Short story

Ok, I finally managed to digitize the short story I completed last friday. It is posted below. Comment/criticism are always welcome.

Apurva

Six weeks to happiness?

"What do you want?" the shopkeeper asked him a little harshly. He had been standing there in the shop for a few minutes now without saying a word and looked quite uncomfortable. The irate shopkeeper was eyeing him suspiciously. There had been an increase in the number of crime committed by young men and needless to say, the presence of a silent youngster in the shop was not very comforting, unaware that it was the young man who was more nervous than he was.
"I... ", he began and he was at once seized by the familiar dread of embarrassing himself which had the effect of drying up the words that he had formed in his head for this occasion. A whirlpool of feelings raged in his breast and he was caught between the contrasting emotions of shame and desire, each pulling him in opposite directions. Caught between contradicting emotions, he could neither speak out his query nor could he direct his feet towards the door.
He tried to firm up his resolve and took a deep breath with which his determination returned temporarily. He used the moment to speak again. "Do you..", he began but the effort of speaking those two words deflated his lungs and in its flow the rest of words got dissolved without a trace left of them. The effect of another unsuccessful effort on him was too much and his ears reddened along with a distinct rise in temperature of his face. By this time, the shopkeeper was also looking at him as if he were some lunatic from the streets. He looked up again but now it had become more difficult for say anything and he walked out of the shop with his face red and eyes bent down with shame.
This was the second time he had tried to get what he desired, each time it was a different shop and a different day but the sequence of events that you witnessed just now was the same. Who was this young man and what did he want? I would tell you but it would sound too ridiculous without proper introduction of him and his story.
His name is Ravi and he studied at the nearby college. The road to a decent education had not been easy for him and he had struggled to score in his school exams. It was mainly his mother's fervent desire to see him educated that had motivated him this far. When he had finally gotten admission and a fee waiver at a well-known college in the city, his mother got very excited and had distributed sweets to all their neighbours. Her over-enthusiastic response to what he considered to be a relatively mediocre achievement embarrassed him slightly but her enthusiasm had been genuine and the sweets she had bought had come at the cost of her modest savings. Her gesture touched him deeply and he made up his mind to make the best of college education and placate his family's economic hardships. So, with tears in the eyes of mother and son, they had bid adieu as Ravi moved into the city to continue his education.
Ravi was very apprehensive of the city but he wasn’t prepared for what the city offered. He had lived all his life in one of the satellite towns of the city but yet the city culture was new to him. This was not the first time he had been to the city but all his other forays had been short-term visits usually to get something that his small town did not offer. The mannerism of the city dwellers was at once interesting and at the same time, alienating. It seemed that it was a whole new world that he had entered. He was understandably apprehensive of the city and its people.
So, when he entered the college gates, clutching his satchel that contained his first year books, his demeanour made it easy for his seniors to identify him as a fresher. He was soon accosted by a friendly guy who took him towards a bunch of people who at first asked him a lot of questions. He answered them in monosyllables as he was not used to being interrogated by strangers.

“What is your name?” “Ravi”
“Where are you from?” “Shivajipuram”
“Can you sing?” “No”
“dance?” “No”

They laughed and said that they will teach him to do all that even if it takes the entire day. There was something in the way they looked at him - like hyenas around a carcass - that unnerved him and sent a shiver down his spine. He did not know then but it was the beginning of his torments that would extend not just for the day as his new-found “friends” said but for days and weeks together.
Nobody had ever told him that people in the city would be so mean and at first, he thought that he was being targeted for his rural look and feel. But soon he realized that it was not the case and often, he would not be the only ‘bakra’ surrounded by a gang. A day spent appeasing one bunch of people followed by another was tiring, both physically and mentally, and often, he thought of chucking college but his family’s condition and the promise he had made when he left home stopped him from doing something silly.
Ragging was easy for people who had cultivated such talents like singing or dancing. One beautifully sung song or a well-executed moon-walk was sure to evoke “wah-wah”s and “hurrah”s and sometimes a treat from an enthusiastic member of the clan of seniors. Others had to entertain in other ways. Some would tell rapacious jokes and others would mimic filmstars. And there was this one guy who had a peculiar way of speaking that was hilarious to everyone who heard it but for himself. Sometimes, he would smile; a meek, embarrassed smile that told more about the hurt he felt than his happiness.
Sadly for the subject of this story, he was not very interesting and he ended up doing the most demeaning tasks that were tailored to make fun of him. This experience with inconsiderate and insensitive people made him more of a recluse than he already was and he would avoid people, in general, as much as he could but he could not escape them…
Here, even the girls ragged. He had seldom been in contact with girls, and his few encounters with them had never exceeded the cordial, and the girls were shy and taciturn in front of him. But the situation was quite the inverse here. The girls were brash and had no qualms in heckling him. Once, he was even made to “propose” to another freshie by them. It was quite an embarrassing situation for him as he said those words with the customary rose that goes along with in these kind of situations. His chocolate brown skin hid much of his feelings but his mannerisms did not. He was after all a simple boy from a conservative family. On the other hand, the girl to whom he presented the rose was unconcerned and accepted the rose mechanically as if it were a daily chore for her. “And why shouldn’t it be?” he thought, “she is so lovely.” She is the kind of girl who would have boys hovering around her like bees around the last flower of the spring. (Narrator’s note – I do think the pun was intended)
Tired of the constant ragging, he sometimes hid himself in secluded and well-covered parts of the campus to give himself a little bit of peace. Once, when he went to one of his usual hiding places to have a quick lunch (rather than eat in the cafeteria), he surprised someone who was already there. The readers would recognize him as the boy whose accent we got acquainted with earlier.

