Chitrangada is Coming Back !

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I put the same photo again, because I find it stunning. Take a look at this article from Tehelka which gives a good account of her history and the effect she had on people, including me. The article also talks about her upcoming movies and her own reasons for leaving when she did.

Finally, something positive happens to Bollywood !

Thats Chitrangada Singh - for those of you unfortunate enough never to have seen her before. Her first movie was the superbly made "Hazaaron Khwaahishein Aisi" (2003) - a movie that lingers in the mind long long after its over. It is set in the 1970's in Calcutta and traces the stories of 3 characters who - in all their flawed tragedy - symbolize the spirit of those times. But the movie goes further than that, it makes the viewer ask himself fundamental questions about his own ideas of morality and idealism. It left me slightly disturbed and slightly sad. I watched it more than a year ago, and it still comes back to me sometimes, undiminished in its power, pain and the aftertaste of melancholy. And the most stunning performace in the movie belongs undoubtedly to Chitrangada Singh. 'The Lamp to the other characters Moths' as someone put it. She carries herself superbly, and is polished, understated, intelligent, sensual and flawed in her choice of men (in my opinion anyway :D ) Shiney Ahuja puts in a splendid performance in what is his debut movie as well, and his character provides the conscience for the movie, an upwardly mobile, ambitious and crude, but faithful and passionate counterpoint to the self righteous, misplaced and ultimately fickle idealism of the well heeled and well off. A movie well worth the time, surely one of the most remarkable movies ever made in Hindi.

Chitrangada acted in only one other movie called "Kal - Tomorrow and Yesterday" (2005) which was a well made thriller aimed at the so called multiplex audience. And then she got married to "ace golfer" Jyoti Randhawa and has never acted in a movie since. Mr. Randhawa had better be shaking up the golfing world in a big way soon, because he has taken away the lady who is Indian Cinema's best young actress by a long long way. Had she continued (and she still can come back) she could have been to our generation what Smita Patil was to the last. A beacon of intelligence and beauty in a world populated increasingly with 'item girls'.

She will be missed !

A brilliant series from the BBC

http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=135
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=136
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=137

These are links to episodes 1, 2, 3 respectively of a BBC documentary series called "The Power of Nightmares : Rise of the politics of fear". Wide ranging in scope and with some absolutely brilliant footage as well as superb and startling journalism, it surprises the viewer again and again with its calm maturity. It builds up slowly, and the three episodes really go together very closely, and it ends on an absolutely brilliant note. Made with passion and commitment, I take it to be the revenge of the BBC for the tamasha that started with Andrew Gilligan's report on a "sexed up dossier", reached its lowest, most disgraceful point with Dr. Kelly's "suicide", and ended with the recriminations that followed Lord Hutton's infamous whitewash.

Before you see another news program, watch this.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid

I finished the book in one sitting. The narrative is fast and often subtle, but overall, the book is slightly disappointing. The characters are not as consistent and well fleshed out as they could have been and the author does not tell us anything new about ourselves. The plot and the setting too are fairly ordinary, and only interesting because of the prevailing political and cultural climate in the world. The book is raised above the common by its form (which is flicked directly from Albert Camus' brilliant and disturbing novel The Fall) and the portrayal of how Pakistanis view themselves. The viewpoint is quite unabashedly Pakistani (which is one of its assets) and the author's longing for his homeland can be clearly discerned in the various slightly boastful references and idealizations that are bound to creep into the writing of a proud man living in a society that does not give his roots their due.

The entire book is a monologue, one side of a conversation between an American and a Pakistani at a roadside restaurant in old Lahore. The Pakistani man is telling the American his story and most of the novel is a flashback, with occasional charming descriptions of the market around and the passage of time and one particularly gruesome description of the food that they order. The American's responses are to be inferred from what the Pakistani man is saying - exactly the form Camus used in The Fall.

