Meeting a Tsar

I climbed up the stairs, scooting away from the edges so as to be away from the imposing, intimidating paintings hung on the wall. Just as I reached the top, I thought, how lovely to be able to dip my toes into this honey-golden fur rug. And nearly did so. A shriek froze my movement mid-air. I looked up to see a pair of jazz hands in my face, topped by an expression of abject horror.
“What are you doing?” she shrieked.
“I am trying to enjoy the benefits of the rug the lord of the cattle class has laid out in honour of his guests,” I replied.
“That is not a rug !” she shrieked again. “That is his cat!”
“Oh, really?” I looked down and spotted a tail-like extension.
“Yes!”
“But it's not moving.”
“Her lusciously groomed fur hides her breathing movements because the lord and master likes order in his house,” she snarled.
I edged away; between one cat and another, I'd take the one masquerading as a rug.
“Well, I just thought it was a rug,” I said defensively. “And she shouldn't be sleeping where people might think she's a rug you know.”
“She sleeps all the time, all over the house and if the lord and master thinks it's okay, then it's you who ahs to deal with it,” snapped the shrieker. “Now come in, you're already late for the interview.”
“Ah, I'll begin right away,” I said, going round the cat (I'd still insist it was a rug) and following her into a meeting room.
“You'll have to wait,” she ordered. “He's not done with the first reporter.”
“Whaaa---”
“He started late.”

“The reporter or the lord?”
“You can ask your questions inside.”

Sigh.

It's a WTF Afterlife

The title -- It's a Wonderful Afterlife -- promises you touching emotional moments and if not those, a lot of fun. It carries with it the reputation of Gurinder Chadha who, though tired and jaded in her last two outings, is still remembered as a bright spark of talent.
What you're stunned to discover is that you're saddled with a shockingly regressive tale of a woman burdened by her daughter's fat: how will she find a man -- any man -- if he cannot tell her breasts from her stomach? And the Indian's compulsion to get her daughter married supposedly justifies murders: Mrs. Sethi (Azmi) kills every person who rejects her daughter because of her weight even as she moans about it herself.
What is surprising is that Gurinder Chadha makes the daughter, Roopi, completely lacking in character. Is Mrs. Chadha going through a self-hate phase? Did her family give her grief while she was single and she's venting it all out on Roopi? Take a look at the protagonists of Mahi Way and Drop Dead Diva. They are fat and have their moments of self-doubt. But they still enjoy themselves. They are spunky, sassy, love to pamper themselves, their hair, their skin and by wearing good clothes. They walk tall. Roopi shuffles. She doesn't look like she even runs a comb through her hair or glances into the mirror when she walks out. Her job? She doesn't seem to derive any pleasure from it for she never talks about it. It is made very clear right from beginning to end that this character boils her self-esteem down to her size and shape and only when a man comes into her life does she proudly flaunt her cleavage.
And the man who does come into her life? Drop-dead gorgeous Sendhil Ramamurthy (of Heroes fame) who plays a cop set on Roopi's trail for the series of Asian murders taking place in the community. He gets to know Roopi and brings her her redemption: he falls in love when he is forced to look beyond her appearance and into the person that she is underneath all those thick layers. It's shocking that Chadha didn't get someone pasty white to play the part. She might as well have played up on the Indian obsession with gora skin instead of giving it merely one line.
Chadha obviously watched a lot of Ealing comedies while she was writing this script. These comedies came from the British Ealing Studio in the 40s and 50s and used horror as a laughter tool. So in Afterlife you have guts busting and spraying doctors with undigested Indian food, ghosts moving about with their heads skewered and mouths stuffed with chapatti dough, and -- horror of horrors -- a Carrie sequence at the end. Unfortunately, the lines and effects are light years away from being good enough to prop it all up. Chadha was also pregnant at the time she wrote the script so perhaps her hormones played havoc with her just as food plays havoc with the characters in the movie. Food is ever-present in all her movies but in Afterlife, it makes you want to throw up whatever you ate last.
There is a best friend, too. Sally Hawkins is Linda who becomes enamoured of India Exotica Inc and changes her name into Gitali. Is there any point to her? Mmmmmm, yes she gets doused in cherry punch and makes food fly at people towards the end of the movie.
Azmi looks the part -- the tired, distraught mother who only wants to die in peace but her fat daughter just won't allow her to. For once, she does not sound uncomfortable mouthing English lines, but alas, the role is shocking. Yes, we know that a bulk of the Indian community, here and abroad, are every bit as regressive as the ones shown in this movie, and a whole lot worse, but the maker's attitude that it's all good and A-ok is what made me squirm.
If Chadha wanted to reveal the farcical Indian obsession with getting hitched (once again) she ought to have leaped a decade back to her old, spunky, energetic self. Here, she looks like she simply wants to punish Roopi for being as fat as she is. That just makes me wonder how she coped with her size in her family.