“Hi, I am Ravi.” “Vivek”

They did not need much explanation. They both knew instinctively why the other was there.

“You must be hungry. I have some fruits for lunch which I am willing to share with you.”

And thus, he managed to make a friend. College is the time where one makes the thickest of friendships and the bonds that you form last for quite a long time and are created so easily. All that was required to form this friendship was a common feeling of persecution. Soon, the duo became a trio with the addition of Veeru, the son of a middle-class Government servant. Their diverse background served only to cement their friendship than hamper it in any way. Within a few weeks, they became very close. They knew eachother’s likes and dislikes and shared their ideas.
Veeru had a fetish for Bollywood movies. The glitzy stories and fantastic settings captivated him and very soon, he managed to hook the other two to the films too. A “chalo yaar” during the weekends and they would go see the latest film showing in the nearby theatre. The effect of these stories was noticeable in their attires, walk, and talk. They would spend endless hours chatting about their favourite scenes and the stars on screen.

He saw her often. As first year students, they shared a number of classes and she would usually hang out in the cafeteria with her friends. He never had the courage to speak to her, much less when she was surrounded by a number of strangers. He remembered the first time he had met her and was still embarrassed by the words he had been made to say to her. That remained the only expression exchanged between the two of them. And even though their paths crossed often, she never seemed to recognize him, while he tried his best to say ‘Hello’.
He gathered information about her from secondary sources.
“She is a pahaadi. Studied all her life in a boarding school in Dehradoon.” And he would be filled with romantic notions of the hills and its enchanting fair-skinned people.
“Arjun. That’s who she is with these days.” And he would curse poor Arjun a thousand oaths.
“She dumped him in the cafeteria.” And he would feel a little sympathy for Arjun for his public humiliation.
His crush did not go unnoticed amongst his friends. They would tease him when they found him in a reflective mood and a shy smile on his face. Even though he was a little peeved by this, he did not take it to heart as he knew that it was in jest.

“Where is Ravi?”
“Where else? In the library, pretending to study!”
“Oh no! Not again, yaar. I wish he would stop obsessing about her. But I also wonder wonder what he thinks about so much. Childish fantasies, I guess”
But what was really going on in Ravi;s mind was how best to enunciate the word ‘Hi’ so that it would seem to be just friendly and not as a love-struck stalker for she was standing at about an arms length from him in an empty elevator. Their eyes met momentarily when she had entered the claustrophobic box but there was no flash of recognition in her eyes. Ho ‘Hi’s. No “aren’t you the guy who …” Nothing! It hurt him a little that she did not notice him and while he was still contemplating on how to make his first move, the doors opened and she stepped out taking along with her all his hopes.
As the elevator doors close, so did the doors to his happiness. He hoped for a tonic that would give him the confidence and self-belief of the heroes he had seen on screen, who would pursue the one they loved with single-minded determination and finally win them over by teaching them a lesson on how to be an Indian woman. He believed in the veracity of these fantastic stories that are but a narrow representative of human behaviour.
A desperate mind always finds a solution – not always a right one. And he did find one! The ad promised results in a few weeks. He thought that the product would make him more presentable and didn’t the ad show how the product gave a person the confidence to nail the interview and succeed? He built his dreams on these false premises promised by the ad.
It was this product that we saw him trying to buy at the start of this story. He had been unsuccessful so far but his desire to get it had not diminished. He devised a plan. He realized that the more time he spent in uncertainty, the more difficult would it be to pull it off. The best way to remove a band-aid is to do it quickly. And so he tried again. He walked into the shop and blurted out, “Fair & Lovely.” The shopkeeper gave him a tube and named a price which he gladly paid. There were no looks, no laughs; nothing embarrassing happened. He would later come to know he was not the first guy to buy the cream, and that it was used by both men and women equally, though it is seemingly marketed for women. He felt a little foolish for making such a big deal out of it. But as he walked out of the store all that was in his mind was the thought, “Six weeks to happiness.” I wonder, I really wonder.

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Visitors

There has been a sudden deluge of people looking at my site today. I was actually stunned to see 32 visitors in a day! On closer examination, it looks like blogger has put my blog in the pool of blogs that you will visit on clicking the "next blog" link at the top right of this page!
So, you do not really go to a random page... Looks like blogger randomly chooses a pool of blogs to circle around on clicking the "next blog" link.

[Update] the visits have peaked at 12am and lasted for an hour. So, my blog was in the pool for an hour. Gives me insight into how blogger does some things...

