Cheese

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The weather here is a marvel. It's cool, not cold. I'm finally able to enjoy power cuts the way people do in stories about family bonding in the absence of TV. Yesterday, we had a 4 hour power cut and I was so pleasant about it. M wasn't coming home for lunch, so I made this really spicy okra curry and ate it from the kadai with hot chappatis. Then I finished reading Twilight- quite an appalling book. It's about the love between a vampire and a girl. Which does sound tacky and cheesy, but I was hoping my prejudice would be proved wrong. But na-da. The vampire-guy is supposed to be smoking hot and all, but he turned out to be one big caring bore who believes in forevers and hearts and everything. I kept visualizing him as this Kunal guy from Kadhalar Dhinam. Same teeth, same loserish pershunality. And I bet he had that wavy sidey hair that all these tight T-shirt boys have these days.

Then I read The Bachelor of Arts. And I started feeling a little antsy because I'd been reading and reading and life seemed to be at a standstill and all. So I put some more kaajal in my eyes to make myself look bright and chirpy and less like a pillow. Then I wore some new clothes and decided to walk to Pune University and read A Room of One's Own there. I could have very well read it in my room, but I wanted to do something, take charge of my life, plunge myself into action, become Busy Barbie. The power came back just then and mildly distracted me from my purposeful self. I watched Devar Magan for a bit. It was the part when Kamal ditches Gautami and marries Panjavarnam and acts all martyr. I got pissed. Stupid prick. I ranted about it to A who was online and in a mood to rant as well. We agreed that Kamal was a jerk for doing that to Gautami and this Panjavarnam was a fool no.1 for acting all grateful. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. After this pleasant and agreeable chit-chat, I finally did go on my walk.

It was raining when I started but I didn't want to go in and get an umbrella because I'd locked the door and everything and I didn't want to retreat. Onward we march, onnnnwarrdddd, ladies. I walked for a bit and then it REALLY started raining, so I stood under a bus stop and observed Nature. Observing Nature is what we all do when we're stuck. In trains, in buses, in scenery places while waiting for the bus to take us to the next point. So I observed and marvelled at the Beauty and felt at peace and all. I also saw a Science couple in the rain. You know, full glasses and ID card types. The boy threw a Bingo chip at a dog and the dog ignored it superbly. The girl looked suitably impressed by his kindness though. I made a joke about them. What do you call it when a Science couple hit it off? Chemistry! *Hyuk* I chuckled at my bad joke and then hurried back home when the rain let up a little. I saw a lot of birds and I'd tell you all their names like a Salim Ali person, but but but....let's move on.

I did some packing (I'm going to Chennai btw....yay yay...beaches beaches beaches and peaches) and when M came back, we went to buy bakarwadi and sweets and all for Chennai peepils. One can't get more married than this in life. Here I come, bearing gifts for thee, kith and kin. On begalf of the Pune family, I extend these presents to you, O Chennai families. Long long ago, I could just go to another city with my dirty clothes and wonderful charisma. What all marriage does to one. It's a little like that fairy tale in which the youngest princess just wants her daddy back while the other two want priceless gems and whatnots.

Then we came back and I made the world's best pasta and we had it with this amazing Parmesan cheese. That's all for now. I shall update from Chennai. I will keep you in the loop. Shall keep you posted. Shall put you on the cc, children. I'm a business magnate with bakarwadi.

HOOOLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Tatabyebye.

Raavanan

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If you haven't watched Raavanan yet, be aware that the following post has many spoilers. Though, if you know the story of the Ramayana (and who doesn't?), there is no need for such an alert.

If you watched Raavanan and liked it, good for you. But please don't post comments here saying 'one should see the movie without comparing it to the Ramayana', 'watch the movie for itself' etc because throughout the film, you are constantly reminded that hey-this-is-the-new-age-Ramayan-yo! Not just incidents, but even dialogues (like Karthik telling Aishwarya that he can carry her off to chinna-thambi Prithiviraj on his shoulders) don't let you forget that. So obviously, the film was made with the intention of getting you to sit up on your seat and absently drop the popcorn all over the floor. And be warned, this is also a review written by a person who hasn't written a Gender Studies assignment in a long while and is itching to do so. Working for a children's magazine may have softened me up a little, children, but the vampire teeth are still there.

