Emofanal Atyachar

I have seen a lot of shitty hindi movies in the theatre. I don’t come across as the sort of person who watches hindi movies, let alone shitty ones and that too in the theatre, but take my word for it I have. If you can’t take my word here’s a sample from the list, Hello Brother, Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega, Mujhse Dosti Karoge, Kaal and of course, Kambhakt Ishq. I was not a big fan of Hindi movies, never did care very much for them, the melodrama, the lack of finesse, the hammy acting, the stereotyping, the sexism, it made me cringe, it left me depressed, disillusioned angry and mad.

That is, until I saw Bluffmaster. I didn’t expect to, but I ended up adoring Bluffmaster, cute story (‘inspired’, but nevertheless), told well, acted well, no melodrama, actually funny and plausible in its own way. I decided to pay more attention to Hindi Movies. Since then I have fallen in love with Hindi Movies, they’ve developed a certain panache, a certain style, there’s attention and realism in the details, in the characters, in the relationships they portray. The song and dance (and sometimes melodrama) is still there but it’s done with a wink to the audience as if the movie acknowledges the ridiculousness of it all. Hindi Movies have discovered a sense of ‘Fun’ and I’m Loving it.

Since then I have loved Chak De India, Rock On, Luck By Chance, Love Aaj Kal, Lage Raho Munnabhai, and of course Dev D. These movies had their flaws, but each one had some little touch that made me sit up and pay attention. Chak De was understated brilliance, I went in groaning at the thought of another Rah! Rah! We are Indians and invincible (............not!) movie, instead I got a steady and believable story about an underdog team and its disgraced coach, the look of the movie was spot on, shabby Indian fields, dingy government offices populated with paan stained babus and of course Shah Rukh Khan on his scooter (and not big flashy car!) in the last scene. Rock On while not all that great on the whole (for starters, which self respecting Rock Band calls itself Magik?) handled its characters and relationships very well, from Arjun Rampals nagging and neglected spitfire of a wife, to Farhan Akhtars society belle with a heart of gold wife, how years later when Farhan Akhtar bumps into his ex-girlfriend (who he dumped by running away and leaving behind a letter) it does not lead to melodrama as much as a temporary awkwardness. And all the horridness that was Deepika Padukones acting was redeemed in that one scene of Love Aaj Kal when Saif Ali Khan after being mugged in San Fransisco stays beaten down, slightly hysterical and bleeding away, instead of pulling together, running after the baddies and kicking the crap out of them a la any movie made in the 90s (when it was some sort of unwritten rule that Hindi Movie heroes could not be beaten up by goondas without their managing to exact some sort of appropriate revenge, especially if the goondas happened to be Firangs). Lastly, Luck By Chance is brilliant through and through. It’s witty, it’s smart satire, it’s polished and it’s the movie I wanted to make about gender equations. Konkona Sen Sharmas ending dialogue/monologue where she dumps the grovelling Farhan Akhtar by telling him that she would rather lead her own ‘imperfect’ life than be a footnote in his ‘perfect and famous’ life still gives me Goosebumps when I think about it. My movie (I was going to win an Oscar for it) was going to end on a similar note, when the too good to be true hero comes back asking for forgiveness from the slightly frumpy heroine, he tells her that he’s sorry he left her but now he wants to be the last guy in her life..... awwww....... not! The heroine then gently tells him that this wasn’t the correct thing to say, he should have said that he wanted her to be the last girl in his life and goes away leaving behind a very baffled looking hero trying to figure out the difference.

These movies leave me High! It’s like a concentrated shot of adrenalin. I think furiously about the story, the acting, the dialogue, the look and cinematography. The Music remains pounding in my ears long after I’ve left the theatre and sometimes I end up not sleeping for days (!) racing up and down my hostel corridor all night (don’t ask!) because I’m that rattled by the movie. It’s a bit extreme, and heaven knows what’s wrong with little ole me (Mom says I’m high strung). I just saw Kaminey and I foresee several long sleepless nights ahead of me, as I try to work it out of my system.