[Movie review] Miss Congeniality 2 : Armed and fabulous

How often does it happen that you walk into a movie hall to watch a picture of which you do not have high expectations but come out with the feeling that you have just witnessed one of the better movies of Hollywood. Well, it does not happen to me a lot. So, I usually do not walk into the doors of the theatre thinking that this might turn out to be one. Plus, this one was touted to be a comedy and having seen quite a few Hollywood comedies, I know what to expect from such movies - two hours of silly humour.
Well, I did see Be Cool a couple of weeks ago and I mentioned that in one of my previous posts, where I also said that I will not waste my time reviewing it. And when I went to this movie, I did not think that I will be writing this review. So, I think you can guess that I am going to rave about this film. :)

Well, the gist of the story is that Sandra Bullock as Gracie Hart, a FBI agent and the winner of the Miss Congeniality title in the previous movie, has trouble continuing her undercover-agent status because of her new-found fame. So, the Bureau decides to use her to market itself. Sometime later, Ms United States, a close friend of Gracie, gets kidnapped and our star abandons her star status to go back to active detective work.
Thats it! A simple, no-frills story! Well, it was expected, wasnt it? So, what am I raving about?
Let me tell you about the characters. Let me see, there is Gracie Hart of course. And there is this black female agent who has a anger management problem and beats up men left and right with no qualms about doing that (sounds like a stereotypcial lesbian..), there is this other agent - a backstabbing, lying, conventional beauty who would use her lure to grow up in ranks, and of course, there is Ms US, a simple, sweet, dumb pin-up queen. Among the male characters, there is a cross-dressing fashion consultant who is employed to take care of Gacie Hart, a dumb male agent who is basically a pushover, an authoritarian chief of FBI of LA who dismisses Gracie's investigation (perhaps because he considers her to be dumb as she has become the "new face of the FBI"), a couple of brawny criminals who kidnap Ms. US, and a typical loan-shark. Quite a variety of characters, right? The real star of the film is Gracie Hart, who transforms into a beauty queen after being rejected by her boyfriend but finally realises that it is not important to really concern about "people who care about people who care about themselves" but to be what you truly are and not stick to any steroetype that the society expects you to adhere to for acceptance. So you see, though the diverse characters are quite stereotypical in themselves, the fact that both male and female sexes are shown to have such diversity that ranges from good to bad is what I liked about this movie. Also, the movie does not privilege the masculine or the feminine, but individualism and the uniqueness of our selves. That is how the film ends with Gracie taking back the advice she gave to young Prescilla...
At the beginning of the film, Gracie's boyfriend dumps her and she goes through a tough time getting over it as it she had taken "a chance at relationship." And there is no romantic angle in the film until the end where there is an obvious (an something I guessed a long time before the end) linking up between Ms US and the dumb male agent. But the movie really privileges friendship, a much neglected relationship in movies. This was something I liked more!
The final words of the movie is "World Peace" and it does not look cheesy at all. It is in answer to Gracie's question, "What do we all want?" and Prescilla answers with this phrase. Prescilla means this but when Gracie repeats the phrase prefixing it with "I would have said, 'sterner punishments for parole violators'", the meaning is different. Perhaps, it is an acceptance of world views differing from hers (remember she says 'World Peace' in the original only to please the crowd that does not cheer her wish to see parole violators punished sternly).
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Update - She does not say harsher punishments for parole violators but "and pride in your personal beliefs and your right to defend them."
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The movie does what its trailers promises you to do. Comedies require a couple of characters to gel well; examples are Tom & Jerry, Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, etc, etc. It is an excellent comedy flick which works because of great on-screen chemistry between the actors. Sandra Bullock looks a little old for the part of a beauty queen but pulls it off convincingly. The black actress as the angry young woman is mediocre but she fits well with Sandra. Plus there are some real laugh aloud scenes which will keep your tummies tickled.

PoK peace bus

Peace, isnt it what we all want? The domain differs from person to person but it is essentially the same want. A little peace of mind or a pleasant afternoon without any noise to put your leg up and relax or a world without violence and injustice. But when you wake up one morning and on the front page of the newspaper there is a picture of a building ablaze, you wonder why there is a picture of a burning building on the front page but you look closer and you see that the picture clearly shows the words "Tourist Reception Center" and you know that all is not well in the world, and that the "peace process" is creating more un-peace than peace.
The TRC (as I will refer to it in short) was the place where the bus passenegrs were accomodated and where the visitors from PoK would be hosted. Needless to say, it was "heavily guraded" or it was just thought to be for the two suicidal terrorists, apprently, managed not only to get through the highly secure gate but were also able to torch the building! The building, like all buildings, was combustible and this one was highly so as nobody could stop it from burning up. Whether the building still exists today or it doesnt is a mystery but the blaze captured by the photographer did not look like one that would have been easy to contain. Is this the state of security in Srinagar, one of the most heavily guarded places in the world, and at a place where a deserate effort to derail the peace process was expected? What does it show? Does it reveal the desperate and unstoppable nature of fiyadeen squads or the incompetence of our armed forces?
I have pretty critical of our armed forces in the past. But there was this one time when a friend of mine, whose father is a Major in the army, told me how over-worked the sepoys of the army are. According to him, there is a huge manpower shortage in the army, which means the men who are already there in the ranks do a lot more work than humanly possible. Such overworked people working in sensitive areas are bound to nervy, jumpy and followers of "shoot first, ask later." For this reason, the level of stress is high in the army and the reason for the rape of local women by the army men. For this reason, he asked me not to chastise the Indian army but the Indian state that creates such working condition for its men. I suppose there is a shortage of manpower in the army. A indication of this is the innumerable advertisements and signboards inviting people to join the army and "be a winner for life." The fact that armymen are working under extreme conditions is a troublesome one and one that should not be ignored but what is the solution to this problem? Increase the strength of the army? But according to my friend, there is a shortage of equipment too. Armymen working in difficult weather conditions do not even have appropriate and essential gear for living there. Plus, inducting more men means more defence expenditure that already is bulging at over Rs. 80,000 crores per annum! Thats Rs 80 per capita per year! Doesnt seem like much does it? Compare it to the average per capita income of an Indian - Rs 11,799 per year. Notice that it is per year, which means that it is less than 1000 per month! Also no that this is the average. Given the huge economic differences between the rich and the poor (I read somewhere that such a huge disparity in income is unhealthy for a country but sadly as always, I do not remember where I read it... I need to record my readings), what this means that a great amount of the population subsist on much, much less income per year. For them, 80 rupees per year will be quite a big deal. Also, defence spending is the largest share of the yearly budget. And actual development spending is much lower. In addition to all this, we pay a 2 percent educational cess that is supposed to fund new schools and improve the facilities of government-run schools.

