IPL

so, the IPL auction was quite a surprise for everyone, huh? for once we wielded the power & the whole circus has been fun. who'd have imagined a day when newbie ishant sharma would command 9,50,000 while mcgrath would have to wait till the end of the bidding & only recover his base price. never before have i witnessed a more flagrant disregard for merit & its sacrifice in the interests of commercial gain. not that i'm complaining. merely bemused. i've heard enough number of people express every conceivable emotion one witnesses in the daily balaji serials. it's especially bugging that we are so wont to drag 'patriotism' into every debate that our society is faced with. i mean, there has to be a greater yardstick than that, considering the fact that india ranks alarmingly high on the corruption index, the only thought that assails & obsesses us when we travel to the u.k, u.s is the fastest way to gain citizenship& most of us spend our lifetime plotting ways to shirk the tax burden. hell, we even make it sound as if we're doing a favor by paying them!

however, given the high premium that is attached to patriotism here, i'm so glad that players like dada, sachin & dravid have been granted 'iconic' status whereby they are exempted from bidding & can only play for their home states/teams. i shudder to imagine cheering for the kolkata team led by dravid, playing against the chennai tigers led under the aegis of our very own maharaj. actually, its a disconcerting choice & i'm still not sure what i'd do.

Notes on Walk The Line

just back from watching the oscar nominated 'walk the line', a movie both a & i enjoyed immensely. me, more so for the fact that though it traces johnny cash's career as one of the greatest country singers of all time, it's at heart the unblemished story of a man's love for a woman that governed more than three fourths of his life - something that you'd be hard put to find in the dizzying lives of celebrities. i think thats the reason 'walk the line' appealed to me more than 'ray'. ok, so i'm a sucker for romance, but trust me, these guys are worth it.

joaquin phoenix is most definitely my current hollywood crush. there's something about those eyes, the intense while not exactly besotted look he has, that's sure to set the mushometer rocketing. most of the time i sat looking at him & there was this very palpable sense of a man who is dying of thirst & will give up anything for a glass of water. no wonder, he is able to give up his cursed addiction because of his greater addiction & need for singer june carter (reese witherspoon). in his universe, it is not the house that matters, the adulation or even the security that fame guarantees, if june is not a part of his life. he disregards embarrassment, rejection & even family to gain june's presence in his life, if only as a friend. cliched though it may sound, he is indeed a rudderless boat without her.

what is beautiful is the way others around him gradually come to understand & even empathise with his need for her. there's this oddly touching moment where johnny & his band are travelling at night in a trailer on their way from one concert to another & he suddenly wakes up disoriented & looks around & without a word his accompanist says, "she's in the back." june's parents understand this too & prompt her to be his friend when it seems he has nothing more to lose - he is penny less, helpless from addiction, estranged from his wife & daughters & unable to stand his fathers unrelenting & remorseless criticism.

i couldn't help thinking of how aamir khan would play the role as i was watching phoenix portray the crazy genius of cash, complete with slight head rolls & barely perceptible twitches when the drugs hit him or when he arrives at june's door walking a great distance from nashville after he has lost his car to mortgage. there is not an iota of exaggeration in his walk, no slurring & no manic eye movement to make us connect to his losing grip on sanity. in fact, cash is poignant & u want june to accept him & give him a chance because phoenix is so restrained, so bloody noble. yeah, despite the ignominy of sneaking pills or falling on his face.

its been ages since i've been so completely awed by a love story & 'walk the line' effortlessly reinforces the idea of soul mates, that detestable word reminiscent of our unfulfilled adolescent dreams of a grand romance. as cash's eager eye devours june's face as they stand singing on stage after the 1st time he tries unsuccessfully to kiss her, you do believe that this aint about the making love mostly. this man would be contended to just make music with her. it's as if he knew from the first moment he set eyes on her (he's been listening to her songs much before) that if he couldn't have her, he'd have to go through life without anything or anybody really touching him. for all his big talk to her of being afraid of being in his shadow when he proposes to her for the umpteenth time & is rejected, he knows that the bigger star is not the braver. he loses all if he loses her & it is ultimately june's unflinching love & support that weans him away from drugs. may be a lot of this is pure drama & cash never really recovered from his addiction. point is, it doesn't matter. what does matter is that cash & carter did marry, loved & sang together for 35 years & he died within four months of her death. if that isn't something.... and yes, when he finally got tired of her rejections, he did propose to her during a concert, in front of a thousand fans.

