Bashed by the sea

Pictures by Dhanno














The sea at Baga is clean, very clean. You feel cleansed and bleached by the salt and the sea. But the sand falls off the minute you are dry, doesn't stick to you in an oily, annoying way.

The sea batters you, slaps you, throws you, gets into your ears, your eyes, your mouth, but what fun it is! Real, unadulterated fun that we had only when we were kids.

The sparkly glow lasts for a couple of days in Mumbai, like some shimmer left on your cheek bones. But actually, the minute you get back to the city, you are aboard this heaving, shunting, throwing tumultous thing that is Mumbai and adult life in general, and it's not fun.

I prefer being bashed up by the sea.

sweet and stolen

The road from Sawantwadi to Kolhapur is bad, difficult to believe it's a highway. You can't travel faster than 40 kms a hour, that too, if you are lucky. But the bad road is more than compensated for by the beautiful landscape. Rugged hills, green forests, lush fields of sugarcane.

Though we were running late, with no indication of the end in sight, we stopped to steal some sugarcane. Well, Teja did. I was content to hide behind the car and eat the spoils. Dhanno was scandalized by her parents, and quite doubtful whether she should eat her first stolen fruit.

Lilkee in Beta

Now that I'm ready for the brickbats (and the bouquets), I set up a new blog for "Lilkee". The beta version of Blogger is great fun, really, and I'm hoping that I can convert all my blogs soon to beta. Meanwhile, check out my Lilkee blog. Right now, it's only old wine in a new bottle. But ofcourse, I'll post new stuff.

the last day of "Lilkee"

For the last couple of months I've been finishing off work on "Lilkee" very reluctantly.

How often I have thought, what is this madness that prompts you to make a film? I'm never going to even want to make a film again.

It's hard, when you are working with very little money, because you have to do most of everything on your own, even all the not-so-fun stuff, like couriering letters, filling up forms, photo-copying scripts and more tedious stuff like that.

But yesterday, when I went to the lab, to make my final payment, waiting outside near the car, for the negatives of the film to be delivered, I felt a rush of nostalgia already for the fun we'd had for the last year.

The truth was it was hardly ever any fun, while we were doing it, we were all working so hard, and exhausted most of the time. But, but... already the stories came back to my mind, and I started saying to Vivek, remember when .. remember when...

And when I came back home, the Mac had behaved impeccably well, and encoded a good DVD (it's harder than it sounds) and so, I felt finally, all's well that ends well.

And by evening, Vivek and I were sitting down and pontificating about how we'd do better the next time we are making a film. And already I'm thinking, what next, what next?

clean-up

Reached the airport hours earlier, for one reason and another. Then, the flight was delayed.

An old lady, bright, smiling eyes, tip-top English accent came and sat down beside me. She was going home to meet her 89 year old father.

She'd grown up in Colaba, when the fire brigade workers came every evening to wash down the roads. She said, Mumbai was so dirty now, the Muslims from the Middle East had come, and made everything a mess.

I couldn't quite see the connection. But was too sleepy, and as usual, too polite and tongue-tied to comment. Felt like a fool, for hours afterwards.

The storm

Faced with the fact of Dhanno's growing up, Teja and I panic. Every boy hovering around her becomes a dangerous menace to society. Every girl, giggling and whispering about boys, becomes a bad influence on our precious girl.

But try as we might to cuddle her, and make believe that she is still our baby, nature rages fierce and truthful against our windows. The panes rattle in fright, certain they are to be broken today. Dhanno, still struggling to be sweet for our sakes, hovers uncertain around the house, because she knows not why, the storm outside seems exciting, more exciting than the safety of the house.

Wiser perhaps to open the windows, and let the wind pass through the house, unhindered. The monsoons may be leaving Mumbai for the year, but it is still pouring around our house.

KANKtareous

After weeks of resistance, Vivek, Aiman and I finally succumbed to 'KANK' yesterday. Like all good Indian families, we resort to Hindi films to save us when we are tired, bored, just fed up of our daily routine. Then like rajma-rice, we need a Hindi film - comfort food.

Last evening, exhausted with a fortnight's entertaining, computer vissicitudes, the dreariness of administrative details, Aiman's fatigue, the collapse of our domestic arrangements with Leela's absence, a few minutes of 'Khoon Pasina' on Sony TV was good fun. Sequences after sequences in green, I wondered if the costume director had bought rolls of cloth and cut everyone's suits in the same measure, Vinod Khanna and Amitabh Bacchan in leather jackets, with dashing faux fur collars. Fights, drama, tears. We wanted more.

So, the big screen across the road beckoned us. It will be a laugh, if nothing else, we thought. What can I say?

We gorged ourselves sick with popcorn, we squirmed in our seats with goggle-eyed amazement, we kept pinching each other in our effort to believe it was really happening on screen. Dialogues that would do justice to a C-grade film, sequences seemingly written, not to entertain, but to bore the audience beyond measure, actors who wandered around as dazed as us, not having an iota of a clue as to what they were all about, ugly, ugly close-ups, music and dance mediocre.

Today, I read, KJ may make KANK-2. NRIs loved KANK. It seems. Well!