Nandini's Niche

Because I haven’t done it in such a long time…

Well. I’ve been sitting at home for the past week or so, and it’s amazing how easy it is to fritter time away. I’ve literally been too busy to post here. Actually, scratch that. I’ve been too busy finding things to do so I can say I didn’t have time to post because I haven’t had anything to say. (Yes, my early new-year resolution is to tell harsh truths.)

Turns out I’m in a “nothing to say, nothing to write” phase. only the Harry Potter fanfiction has been coming along.

Anyways, I hope you guys had a good Christmas and Hannukah and all the associated days off. (I refuse to say “holiday”, what is up with all this utterly random political correctness anyway? It’s a Christmas tree, people, and calling it a holiday tree won’t suddenly mean Jews will start buying one for Hannukah. Bah.)

And if I don’t see you before New Year’s (coz I’m off to Boston for the weekend, me pretties), happy new year also. See you soon!

As I was telling my husband about Parineeta – that it was a same-old same-old love story that’s very well done – he picked up on something in my tone of voice, I guess, and insisted I had really liked it but wasn’t admitting it.

I hate to say it, but he was right. I find myself thinking back on the little things that were beautifully done, the big things that were subtly conveyed, and I find I like this movie, really, quite a lot.

When the source material for a movie is a literary classic, there’s a ready-made bedrock of internal unity and external finesse to build on, and given Saratchandra Chatterjee’s play, Pradeep Sarkar, the director, does build on it. Sure, the plot is one that has been overdone in Bollywood. Shekhar, a rich, bratty young man and his childhood friend Lolita are in love with each other without knowing it. Enter rival love interests – Lolita’s older benefactor Girish and rich heiress Gayatri Tantia – complications are already setting in. Throw in an avaricous businessman as Shekhar’s controlling father, money problems for Lolita’s family, a few giggling siblings here, a sultry special appearance by Rekha there, and you have the whole story. But I have begun to look beyond the obvious irritants in this bare-bones plot (greedy capitalist dad as the villain, I ask you?). In the telling of any story, execution is everything, and here it is quite marvellous.

The important things are all conveyed with great restraint and style rather than the clobber-over-the-head style of most Bollywood fare. The rivalry between Girish and Shekhar is never a shouting match cum tug-of-war with Lolita as rope… instead, it is amply communicated in Shekhar’s light rebuke of Girish for serving cold rotis. The nearly wordless love scene between Shekhar and Lolita is the entire statement of their devotion to each other. Shekhar is freely irrational when emotional, as real people often are. No textbooks hero there. Lolita’s only acknowledgement of her jealousy over Gayatri Tantia is to repeat Shekhar’s father’s dictum, I won’t waste time on an unprofitable venture. No passionate entreaties, no wringing hands, no teary-eyed damsel in distress, and you’ve got to admire this movie for that. The only exception came in the end, when Shekhar physically breaks down the brick wall separating him from Lolita. What pushes this scene over the edge into cheap melodrama is the wedding party around him, which turns into a cheering squad: Break it down, Shekhar, break it down! But that was five minutes. In the larger balance, it doesn’t upset things too much.

The sountrack, like everything else in the movie, is elaborate but nicely understated. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, let me put it this way: the music is lavish and very sweet, but it is used as merely a setting for the characters, rather than the other way around. I really like Soona Man Ka Aangan, and the breathy eroticism of Hui Mai Parineeta.

It was easy to look at Parineeta with a critical eye at first, and dismiss it for its flaws. I’m sure the parenthetical narration by Amitabh Bachchhan had a little to do with it, as did the superfluousness of many characters (I hate it when the law of economy of characters isn’t observed). But really, it’s a sweet tale, beautifully told. The actors – Saif in particular – were brilliant, never allowing their star personas inhibit their portrayal of the character. The direction is great, the sets superb. I don’t know what I was complaining about before.