Connecting with The Self

finished reading jose saramago's 'all the names' & loved its simple language, devoid of the heavy duty imagery or phrases that abound in the novels of rushdie or amitava ghosh. there is also none of the intensity of an ishiguro, none of the quiet menace of an ian mcewan, all of whom happen to be my favs. apart from exploring the state of loneliness & man's pet fantasy of finding the perfect soul mate, not simply a romantic or sexual counterpart, but more as someone who will quench the soul's thirst for endless communication & be a source of revelation about ourselves, it also shows how such endeavor makes heroes out of ordinary men; that there are no ordinary men really. it is circumstances that drive us to actions that label us with such tags as mundane, coward, brave, or impulsive. it is simply the drive that pushes us to certain modes of behavior as every individual is intrinsically 'capable' of every kind of behavior. the senor jose we meet at the novels onset is far from the man who eventually forges documents & breaks into school buildings in the dead of the night. i also think it's loneliness & the individual's most urgent & primitive need to establish connection with those of his kind, to seek & find solace in company, that explains the success of internet chats, messengers, blogs & other forms of anonymous communication. what all of them have in common is the need to step out from our private world & seek fulfilment from someone/people whom we have never met, yet have been looking for all our lives.

like senor jose, the hero of saramago's novel, only such search brings us close to our deepest impulses & reveals all that could have escaped us. as kincaid tells francesca in 'the bridges of madison county', " we could have easily passed by each other without having ever met & it is this thought that frightens me so."

Notes on Blood Diamond

i usually watch a film a good couple of months after the initial hype surrounding it has abated & even when i do, i almost never google it or read reviews cineastes or critics have posted before i've had a chance to watch & decide for myself. 2 of the biggest surprises in recent times were 'munich' & 'blood diamond' - the former because it received many favourable reviews & yet failed to move me at all & the latter coz it has been called everything from 'awkward', 'lukewarm', 'uninvolving' to a 'a public-service announcement masquerading as an adventure story'. for me it' neither.

agreed that the plot relies heavily on the use of typical cliches like the simple native, uncorrupted by the lure of lucre, the greedy white man & the sexy journalist who provides the much needed romantic relief as also the voice of idealism & reason. yet despite these cliches the film works for me. foremost for the brilliant acting by all 3 main actors.

through his efforts to portray the role of solomon vindy, a fisherman from sierra leone who is just another casualty in the civil war that tears the country apart as the world media obsesses whether monica lewdinsky indeed lit the fire in the white house' inner chambers, Djimon Hounsou brings to his performance that rare balance that manages to distinguish the dumb from the uncomplicated, & reflects superbly the process of personal growth that his character undergoes, without losing the intrinsic qualities that endeared him to us. the solomon who seems to exert no choice over his circumstances & is little more than a puppet in the hands of danny archer (leonardo di caprio) realises towards the end that he also holds some cards in his hands & can make archer bend to his will - if only briefly. however, this knowledge does not transform him into a scheming opportunist.

