Taxi on the Dark Side

Believe me and my ignorance when I say I had never heard of this one. I was watching the 9’o clock news on NDTV 24X7 when the ticker below kept flashing Coming up: Taxi on the Dark Side, I decided to watch this instead of Channel [V] Get Gorgeous! (Yes…guilty). There is no doubt that from the minute it starts it involves you and all your concentration.

Taxi on the Dark Side is a one hour documentary about the violent interrogation techniques used by the US forces/Bush administration on ‘suspected terrorists’ in Afghanistan

Maybe it is the subject itself-of complete disrespect of a fellow being’s dignity, or the gripping yet compassionate way that it is made, or just plain shock value - it works.

The idea that such horrors of interrogation techniques exist and especially that women can be a party to them was maybe the saddest feeling I took away from it. That there is such injustice and that it prevails without the necessary opposite reaction scares me.

It has been over 24 hours that I have seen it and I have spoken to 3 people about it and argued with one for over an hour about the need for the existence of religion. It is what great productions represent, they create such an impact that people discuss it for days after.

You must watch it. It will awaken all your sense of humanity and fairness which is now lost in your very small and selfish life.

Just found out – it is the 2008 Oscar winner for Best Documentary.

These Old Shades.

On a lazy afternoon during the summer holiday when it didn't matter what day it was , at the window of the drawing room, when Ajay was away searching for the safety pin that Prabha hid somewhere, the aunt and niece combo were sitting and discussing what to do with their lives. Then a monkey came and sat in a very Marredpally arrogant way on the other side of the window. Annapurna had as usual so many thoughts running through her mind .," Oh my god!! There is a monkey here, how do I seem brave to Prabha..abba she is never scared. " and " Did i brush this morning, I never know when I am on holiday" and "How can I want to eat Manchurian now!!!!!". Prabha had only one thought " Bah!! this girl thinks I am so brave. Now must do something to seem cooler. How to die."

Prabha very casually says " You are scared aren't you, hehe." Paapam Annapurna replies " Ille. I don't know why you would think that".

"A friend once told me that if you shake a monkey's paw then you will become pretty, smart and good at sports."

Idiot aunt says " I knew that." puts out her hand and lets just say once bitten. Prabha feels bad or what says " You don't even know how to do that right. See", and twice bitten.

And they run out of the house, never once looking back to see if their bitesmonkey has even bothered to follow.They hide behind a bench at the park when Prabha asks" You feel anything :. An always worried semi crying Annaps "No. Should I? Oh my god I am not?"

"Shut up. We are fine then".

Not admitting to each other that they are petrified, spending the rest of the day ensuring they are surrounded by adults.

Early next morning something happened that never happened before. Prabha woke up first.

(To be continued)

Video Maketh the Moojic

About time I wrote about something I watch the most and something I watch the most while watching the thing that I watch the most. I belong to a generation of couch/diwan/floor potato fries (not particular about the furniture I slaughter) and am unashamedly one of those who naturally switches to the music channel, am no fancy-nancy (didn’t draw) angrezi music (atleast video..lets salvage some pride here) aficionado. So most mornings, bridging the gap in between my early morning dhin chak and fast fast readying is MTV, Channel V and Zoom (yes…gimme half mark for honesty).

Now there are some movies that you may never remember but the videos are really interesting in that they have character about them, and eventually you end up liking the song. I have a list of these and chances are my friends will disown me after this.

1.Cash: Bunch of uncharismatic paapam flip-FLOPing actors – Zayed Khan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Esha Deol and Shamita Shetty ( had to pause while typing this because I forgot her name).The song has stuck in mind so now sometimes I think -SOX mere front mein, SOX mere back mein, ……..SOX on my mind doing review all the time!

2.Apna Sapna Money Money – Dil me baji guitar: I love the song and the video is also a lot of fun. There is good boy Shreyas Talpade, Her Royal Hotness Riya Sen, Why-not-to-Botox Koena Mitra and again Secondary Storage device (floppy) Ritesh Deshmukh. My mother seems to be emerging as a key character in my blog …but she is a lot of fun. She looked at the girl Ritesh and said “See how pretty this new girl is, you should stop having a complex about being dark!” He is very pretty as a girl and doesn’t do the typical guy pretending to be girl vulgar moves.

3.Jab We Met: Pretty Kareena and prettier & daintier Shahid in a song in the national language of Hindi movies- Punjabi. I can’t comprehend the lyrics (how could I …I am trained to watch Hindi movies not Punjabi)…but it has a great beat dum-lak-lak (yes Vijh…got it from you only ) only much faster song. The monkey gang and I have no idea why we start running and jumping every time this on TV.

4.Race: It is apparently a action movie…don’t bother. It will only be about the three lambu hotties and the song where the aspirational benchmarks of all Indian women (Bipasha and Katrina ) and the will never be taken seriously ever Reddy (Sameera) full to walk up and down in near doggy-ka-bachcha shame attire.

5.Rafta Rafta: This is a song from Hulchul….I know no one has seen it, but I love the movie and the song. Also I think Kareena Kapoor looks best with Akshaye Khanna.

And then there are the usual Beedi, Kajra Re types which now have become irritating but no music channel will stop playing ever.

Cringe as much as you want…I know you people also watch this stuff.

A Fine Balance

Author: Rohinton Mistry
Genre: Brilliant
My current streak of luck with the books is exceptional. I saw this book on a shelf in the library and I stood for around 10 minutes staring stupidly at the book. I asked it, why? I have had it up to the neck of someone twice my height with India centric books (ICB henceforth)…why am I looking at you? “Ok I am on Prebha Moghen’s list....chance lere baap”, it said, (also the picture of the smart looking author did not harm its cause).