Seeing the ease with which the terrorists were able to get past a heavily guarded place in Srinagar, I suppose it would be easier to hit places which are not so well guarded... So, is the fear of terrorism that is bred in the whole country in excess? Is our society paranoid?
In spite of this strike, Manmohan Singh says undeterred, "the bus will roll on." I get a feeling that security and safety of the passengers is being compromised for petty political gains. There has been a lot of security provided for the buses yesterday but is it really feasible to provide such extensive security for all such future journeys? And who are these nameless. faceless passengers? Are they anonymous because revealing their identity is quivalent to passing their death sentences? If this bus journey was a true indicator of peace measure, there would not be so much fear and security. The fear and extensive security suggest that this is a forced peace and not a genuine one.
This bus has been called a great CBM and has been looked by the media as a step towrds peace. I wonder... Look at the Lahore-Delhi bus. How much has it really contributed to peace? Has it brought the people of the two countries closer? Has it been able to bring strangers from the two countries in contact? Has it been able to reduce the hatred that the citizens of the two countries have for each other?
Quite frankly, the answer is no. The situation is no different from what it was before the bus diplomacy. One gets the feeling that the passengers on the bus are mostly people who are going to meet their relatives they have lost contact with because of partition. Or is just because the stories in the media is mostly of people reunited with relations after fifty years. There are no stories of people travelling for a visit to the Lahore fort or the Red fort. There are no stories of people meeting strangers in the other country and making new friends forgetting the enimity between the two countries. Is the absence of these stories indicate the absence of such people?
Peace is a tangible possibility if and only if the politicians do some genuine CBMs and not just shows for the media. But when there are parties that feed and promote the fear of this particular neighbour for their political survival, is my dream of peace between the two countries a dream? Perhaps, there is another way. And that is by a grass-root movement that involves the people of both countries, which is a difficult one to achieve but not impossible.

Samar...

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Originally uploaded by amathad.

Udai the photographer...

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Originally uploaded by amathad.

... and Nanda the model :)

IITians...

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Originally uploaded by amathad.

Taken after the photography workshop conducted by SM and photography club...

Flickr

This is a cool photo sharing site, and the communities are also very exciting. You can browse my "photostream" using the linked pics I have posted below.

Try it out!

[Goa trip] Ferry boat

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Originally uploaded by amathad.

This is the ferry-boat that people use to cross straits and rivers in Goa. It is free of charge! Also, it offers a great view of the ocean...

[Movie review] Million Dollar Crap!

I went to see Million Dollar Baby on the basis of its oscar winning feat and also because of the controversies it has stirred up. One one side it has been praised very highly as an excellent movie and on the other it has been at the receiving end of handicapped activists who do not agree with the film's ultimate ending.
The trailers promised a well-directed movie but there were a lot of issues that turned up even in the trailers. Glorification of boxing on screen is not new. The Rockys of the 80s and 90s have done that for some time now. People enjoy brutality and like to see people going at eachother with animal ferocity. A film that glorifies a brutal sport such as boxing cannot be expected to be about peace, can it? (Unless you are talking about Ali!)
The second thing I noticed about the trailers was that the movie seemed to be of the opinion that for a woman to be anything other than trash, she needs to be a masculine, brutal, single-minded competitor and her femininity is a barrier to success. "girlie, tough aint enough"?
The third thing I noticed in the trailers was the emphasis on the christian way of life. The images of Eastwood kneeling in prayer near his bed and "the only person who comes to mass that long is one who cannot forgive himself for some reason." While, I do not mind religious elements on screen, Hollywood movies with such stress on Christianity tend to be tailored for their "Jesusland" viewers and thus, in general, conservative and anti-liberal.