di caprio has been one of my fav actors since i saw 'whats eating gilbert grapes' & his spate of recent performances (aviator, departed) have only strengthed my belief that i possess good taste in men. his is an obsessive thirst that drives archer to seek the big diamond that solomon has buried in a war-torn enemy territory. though he claims the diamond is his passport out of the 'bloody continent', we know better. this is not so much about what the diamond can 'buy ' than about what obtaining it 'signifies' - the ultimate conqueror's dream to lay hands on unsullied, virgin spoils. even when he has revealed parts of his nice guy demeanor to us via his interactions with the journalist maddy bowen (jennifer connelly looking much better & healthier than god ever intended), he insists in his characteristic snarl that the diamond remain with him as solomon, dia (solomon's rescued son) & he trek their way across difficult territory to meet the aircraft that will transport them to safety. the look on his face as he finally unfolds the rag that holds the diamond & beholds it could be that of a serial killer who confronts his helpless victim - one of undiluted lust, power & ownership.

jennifer connelly does the best she can of a role that really doesn't have much to it. she exists more as a point of reference for archer, a person to whom he recounts the horrible facts of his early years, so that we gain some understanding of his mercenary heart. somehow, the love scenes, if we can call them that, between archer & maddy remind me of the ones between rahul bose & konkona in mr & mrs iyer. these two are just not meant to be & yet you want them to so badly. they have both met too late & yet the very fact of their meeting almost demands that it be justified by a larger, more favourable fall out.

though we have all read about terrorist camps recruiting children & arming them with guns, the scenes depicting the RUFs ruthless training of these young vulnerable village boys whom it has abducted, is profoundly moving. it is chilling to see how the boys are first indoctrinated into a convenient code of 'hate the white man', 'hate the government', 'hate ur parents for they have failed u', their minds further paralysed by alcohol & cocaine & then made to fire at human targets while they are blindfolded. for the young impressionable mind there is no going back when he sees what he has done after the blindfold is removed. similarly, for the thousands of kids like dia vindy there is no going back to a normal family life of mutual love & shared responsibilities even after he has been rescued from the terrorist camp by his father.

for me such scenes speak no less urgently, no less profoundly than those in 'hotel rwanda'.

What's Diwali

this seems to be the right time to write this, after all if theres one festival that means as much to us as christmas does for the west, & also arouses similar feelings of goodwill, generosity & good cheer, it is diwali. even without domestic help & the general do-everthing-urself attitude that one has to accept here, most of my friends prepared elaborate diwali snacks & sweets, cleaned & vacuumed their homes with a passion that is sure to evoke the blessings of the goddess laxmi, even if their prayers dont. no, i'm not being sarcastic. there is smthing admirable abt these women who smilingly indulge every whim & fancy their families come up with.

p, one of the women i'm talking abt, has been spending close to 5 hrs everyday in the kitchen, making stuff like laddoos, gujia, chiwada & 4-5 other items i've always relished without even bothering to know the name. she is tired beyond words but beams with a strange glow in the evenings. according to her, her hubby mustn't regret the fact that he's away frm india & miss his mom, who acc. to p is a champion when it comes to whipping up dishes in a flash. another friend's daughter requested her mom to make samosas and the poor gal (mom, not kid) spent almost a day poring over recipe books & websites to find the perfect recipe & finally made the samosas. needless to say, they were yummmmy... whenever we meet these days, conversations abound abt how tired they all are, how they're not gonna cook for the next 3 days, how all that frying & taloing induces waves of nausea, & yet there is no bitterness, no real chagrin at being at the receiving end of such extravagant demands. in fact, all i can detect is immense joy, pride & satisfaction. and yes, strangely enuf, a latent sense of competing & outdoing each other & their m-i-l's. if this isn't limitless generosity - to share oneself, ones resources & time & privacy, then i dont know what is. for sm1 who guards her private self & her time almost as ferociously as cerberus, this is worthy of emulating & learning from.

speaking of generosity brings me to another person without whom this post wud be incomplete. for all the essays & debates i've been privy to, forgiveness is a virtue i haven't fully grasped. in fact, with the exception of our mom, the rest of us r alike. retaliation, a smouldering resolve to get even at a more opportune moment, & vindictiveness r familiar emotions; to let go, forgive & move on, r distant cousins. therefore it is all the more difficult to be married to a person like A who doesn't take insults too seriously, is completely contained & doesn't harbour any desire to climb up in others' estimation & actually needs to be REMINDED when so-&-so behaved abominably with us or abused our hospitality or stole our money or took us for granted ......... this has often been grounds for serious friction in the relationship where i've mistaken his attitude for weakness or an inherent effort to avoid ugly situations & confrontations coz he's afraid. now i know nothing cud b farther from the truth.

