When I was a child, I used to ask for stories to eat. Not just any stories, but exciting, never before heard stories every single time. And this responsibility fell squarely on my father and my chithi’s shoulders. So three times a day, seven days a week, they were in the unenviable position of making up stories. These stories needed to be just long enough to see through the food on the plate. If it was short, I would stop eating and demand a new story. And if the story was too long, I would demand that they continue the story even though the food was done.

I still remember the blood donation story my father made up. Some one was in an accident and they needed blood. Since the victim had a rare blood group, they had to screen people one by one by one by one till they found a match. As I finished all the  food on my plate the right donor would be found and all would be right!

The next random story I remember was  my chithi’s story about the Kamakshi temple in our street corner and the suspicious looking man who came to the temple every day just around dusk, stood there with his eyes darting, nervous, twitchy and anxious. After a few minutes he would walk away melting in to the darkness. He repeated this routine for many days, where the number of days would be exactly the same number of spoons of food on my plate. Just as I spooned in the very last morsel of food, the man would decide to do what he was dilly dallying about for so many days, namely dropping a one rupee coin in to the hundiyal and walk away.

So many parallels between the made up stories I heard as a child and 2.0.  Lack of substance. Monotonous repetition. No logic whatsoever. When you think back you realise that the teller has conned you. But you are no longer five years old and you can see the con through the 3-D glasses as you are watching the movie.

2.0 starts off with the title credits and extreme close up of something… no one knows what it is but it gives you an impression of sitting in a virtual reality Disney ride and leaves you mildly nauseous to the preamble of cellphones disappearing. And the case of the disappearing cell phones is shown O.N.E  B.Y  O.N.E. India is a populous country. Of the 130 crore people in India about 65 crore people use cellphones. So much like the nursery rhyme “1 kodam thanni oothi 1 poo poothudham, 2 kudam thanni oothi 2 poo poothudhaam….” the disappearing cellphone drama goes on and on for a painfully long time. After 30 minutes and what might very well be the 500th cellphone, I am not sure, I slept off, as you are about to scream, “Enough! We get that ALL cellphones are disappearing. We really don’t care why, but we GET IT. MOVE ON!”, the story moves on to deaths.

Not just any deaths, but death by devices. Murder by mobiles.  Homicide by the handset.

Now, Shankar has in the past has been particularly (un)imaginative about murders scenes in his movies, the degree of sins committed by the victim being directly proportional to the randomness of mythological association. Like a split personality Vikram opening an umbrella to create a buffalo stampede in Anniyan. (This has been rightfully made fun of in Tamilpadam1.) Thankfully no Garudapuranam references or Chithraguptan chithravadhais in 2.0. Some netas die and you kind of guess that they are crooked and hence they die, but you are not the least bit interested in the 5Ws that hooks a listener to a story. Instead the predominant Ws in your mind are WTH, Will I get my money back?, Worry that the director might play “1 kudam thanni oothi” with us and show people dying one by one and it might go on for a V.E.R.Y  L.O.N.G  T.I.M.E!

There were many things I found unacceptable in 2.0.

It is one thing to be inspired by Salim Ali, the bird-man of India, but this character called Pakshirajaan based on Salim Ali is blasphemy. While Salim Ali is a Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibushan recipient and one of the greatest ornithologists, Pakshiraajan is a defeated old man who later turns in to a revengeful….. ghost(??!!). As you study the character of Pakshiraajan you end up in a Nayagan connundrum wondering, ‘Yivar nallavaraa, ketavara? Yivar nalladhu seiyyarara ketadhu seiyaraara?* Do I do what he does or only listen to what he says?’ When one writes a character based on a pioneer and his life’s work, it is basic decency to show respect. What is been done in the movie is all crass, no class half baked version of what Salim Ali represented.

