Sunset on Godavari

Nothing enchants more than a view of the sunset. The visual treat only doubles when you get a riverview sunset while on train. It's the river Godavari in all its beauty ...Godavari that is so integral to the cultural ethos of Andhra Pradesh. This picture I clicked on Christmas day when I was on the train from West coast to East coast, through the air-conditioned window, which is why there is so much blue to it! For a start, I did not know such a train that touches the two coasts exists, until we made this trip - my husband and I, for thanksgiving. Konark Express moves from Mumbai to Vishakapatnam and then turns up north to reach Bhubaneshwar...one of the longest journeys I have done! We clocked over 30 hours when we got off at Vishakapatnam. Sigh! But if you are an urban worm tired of the greys and browns around you, such journeys are a blessing.

My take on Rab ne...

Long after newsprint has forgotten about it...it's not a review

The new year's first week is on roll. Most of us urbanes are back at work. Thank God the year turned without much event. My friends and acquaintances are either making it a point to catch up with at least one screening of Ghajini. 

Being homebound for the last one year, at least I managed to catch up with a whole lot of movies I missed while at work. On TV, at cinemas...

About Ghajini (Hindi) have not been that keen, because I watched the original which had this surprise element unlike the promos of the Hindi version that killed all surprises. Plus, I am no fan of Tamil cinema or its actors, but I loved Surya's acting in the original adaptation of the English version. That the director decided to change the ending a little may have drawn some Tamil audience. It makes me curious, yet I have not jumped the gun to go and watch it.

Just after its release, I caught up with Rab ne bana di jodi on a Saturday morning.  For all the inevitable outdoing bit about Rab ne bana di jodi and the unthinkable, and even unpardonable filmy goof-up of a wife not recognising her husband in a different frame, I still liked a few things about Aditya Chopra's Punjabi romantic escapade. Am writing this after weeks of audience writing it off. You do not find much use in heading to Yash Chopra banners expecting anything realistic, although Chak De was a step apart. I did expect a make-over story a la Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin. The serial began well, as a desi version of Ugly Betty. As it progressed, it ended up throwing brands at the viewer's face and killed itself with the make-over succumb.

Here are a few things about Rab ne... that I liked . For a director who made Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, characters in this seem more real.  I remember watching DDLJ as a college kid. I cringed at the just another masala film feel in spite of the effort at some authenticity. The film does have its stereotypes. But then, I had a reason to smile when he broke a stereotype or two too. He let the heroine take the lead and ride a bullet to get at her tormentor, leaving the hero awestruck.

A little later, it was about scorning the macho stereotype that is so overdone by Hindi cinema. The heroine hits back at the macho while shopping for clothes, looking hero saying women don't like men who are macho. Some realism there! And in a Yashraj film where I would not have raised my brows if there was a sensuous sari-clad heroine dancing away in snow! Wow! I am breathing fresh air in the middle of all the six-pack and eight-pack obsessed politicos of popular imagery.

The fact that a middle class Amritsar denizen working on a salary at a power firm has the magnanimity to love, that such love need not be mocked at, it makes sense. More so in an environment so ridden with brand-conscious icons who sway our masses with their money-making culture. 

That Surinder's heart beat for Taani as loudly as his own louder version of Raj! That the middle-class hero has somewhat found a resurgence in commercial cinema! I liked this film despite its flaws, for the same reasons that I liked Veer Zaara. Veer Zaara  tried its bit to talk of love sans borders, and sans the insane obsession with sexuality that oozes so much in some films. I liked it for the same reason as my getting floored by the more close-to-heart Khosla ka Ghosla.

 

That the house they lived in, was looking more real than in a studio…it was a studio - the audience knows it. 

The only other film that did justice to the middle-class hero this year was Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na. With no six pack abs, no gizmo flaunting hero and some brilliance in its narrative, it was a heart-warmer. What's wrong with being middle-class and why the madness to portray every hero in plush homes? Remember those Amol Palekar flicks! Remember Rajanigandha, Golmal, Chitchor....Remember the flavour these films had before the angry young man's advent!

The climax was a mess-up for an otherwise tolerable movie. But something made me sit up. The parting shot. It made the otherwise bland ending so cool! It's the time people are marching out of the hall. The credit-roll narrative made even those marching out stay back -- to watch the middle-class innocence of Surinder give an account of his Japan honeymoon through snaps.

Anushka is good for a new-comer. The spoiler was that song with the usual Yashraj madness -- colour-coordinated extras, this time children. Am not sure if Amritsar is visible from a hill. The film does make me want to go to Amritsar.

Some cake, some smiles

A customary query that follows a Happy New Year wish on the phone is, `What did you do?' or How did it go? Back home in Bangalore, for the last few years it was about walking across the road to an old neighbour's home to wish. Back in my school and college days, it was unmatched fun when a bunch of us girls and boys would organise Christmas games, races and contests for kids in our block of 16 homes and give away prizes before the clock struck 12. 

By midnight, elders would come out of their homes and wish everyone, smiles on their faces and egos left behind, irrespective of how subtly and how cruelly they fought it out at other times.

Last year, when my hubby and I walked into this rented home, we were lonely. Our new year arrived almost unannounced, as we contented ourselves watching fireworks lighting up the night sky from our window. This time, my friends who called up over the week and I had reason to talk of the smiles and `left-at-home' egos again.

After some cajoling, my neighbour Preeti and her husband organised an impromptu cake-cutting ritual for the kids around at 12. For over a quarter hour that followed, they ran around smearing cake at their family friends, eating some of it and wishing everyone around in the building's courtyard.

I live a life of relative anonymity in this place. But the turn of the year made me move over to complete strangers and wish them, even people who would generally not smile. For a while, it did not matter how I looked, or how well-dressed I was. It just mattered how some cake and some smiles brought about a lot of feel-good. It doesn't need a party to usher the new year in...just some smiles that cost nothing. After all, it is smiles that bring in peace and break walls. Peace that we Indians are suddenly yearning for, like the sane among Pakistanis, Nepalis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans...

My night earth, from above

Free-flowing verse has no boundaries. It comes from the heart. The results could range from mixed, to bad. But soulful it is. I find myself itching to write whenever on a flight. Watching the earth from just above the clouds is an experience that never tires one. My co-fliers are usually bored of their journeys. I find myself come alive then though...the following lines I managed to scribble on tissue-paper that comes with flight food, when my husband and I were returning from Visakhapatnam. Here goes:

In night's soothing calm

You look so harmless, ye earth!

They glow in the dark...the stars on you

Clusters of white and gold sequins

And you the black carpet.

Fancy flecks on a bridal drape?

Or a dusky goddess' million nose-rings! 

I feel like a child yearning

 to pluck them from your tree...

I smile, no laugh...no dance in me with glee.

No show could dare rival this splendour

It's not lights that burn from coal, water

                    or fuel nuclear,

T'is stars from the night sky above

                    one sees on your girth.

T'is a bride's decorated eyebrows...

                     one feels as the lights arch over 

                        on your lake waters.

Dark as coal are you

                    And so is the sky yonder.

I bend as the plane curves,

                   into you and away from you

It soars and dives,

Strangely, I have no fear.

Never came across poetry 

                   that gave this spectacle the right ode

Nor a painting that justly 

                    canvassed your grandeur.