The story too borrows form The Fall insofar as it describes how an outwardly successful and happy man is drawn by his mental daemons to give up the life he has built and choose a completely different existence. The main character, Changez, is a young, Princeton educated star employee of a elite valuation firm and the novel is the story of how, post 9/11 and all that quickly followed it, it became impossible to separate the personal from the political and public. Hamid's protagonist and his reasons are nowhere as subtle as Camus', and thus are easier to appreciate. The author strikes a chord when he describes family life in Lahore, and Indians will easily understand how the protagonist feels when his country is slighted by a successful New Yorker. In his concern for his people when war with India looms after the attack on the Indian parliament, for the first time, I saw how 'they' see us - bigger and always threatening to swamp them and their identity. The response - a mixture of bravado and anxiousness - rang true. The picture the author builds through small descriptions tinged with regret of his once wealthy family slipping slowly but surely into relative poverty in the new economy will resonate, and somehow reminded me of Agatha Christie's post war novels with their descriptions of old families in rambling houses which have seen happier days and are now difficult to keep up.

However, the author never really displays the depth that would have given the reader an insight into the events shaping his country and the mind of his protagonist. He does not build a compelling enough case at the intellectual level though perhaps at a purely emotional level one can understand why his protagonist does what he does. The book is a tightly constructed saga of the symptoms of a complicated global malaise and their effect on one man's life. It owes a lot to the suspense the author builds surrounding the two men in the restaurant and how the tension in the atmosphere increases as the story nears its conclusion, night falls, the market empties and the the two are quite alone - almost.

I think the author wanted the two threads - the one in the present in lahore - and the one in the past to meet at a point with interesting results. Both narratives are quite interesting in themselves, but they dont come together compellingly enough. All in all, the book promises a lot but does not quite reach the heights it could have, it does not cut deep enough.

Certainly worth a read.

The beach.

Its a lovely 'ol place is our campus beach, about two kilometers of white sand, fringed with a large variety of palms and other trees, with some very charming approach roads and our very own lighthouse on a hillock with a temple.

The vast sea with its slow but intense moods, its constant overbearing rhythm, the sky sometimes tinged with the most delicate, tender and wispy pink and othertimes heavy and angry with dark clouds of a vulgar and overly demonstrative purple, the superb contrast between the two temperaments, one inertial, more circumspect and deliberate, mostly harmless but with the potential of immense destruction, always giving generously and sometimes taking with limitless fury but ever respected and even loved, While the other more fickle, breathtakingly beautiful on occasion and impossibly fragile, and then suddenly and apparently without reason, ominous and menacing, cajoling her more phlegmatic but more effective mate to do her bidding, for her airs are impotent without him. Like a base beauty manipulating a just and powerful prince to her own petty ends. The winds blow madly and scream their mindless hate in our ears, but the waves rise with a slow roar and the firm and heavy restraint of the vast wise ocean behind them and almost always, stay their hand. That is the way of the strong.

I have always wondered why this splendid drama played out constantly before me did not free my mind and raise my spirit beyond the twilit shadows that plague it. I always thought, after watching many a magnificent sunset, "I must come here in the morning". I've done that now, and its very depressing. The sea is calm. Not a breath of air. A strange dead light illuminates the world. There is none of the freshness and hope that one associates with mornings. This vast body of water does not have it in itself to illuminate, raise or edify. It cannot inspire bold strokes or infuse strength. It cannot awaken a man to freedom or peace. It has about it an aura of decadence, temptation and painful beauty. Its domain is the charm, allure and turbulence of starry skies and stolen kisses, of desperate thoughts and lonely walks, of clenched fists and limp heads, of crumbling lives and trembling lips, of last stands and bloody massacres, of glory tainted with darkness, of joy twisted by pain, of lonelyness trying to escape itself, of books snapping shut, friends leaving and curtains falling to the absolute silence of an empty house.

Then, yesterday while reading Kiran Nagarkar's "Seven 6s are 43", I stumbled upon the answer.

"The sun does not rise in this sea you know, it only sets here."

Sachin's 35th.