M, a colleague of A's who's been a pain in the butt & given hazaar grief to A in office, has inevitably run into trouble with other superiors in the comp too & has been politely asked to clear his desk. his demeanor & attitude have been such that even the corridors of the client office r abuzz with rumors of his tantrums & notorious behavior. he called A yday to ask him for recommendations which he'll require nowthat hes job hunting. A heard him out patiently & agreed to oblige, i mean, without any fuss, no attitude shoving down the throat, no gloating or attempts to extend the moment to make M squirm. call me uncharitable or mean or whatever, i know i wud have. two other ppl i'm v.close to have also been in similar situations & i know they wud have also behaved like me. the funny part is, A knows that in an honest internal appraisal, he wudnt rate M very highly. his work ethics suck & he's a poor performer. but since he's very nearly without a job, A didnt even rethink his decision to endorse a favourable letter of recommendation. i'm not going to go into the professionalism or lack thereof in what he's doing. for me, it takes tremendous reserves of love & contentment to be without malice & vindictiveness. again smthing to admire & maybe emulate.

Rand Shrugged

Post some invigorating discussion about ayn rand’s work & my viewing of the brilliant ‘a man for all seasons’, I am compelled to shrug this strange ennui that seems to have taken over my life recently. Am gonna divide this into two posts – one about rand’s work & why I don’t derive much comfort from it (to put it mildly) & the other about how the most noble of men can also be accused of acting out of absolutely selfish needs.

A few days ago a couple of us had gathered together & one thing led to another & we sat there debating the merits & demerits of ayn rand’s work & philosophy; how much should rand be taken at face value, if at all; how her cult following is so immense that political writers & analysts frm ‘the independent’ credit the triumph of unabashed materialism, celebration of utter selfishness & moral ambiguity in America as a fall out of an all-embracive attitude towards rand & her philosophy of objectivism. Unlike most others I have always been uneasy with rand’s glorification of ‘objectivism’. Part of it I attribute to childhood conditioning when one was always taught that the act of serving others while delegating ones own interests at the very back was the ideal to be striven for; a code to be rigorously adhered too. To this day, ma refuses to entertain any discussion about the trouble I may be encountering from demanding in-laws or ever-cribbing relatives. Her mantra is simple - serve them better & overlook their criticism. Anyway, that’s all about what I was told & still am whenever I start to question my selfhood, or wonder if there is anything I may do that I want to v.badly, knowing it will leave many others’ deeply hurt or at least, dissatisfied.

Even after I’d shaken off this belief in complete & abject selflessness & knew that personal freedom came before all else, rand still evoked a disquieting sense of things left unsaid, of truths only half revealed. If men & women indeed started behaving as she dictates, there is an ugliness that would creep into this world that no amount of economic prosperity, individual blossoming or rational thought could rid.

In my lifetime I have met only two people who cud withstand the peculiar appeal of rand’s writing & over the years, I have lost several arguments & friends in the course of discussing her philosophy. For me it’s quite simple, no person who has read & fully comprehended ‘objectivism’ can seriously embrace it, let alone condone it, for it’s nihilistic, it teaches us to ‘take’ when the world around us cannot function if we don’t ‘give’. I’ve read ‘fountainhead’ & ‘atlas shrugged’ twice & was surprised to find myself even greatly dissatisfied the second time. What do u make of a writer who pronounces with self righteousness, “Don't consider our interests or our desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself/ What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it.” Though she claims that she outgrew Nietzsche’s influence, her assertions of superiority & the right of the individual to achieve his way through any means, sounds eerily like the older philosopher. What is sad, however, is that there is so much about rand’s thought that came so close to perfection, that celebrated individual freedom & rational self-interest. But it is as if she must veer towards an extreme & in doing so she forsakes positive liberty. Her dictum which she openly declared in her saloon readings, “What is good for me is right”, sounds like the pathetic cry of a sociopath, one who cares only for the preservation & interests of the self, no matter what it costs others. I am sure george bush feels that way too!

