I am there

I realized whenever I am tempted to write something which is too personal or close to me heart, I resort to writing "poems" or whatever you can call them. I am, like many others I guess, too afraid of ever letting out something too close in front of stranger eyes, often worrying that most of them would be indifferent eyes.

I often feel that I am a much better writer if I am able to make the audience a dispensable part of my writing. On another level, somewhere, deep down in my heart, I know that some day, (probably even posthumously..hehe) someone would be reading all the personal stuff that I have been writing since a number of years only for myself. And I have to confess that I want that to happen probably. It is a weird feeling.

I am writing all this (probably cryptic for many) stuff because someone recently said something really nice to me. People find themselves in other people's words sometimes. I hold onto words of many writers, many film directors and of many regular people too. For example, I strongly feel my entire life revolves around or can be summed up with this Haruki Murakami's line: "Chance encounters keep us going." And somewhere of these people makes a tiny or huge difference to my life. But the point is even if we are all alone , somewhere we are so deeply connected and many a times deeply connected to people we don't even ever meet.

I know there are many people out there like me who are sort of living an ambivalent life. On one hand, there is this deep desire to be loved which is the core or center of life and on the other hand, this feeling of extreme claustrophobia and detachment the moments someone tries to come too close. I have constantly suffered from this. I am not saying that its necessarily a bad thing. It is a weird kind if loneliness which sort of makes you take up a lot of interesting stuff when you are trying to ignore it or sometimes even trying to explore it...

Sucker Punch

Before I even get into the movie, I would like to start with bitching about Imax fucking Wadala. How can a movie which is supposed to be seen in 3D is not in 3D in a theater which is specifically created for 3D! That was just the beginning of a rather horrible and dizzy roller-coaster ride!
I have to say that the idea behind the movie by Zack Snyder was definitely interesting. The layers of reality, fiction et al was interesting. However, the overall story and all the actors (including the Paris Hilton look-alike and behave-alike protagonist) completely failed whatever good could have come off it.

The movie kicks off with what looks like a cliche sequence of a step-dad violence shit. It was shot really well with only background music and no dialogues. Somehow, I thought it was interesting and will lead to somewhere interesting. Then all hell broke loose. Like I said earlier, the whole journey from there to the mental asylum to brothel cum dancing place to fantasy fighting sequences and then back could have been interesting. But it all seemed so effing farcical. The girls were all so gay with names like Baby Doll, Baby Pea, Blondie and Rocket. The plot was just so shoddy. They do try to connect all blurry dots at the end but it doesn't help. The action sequences of this petite little "baby doll" fighting with zillions of super creatures could have been a little fun to watch in 3D but even that punch was missing!

Another funny thing was that "Baby Doll" was supposed to rescue everyone including herself before the "high-roller" arrives which will "de-flower" her. Funny, unintentionally!

Anyhow, its a interesting concept gone to waste, or so I think :)

Ohhhh btw, John Hamm (aka Don Draper of Mad Men) plays a special appearance of a baddie but again, completely wasted!

Recommendation of the week

Though I think many of you would have already discovered this gem. For those who haven't, here's presenting http://www.thevigilidiot.com/. The Vigil Idiot basically spoofs new Bollywood releases with the help of his stick figures. I found 99% of the stuff hilarious. Its fun. Good time-pass. You definitely can't ignore this. Oh now, The Vigil Idiot also has a regular column on cnngo.com (btw, cnngo.com/Mumbai should be another reco of the week, but more on that later!)

Ciao and happy boozy weekend :)

House Hunt

So like I mentioned somewhere else on the world wide web, I am currently engaged in a roomie hunt or a one room kitchen house hunt. One of my closest friends/current roomie is leaving town to get married to her sweetheart. This leaves me with no one to share the pretty expensive but insanely lovely apartment with.

I have always been scared of sharing the place with a stranger roomie. So initially I thought that I would find myself a small little place. However, staying all alone scares the hell out of me. Yes, I am weird! And more than any other philosophical reasons, I am one of those who suffer from a mild case of insomnia and thus can be woken up by the most silly noises doing their rounds in the middle of the dark nights. So I either sleep with the lights on, sometimes even with the TV on on occasions when I have to stay alone. Anyhow, I am ready to overcome this as my last option. (I have only two options, I just realised) So lets get back to the first option. Getting a new roomie. To keep life simple and uncomplicated, I want only a girl as a roomie. And as me and one of my closest friends/current roomie realised that we are not very gifted in having a lot of female friends (I have no idea why) and definitely can't think of someone who could be my next potential roomie.

But in any case, I had spread the word and one contender did drop in like the ray of a bright shiny star in the black of the night. She loved the house apparently and was satisfied with my answer to her question "If I had any sort of issues" (I think I had convinced her that I am not a psycho and I am myself a practitioner of all the evil vices that possibly could exist so basically I don't have issues) She however found a bigger better place in the better Bandra West. So I am back to square one.