I still went to watch this movie as I really did not want to miss an oscar-winning movie. Plus, I loved Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry which I think was one of the best pieces of acting on screen ever. Another major reason for seeing this movie was that I had nothing to do on a saturday afternoon!
I found this movie problematic on many counts. One of the major issur I have always had with Clint Eastwood movies is the treatment of his female characters. In all his movies, females have always played a secondary, dependent and dummy-like roles. In this one, we see a repeat of this all over again.
"Wait, isn't the main character a female?"
Oh, yes, she is in the sense that she is a woman by sex. But feminine, she is not. right from the start to finish, she is masculine. Whether it is in embarassing someone in the gym for teasing her for being female or her ruthless mannerisms in the ring, there is a lack of feminine characteristics that give the message that for a woman to be anything other than trash, she needs to be masculine. All the rest of the female characters are shown to be insensitive and downright leaches on society. Whether it is the daughter of Frankie (Eastwood) who returns all the letters her father sends her or Maggie's (Swank) mother who is more worried about losing about her welfare and who tries to get Maggie to sign over her assets to herself after she is bedridden or Maggie's knocked up sister whose boyfriend is in jail and is apathic to Maggie's success, they are all shown as despicable characters who cannot be sympathised with. Katie, Frankie's daughter, is completely silenced as she is never shown on screen or given space for her views on her father. Maggie's sister is also silent in words but her actions speak of her selfish and leachish nature. I suppose it was to be expected in an Eastwood movie, Eastwood being symbolic of masculinity immortalised by the 'Dollar' movies.
The film glorifies boxing in such a deluge of views of opinions from Frankie and Eddie (Morgan Freeman), who is also the narrator of the film.
"If there's magic in boxing is the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you. "
" everything in boxing is backwards"
I can never accept boxing as a sport. It is brutal, inhuman and designed to suit the needs of a bloodthirsty, sadistic audience that craves for more and more punches to be thrown, noses to be broken and tooths knocked out. The fighters are modern gladiators, except now they do not beat eachother to death but give them such disabilities as Pugilistic Parkinson's disease. It feeds on the human innate tendency towards violence. Society frowns on violence as being bestial but it legitimizes and deitifies violence in the boxing ring...
The depiction of Maggie's mom is very telling of the political situation in the US. At a time when Bush is cutting spending on social welfare and cutting taxes for the rich, this film's depiction of Americans dependent on Welfare as leaches makes me suspect its intentions. Well, I suppose it is true that there are people who remain unemployed so as to get free lunches through the welfare system and a representation of such a character could be accepted but it looks quite suspect amidst all the conservative stereotypes that the movie reinforces and promotes.
Amidst all these conservative ideas of the movie, how could the issue of God be left? There is a strong religious flavour to the movie that you cannot miss even with eyes closed and a dormant mind. There are scenes with Frankie praying to God, chatting with the local priest about God along with religious advise. "If you do this, you will be lost for ever."
The final twist in the movie is when Frankie helps Maggie to commit euthanasia. The reasoning being that "I think I did alright!" and that there is nothing left to live for. There has been a lot of protests over this ending of the movie which has been pointed out as promoting murder of disabled people. I think the criticism is a little harsh in this respect. I suppose one must respect the wishes of a person who wants to end his/her life rather than living as a vegetable. I can live with this ending. But peeves me is the amount of "pro-life" noise being made about the Terri Schiavo case (she has been living as a vegetable for a decade and recently, her husband got a court order approving taking her off life-support) in the same country where this movie, which seemingly approves euthanasia, garners box-office success and critical acclaim along with a bunch of pretty little men!
In spite of all its faults, the film makes for good viewing. Reasons? Great acting, good direction, and some good dialogues. The socks conversation between Eddie and Frankie is one of the best exchanges I have seen on screen for some time. Hillary Swank is amazing as a determined female boxer whose fervent wish is to alleviate her "trash" status.
I suppose you should watch this movie but do it with a pinch of salt and a clear mind.

[Movie Review] My Brother... Nikhil

I am not really a great fan of Hindi movies but I do watch some selected few now and then. So why did go to watch My Brother.. Nikhil? There are some reasons for that...

• It is a low budget movie by a debutant director and it is not a commercial Bollywood movie, a genre I despise from the bottom of my heart.
  
• It has Victor Bannerjee and apparently, he agreed to do the film based on the script (hmm.. that must mean that at least script showed promise)
  
• It talks about social problems that accompanies a disease like AIDS in India. Looks inspired by Philadelphia, which I liked.

So, thats it. Thats all is required by a movie to attract me to it. All it needs to do is show promise. Of course, in this age where media is for sale, it is extremely difficult to judge which movie or book is good. An example of this is Tokyo Cancelled; one review compared the author to Salman Rushdie! and I fell for it; in my opinion, it is not worth the money I paid for it.

The movie did not disappoint me at all. I am one who notices the technical details of any movie but for a movie to be good, it does not need to be technically excellent; it needs to be made with a large heart. The film is low-budget and it shows throughout the movie but you will hardly notice it as it is a good movie and worth watching at least once. In fact, it is one of the few recent Hindi movies that I would suggest you to watch (remember, I would not recommend Black).
It is a story about a young man who contracts the dreaded virus - HIV and how the society responds to this revelation. It shows how people respond irrationally to things that they have little knowledge about and how even your parents who doted on you would throw you out of the house and find it very difficult to come to terms with the situation.
People are, in general, insensitive and selfish. But the movie does not chastise people for being so. All it says that people respond in this manner because they do not have all the facts before them. One of the best scenes in the movie is when Nikhil goes back to his former job and his manager asks him to resign citing people's fear that they might contract the disease from him. Nikhil responds by saying that it is he how who should be afraid of people around him as he could die by contracting a disease like common cold from any one of them. By pointing out the irony of the situation, the director has effectively communicated the lack of information available at that time (and today?).

Nikhil's story is told in the form of flashbacks by people who have known and loved him. But the real heros of the story are Nikhil's sister, who stands by him through thick and thin, and Nikhil's gay partner, who loves him in spite of the fact that Nikhil put him in danger (though he does not contract the disease).
It is shocking to see that, at one point of time, AIDS victims could be forcibly isolated and locked up by law! The story is set in the late eighties and pours into the early nineties and it is at a time when the campaign to educate people about AIDS was gathering momentum. But even now, people respond with the same kind of fear to AIDS patients and in spite of knowing about the way AIDS spread, they distance themselves from the victims. One of the main reasons for this is the isolation of AIDS patients from mainstream life. I could perhaps put the problem in one statement. If HIV positive people were allowed to live a normal life in society without gossips and finger-pointing, perhaps the gossips and finger-pointing would disappear.
The best way to combat the social problems that HIV positive people face is by educating people and letting them mingle. The movie stresses on this fact when Anju, Sam, and Nigel go on a public awareness campaign to free Nikhil from his confinement. They go out on the streets, meeting people and telling them about HIV and AIDS, and how cruel and unnecessary it is to keep HIV positive people under lock and key.
The rest of the movie shows how Nikhil manages to carve a niche for himself in society and suffers the repercussions of the HIV virus. It takes two years for his parents to finally accept him as a victim of a dreaded disease.