The story goes thus (oooh spoiler alert): Raagini is a big Kamal fan and she tries to commit suicide just like her idol does in Punnagai Mannan leading to Veera falling in love with her because he's also a Kamal fan (so much so that he's a Dashavatar all by himself). In order to make their love successful, they need a villain. And that's Dev, a wannabe-Kamal who speaks two to three words per line in several languages (including Inglis, Indhi). He also does that Kamal soul-searching eyes thingy and whacks Raagini's bottom in the one duet they sing together to deserve the title. But Raagini is not convinced. She runs away to a jungle and Dev follows her. In between, a thangachi gets raped and commits suicide thereby fulfilling her life's purpose of being born a thangachi. It don't mattah whose thangachi, why it happened and all that. If you are a thangachi, this is your karma, lady, so shuddup and ask no questions. This is how it's been since the Dawn of Tamil Cinema anyway. So after some songs where people don't wear colour-colour clothes every two minutes (ayyy, this is Mani Sir padam, minndddittt), Veera and Raagini are nearly united. But then, he slips and falls off the cliff because he was not wearing Bata. Raagini, who managed to climb mountains and cross valleys in a pure white salwar with dupatta and high heels, is struck by the irony of it all. Such, is life.

The plot claims to be a radical take on the Ramayana but all it does is to create binaries once again. Raavan becomes a goody-goody two shoes and Ram becomes a polladhavan. I'm not a big Rama-bhaktar, but heylo, he never killed off Vibheeshana and all. Just because you want to make Rama seem like a prick, Sugassini, you can't twist some incidents and keep the others as they are. Shoorpanaka who desires Rama and wants him for herself is turned into a Vennilla who has a vanilla love affair. Shoorpanaka, insulted, is angry. She taunts Raavan and asks him if he has no shame. She provokes him into acting. She ain't no thangachi-in-the-well. So why make Vennilla such a stereotype? Is it because showing female desire is still such a huge problem for film-makers? Whether it's Padayappa or Manmadhan or Uyir, any woman with normal hormones had better die. It would also be nice once in a while to not show a rape victim killing herself. I'm not saying you have to make her a Phoolan Devi, but you know, it would be good to know there are other options in life.

I don't want to bash Aishwarya Rai because that's what everybody on Rediff does and I doubt that I'll have anything more creative to say. It's not really her fault that directors want to pay her a lot of money and cast her in their films. She's beautiful (plus or minus Botox) and I don't think she's dumb either. Not being able to act and being dumb are two very different things. So as far as Sita or the 'unconvential' dancer Raagini (why do all reviews mention she's an unconvential dancer?! She never does anything to fit that tag!) go, Aishwarya fits the bill. Because you see, Ratnam's Sita is a big bore who spouts fiery Tamil poetry in the middle of a hostage situation. Maybe this is what makes her unconventional. You and I would have decently passed out.

Everyone's been raving about Vikram as Veera whether or not they liked the movie but I find him to be a very self-conscious actor. The whole time, I was thinking, ok, so now, his hair's going to fall all over his forehead and we're going to see Anniyan with all those weird eye movements. Even in Pithamagan, I found him to be a little Filmfare-Best-Actor. I could never get past the fact that it was Vikram I was watching. Vikram with his faces voices paraphernalia. Not Veera. The dialogues he was given were pretty terrible, so I don't blame him too much, but really, it wasn't great acting. It was competent. Saary ba, I grew up on Mohan Lal films (before he became the flab and flop he's now) and Vikram doesn't strike me as a natural actor.

Prithviraj is paavam. He's the only example of a nice-looking Mallu man that I know, so I'm not going to be too critical. He came and did off his role with cooling glass and police haircut. Good boy. What else can one say? Priya Mani (who would have made a good Raagini if Mani Ratnam had better casting sense) comes and goes as thangachi. She's dead before she can start acting properly, so I'm not going to say anything about her except R.I.P.

What I do want to say is this: Mani Sir, do you know what we both have in common? We're both Indhi-fail. Why can't you go back to making Tamil movies with Tamil people? I'm not being jingoistic (ok, slightly yes, but read on before you judge me)....but a maida-maavu Raagini leaving off all those fiery Tamil lines just doesn't click. Also, why do you want to give yourself a heart attack and make two padams with so much difficulty when you can just make a Tamil padam that makes sense? After all, we are not going to the theatres to see how hard your crew worked on the film, we want to see how good the film itself is. Then you make Rahman (and this is unforgivable) compose songs that sound better in Indhi than they do in Tamil. Not everything can be translated from Chaiya-Chaiya to Thayya-Thayya. Purinjinkonga, please.