I was looking at the nominees and winners of the 1995 Oscars: now there’s one year when the judges seem to have picked winners earmuffed and blindfolded! Take a look. In a year when both Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction were up for Best Picture, guess who got the Oscar? Forrest Gump. (My thoughts on that godawful movie were very lucidly expressed by Fernwithy.)

I was scrolling down in disbelief, looking at who won for Best Director (Forrest F***ing Gump) and Best Actor (Forrest F***ing Gump again), and something I saw in the list of Best Supporting Actor nominees drove the rage at Forrest Gump out of my mind.

Included in that list was Samuel L. Jackson for his role as Jules in Pulp Fiction. Nominee – not winner, mind – for Best Supporting Actor.

You might think Pulp Fiction is Vincent Vega’s story, but as I see it, it was Jules all the way. Jules simply satisfies all the requirements of the hero’s role. Consider the following:

1. The protagonist is supposed to mirror the audience’s cluelessness at the beginning of a story: Vincent Vega is the man who holds all the answers in both major opening conversations, the Quarter Pounder With Cheese and the Foot Massage.
2. The protagonist, after being educated a little during the segue-in, must show a strong, cool side of his/her personality in the course of his/her daily activities, before the plot begins to happen: it is Jules who truly “gets into character” and takes over in the living-room scene with Brett.
3. The protagonist must not die in the middle of the movie, especially not in a completely unnoticed way: self-explanatory.
4. The protagonist must face a crisis and a moment of choice at the movie’s climax and handle it alone: self-explanatory.
5. The protagonist must have an epiphany: Vince never does change in the movie (except perhaps for getting that little crush on Mia, but that’s not big). Jules is the one who has the moment of truth.
6. The protagonist’s epiphany must change his/her life in a way that is relevant to the plot: Jules would be dead along with Vince if it weren’t for him quitting.

There is no mistaking it. Pulp Fiction belongs to Jules. Even Tarentino recognises this – wasn’t he going to make another movie titled Vincent Vega? There wouldn’t be a reason to do that if Vince’s story had already been told in Pulp Fiction.

No, there’s only one reason why John Travolta got lead actor billing in this movie, and Samuel L. Jackson got stuck with supporting actor, and that reason is ugly.

Living in USA has shattered a number of my naive illusions about the way people are and the way life works, but none so thoroughly as my pre-USA-days belief that racism was mostly a blight of days past. I am constantly surprised when it surfaces – sometimes subtly, sometimes merely in an unofficial way that is quite blatant nevertheless. I’ve seen it, first hand, many times. I’m not a very social creature, especially not here, but even I’ve noticed how in little ways and big ways, black people come up against discrimination in the most insidious forms.

But I’m no one to point fingers, because (here’s a big confession) I myself have started being wary/steering clear of black Americans I meet. I am beginning to see that their culture is different from that of white America and even that of minorities in America – and not in a good way. The black kids I’ve met in college have been uniformly dull, rowdy (to put it politely) and offensive in the worst ways.

Does this mean I think black people are more likely to, say, jump me than other minorities and whites? Probably. Will I view back people with more suspicion than I do other minorities and whites? Sometimes, I suppose – when it comes to people of the lower social classes. Am I going to discriminate against black people professionally? NO WAY – not even to the extent of having preconcieved expectations of them.

So here’s the question: do I blame white Americans for their racist attitude?

The answer is yes. As I see it, white Americans draw from their specific experiences to make broad, negative generalisations about the black community. That’s always wrong. Even if there are such things are “common community characteristics”, there are always going to be exceptions. Every culture has its iconoclasts. And to give credit where it’s due, the black media, at least, seems to be aware of the negative aspects of black culture, and there are explicit movements away from these attitudes, which guarantees that there will be significant numbers of black people who defy their stereotype. As far as I have seen, this doesn’t seem to matter to white Americans. They’re eager to tar the whole community with the same brush and be done with it.

And that leads to spectacular injustices like Samuel L. Jackson being denied the title of lead role despite having played it, simply because a white actor alongside him had a significant enough supporting role to get away with the title of ‘lead’. It’s not right.