There are so many things I liked about this movie. One of them is Victor Banerjee. Victor, Victor Bannerjee; what an amazing, amazing actor! He plays the role of a stern father, who is a task-master and has high ambitions for his son, to perfection. He is the best act in the movie. His acting is natural and he lends the movie the much needed intensity that other actors fail to bring about in their roles. And he does not over-do it. It is just right! What can I say? I enjoyed watching him on screen.
The other aspect of the movie that I liked is the directing. It is a very tightly written script and the direction is good. He uses light effectively. He uses the darkness of the night to depict a dark mood in one of his characters. He uses the morning light for reminisces and positive thoughts. His framings are simple and uncluttered with needless extravagances. There is a lot of thinking that has gone behind the scenes and that shows on screen.
Another aspect of the movie that I liked that is that it is unapolegetic about gay relationships. Nikhil and Nigel are partners who are in love with eachother and the director shows their relationship with sensitivity. It is interesting to see this in a country where gay relationships are illegal and punishable by law! Another arachiac law, you say?
The film is set in Goa, place that I recently visited for a short visit. During the trip, I felt that, in spite of being a commecialized tourist spot, Goa has a small town feeling; where everyone knows everybody. The real Goans are hidden from the tourists and their culture is hardly seen by outsiders. The film reaffirms my belief in my observation. But I might be wrong as I stayed there for only three days.
Finally, let me say a word about Juhi. How can I not say anything about her? She is her usual optimistic self in this movie and she is the bright spot in a movie that is grim from start to finish. Her smile lights up the screen at the appropriate instances and helps in lightening the mood a little. I hope she will keep appearing in such good movies, for the selfish wish to see her on screen...

This week.....

I had a crazy week. First I arrived a little late on Monday to office because the Bus I took from Goa to Bangalore came at 8AM (My training begins at 9.30 am and I needed a minimum of two hours to reach my place, unpack, change and hurry to my office (no bath :( ) ). In all this rush, I did remember to get my rolls from Goa (one of them is still in my camera) and some old ones (one was two years old!).
After the day in office ended (at 8.30 pm :( - I had to stay back to do some real project related work), I walked around looking for a photo studio. I found one on Brigade road. It was a Pro lab and consequently (in my opinion), expensive. They charged 40rs for developing a colour roll and 100rs for scanning a roll in "low" resolution. I thought that let me just try out this shop once as I had B/W rolls to be developed too and I did not trust some arbit studio to do a good job and this was a pro lab, so... I tok my chance and gave all my rolls (five in all) to be developed, printed and scanned! Yeah, I have them all in digital format and the resolution is not bad either! Some of them are here -
Adi
IITK in the night
SPIC MACAY Pics
Teejan Bai in IIT Kanpur

After this, I ran out of space in Yahoo photos :(
I will make another id (it is free, right!) and share the rest...

I visited my sister at her hospital on Wednesday night (she was doing night duty that night) and I gave her the engagement pics which was one of the B/W rolls I developed this week.

I read a review on My brother... Nikhil and I got interested in the movie. It was on Rex (Brigade rd) till thursday. So I caught the last show on thursday night. It was a good movie and I think the director shows a lot of promise. Hope he does not go the Bansali way... Keep watching this blog for a detailed review of this movie.

I had not planned to see any movie on Friday night but we (me and my team) worked rather late that night and my boss (batch '99, IITK) suggested we go to a movie. At first it was Million Dollar Baby (which I wanted to see anyway) but at the last moment we stopped at Symphony and bought tickets for Be Cool, a sequel to Get Shorty with the same character Chilly Palmer. It was a very silly movie and had some nice laughable moments but frankly, not worth your time. So dont expect a review of this movie from me!

Yesterday, I thought I might as well catch Million Dollar Baby, the movie that has been making a lot of noise (and not just in the Box-Office). I went to Rex again to catch the 3.30 Pm show. I did not like this movie. Apart from some really good acting, this movie represents what I hate about the movie industry. Read more in my review of this movie.

Today, I have planned nothing more than write these reviews and alsoe finish the first draft of a story that I have been writing. I have been writing the second draft simultaneously and I have planned to finish that by Tuesday. I think the third draft will be ready by next weekend and then, I will publish it on my blog...

Ok, let me stop all this nonsense on how I spent my week and go on to my reviews...

Goa trip

Went to Goa and had fun for three days as I got an extended weekend due to Good Friday. It is a wonderful place if you can ignore the blatant commericalization of the place. The cheap T-shirts, the hawkers and their consistent perstering may get on your nerves. But the beaches are great and there are some lovely views that makes you forget all the ugliness of a tourist spot.

We started off on thursday afternoon on a KSRTC bus that left at 3.40 PM. After a long and arduos journey, we managed to get to Panjim on Friday morning at around 8 AM. I was a little surprised by the bus station where the bus stopped. It was unlike most stands I have seen. We did not stay there long as we needed a hotel and a guy approached us and convinced us to follow him for a hotel room. We were three guys with two more were coming from Mumbai and that made it a total of five.