One must learn from movies like Pari Yerum Perumal to see how beautifully the story has been told, class issues discussed and how it ends with a glimmer of hope. But it is typical of Shankar, to speed read a Wikipedia page and immediately commercialise it without worrying about gaining any deep understanding or developing an inkling of conviction. In the past he has made movies about irregularities that exist in the education system, corruption, need for transparency in government etc without having really stood for anything. The issues have always been handled as something that he can make money out off, not something that addresses the problem, never has he given hope.  2.0 falls along the same lines. A gargantuan 600 crore production that took 6 years in post-production that used up every bit of help technology can offer to preach to the public how as a society we are over using technology to kill the environment. Irony much?! This is as confusing as the the old people who over use Whatsapp, mobile phones and TV serials comment how the younger generation(which made all this technology these people cushily use possible) is going to the dogs because of over work, misplaced priorities and technology addiction! And without missing a beat forward posts that says that cellphone technology, nuclear bombs, rockets and airplanes existed in the time of Ramayana and Mahabharatha. And not even for a minute one can buy weak arguments about how this movie translates in to employment and development for people in an industry.

It is a bit sad to see Rajinikanth being time and again trapped in the Superstardom and getting choked by it. No matter whether he works with Ranjith or Karthik Subbaraj, this is a man who will never be allowed to do the roles that his heart truly desires. In 2.0 he is used strictly as a brand without any of his usual flair or punch dialogues. While the black-sheep and the bleating were entertaining in Endhiran, the bird impression he does in this is pathetic. His words are slurring a bit as he delivers his dialogues. Even Baba and Kuselan which were all time flops of Rajini, there was meat to his character. But in this movie Shankar has misappropriated every one’s clout and the only thing that comes through and slaps you in your face is how much money has been spent and how Shankar has pulled it off.

Last but not the least the director did not make a stupid movie, but he has made a movie thinking WE are stupid and would take anything sitting down with our 3-D glasses on! Sparrow giving CPR to a still born infant? Ghosts entering cellphones? The rouge Robot comes back to life and the first thing he does is to pull down Amy Jackson’s zipper? Exorcism of cellphones? Such silly dialogues? (I will not even go in to the sending positive signals in to space to attract good aliens and positive EMR and negative EMR cancelling out!)

Hopefully there is no 3.0!

PS:

*The famous Nayagan movie dialogue where a small child asks Kamal if he is a good man or a bad man.

Chennai Rains

On the first day of rain holidays
we slept late.

On the second day of rain holidays
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the third day of rain holidays
we watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the fourth day of rain holidays
we had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the fifth day of rain holidays
we ate chips and popcorn,
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the sixth day of rain holidays
we had a read aloud session,
ate chips and popcorn
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the seventh day of rain holidays
we did Wii dance,
had a read aloud session,
ate chips and popcorn
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the eighth day of rain holidays
we did craft work,
did Wii dance,
had a read aloud session,
ate chips and popcorn
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the ninth day of rain holidays
we did creative writing,
craft work,
did Wii dance,
had a read aloud session,
ate chips and popcorn
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the tenth day of rain holidays
we borrowed books from the library,
did creative writing,
craft work,
did Wii dance,
had a read aloud session,
ate chips and popcorn
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the eleventh day of rain holidays
we did Face Time with many many people,
borrowed books from the library,
did creative writing,
craft work,
did Wii dance,
had a read aloud session,
ate chips and popcorn
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

On the twelfth day of rain holidays
we music practice,
did Face Time with many many people,
borrowed books from the library,
did creative writing,
craft work,
did Wii dance,
had a read aloud session,
ate chips and popcorn
had a play date,
watched a movie,
we read books,
and we slept late.

And fought a L.O.T, every single day.
And at our wits end.
So please stop raining dammit!

Resolution right after moving homes: W.I.L.L N.E.V.E.R B.U.Y B.O.O.K.S.
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After 5 min: Ok, Will not buy books for another 5 years. No, no, 2 years. Ok, for the rest of the year. This is FINAL.

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After buying Devapriya Roy and Saurav Jha’s  Heat And Dust Project kindle book: E-books do not count. I can still move homes and not bother with the packing, unpacking and organization. The spirit of the resolution still stands.
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After buying Anjali Raghbeer’s Art Tales From India series: Sigh! New resolutions to not make resolutions about not buying books.

And the culprits are:

-You name your kitchen knives(Mine are Bread’sBane, SharpBastard and TheUnfit, just in case you are curious).