Thank heavens for hostel - Long corridors, heavy sleepers and accommodating friends.

I get By, If we Try

This blog is supposed to help me improve my (once upon a time) non-existent writing skills. My first, biggest supporter in this endeavour and the person, who finally got me started, is Hakuna Matata. Which is why, I am ashamed to admit that once upon a time I did not appreciate Hakunas Poetry writing efforts. I could do much better, I told myself. This air of superiority quickly evaporated when I actually tried to write something and discovered my lack of any (poetry, prose, drama, test-answers, internship application) writing skills. Since then (that was a good three years ago) I have managed to produce this blog and some pathetic and extremely pretentious attempts at poetry, I still haven’t managed to get around to writing test answers and my internship applications are written by my parents.

The chirpy (and slightly daft, is there ever any other sort) best friend on a TV show announced that, “Yes! She was dating and that they were in ‘like’, she and her boyfriend liked each other”. This made me smile and reminded me of one of my poems I had written earlier. It was all about a girl explaining to her (possibly indignant and ego-ruffled) boyfriend that she doesn’t “love” him but yes she does “Like” him and that she doesn’t use either word lightly. This led to another memory of my birthday, it must have been 4 in the morning and the revelries were just winding down, we were lying on my bed exhausted with dancing and high on cola and ice-cream (I do drink....... It’s just that I drink like a hyperactive 5 year old) and the song “Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar Hai” was bursting through the speakers, someone tried to get me to name one person to whom I could dedicate this song and I drew a blank! I thought and thought, but it came to naught. No one, no love, no crush no nothing. I guess it made me feel alone. This feeling of being alone used to come quite often, it’s getting rarer as I get more and more comfortable in my own skin and even more importantly as I get more and more accepting of others. But when it does come, I crash and Burn. Last night we were high again, (on alcohol, cola and freedom from moots respectively) and the talk turned to boyfriends, flings and the like, the problems, the fun, the dilemmas, the .......... the high with freedom from moots friend sighed and said that she missed her ex. I could feel a shell starting to grow, I miss exes I never had.

This feeling of being ‘alone’ is very psychologically upsetting and hurting and physically discomfiting, I once described it to my mother as, “you can literally feel the hormones and chemicals whooshing around in your body, reacting, bubbling and boiling over”. I also feel guilty, I have never had these many friends, such close, steady and supportive friendships. Perhaps I feel lonely, because I can’t empathise with them when they have these relationship talks, I feel different, because I have no clue and nothing to say to them, no way of helping them, no way of understanding them. No way of understanding me, is it a repressed sexuality manifesting itself as complete asexuality, or maybe I am asexual, maybe I’m a repressed homosexual thus acting asexual. My head could burst, when will I be able to find answers? I don’t know.

I get by, to quote Richard, Paul, George and John, with a little help from my friends and an abundance of optimism. For you see despite being a brainwashed, brahm - Guilt enveloped, practical, not very girly, man hating, feminism spewing, not a good human being (so, I’ve been told, but that’s another story) oblivious and lost girl, I am a romantic at heart. Things will happen, I will make them happen, I have faith in fate and I have faith in myself and some person out there. I will find my answers and I will overcome the whooshing hormones, whether with a guy, a girl my friends or my family. I don’t have a relationship, but I do have a song.

When I see you on the street, I lose my concentration.
Just the thought that we might meet creates anticipation.

Won't you look my way once before you go
and my eyes will say what you ought to know.
Well I've been thinkin' about you day and night
and I don't know if it'll work out right
but somehow I think that it just might...if we try.

Faces come and faces go in circular rotation.
But something yearns within to grow beyond infatuation.

Won't you look my way once before you go
and my eyes will say what you ought to know.
Well you've got me standin' deaf and blind...
cause I see love as just a state of mind...
and who knows what it is that we might find...if we try.

