sweet, family film at the age of 6.

But at least, the woman in blue has made the lady in pink go away.

some memories of August

These are the worst days of the year in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land. Hot, hot, hot in a piercing way. Still, sticky, no wind. The sunlight exhausts your eyes. So, to cool down,  ....

What I noticed only this year, and loved, were the umbrellas and the raincoats used by boys and men. Very few blacks, or khakis, or greys. Out there in all the colors of the rainbow. Very metro-sexual, hey?

western express highway

stranded

Don't we all look rather stuck?

Sometimes, life feel likes that, too.

Then, I guess, you just have to wait for the tides of the Brahmaputra to come rolling in.

Caves and churan

Since I feel a bit like this these days, am posting these pictures of me in Mawsmai cave. 19 May 08. Teja was photographing the cave, so you'll have to peer hard to find me.

I have to peer hard to find me, these days.

Why should anyone want to go traipsing through a cave? Rather squeezing through, crawling and groping through one. All I can say it cheered us all up immensely, apart from making us very hungry.

The cave's been lit up now with artificial light, which our friends hated. They said it was much more fun in the days when you had to find your way through, with a torch. Apart from the fact of course, that the lamps are fancy, plastic flowers, which don't "match" the caves, at all.

The path to the caves too has been paved, making the whole exercise like a walk through a public garden (see the step in the picture). Thankfully, the path in the caves is not paved.

What was on sale in the car park was bundles of cinnamon sticks, plucked straight from the trees (were they? or my fancy as always?). And 'churan' made out of 'bor'. Teja bought all the churan the lady had. I found the packets weeks later in his camera bag.

Oh, by the way, the full name of the Mawsmai cave is Mawsmai Nongthymmai Elaka Krem Pubon. Meghalaya. I saved up the entrance ticket. Ha!


Churan - a sour-sweet-salty powder, usually liked and licked by kids.
Bor - a sour-sweet berry.

i'm still lazing around so ...

Twenty minutes earlier, another rhino had arched her back threateningly at Teja. I don't blame her, I'd hate snoopy photographers taking snaps of me in a mud bath. The forest guard shooed Teja into the jeep, even as Teja kept up the pretense that he could have outrun an angry rhino at 60 kms per hour.

Rihana, (named so by Dhanno), was happy enough however to pose for Teja, amidst her purple flowers. She even turned a couple of somersaults in the water, and stretched languorously for him. Or as languorously as a rhino can.

don't want to take off my holiday hat just yet

on the way to the living roots bridge, cherrapunjee,
12 may 2008

My only ever two cricket matches

So, Teja is back to playing cricket. The last time he played when we were students at the Film Institute, in 1994.

I have no clue about cricket, and that is the first match I went to. Actually, I just dropped by to have a look at him, even though we were barely on talking terms then. I do remember him sending a ball flying all the way to the girls' hostel, and he likes to say he did it for me. Whether it was to impress me, or out of anger towards me, who knows? I'm certainly not going to ask, for our story back then was way too complicated.

This time, of course, Dhanno and I went as official cheerleaders. Though we reached the grounds only in the second half.

Teja woke up early, and went off at 7 in the morning. The entire family was meant to follow him. Obviously that was a mistake.

First, all of us woke up late, it being Sunday morning, then we all had breakfast, then we gossiped for a bit about lucky stones. I nagged my brother as usual to hand over my father's ruby ring, which he refuses to part with, even though he does not wear it.

Then, I did have to shampoo, since I was going to the Institute after 9 years (I've made three 10-minute visits in all this while, which obviously don't count).

Then, Mummy just had to see her doctor before she did anything else. As we waited outside the doctor's, we realized it was noon, I had forgotten the camera back home, and it would probably be lunch time before we reached the Institute.

So, we went off to buy some sinful mutton roast and naans at Cafe Diamond Queen, and went back home to eat lunch.

My sister said that if it had been her husband playing, they would all have been up much before him, and out of the house by dawn. Dhanno said Teja didn't really want us to come to the match for some reason. My sister said, obviously, since he knew that you'll never be there on time. Of course, my sister thinks Teja spoils Dhanno and me horribly. And that we take him horribly for granted.

After lunch, I was ready to go, the camera at the door lest I forget it again. My sister said she was going back to her place for a nap. My mother wanted to sleep too. My sister-in-law would have rather slept too, but I shamed her into driving Dhanno, my nephew Golu and me to the Institute. No way I was braving the harsh March Puneri sun in a Puneri rickshaw.

Downstairs, my sister said she had forgotten her packed dinner upstairs. She sent Golu to fetch it. I fumed in the car. Golu came back after 10 minutes, and said we were to wait, because his dad, my brother wanted to come too. We waited for another 15 minutes for my brother to have his bath. When my brother came down, my mother appeared at the window and asked what she was going to do alone at home, and that she wanted to come too. There wasn't enough room in the car, so my brother went back upstairs, and we waited for my mother to come downstairs. Of course, she needed to change.

By then, I was sure that my family had no consideration for my feelings for Teja and his cricket match. I sent off my sister-in-law to scold my mother. But my mother toddled over before she could do that. For the next 10 minutes I scolded my mother, and she kept insisting on getting off the car, and going back home in a rickshaw. I apologized, what else, to calm her down and make sure we did keep the car headed in the right direction towards the Institute and not turn it back towards home for some more emotional outbursts.

So after this long journey to cross a distance of 15 odd kilometers, we reached the Institute at 3 pm, for the second match of my life. The ground was abandoned. For a moment, my heart sank, but the players had only gone for lunch. By a stroke of luck, Teja's team was batting now.




Dhanno took this photo of Teja getting out.









Of course, his team lost. It was the same 13 years ago, the student team won, the ex-student team lost. What else, with beer-bellies and no stamina. The student team is always younger, fitter, and this one had even practiced for a month. Teja of course is determined to win back his honour in the next match, next month, same place.

I say, play cricket. It's great fun cheering.






Here, by the way, is a photo of the match in 1994. Teja says meanly, that I'm out of focus, and it's Naseerbhai who's been clicked, and not me. I like it anyway.














This is one of Teja and me watching the rest of the match. March 2008.




Tom Alter was still going strong, after half a day of fielding, another hour or so umpiring, then running for an injured batsman, and then batting himself. He'd played on the Graftii team in 1994 too. If playing cricket keeps you as fit as he is, all the more reason Teja should keep playing.