Forgive. Never Forget.

They say erring is human, forgiving is divine. Apologies for starting with such a trite quotation but please receive it in all the scathing sarcasm it has been written with. Lately the newspapers have been going on and on in a similar vein; when they get down to specifics it has unfailingly been about women forgiving their philandering husbands. I really do not think Mrs. Woods has forgiven her husband yet. She is simply devising imaginative ways of making him pay. The public apology, for instance. And rehab. What could be more humiliating? I have a feeling she knows and so will we, in good time. Hillary Clinton. She stayed with her Joey-of-a-husband. Does that mean she has forgiven him? Nope, not if her public behaviour is anything to go by. More power to them, I say. It is simplistic to believe that just because there is no divorce, forgiveness has been had and peace reigns. Money, power and a certain sense of stability have helped women go beyond their husbands' sluttiness.
But never mind that, for I have an issue with the whole business of forgiving and forgetting itself. The art of forgiving is bestowed with so much wonder and awe and sheathed in so much moral righteousness that it makes me balk. Everyone seems to assume, at least everyone in popular media, that forgiving means you carry on with that same philandering spouse, backstabbing friend, abusive partner.
Kidding me? Since when was it necessary to do that? Perhaps I am incredibly cynical, but I can only understand that when circumstances involve money and power. I have seen women turn partially, if not fully, blind when there's a fancy lifestyle involved. I have rarely heard or read of men forgiving their cheating wives and even if they do, the articles are never written in the same reverential tone as when speaking of a woman forgiving her husband. Blah Blah, double standards, blah blah. But honestly, to continue in the same strain as before with the person who humiliated you, gave not a fig for your well-being, showed you such utter disrespect, means you either have a huge financial stake in the relationship or have obligations in the form of children. If you say it's your emotional stake in the relationship that keeps you from picking yourself up, do yourself a favour and recognise a low self-esteem when its staring you in the face. Can you stay happy and at peace with a cheating spouse, a partner who denies you to the world or a back-stabbing friend?
Articles written on forgiving leads me to believe that its basic nature is misunderstood by most. You never forgive for the other person; you forgive only for yourself. You forgive to let out poisonous hatred, to purge yourself of self-pity, to be able to move on and not carry the baggage into a new bond you hope to build with another spouse/partner/friend. You forgive for yourself. It is possible, it is remarkable when achieved, and that's the time when you can even be friends with the person who betrayed you. Can you forget? Impossible isn't it? The betrayal might not be on your mind 24/7, but can you wipe its very last vestiges from your memory? Can you create a blank pocket there? Not in the least. I have made long strides in the path to forgiveness and with my parents, I have been beautifully successful. Of course, they have also made up for various traumas inflicted upon me, intentionally and unintentionally, in many ways, from direct apologies to unflinching support for whatever dream I have wished to pursue. Today, we love each other better than we used to, simply because we have given each other space in which we could grow to have an adult understanding of each others' personalities. In other words, I've grown out of viewing my parents as just my parents and my parents have grown out of seeing me as an extension of them. Most significantly, this happened because we have lived apart for over seven years. I mean that in all sincerity without a trace of sarcasm, or even irony.
So can that necessary space grow if you are carrying on with that same person who caused you so much grief and humiliation? I am a total believer in forgiving, but not in forgetting. In my experience, whenever I have forgotten, I have been hurt all over again. Words are not to be believed, action is to be experienced. I have reached the conclusion, the old-fashioned hard way, that no good ever comes from staying with someone who vows “you are my world” but still needs a fix elsewhere. No good every comes from staying with someone whom you have bared your soul to but tramps all over your self-esteem in the slyest ways possible just to keep you under his/her thumb. No good ever comes from being treated like a complete nobody in front of people by someone who claims “you are everything to me” and “who are they to know anything about our special bond”.
Do yourself a favour and ask them to Fuck themselves. Learn to recognise their sly, insidious attempts at emotionally blackmailing you and doing their darndest to keep you exactly where you are – grovelling, pleading for better things to come, being available to them whenever it suits them, and pointing out the trifles they give you as signs that they do indeed love you. They have sly ways of keeping your self-esteem where it is – at a low point – so that you are ever-dependent on them.
Must you forgive? Of course. In order to move on and find something better, more wholesome and more equal. As for forgetting, memories can be mitigated, certainly. But the asshole who doesn't even acknowledge that he/she has done you a wrong and that making amends is necessary … that is one memory I would never mitigate. I would hold that person up as a lesson to myself.