You're walking a different direction from most people I've met.
You're givin' me signs of affection I don't usually get.
I don't want you to pledge your future the future's not yours to give.
Just stand there a little longer and let me watch while you live.

Well I've been thinking about you day and night...
and I don't know if it will work out right...
but somehow I think that it just might...if we try.
Somehow I think that it just might if we try.
Yes somehow I think that it just might if we try.

Thank You Don Mclean........

The New Inside and the Old Outside

When I was in school, I withdrew into a shell, a shell made up of shyness, books, geeky glasses, a big red pimple (placed prominently in the centre of my nose ..... making me look like a certain famous reindeer) and a brahmanized version of Catholic guilt inculcated in me (unwittingly, she claims) by my mother. As if that wasn’t enough, I was also enveloped by a bubble, a beautiful bubble blown by my family, which distorted all the harsh light entering it from the outside world into a million happy bright and cheerful colours. Like all things made of soap it was a squeaky clean world, where everyone was good, worked hard and spoke English. In other words I was a righteously indignant, morally superior, highly oblivious, slightly lost girl who couldn’t say boo to a goose. Because there was no goose in my bubble and Brahmin guilt would never have let me utter the word Boo.

But somewhere deep down, I knew that it was different out there and that I too was different on the inside. I had to get away from home, and get away from home I did when I went to college (I refused to apply to any college in Delhi). In the last three years, I have emerged from my shell and the bubble has burst. Do I like what I see both inside and outside me? Most of the times I love this new old- world I’m finally getting a chance to explore and after a great deal of therapy, love and support I have come to accept myself, as I am now and as I was then. But sometimes (to put it very shortly) the world sucks and is too much for me to handle, and sometimes (to put it very politely) I become a short-tempered, loud mouthed asshole. In other words I am a righteously indignant, morally superior, not so oblivious, even more lost girl who has learnt to say much more than boo to animals even bigger than the average goose.

Today I lost my temper at an auto driver. He wanted to pick up an extra fare, a lady whose auto had broken down, because her destination and mine were on the same road. I put my foot down and told him that while I was perfectly willing to let the lady share the auto, I would pay him what had already been agreed upon and that the lady need not pay him anything extra. This upset him and he tried to argue with me, only to be cut short when I began to scream my head off at him. Scared by this outburst he quietly drove off leaving behind a relieved lady who preferred to remain stranded in the dark than share an auto with a slightly insane and most probably violent girl. I wanted to scream some more, when I realized that this would make it my 2nd outburst in 1 week. I sat silently trying to collect my thoughts and realized that I had lost my temper for nothing. I had helped no one, neither the lady who was still stranded nor the auto-driver who would have earned perhaps an extra 10 rupees and had managed to mask it all under a cloak of self-righteousness. Maybe I had made my condition not out of any charitable feeling towards the lady but only to spite the auto driver or because I thought of it as an easy painless way of gaining some much needed good karma. Whatever the fault of the auto-driver, I shouldn’t have yelled at him, the way I did, especially since, he a daily wage labourer was trying to earn 10 rupees more, only to be thwarted by a brat who can’t think of a single thing cheap enough to be bought in 10 rupees.Fundamentally I lost my temper because I wanted to and because I am privileged enough to do exactly what I want. The new Inside is not getting along very well with the Old Outside. Perhaps its a matter of experience and practice.

Not Tacky......... It was Disturbing

2.5 Hours. 120 Rupees. 1,000,000 Brain Cells. This is what it cost me to watch Kambhakt Ishq. But writing is therapeutic and hopefully by the time I finish writing this post, I will have stopped fantasizing about inserting a grandfather clock which chimes the hour and half hour up Akshaye Kumars ass.