That’s all.

PS: Yeah, yeah, it’s not politically correct to say the things I’m saying, yadda yadda yadda, but look, I can back up everything I’ve said with solid reasoning, so I’m standing by it without apology. If it’s true, somebody’s got to say it.

Watched both Salaam|Namaste and Parineeta. Wanted to do proper reviews, but, aiyah, no mood lah.

Inspired by the timeless romance(TM) of Ross and Rachel, Salaam|Namaste is actually funny in places – I’d expected just wannabe-funny (which is what it disintegrates to in the end). Loved that this movie had common sense, definitely a first for any Hindi fillum… though they just had to give the couple that unrealistically gorgeous beach house, didn’t they, on rent the two kids can supposedly afford? Ah well. Minor issues. It was entertaining enough.

Parineeta was sweet. I guess it is to the typical love-story Hindi movie what the recent remake of Devdas is to the other Devdases that have been made: it’s so much prettier. I liked the love scenes… very tastefully done. Though – did anyone else cringe at that dream-sequence love scene, where you truly see the contrast between the beautiful Vidya Balan and the haggard Sanjay Dutt? She must be half his age. Eurgh.

I’m going to watch Ramji Londonwaley tonight. I’m on a roll.

PS: What is up with the sudden proliferation of non-heroine females named Tanya in these new movies?

There’s something about having a birthday that makes you think about how you’re going to grow old. Even if the birthday is a 24th birthday.

So I was thinking: I take after my dad’s side of the family, physically speaking. My grandmother has arthritis (the osteo kind, rheumatoid is for sissies). My dad’s sisters all have osteoarthritis. AFAIK, it’s been in the family for generations. It’s a pretty safe bet I’m going to have it.

Point Number One: Arthritis sucks.

Point Number Two: The kind that’s in my family really sucks, because my aunts have all been slowly losing mobility since they turned 50. By the time they’re 75 they’re going to need a wheelchair all the time.

Point Number Three: You can bet they’re going to live to see 75, and more. Longevity also runs in the family, too – grandmother is 90-something. So cross “quick, merciful death” off my list of coping strategies.

My thinking is, people, I don’t want to have this disease. The internet, however, is woefully inadequate when it comes to how to prevent arthritis. They have diets and exercise regiments and everything planned out for heart disease, and I was hoping something along those lines for arthritis, too, seeing as how it affects 80% of the population over 50… but nada. Nothing.

I did have some site tell me I shouldn’t do exercises that put repeated, jerky pressure on my knees (like running), but I already knew that.

So anyone here know anything about the exercises to do and the foods to eat that’ll gently encourage my cartilege and inter-jointal fluid to hang around till I’m definitely dead?

You’ve caught me in a rare moment of appreciativeness. Y’all know how ranty and generally dissatisfied I am – especially on this blog – but circumstances have forced me to notice the fantastic things in the world. And here, in no particular order, are the things I’m thankful for:

• Seasons, because it’s just so dull without them.
• Geeks, who are the new ‘cool’, and should always have been.
• Canned food. Wrinkle your noses all you want, you pretentious snots – just wait till YOU have to write a novel in a month and see if you feel like chopping vegetables.
• Lindt & Sprüngli.
• The people in my head. I used to think thinking up characters and stories was the hardest thing to do, but they just keep popping into existence these days.
• Mr WtW, because things are so much more fun with him.
• “Aye Udi Udi Udi”. What, you don’t like the song?
• The innate reasonableness of you, my dear readers. You have no idea how much it would distress me if you guys were into Intelligent Design or tree-hugging or alien abduction conspiracies, to name but three wacko things. I appreciate this so much more now that I am actually, physically, surrounded by people who truly can’t tell what’s pseudoscience and what’s real.
• Harry Potter (doh)
• The way the universe works. In particular, that age and wisdom are not inversely related.