I was there with my camera which had been unused for sometime now. I decided to go on a photographic mission and leave the guys to their beach. As impulsive as I am, I did not manage to stick to my resolution. I follwed them to Miramar beach, which was empty at that time in the morning. So, we decided to go to calungute beach. To get to that beach, we had to use a ferry and then a taxi on the other side of the creek. Calungute beach is the best beach of Goa (or so it is touted). It is the most crowded and has the most beach shacks (where the sinful-drink flows thicker than water). It also has a lot of foreigners, which might explain the high density of restuarants around that place. it is also a lovely place to be when the sun falls below the horizon and the era of the moon begins. Sitting on chairs by a condle-lit table by the ocean that roars away under the starry sky and smiling moon, it was a lovely experience... The next time I go there, I am going to spend atleast a week and stay every night on that beach.

I took a lot of pictures on the beach but was largely handicapped by the lack of a zoom lens and thus most of my subjects have come out tiny framed in a huge oceanic background. Some of them are nice but most would have been better if I had an zoom lens... :(

The next I decided to take a bus tour of South Goa. They took me to another place called "Dona Paula" where adventure sports is the primary attraction plus a great panaromic view. Then came the churches. The first is the Basilica of Bom Jesus which contains the preserved body of St Francis Xavier and is dedicated the figure of baby Jesus. It is a nice church but pales in front of the Se Cathedral which is across the Bangalore-Panjim highway. The Se Cathedral is the biggest chirch in India and I was struck by the size and the height of its ceilings.

The bus tour took us to two temples and Colva beach, the second largest beach in India. This beach is huuuuuuuuuuge! and I did not get to see much of it. Finally the bus left me back at my hotel. I went to Miramar beach which was nearby and had a look at a wonderful sunset! I took some pictures of the sunset.

The next day we could nto see much of Goa as we had to leave the hotel and catch our bus at 4.30 pm.

Frankly, three days was too little for a vacation in Goa. You need at least a week to enjoy the sights and sounds of Goa.
I will put up the pictures shortly after I get them scanned....

International Woman's Day

Yes, it was yesterday! I spent the day working on bugs in the project I am working on, checking the scores of the first test match and reading articles written on this contemplative day. They do not paint a pretty picture...
In the Shadow of violence
"Kerala may be the most literate state in the country but it's going to the dogs. And let me tell you the women of Kerala are equally to blame. All they want is gold ornaments, a posh house, good food and rich boys for their daughters. Let us not have any pretence about it."
...
Is this because of the consumerist culture that has taken over Kerala since the Gulf boom and attained obscene levels now? Why else would educated women allow themselves to be paraded before prospective grooms wearing ostentatious silks and adorned with heavy jewellery, which would be considered hideously vulgar in more discriminating circles?
...
Why do women of Kerala who are literate, who produce the most number of doctors and engineers in the country, put up with this outrageous set up? Yet they do and nothing changes.
...
Can't women's groups campaign to end "eve teasing"? It's a term I loathe because it trivialises the stronger and more appropriate "sexual harassment". The change will be difficult but not impossible.
...
We need to change the way our films portray women
...


Victims of abuse

The issue is not only of gender abuse, it is to recognise the right of every individual to exist as a human being and not live as `subordinate sex'. Violence against women is the most persuasive human rights violation in the world today.
...
Where there should be outrage, there is denial and largely passive acceptance. A recent survey by the International Institute of Population Studies showed that 56 per cent of Indian women believed that wife beating was justified in certain circumstances like neglecting the house or the children, or going out of the house without permission.
...
Men's brutal behaviour stems from their warped understanding of masculinity.
...
"Manliness" is equated with the need to control in the existing dictatorial patriarchal system. This has been proved by the cross-border studies conducted by the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala, emphasising that domestic violence cuts through caste, class, religion, age and education.


Empower Women

In our society, whether they belong to the majority or the minority group, what is apparent is that there exists a great disparity in the matter of economic resourcefulness between a man and a woman. Our society is male dominated both economically and socially and women are assigned, invariably, a dependant role, irrespective of the class of society to which she belongs. A woman on her marriage very often, though highly educated, gives up her all other avocations and entirely devotes herself to the welfare of the family, in particular she shares with her husband, her emotions, sentiments, mind and body, and her investment in the marriage is her entire life a sacramental sacrifice of her individual self and is far too enormous to be measured in terms of money. This sacrifice is mischievously embodied and engraved into the mindset of the society as the natural destiny of women by misinterpreting the benign mandates of various religions.


When we talk of equality, we are talking about equality in status, equality in opportunities, and equality of rights. It is wrong to misinterpret this quest for equality as equality of abilities. Nobody denies that men, in general, are more brawnier than women as we wont deny that women, in general, mature faster than men and are more emotionally stable.