Devotees of her writings would do well to remember that rand herself hailed from a wealthy Russian family, who was driven out by the Bolshevik revolution, a mass rising. Small wonder then that she’d nurture a lifelong abhorrence for the will & might of the masses in determining economic principles or parity. (Would mary antoniette ever empathise with the starving & the homeless?) What is sad is that nowhere in rand’s work do we see the kind of celebration of capitalism mixed with altruism that one witnesses in adam smith’s ‘wealth of nations’. Nowhere is there a positive denunciation of collective will & herd instinct that governs the work of Ionesco. If the self is indeed higher than all else, how do we distinguish the hierarchy of needs of individual souls clamoring for fulfillment? Is it correct to pronounce that the stronger should always prevail & why isn’t a similar road to salvation outlined for the weak, the poor, the ordinary? In short, how pertinent is a philosophy that unabashedly claims that it is to do with the leaders, the few who possess the will & strength to shrug all cares & concerns save their own & follow the path of complete self fulfillment?

Notes on My Own Private Idaho

Watched ‘my own private idaho’ today. Like other films like fight club, trainspotting, mulhollands drive, apocalypse now, this film too has a cult following & I’d wanted to watch it since ages. My decision to order it frm netflix was clinched the moment I saw its name on the criterion collection list.

Mopi is dark, disturbing, funny, poignant, evocative and achingly tender. Two things make this movie stand out – the fact that it succeeds in creating a mood of dreamlike utter helplessness; evokes tenderness without spiraling towards any overt sentimentality. Second, is the brilliant depiction of the theme of loneliness that resonates throughout the film without the slightest effort. And therein lies its universal appeal methinks. there r parts of it all of us will identify with despite the absol bizarre & alien way of life & chars depicted here. Btw, did I say 2 things? Was wrong. Add river phoenix whose mike is the protagonist of the film and who’s brazenly loose, clumsy, crazy behavior seems neither odd nor forced as he essays the role of a young gay male hustler, suffering frm narcolepsy that leaves him often at the mercy of absol strangers, who is always very, very hungry for love. In mike’s world nothing is permanent, so nothing is real. He is searching for his mother yet we don’t know whether his memories of her are real or imaginary. Narcolepsy makes him fall asleep at some of the most interesting & imp moments of his life but it doesn’t seem to bother him. After all, for mike, the only thing that matters is finding a home at the end of the road to Idaho where we see him at the beginning & end of the film. Hell, he isn’t even bothered when his best friend scott (Keanu reeves), whom he also happens to b in love with, abandons him in the middle of italy & takes off with a girl & later completely turns his back on him.

So accustomed is mike to the idea of being abandoned, never finding reciprocation, that one senses a strange spirituality abt him. In the true manner of the Buddha, mike actually expects nothing & is thus never disappointed. There is no anger, no resentment, only the gentle appeal of a meandering soul who is journeying forever on a long road and looks for a home, a place to stop. Whether he will ever find this is anybody’s guess. Though we see him being helped & carried away by a stranger in his car away frm the road to Idaho at the end of the film, we don’t know that he wont return to the same spot again. That’s what he’s been doing & like he says, “I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world.”

The strange thing is, mopi is strangely therapeutic. After the events of the past few days & esp in the light of what I’ve been feeling, it worked like a balm. Its ok to feel lonely, be lonely, it’s a universal condition, no escaping frm it. And like mike, I still don’t know whats at the end of the road. It needn’t lead to anger. Theres probably a comic side to everything that we take so seriously in life and get wrked up abt.