I think the biggest problem I have with this movie is that it starts out with the “hero” calling the heroine a bitch and the turning point of the movie comes when the heroine realizes that she is, in fact, a bitch (because she doesn’t believe in marriage and true love). Other highlights include the song where a whole gaggle of blonde haired bimbos thrust their boobs out (of their dresses) in retaliation to guys who were, well.... just thrusting, the scene where Kareena sits and cries her heart out because she (thinks she) had drunken pre-marital sex with Akshay Kumar and of course the operation where Kareena wears her lucky-mantra-chanting watch over her surgical gloves. There is also the scene where Akshaye Kumar is cavity searched by a big black woman, I didn’t see that scene, I had my eyes shut. But I’m sure that had I seen it I would have found it offensive, racist and included it among the highlights.

Then there is the other small issue about the objectification of and violence against women (I lost track of the number of times they got pawed, mauled, kicked, kissed and verbally abused) the fact that sex is portrayed as OK for men and great for fun but that true love and women must abstain from sex (the “Heroines” are virginal and Akshaye Kumar stops just short of having drunken pre-marital sex with Kareena because sniff* he realizes he’s truly in love with her as opposed to the other harlots he was just stringing along .... wipes away a tear). Akshaye Kumar gets all the insults, punches and one liners in, while Kareena is left staggering from drunkenness, being kissed against her wishes, being chased by a (politically correct, racially integrated!) street gang (she is rescued by Sylvester Stallone who hearing her maidenly shrieks for help and the sound of ka-ching decided to appear in this movie and save her), leaving a watch in Akshaye Kumars Stomach, realizing her mother was a bitch (Mommy dearest refused to take back philandering hubby despite his honest and earnest plea that he had changed and wanted things to work out between them) and that she is a bitch (for not believing in true love and marriage and believing in the fact that all men and Akshaye Kumar are jerks).
I did however like the first proposal scene, it was thoughtful, romantic and everything the movie wasn’t. If I ever get proposed to, I too want to be dumped overboard a yacht into a coral reef from which my proposer will pull out an oyster which will open to reveal a handful of pearls and a 24 karat diamond engagement ring. I did not care for the second one, the one where Akshaye Kumar shouts at Kareena and orders/forces her into a car after leaving Denise Richards (playing herself, and who obviously doesn’t understand any of the hindi dialogue insulting her but can recognize the phrase “you come before camera with less clothes and we give money to you” in 37 different languages).

This movie was essentially written by a dick, a dick which managed to wrap itself around a pen and move it across paper. The audience seemed to enjoy the movie. As for me..... Does anyone have a grandfather clock they’re not particularly fond of?

The Extra Sister

When my twin sisters were born, the world-wise nurses consoled my mother; they told her not to worry, that she would eventually come to love her two extra daughters. The concerned doctor asked her whether there’d be any problems at home. And there were. My grandmother refused to come to the hospital to see her two new grandchildren because they were girls (however like the nurses had said, she came around to love them, within the next 24 hours). Not-so-distant relatives landed up, offering to adopt one of them. They were childless and my parents had too many girls, it made perfect sense to them.

We’re in this beautiful hill station. “We want to go for a nice gentle trek, breathe in the fresh air, reconnect with nature, far from the maddening crowds. Preferably some place with a stream we can splash around in” The guide listens, nodding his head thoughtfully. He looks over the five of us and after assessing our needs and wants proposes that we go to Mata Betapakkahogas Temple. “It’s only a 1001 steps, you can do it, you can stop in between and drink nimboo paani at any of the 2002 tea shops that line the cemented staircase leading up to the temple, the hundred other people also climbing up with you will give you strength, and once you reach the top all you have to do is buy and plant a Trishul at the steps of the mandir and all your wishes will come true. My brother’s wife’s nephew’s daughter just had a son, only through the grace of Mataji. Of course once your wish has been fulfilled you must come back to thank the Mataji and that time you must stay at my sister’s husband’s niece’s son’s hotel.” Of course there was the guide at Jaisalmer, who philosophically shrugged and told my father that what happens will happen and who knows what gods will is.