Weird Referral URLs

Ok, I put in this sitemeter for monitoring the traffic on this blog. Was just curious as to how many people read my blog as I never seem to get any comments :(
Sitemeter has other fringe benefits like referral urls and a nice graph representation of the traffic and also, a traffic prediction functionality! it is a nice service and one of the few things that has emerged is that I am getting a lot of traffic thanks to Jaya. In fact, I get almost all my traffic from her readers! Thanks, Jaya!
But there are other referrals that have started emerging, thanks to google/yahoo(which is powered by google). Check these out -
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=does%20shah%20rukh%20khan%20have%20liver%20cancer&meta=
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=If%20you%20watch%20one%20movie%20this%20year%2C%20let%20that%20movie%20be%20Black.%20Sanjay%20Leela%20Bhansali%E2%80%99s%20Bl
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=film%20review%20of%20black%20%28bansali%29&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&x=wrt
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=common%20%20words%20used%20by%20indians%20as%20well%20as%20americans%20in%20day%20to%20day%20life&fr=FP-tab-web-t-211&toggl
http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=bus%20routes%20between%20itpl%20and%20majestic%20bangalore&meta=
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=violent%20chimpanzee&ei=UTF-8&xargs=0&pstart=1&fr=slv1-&b=31
http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=sanjay%20leela%20bansali%20is%20a%20crap&meta=

Well, I suppose some are understandable but some of them are just ridiculous like the one with "common words used by americans and indians..." as its search string!

Anyway, it definitely is interesting to analyse the traffic...

Weekend in Bangalore

It was a fun weekend for me this time. I decided to find out all the bookstores in the vicinity of my office and check them out after my office ended on Friday (work finished early on friday and I got to leave the office at 7 pm).
The first thing I did was to get a list of bookstores from the net and get a printout of that. I looked at the list and marked the places that are nearby and they were...

• Higginbothams - I liked this one as I have fond memories of Higginbothams of Madras


• Gangaram's


• Book Cellar


• Premier - quite well known


• Crossword

On friday night, I went walking all the way down MG road to the first three bookstores in the list above. I found Higginbotham's collection to be very disorganised and it also seemed to have a very limited collection. I looked around and when I got out of there, I realized that I had not stayed there for long. Next I went to Gangaram's. Now this is a quaint old bookstore with a really old lift, you know the ones we used to see being used in old Amitabh Bachchan movies. The general section was on the second floor and I took the opportunity to ride in the lift. You had to manually open and close the doors when they reached the destination. Seems incongruous in the modern world, doesnt it? But it did not in Bangalore. I will explain in another post. Anyway, the store turned out to be great; well, after the disappointment in Higginbothams, I suppose I was happy to be in a store that had kept the books in a organised manner. I liked the collection too and I ended up buying three books there - James Joyce's Dubliners and the portrait of the artist as a young man, and *Oh crap! I have forgotten the third one!*. I think it will come back to me. Let me think about it for a while. I really wanted to buy Joyce's Ulysses but it was not available in Gangaram's. I am actualy in the middle of many books now. One of them is Ulysses. I got the book from easylib.com (an online library that delivers books anywhere in Bangalore (thanks, adi!)). I really found it to be a hard read as there were a lot of words that I did not know and a lot of european language words interspersed in between. Plus, the author puts in a lot of christian references that I have no idea about. There were some portions that I was able to understand and there were brilliant! I was also looking for a non-fiction book titled Gender, Politics, and Islam. Actually, I read a review in The Hindu and I thought the book sounded promising. But I was disappointed in this respect too as Gangaram's did not have this book either. Well, they said that I could order the book for Rs. 1150 (apparently, it is a foreign edtion). I refused saying that I want the Indian edition that I know cost around Rs 350.
Book Cellar was right next door to Gangaram's and I went in asking for the couple of books I did not get in Gangaram's. While I got Ulysses, I did not get the other book. That was when I decided that I had seen enough books for one day and as it was quite late, I decided to head for a bite and back to my room.
On Saturday, I visited a relative and I did not get a chance to visit the other book stores on the list. On sunday, I woke up a little late and washed my clothes (well, it costs Rs. 10 for a pair which I think is preposterous but I suppose I am influenced by the fact that I used to pay Rs. 75 to the dhobi in IITK for washing and ironing my clothes for a month!). After that, I sat down to continue reading Contact (another easylib book). I have developed a distaste for the standard sci-fi and Contact jarred me inspite of the physics in it! At around lunchtime , I decided to chuck the book and go see a movie and visit some other book stores. It turned out to be a great decision. Plus, it pays to stay close to MG road. I found out that Plaza was showing Ray at 12.30 pm and I had missed it :( But it was showing The fockers at 3.30 pm, which I could catch. Since I still had about 1.5 hours to kill, I decided to check out Premier bookstore on church street. I did not find/get to Premiers but I got to Blossom Bookstore, a store full of second hand books. As I entered the store, the shelves were full of romance novels or "woman's literature" (easylib seems to classify these books as woman's literature which I found to be offensive...)! I thought that I had come to wrong store but I decided not to be hasty and check out the entire store. As I walked past these shelves, I came to neatly labeled and categorised sections. There was a Crime/Mystery Section where all the authors were arranged alphabetically. Then there was Indian fiction and here for the first time in the store I was happy. I found Pather Panchali and it was priced Rs 100! It was then I began a systematic search of the shelves. Then there was Sci-fi and fantasy. Then, I came upon Classics and what a wonderful classics section too. Then there was humour and I came upon tons of Terry Pratchet. I ended up buying three books there - Pather Panchali, Feminism - From pressure to Politics and The hunchback of Notre-Dame.
Then I went to see The Fockers. After that, I went to Crossword, which is a big store with a lot of variety in books and music but expensive. I came out buying nothing.
So, If you are in Bangalore, check out Blossom Book store! A book lover would like the store.

Hope for a better world

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0227-21.htm