I walked into the TV room of a nearly deserted hostel when he was on 77 and settled down on the floor there in the hope of watching him create history, regain his lost form and most important of all, become once again a beacon of hope to millions, a source of pride and a good enough reason to be a complete, absolute and unhesitating fan.

His appeal lies in the fact that he has become what he has, not due to any special circumstances or because he has been arbitrarily gifted by god with inhuman talent, though of course he is extremely talented, his success and his wizardy and his persona on and off the field - one gets the feeling - owes more to his doing the simple things right, listening to his parents and practicing everyday than to reasons exotic and mysterious. There is that about him which reminds us of the uncomplicated good things that we were told about as children and which we all too often forget or ignore as adults, especially young adults. He always chases the ball to the boundary, never contests the umpire's decision, never says anything untoward, never throws tantrums, always gives it everything and does not crib and make excuses about failure.

He is that incredibly rare thing - a man whose greatness owes itself to values and ideals purely middle class. The Great Indian Middle Class. The back bone of the nation, its work horse. Everyone who becomes successful and famous seems to have to change his/her way of life, and 'break the shackles' of the 'common man's' way of thinking. People talk so often about 'thinking outside the box' and what not. Here is a man who did not see the basic values of truth, hardwork and simplicity as 'limitations', who did not see the need to change anything about the 'naive' ideals and aspirations of the educated common man. A man who is the very embodiment of all that is straightforward, decent and solid and that is so often mocked at by others who have supposedly 'made it'.

Thats why I am a fan of his. He is proof that all I have been brought up to believe actually works. One does not have to modify, stoop, distort and defile to succeed, even in this world.

What a man !

On Culture and Liberalism. Part 1

This is a world in which geographical distances are fast being reduced and a world which is becoming 'smaller' in a very real way. It is remarkable that this process has not - in general - made different cultures and races more acceptable to more people. On the contrary, it has resulted in more people being insecure about their own identities because of the unexpected proximity to a large number of others. Exposure has resulted in increased paranoia rather than increased open mindedness and acceptance. This is a strange, unfortunate and unexpected phenomenon the causes of which I will try to explore in this article.

The crux of the matter lies in the subtle but powerful distortion that has crept into the modern left liberal definition of the term 'open minded' . It has come to mean not just that one accepts and appreciates other cultures and civilizations but also that one must suppress one's own culture and civilization in order that one might not inadvertently 'offend' others or make them uncomfortable. Once one has accepted this, it is not a very long distance to "since its difficult for everyone to be comfortable with everyone else's cultural identities, everyone must suppress their own identities so that everyone is comfortable."

It sounds perfectly preposterous when stated that way, but it is what the current definitions of 'equality under law', 'open ness' and terms like 'the global village' etc imply . It is only to be expected, under such circumstances that there will be an opposite reaction from conservative religion with sees in these ideas a possible erosion of its power and field of influence. The insecurity naturally felt by human beings towards anything new is definitely heightened and accentuated by this quite senseless idea that being open minded implies being able and willing to hide one's identity. The idea, as one can immediately perceive, is quite absurd. If one enforces - through deciding what is 'politically correct' and what is not - a degree of uniformity among the public, that does not make them more open minded, it merely removes the need to be open minded.

These ideas have been taken to an extreme by the communist philosophy which denies and seeks to suppress (note the inherent paradox there, Communism is littered with them) any and every expression of individuality. Much of liberal philosophy has is roots in or has developed parallel to and has had close links with communist and socialist thought. A lot of the most disgusting tenets of communism are extreme extensions of ideas that are commonly considered 'progressive' and liberal.