Growing up as one of three sisters we’ve had to deal with sympathy and incredulousness all our lives. The three of us have perfected the “No, just three sisters, thank the good lord” line which we repeat, often several times, to the same person, heads bobbing vigorously, smiles plastered on our faces until it sinks into their thick skulls that we are perfectly content, thank you very much. We’ve learnt to deal with friends who try to convince us that we need a brother to balance out the family and my parents have learnt to deal with the well-wishers who try and introduce them to support groups for parents afflicted with too many daughters.

While I can’t claim to the fact that I never let any of this get to me (I am rather high strung and my sainted mother has often been at the receiving end of tirades directed at these friends and too defamatory to publish), I can very confidently assert that I never understood what these people were going on about. Until this summer that is. This summer when the two of us who are now living in hostel returned home, we were given a space of 5 square feet, in which we were expected to keep our suitcases containing all our possessions and a rolled up mattress. The sister who was still living at home, not content with taking over our room and converting it into her room had launched a successful offensive against the rest of the house as well. By the time I came back home the drawing room, living room, guest bed room and tiny store room had all fallen. Alex the G would have been envious of her strategy. Which is why if this post is a bit ranty or whiny, excuse me. Sleeping scrunched up on a lumpy mattress never did anyone any good and I am a person who needs her inner-beauty sleep even in the best of living conditions. I have finally begun to appreciate and understand the sympathy out there for families of three sisters. However I am still confused about how an extra sibling in the form of a brother could make things any better.

Did I hear you say Movie?

A day well wasted is a day well spent. And yesterday was a day very well spent indeed. My sister, cousins and I decided to celebrate the return of new releases to Multiplexes by going and watching 17 Again. As my sister and I were leaving, my mother looked at us and in accents of great torment and despair announced that she was being Bheja Fried yet again by us.

According to her Being Bheja Fried means being cruelly left out, deserted by your near and dear when they go to see a movie without you, that too a movie which you might enjoy. The origin of this term she explained her voice quavering with neglect and deeply repressed emotions comes from when my Dad and took me and my sisters to see the movie Bheja Fry without her. She accused us of having Bheja Fried her numerous times since then, the most recent incident being when we went to see Star Trek behind her back. My Father she had forgiven, but being Bheja Fried by those who she not only gave birth to but also gave reasons to live by introducing them to the wonders of Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings was unpardonable according to her. To watch us so shamelessly stalking out without a care in the world (My sisters Final exams are on and I had some left over Internship work to be submitted today) without so much as a backward glance at her as we bheja fried her, it broke her heart, she wailed.

We would have been deeply moved and might have considered inviting her or perhaps even invited her to come along with us except that, my mother got snagged in a technicality. In order to be Bheja Fried the movie you are left out of should be one that you actually wanted to see, or think you might enjoy (like when my friends went to see Dev D minus Me!). My mother to put it quite simply has not enjoyed a movie in quite some time. All the movies she’s seen recently have given her a head ache, and she always ends up pulling a 99 on them. A 99 you ask? It means plugging into your ipod, shutting your eyes and completely ignoring the movie. She first did it in the movie 99, she then pulled a 99 at Angels and Demons (a movie I was Bheja Fried from because I had Internship work to submit the next day. Those of you who think that I am a hard worker, carrying work home, please don’t read the rest of this sentence, for the rest of you who’re still reading- the reason I get stuck with work at home is because I’m busy sleeping at work, that or writing blog posts). My mother would have pulled a 99 on 17 again. If she came, her Ipod stayed behind, we warned her, she sheepishly agreed that perhaps it was best for her to not come.

So it was just us kids who went and saw 17 again, and then because it was playing in a theatre conveniently close by and because even my cousin hadn’t seen it, but mostly in order to bring balance back to the Universe I decided to skip doing the work due and we watched Angels and Demons instead. It was day very well spent indeed.

But it was as we trailed out of the movie theatre after watching Angels and Demons that it hit Sumana that this coming Wednesday she was going to be Demonised by her friends. That is what happens to you when you have a movie crazy family (did I mention that my family has a movie lingo which defines the different ways in which we watch or don’t watch movies?) which takes you to see every single movie released (even those released during your exams) so that when your friends eventually get around to going to see a movie with you (say for example to celebrate the end of the exams) you’ll be watching that movie for the third time in a theatre.