-You Google recipes for black bread and lemon cakes.

-You set up a snack of cheese, olives, bread fried in garlic butter and boiled eggs for your children.

-You develop an unhealthy appetite for all kinds of soup and you think about serving them SFO clam chowder style.

-You Google GOT TV series pictures to get inspiration for kurti designs.

-You read,
‘Irri and Jhiqui were waiting to brush the tangles from her hair and garb her as befit the Queen of Mereen in a Ghiscari tokar. The garment was a clumsy thing, a long loose shapeless sheet that had to be wound around her hips and under an arm and over a shoulder, its dangling fringes carefully layered and displayed. Wound too loose, it was like to fall off; wound too tight, it would tangle, trip and bind. Even wound properly, the token required its wearer to hold it in place with the left hand. Walking in a token demanded small, mincing steps and exquisite balance, lest one tread upon those heavy trailing fringes.’, and you wonder if GRRM is describing a saree and if you can post it for the #100sareepact on FB.

-You crave a long hot soak in a tub.

-You ask your children if they want to take horse riding lessons.

-You consider getting a dragon tattoo (and promptly drop the idea).

Its been a long time since I blogged anything about the children. This post is made possible by the baby turning my husband in to an old man by entering her double digits! May the child make him older and us happier every year!

She chose a monster theme birthday party because, ‘Amma, I am not a child anymore. I am grown up and ready for more scary things now.’ (Gulp!) May she not encounter anything like that. EVER.

She chose Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, a volley ball and two bottles of nail polish as her birthday gifts. May she be a reader for life and find happiness in simple things.

She asked for green slime drink, monster sandwiches, scary apple mouths, monstrous baked spaghetti and cheese. I could make only two the way she wanted. I made regular spaghetti with cheese sauce. I skipped the slime drink. She said, ‘Its okay Amma. Lets buy a mixed berry juice. It will look like blood. And the pasta is spot-on in taste. So thanks.’ May you always be blessed with the ability to let go of small disappointments and look at the bigger picture.

May the universe make all your positive thoughts come true and give you the wisdom to recognize this blessing, dear child.

Sighted @ Walden/M.R.

Grant Morrison’s 18 days intrigued me. It was priced at few thousands, so just browsed it and left. The images had a whole Star Trek, Klingon feel to it. But it looked like a behind the scenes collection of an attempt to animate the Kuru war, not a story. So probably a coffee table book for an animation enthusiast.

Any guess on what was bought and what wasn’t?

A wise friend posted this elsewhere. I would like to post it in this space so it is easy to pull up when I need it. (I have highlighted what I like to keep reminding myself about.)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

“That particularly galled me, because it implied the immortality of those left behind: You will live forever in my memory, because I will live forever! I AM YOUR GOD NOW, DEAD BOY! I OWN YOU! Thinking you won’t die is yet another side effect of dying.”

— John Green, The Fault In Our Stars.

As is I am lost when it comes to condolences and I stop at ‘I am sorry for your loss’. This feeling only intensified after reading FIOS. Are we telling what we tell to make the dead more than what he/she originally was? Does death morph the ordinary to the angelic? In our attempt to speak no ill about the dead are we forgetting that our time too shall come?

All these thoughts come back flooding as I read about Robin Williams. Because I want to say something, but don’t know what. So I am going to leave with his Good Will Hunting dialogue that helped me and am sure will continue helping me, “You’ll have bad times, but it’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.”

Every once in a while, I give myself some time off. I leave work early and go straight to a book shop and just hang out. I breathe in the smell of books. I touch the shiny new covers. Smirk at yet another popular and pedestrian new release. (Yes, I work in a library. Yes, I breath in books in the library too. But books must be visited in varied environments.)

The past three years, it has been an interesting social experiment for me. What makes me pick up a book? The cover? The author? A recent review of the book? A prompt from a friend? Sometimes the blurb makes me think about certain incidents that happened in my life

My recent visit as a photo log with my though bubbles.

Chox, my friend, this is for us.