A reasonable and possibly more acceptable definition of a healthy liberal or open minded society would be "A society whose members can accept and appreciate without prejudice people who are different culturally and racially from themselves, and do not feel the need to modify their own behaviour in order to appease anyone else."
The last clause helps allay any fears that conservatives within the society might have about interaction with aliens, and thus in effect, furthers the cause of diversity and liberalism not by suppression but by consolidation and strengthening of indigenous culture. Also note that 'assimilate' does not imply (as it seems to do in modern terminology. A melting pot of cultures is where everyone loses their cultural identity !) that the newcomers mix and 'fit in' culturally with the existing populace, rather it implies that they are integrated into the socioeconomic as well as political fabric of society without having to modify their behavior significantly. This is possibly what the definition was, and doubtless formally still is to many people, but it has been modified in a very fundamental and powerful yet subtle and hence more dangerous way by distortions and mutations caused by extreme left philosophy and ideas.

I have in essence implied that liberal thought, through the corruption that it underwent and the disfigured form in which it exists today has contributed heavily to the rise of religious and cultural extremism all over the world. Whenever a way of life is threatened or is perceived to be threatened, the people who follow it will naturally stick to it more than ever, view outsiders with suspicion and any suggestion of change with hostility.

Not all of what is said above applies as it is to India. In India there are further complications and nuances involved in the evolution of 'secular' thought (its a word that has completely lost its original and intended(?) meaning in our country). I will deal with the Indian scene in the next post, and maybe further develop ideas expressed in a slightly unorganized manner in this post.

Happened to notice this....

"People's Democracy" - the weekly organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on the subject of Savarkar.

"...For the major portion of his life after making peace with the British his politics was oppositional to the Congress and the Left led movements rather than the British. As leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, he made sure that movements like the Quit India movement of 1942 passed without any participation from members of the Hindu Mahasabha or the Sanghathanists. He categorically called on the Hindus to give no support to the movement' (see Amba Prasad, The Indian Revolt of 1942). ...."


Innocuous comment on Wikipedia.

"The Hindu Mahasabha, under Savarkar's presidency, did not support the Quit India movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi in August 1942. The Communist Party of India and Muslim League were other parties which did not support the Quit India movement."


I have a lot to say about Commies. At last, I have something to go after :)

"As long as she swims, I will cook !"

If time is not flowing in the smooth, mellow and scenic way that one would want it to, if the whole idea of continuing in the same way has begun to seem dull and uninteresting, if one more obstacle in the way threatens to end the journey, if one is enmeshed in a web of spoiled relationships that threaten to slip carelessly away, if hollow, insecure, bitter, petty aims and feelings threaten to take over one's mind, it is time to dig deep, make a stand, show some fiber, scavenge some defiance from those ruins, summon some pride, find that courage, and after having done all that, with the comfort of having arrayed all that you have around you, show some restraint.

For it is not always doing what one can and saying what one might, that add to a man. Often it is not doing what one could have, leaving clever words unsaid, that remove bitterness and add peace. Any random obnoxious fool can call a spade a spade, but it is a wise man who will leave it alone, give it the benefit of the doubt, and save himself the anguish that invariably goes with trying to say things as they are, because all too often, they are not.

The title, intended to signify dogged defiance and adherence to personal beliefs in circumstances of great adversity, comes from a brilliant passage from Joseph Conrad's "The Nigger of the Narcissus". The ship has half overturned in a terrible gale, and has somehow stabilized in that position. The sailors are all lashed to the deck. The winds are icy cold and the rain continuous, and the men have been that position for days. They are dying from the exposure. The cook, an extremely eccentric religious man, suddenly lets go of his support, and precariously begins to make his way to the galley. The bewildered sailors are shocked, hoarse and weak voices ask him just what the hell does he think he is doing. With a strange light in his eye, his ragged clothes flapping in the wind, he cries out "As long as she swims I will cook !" Unbelieving men say that he is mad, "I will get ye some coffee" says he "Till she swims, I will cook !” A weak and pitiful cheer goes round the desperate company, "Cook ye are a gent!" cry hard men with tears in their long suffering eyes, "Till she swims I will cook !" he cries again and disappears with a bound.

The situation loses a lot in my rendering of it. I had tears in my eyes when I read the book.

"As long as she swims, I will cook !”