Confessions of a mathematical society president

My parents didn’t take us, when we were Kids to see many movies and the few that we did get to see in the theatre were always kiddy movies (like keeping your cell phones off, not taking hyper kids to the movies is a courtesy my parents very firmly believe in). So the three of us were pleasantly surprised, when my Parents returned from a shopping trip one evening from which the three of us had been excluded (Ok…… in hindsight it looks they didn’t believe in taking us kids out, Period.) with tickets to the Night show of a movie called star wars.
They tried explaining the premise to me “stars and lasers and wars…. Lots of fun!” and I remember trying to picture the movie in my head as we went to the theatre “twinkling stars in a night sky, occasionally a laser beam would emerge from one star and go hit another star which would disappear ……. Lots of fun!” (I really hadn’t seen many movies then). It was my first night show, my first grown-up movie, my first movie with action and violence and a real true Villain, who actually managed to be villainous and not comic relief. That night I fell in love with Movies for the second time (the first time was when I saw Singin’ in the Rain on TV).
And there was so much more to come, finding out that Darth Vader didn’t die in the first movie, that Darth Vader was Luke’s father, that Han Solo Didn’t die in the second movie, that Leia was Luke’s twin sister and that the prequels I waited for, for so long and so eagerly, sucked. But once a star wars fan, always a star wars fan. And Star wars geek I remain to this day, I was after all the girl who had a crush on Lando Calrissian (not Luke the guy who was supposed to be the hero, not Han who stole the show and became the actual Hero). Lando? Who you ask? Precisely I reply. To those of you who are equally clueless about Luke and Han…. I don’t know what to say.
In my grandparents house down south there are many important traditions which must be honoured or else consequences faced. Absence from the sacred early morning pooja for instance will invite the wrath of all your dead ancestors upon you, to make noise, or disturb the peace during the even more scared post-lunch siesta will earn you the wrath of all your living ancestors. On one particularly long sojourn down south my mother began to tell her three hyperactive daughters (perhaps that’s the reason we never got taken out anywhere) the story of the Lord of the Rings, a new episode every afternoon in order to keep us amused and quiet so that the rest of the household could sleep. To cut a long story short, I eventually got around to reading that even longer story, a several hundred times. I have read the companion book Silmarillion thrice and made notes and family trees to keep things in track. I can tell you both the names of Aragorn’s Sword, what Minas Morgul was originally called before the evil lord Sauron took over it, I can recite some of the poems in the Books and most of the dialogue from the movies. To amuse myself in situations of boredom, I make lists of the cast members of the LOTR Movies. I can name 30 of the top of my head! How many can you name?
This summer my sister introduced me to Anime. I fell for it hook line and sinker, I sat up all night and watched 25 episodes of an anime called “Darker than Black”. I marvelled at it, I woke my sister up at 2 in the morning to discuss the significance of the last episode, cried like a baby after one particularly touching episode and when it ended I lost no time trying to find out what was the next anime I should move onto.
And it was as I sat at 5 in the morning, my head spinning with BK Nimarishi, mediums, and the very, very cute protagonist (I totally have a thing for chinky eyes!) that it hit me, the only thing holding me back from total geekdom was the fact that I was not (also) a Trekkie.
That was then. I just saw Star Trek the movie last night. I liked it. (John Cho is the cutest! His eyes……….).
Its official! I am the female Raj Kuthrapalli. Minus the IQ and mathematical aptitude (I became president of the mathematical society on sheer geekiness). And with a longer and even more unpronounceable name. After a night of serious introspection and much contemplation I’ve come to realize that the only thing keeping me from dressing up like my favourite characters and attending movie premieres or conventions is the fact that we don’t have movie premieres and conventions in India. Anyway I’ve almost made peace with myself (writing being very therapeutic) all I want right now is a pair of prosthetic pointy ears for it to be complete.