I really wanted to buy Empires Of The Indus , but the print put me off. I find books by Feynman, Richard Dawkins, Hawking and quantum physics books end up in minuscule print like this. It makes me think the author in his/her  enthusiasm to educate and share, ends up producing a 1500 page draft that the editors could only edit so much without killing the spirit of the book and the only thing the publisher could do is to decrease the font and line spacing, increase the number of words in a page, thus effectively producing a 500 page book that doesn’t intimidate a potential buyer, but has to be read with a microscope.

This is delicious. I have been eying Travelling In, Travelling Out for 6 months now, reading a chapter here and there. I am waiting for the price to come down.

Jaishree Misra’s Rani is my first exposure to non-british version of the sepoy mutiny. When I read it, it brought home the point that history is subjective. Besieged is a translation of the mutiny papers by Mahmood Farooqui. I would like to read Besieged, but with a friend. The illustrations on the cover page made me pick up this book.

And these for the child in me.

And then, BOOM! this.

The blurb reads:
Twenty-two-year-old Yash Birla wakes up at the break of dawn to a phone call that changes his life—a plane with his parents and sister has just crashed in Bangalore. Leaving his college in North Carolina on a flight to Mumbai, Yash finds out that they have all passed away. Everything he has known is destroyed and his world is suddenly torn apart.
Reeling from the loss, Yash is handed over a vast empire of companies that he is now at the helm of, where he has to fight for his rights and manoeuvre through relatives who have their own agendas.
This is the story of a man who overcomes one of life’s toughest hurdles and lives to tell the tale. It is Yash Birla’s journey from a state of oblivion to survival, where his deep belief in spirituality and his faith in true love act as a crutch for him to go on. Money, greed, God and an inside view of one of India’s oldest industrial families . . . that is the story of On a Prayer.

Errrm….. I feel that there is chasm between what I see on the cover and what the blurb says. It is as if some one at Penguin decided that for the book to sell there needs to be boobs and ended up with this picture. Oh, come on!

And that is where I must have left the mirror. On the wall.

So this is the background.

The children fight as all siblings usually do. Nothing new there, but I am growing increasingly impatient. I sit pondering why can’t one let go and let the fight die a natural death. As I often do, I decided to take matters in my own hands, find a solution instead of silently bearing it, being the master of own destiny, tackle problems as solutions waiting to happen and all that useless jazz.

And I introduced this wonderful concept I learnt in my childhood, namely the mirror. When some one says something nasty to you, you just say mirror and the nasty stuff gets reflected back to them. ‘Stupid’ – ‘mirror’ – the person who said stupid sees his/her reflection and is stumped – you walk away with a smug expression. Simple stuff.

The children were thoroughly kicked with the concept! (Gasp! Really amma?)

They drank from the fountain of knowledge. (Do you have to hold an actual mirror? Should I hold my hand, palm facing out or just say mirror? Can I do both? Can I hold both palms and say mirror? What angle should I hold my hand? )

They checked testimonials. (Did you do it when you were young? Did it work for you? Whom did you use it on?)

Then they executed it.

‘Stupid’.

‘Mirror’.

‘Youuu caaan’t (read it sing-song), because I was already holding mirror when I said stupid. So my stupid goes to you, reflects on your mirror, then bounces on my mirror and goes back to you.’

‘How? How? How can that even happen? It will again bounce on my mirror right?!’

‘But I was holding mirror even before I said stupid. You said mirror only after you heard stupid. By that time my stupid already reached you. Haaaa haaaa (insert sing-song again for complete experience)’

‘Fine, my mirror is bigger than your mirror, so even if it came out late, it completely reflects. Since your mirror is small, the stupid goes around your small mirror and reaches you.’

‘You can’t even see my mirror, how will you know it is small? My mirror is bigger than your mirror.’

‘No mine is the biggest on earth.’

‘No, mine is bigger. I am holding god’s mirror.’

‘Too bad I am holding god’s super mirror, which is the bigger than god’s usual mirror.’

In fact they are walking around the house with one palm, if not both palms, on forehead like a head light, because that is their mirror and they are ready to reflect any insult that may or may not be showered on them.

I am again pondering what I can do about this. Or rather what I must NOT do about this! The biggest joke is how all this was some how mirrored right in to my face.