And the lazy bum that I am, I find it painful to call brokers and then actually go out to sort out my life. And my current apartment and me are so in love with each other that I am finding it pretty hard to break up. Its the best home in Bombay that I have ever stayed in :)...And let me not even into the amount of memories that I have here...Anyhow, I guess its time to de-sentimentalize a bit...And move on!

Mahadevbhai

I love theater but I still have only managed to see a handful of plays (about 15-20) in my 5 year stay in Bombay. Its a pity really. But whenever I do watch a play it never ceases to amaze me. On one such occasion, which was actually the recently concluded Prithvi Theatre carnival, I saw this 20 minute short called “Aaj Ki Baaki Baat” which is directed and enacted by Jaimini Pathak. He serenaded the jam-packed Prithvi auditorium with his narration and enactment of the ageing Bengali Poet. It was an extremely well-written play but according to me, the performance was what over-shadowed or rather gobbled everything else. Pathak was immaculate in his performance, speech (which was extremely poetic) and expressions. I was, like many others in the audi, simply mesmerized. Fortunately, I bumped into him outside when I asked him for a cigarette lighter and found the perfect moment to praise him for his superb act!

Last night, I had another fortunate opportunity to see a great play and a great, extremely great, performance by him for the very famous play 'Mahadevbhai' written and directed by Ramu Ramanathan. I had heard extremely good things about the play which has already had about 200 shows and my expectations were way too high, both from the play and the performer. The play is about Mahatma Gandhi's confidante, friend and assistant Mahadev-bhai. First and foremost, it taught illiterate people like me, so many things about a person who always remained a shadow to the “father of the nation” and happily so. It brings forth his accomplishments, his talent and his complete devotion to Gandhi. This is obviously interspersed with India's struggle for independence. So we are tickled with the memories of those boring history classes when we first learnt about Quit India, Dandi March, Non Violence etc. This time they are all woven into Mahdevbhai's story and what an effect that has. It is one of the most well written play I have seen. Especially loved the ending where Pathak talks about what Mahadevbhai would have written in his diary after he died. It was extremely beautiful.

Now a special word for the performer. The presentation of the play is similar to the short that I mentioned earlier. Pathak is the narrator and also enacts the role of almost 20 other characters of the play. Spectacular, isn't it. Not for a second, he falters. It was simply a delight to watch him. At one moment, it was so uncanny, someone's mobile phone rang in the theater (Yes, people in India still don't have play watching manners) and he just came to the mike and said “shaant shaant shaant” and it was actually a part of the speech that he was giving while enacting one of his many roles. I don't know how the two things happen together. It was interesting! So, he was an endearing narrator, often evoking responses from the audience and an actor with a myriad of characters bundled into him for the duration of a little more than two hours. Simply fabulous.

BTW, just got to hear that the play had received “scathing” reviews when it was launched from some stalwarts including Mr Vijay Tendulkar. I was quite surprised to hear that. However, even that's interesting. I don't know, sometimes, some really iconic stuff also evokes mixed reactions from critics, which is absolutely fair as all forms of art, is subjective.

Well, I am, OBVIOUSLY, no critic. Just a humble viewer. And I think Mahadevbhai (and Jaimini Pathak) is an absolute must-watch.

And there she was

The harlot wrote a poem about a convoluted dream
The world mocked her convoluted life instead
A little pleasure and more distasteful nights
An extravagant walk with no one in particular
She dropped all the coins like stones in the sea
The no one in particular didn't even notice
Smaller the nights, more messed up the dreams
One where she floats in the sky
One where she flies in the sea
With no lover in sight
she walked out of the dream
The night was over but the morning refused to say hello
A fake bright face was turning into yellow
There was just a corner now
And a lovely picturesque twilight
This is where I ought to be, she thought
And there she was, to borrow Virginia Woolf's line

"The Terms in Which I Think of Reality" by Alen Ginsberg

Reality is a question
of realizing how real
the world is already.

Time is Eternity,
ultimate and immovable;
everyone's an angel.

It's Heaven's mystery
of changing perfection :
absolute Eternity

changes! Cars are always
going down the street,
lamps go off and on.

It's a great flat plain;
we can see everything
on top of a table.

Clams open on the table,
lambs are eaten by worms
on the plain. The motion

of change is beautiful,
as well as form called
in and out of being.


Next : to distinguish process
in its particularity with
an eye to the initiation

of gratifying new changes
desired in the real world.
Here we're overwhelmed

with such unpleasant detail
we dream again of Heaven.
For the world is a mountain

of shit : if it's going to
be moved at all, it's got
to be taken by handfuls.


Man lives like the unhappy
whore on River Street who
in her Eternity gets only

a couple of bucks and a lot
of snide remarks in return
for seeking physical love

the best way she knows how,
never really heard of a glad
job or joyous marriage or

a difference in the heart :
or thinks it isn't for her,
which is her worst misery.