Rose-Tinted Glasses

The funny thing about rose-tinted glasses is that we love them. We love to see the world from our naive perspectives. Whatever makes us happy, whatever makes us smile, laugh, feel safe, feel loved.
Once we settle in, we love staying put. If something unpalatable pops up, we close our eyes to it, bury it. When we cannot, we make excuses and tell ourselves it's there for a good reason. Once in a while the thing that pops up topples us over from our ivory towers and we look up, dazed, confused, but determined to climb back up. We do it. Then again. Then a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time, an nth time.
Moving on is not something we all like to do, but there comes a time when there's no better option. All the different ways of staying out and still being happy are tried out, but once those rose-tinted glasses come off, there's no putting them back on. Sometimes rose-tinted glasses are all we have, and that, my friend, is the time they must come off. Stomp them to the ground, crush them, grind them up and fling their splinters to the fickle wind. And turn your back lest they fly back.

Let them know it's the last time they blinded you.

to know me

To know me is a long time.
I am both virulent and kind.
Everyone is different at different times.
But knowing what I'm about to get, or dish out
Is trying.
I have tried long and hard to understand myself.
To know me better, to love me better.
To be kind to myself, yet knowing when and how to draw the lines.
I have won kind friends
And some who are with me no matter what.
I can unleash myself on them, with all my quivering emotions
Destroy them.
Yet they still have the strength to stand up after the storm
And embrace me all over again.
It is with such friends I have learned to grow.
And I thank them.

The Hurt Locker

Is it a good thing that The Hurt Locker is totally devoid of a female gaze? My gay male friend says, Yes, because that means you don't necessarily need a man to make a man's film. What kind of a female gaze do you want in a totally guy movie anyway?
Let's see. Aparna Sen had pointed out to a disbelieving me the femininity in Farah Khan's movies. Until then I had seen Farah's movies as unabashedly towing the '70s male-oriented style of movie-making, done so that she could laugh her way to the bank. Hats off to her, but Aparna pointed out how Farah makes fun of the He Man. The man tripping over his own muscles, the helpless bowing down to the woman of his dreams, etc (of course, she admitted she doesn't like Farah's second movie) -- it's subtle, but it's there. The feminine humour is a USP of Farah's films, one that I had thoroughly enjoyed but failed to see in all its subtlety. The Hurt Locker has none of that. In fact, not only is it a movie made out-and-out only for the boys, it has a scathing disregard for 'the others'.
The only protagonists here are American boys. Boys who love to play with bombs, who relish violence, who can't get enough of it and get mind-numbingly bored when at home on furlough. Sure, the danger faced by the American bomb squad is real. But why are the bombs there in the first place? Who's planting them? What is the bigger gameplan here? Kathryn and her fellow Americans don't care. Her protagonist William Chase is a hard-boiled, flippant, brash American soldier much like ex-husband James Cameron's protagonist played by Sam Worthington. His only moment of softness comes in the shape of an Iraqi boy who sells porn and plays soccer, the only Iraqi character who scratches beyond the mute 1D portrayal that dots Bigelow's landscape. The film is unashamedly pro-American to the point that the non-Americans here are less than even stereotypes. The Iraqis are mute unblinking faces at windows, sinister shadows merging into walls or sightless figures waving silently. Considering that the film picked up six Oscars, this criminal blanking out of 'the others' meets with approval across board. Besides the core of this film that turns me against it, the excessive outflow of testosterone put me off.
The Hurt Locker might as well have been made by a man, and I'm far from assured that that's a good thing.

I sit in a cab, leaning against the door/window to get the full blast of the wind in my face on a typically hot, sultry day. Red light. Stop. A familiar bike sidles alongside me and moves up slightly ahead. An exchange of smirks. A nod of the head. The accelerator is pressed. The cab creaks forward just the right amount. The spotlight came on, blinding me. I couldn’t see my beholder’s face. I couldn’t feel my clothes. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear anything save the turbulent liquid nearing a boil, I couldn’t move. Light changed. The smirk stayed. The liquid was compressed down to the pit of my being, where it stays, simmering, sputtering, but not boiling over. Never boiling over.