I know I’m forgetting something, damn.

Old template apparently wasn’t showing up right on anything other than IE and Netscape, so I changed to this one instead. Can people see it now?

Comments on this blog will be moderated from now on. It’s a better option than making y’all sign in all the time and type in strings of mad wobbly letters.
And obviously I pledge to put up all legitimate comments regardless of content, yadda yadda yadda. It’s just the spam that I’m weeding out.

I spent quite a few sublime hours of my Vegas trip last year looking at amazing art. I was stupid enough to not note down any of the artists’ names for future reference, but in my defence, I was too mesmerised (by the art as well as the casino interiors themselves) to think of anything that mundane.

Caesar’s Palace (Interior)

9 months on, I only remember one useful motif that can aid me in my search for those lost (to me) artists showcased in Vegas: the Umbrella Man. I remember we were in the Caesar’s Palace (one of the casinos) shopping complexes when we came across a gallery showcasing bright, vibrant, spectacular paintings by a guy whose name I did not note down.

Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops

A recurring motif in a number of these paintings was the Umbrella Man, a usually headless figure in an old-fashioned hat (hat, but no head, heh), holding an umbrella. In one painting, an Umbrella Man with a head turned away from us watches a woman in a black evening gown dance in the sunshine that comes after a rain, stepping in puddles onthe ground. The man’s umbrella is furled up into a stick, and clutched in one hand. This one was my favourite. Beautiful, beautiful work.

I remembered the Umbrella Man today for some reason, and looked for the artist on the internet. His name, it turns out, is Peter Max, and he is considered one of the iconic painters of America.

The Peter Max Gallery in Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops

One of the gallery people told me and Saurabh that the painter was a very, very famous American artist (making me feel quite stupid), and very sweetly took the time to show us a painting in a small display room, even though we obviously didn’t look like people who would shell out $50,000 for it. It was an Umbrella Man painting on acrylic that Saurabh particularly liked, one of the headless ones, this time ‘facing’ a sunset done in brilliant reds and oranges(not the one below). In the display room, the gallery guy turned the lights down, and then slowly up again… and the colours in the painting changed and grew and did amazing things that left our jaws hanging.

Just… wow.

One of the Umbrella Man paintings

Eiffel, or The Bloody Daylight Never Ends

The one thing Saurabh and I did agree on, architecturally speaking, was Le Tour Eiffel. (Yes, I’m going to be prissy and use French articles when naming French things.) The tower bursts spectacularly into view when you approach it from Trocadero Metro station. Definitely the high point of the trip.

We’d heard that Le Tour Eiffel by night was dazzling, and we thought: what better place to see it from than the top of Le Arc De Triomphe (which is itself magnificent)? So we huffed and puffed and climbed the interminable staircase up the damned arch, knowing we would have only a few minutes at the top because it was 10:45 pm already and the place closed at 11 pm. We reached the top. There were no lights. Because there was still daylight. Because the sun in Paris sets at 10:30 pm.

Our gala “le Tour Eiffel a la soir” (I just invented all that French) experience was consequently hampered.

But the motto of the Saurabh-Nandini team is never-say-die, and we went back the next night at midnight to Trocadero once more. Le Eiffel was truly dazzling. The more interesting experience that night, however, was a close encounter with a pickpocket, who tried to engage us in friendly conversation, unaware that I had been warned about characters like him by my trusty Lonely Planet guide to Paris, and unaware that I had had my eye on him for a couple of minutes by now and had seen him “bump into” somebody already (I only saw him bumping into someone, not actually picking their pocket… but he did look very suspicious). Not that I had anything to fear – I had no money whatsoever in my purse. I did stand very, very close to Saurabh, though, shielding his wallet pocket (PDA squeamishness be damned, we were in Paris).

The pickpocket went off to chat with someone else soon enough, and Saurabh and I just stood there, taking in le view magnifique, hands clamped securely on valuables.

(To Be Continued… dum dum dum daaaaam!)