The cinematography is great. If the film could be condensed to 60 seconds, it'd make an awesome Incredible India ad.

Three Places

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The rain, when it fell, fell like the chatter of monkeys. If you could imagine coconuts falling off the trees like they do in the cartoons, drumming the heads of people, leaving them in a daze made up of stars, that's what the rain fell like. In Kerala, in a violence of green, the rain fell like children tumbling down the staircase.

The noise it made drowned the noise of the traffic. The traffic was made up of an impressive line of goats, black and white, plump hens, and children of varied sizes. In that rain, as it fell, like several shutters of steel being pulled down in a movie, we planted coconut saplings in ditches that were fast filling up with the red earth. I was only a child then, of one of the varied sizes. Someone held an umbrella over my head to keep the rain away. But it was all around me. And under my umbrella island, I watched the rain. As it fell, like the chatter of monkeys.

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When it began to rain that day, I was in white. Such a cliche. I was even on the beach. I even had a song on my lips; it sat like a bee upon it. There was an umbrella too that waved madly in the beach wind. The sand sank and left shadows of my feet as I walked. Doesn't that sound like I said something deep that you did not understand? Something symbolic. Like moths, for instance. Can you now look at a moth without thinking about the brevity of life and the temptations it offers? Can you go through a tunnel without thinking ah, there's light at the end of it? Can you look at a cloud without a silver lining? Footprints and sand castles. And me in white. The symbolism stank like fish.

And yet, it was beautiful, wasn't it? The drizzle and the flashes of lightning and me in white. The rain fell like clouds. Soft and shy. Now there, now not. And when I took the bus home, the rain was in the people. In their hair. In the bags that they shielded, as if they were little children. The traffic, this time, of cars, bikes, buses, cycles, cows. The traffic was mixed up like the food on a messy giant's plate. And on my seat by the window, as the sky painted one half of me wet, I watched the rain. As it fell, like a cliche.

***
On the walk after the first rains here, I saw so many eagles or were they hawks fly so near, that I felt like a child who lives near the airport. There were millions of moths that were flying in the air, batting their wings, to illustrate to the walkers, the brevity of life and the temptations that it offers.

The trees were alive. Their green heads bobbed up and down like enthusiastic teachers in love with their subject. The rain here fell in silence. Like the quiet child of the class who gets locked up in the toilet and never gets missed. Till the doors start to bang and everyone wonders, where is that quiet child?

And now that I can cook, the rain fell like pakodas and bhajis into my head. Like in the cartoons, when plates come crashing on your head. And you are left in a daze of stars. Looking outside the window and thinking about how far you've come. How many footprints have the rains washed away? And within the cream walls of this new life, I watched the rain. As it fell, like memory.

The Husband

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I went for a collegemate's wedding today with M. And I had to use the word 'husband' half a dozen times while introducing him to people I knew there. Oh yes aunty, this is my husband. Yes yes, and oh, have you met M? He's my husband. This is the husband. This is err..yes, husband. I can never say the word without sounding vague about it. 'Husband' sounds like an animal farmer in upper Sweden who milks cows and makes cheese and has a thin airbrushy moustache. It's also quite an ugly-sounding word if you think about it. Husband. Say it. Isn't it ugly? Yes.

The first time I said 'my husband' was to a cab driver in Sri Lanka who was under the impression that M was some sort of gigolo and I was a rich, adventurous faaren girl. He formed this rather flattering (how often do I get to be so Page 3?) conclusion from the fact that I had a Visa card and I was the one getting down from the car to withdraw money. Lady with the booty and everything. When I went to the ATM, he struck a conversation with M and refused to believe him when he said that we were married. Once I got the moolah (see how I slip into moll language) and got back in, the driver asked me who I was travelling with. I said 'This is my husband' with such a shifty expression that the driver was pleased as punch that his guess was right.

I still get shifty-eyed when I have to say 'husband'. I wish I could refer to M as something else. Hochimin or halwai or something. Husband...is quite dreadful phonetically. L, who was also my collegemate and who also has a husband now, agrees with me. Since all my friends are acquiring husbands at a scary pace now, I really think it's time to change the word and make our lives easier. This is M, the halwai. See, it sounds way better.