It is like all the other ICBs, but its not. The issues it addresses, the extensive background and stage/story setting of each character is vaguely familiar. But it’s a really good story, with four characters that I will remember for life.

The story is about the four characters with the Emergency and extreme economic insecurity as the backdrop. No- it is not. It is about these four people who come together and make the most of the given situation. The story, the chemistry among these characters, the wit, the basic goodness and kindness in them in spite of the dreadfully mean situation each of them is faced with make the whole experience very intimate and personal.

Amma asked if I liked the book and whether she should read it. I said its one of the best things I have read, but don’t read it; it will make you very happy and extremely sad. She read it, called my sister and told her she loves it and that she should read it. I guess with age comes courage.

Also read: ‘Truly Madly Manhattan’- Nora Roberts. Always follow something as intense ‘A Fine Balance’ with a good time pass romance-mixing tastes as Amz would say.

Of Mice and Men

Author: John Steinbeck
Genre: Classic!

There are some stories that give you a “Phataak” on your head and once you are done reading it you just stare randomly in space for two minutes (Most of the time this is the effect after writing an exam!), but this is the good phataak (and not the one you get after watching Mars Attacks).

This is the story of two friends George and Lennie, workers who move from farm to farm because of Lennie and his condition. It is about a friendship that makes you stretch the limits to protect someone you hold dear. It is almost magical how gentle yet deep is the author’s manner of addressing poverty, racism, loneliness, companionship and love for a friend. You are rarely overwhelmed except at the end when you realize only 120 pages have managed to suck you in that world.

You are fortunate if you have read the book, even more so if you haven’t, simply because you can now read a book that is so gentle and yet so alive in its stillness.

Junoon

Director: Shyam Benegal
Cast: Shashi Kapoor, Jennifer Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Nafisa Ali….All Jabardast logan.
Genre: Refer to Director!

It was one of those days that you get really lucky. Otherwise who even notices CCC channel. This is a spectacular movie to make a debut in the ‘Watched’ of my silly little ‘Watchedandread’.

Junoon is the story of the women of a British Family in North India, set in the time of the 1857 War of Independence. Miriam (Jennifer Kapoor) is the wife of Tom Alter (who else?) and they have a beautiful daughter Ruth (Nafisa Ali) and there is also Miriam’s mother in the picture. During an attack on a church Tom Alter is killed, leaving the women helpless and nowhere to go as all Firangi homes and establishments have been destroyed. Lalaji (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) a friend of Tom Alter’s hides them in his house for a while. Javed Khan (Shashi Kapoor) is a pathan married to Begum( really I don’t think there was another name …Shabana Azmi) and is friends with Anwar (Naseeruddin Shah) who was a soldier in the British Army but turns into a revolutionary having been witness to several atrocities by the rulers.

The freedom fighters then discover that the women are hiding in Lala’s house and Javed takes them to his house because he has been in an obsessive sort of love with Ruth for a long time. He says he wants to marry her and for obvious reasons Miriam is against it. They make a deal that if the Indians take over Delhi then he may marry Ruth….well I think history can give you the end.

The movie has the most beautiful performances I have seen. Shabana Azmi as the hurt wife, Naseeruddin Shah with his impatience at Javed falling in love at such an inopportune time and his soul stirring speeches , Nafisa Ali also does well…all she has to do is look gorgeous and how! All fantastic.

The stars however are Shashi and Jennifer Kapoor. I even saw 36, Chowringee lane by accident-channel-surfing and I cried. She was remarkable as the aging, lonely convent school teacher. Here she is outstanding as the protective mother and as a vulnerable woman. The only person better looking than Nafisa Ali was possibly Shashi Kapoor and he is fabulous as the proud pathan, helplessly in love. You hate him when he is insensitive with his wife, you are proud of him when he goes into battle after losing a dear one, you are in awe of him when he does not exploit the women when he has every chance to.

The movie is so interesting because it raises such a conflict in your mind, one the one hand you are angry with them for exploiting us for centuries, and on the other you want to protect the women . As a character says in the movie, which ever side you are on in a war, it is hell for women.

The houses, the furniture, the clothes, the language are dripping with elegance. It is a movie that has Sharafat at its center. The lighting gets a little too real; the night sequences are really practically blacked out.

Once the movie was over I couldn’t help but miss the long intense discussions that Subs and Koms would have about love, romance, heroism…. while I drift into thoughts of wondering where they got the jewelery and clothes from and if I could ever own furniture like that.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Author: Kim Edwards
Genre: Extreme senti, Fiction
Publisher: Penguin

I picked this book from the ‘Crossword Recommends’ section. The situation was tense, I felt sorry for the book, she had to follow ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, and I was wondering…should I have bought more ‘Peanuts’? Every thing was going wrong…I picked the book because of the cover, the last time that happened was with ‘Almost Single’ and I remember how that turned out.

The book was dreadfully dull in the start; I would lie in bed, the sofa, the floor on my parents’ room hoping that the place would change how it read. I even screamed ‘why are you doing this to me?’ Lakshmi is at home, I would ask her “Please ve! Do something”.. of course my pain gave her joy beyond my capacity to describe …see all this drama is because I can’t stop reading a book and move to another, paapam the book will feel bad. Then slowly it got better and from the middle to the later parts it got really good.

The book is the story of a doctor who gives up his baby girl Phoebe at birth because she is born with Down’s syndrome, to protect his wife from the trauma of having a sick child. The book is about how it changes everything for his wife Norah, Caroline the woman who became Phoebe’s mother, Paul her twin, and haunts him for the rest of his life. The book spans 25 years and no one remains what they are at the beginning of the book. Also the book is centered on how it is never the intention behind the action, but the consequence that counts.

The characters are so intimately etched that you feel like you are watching them. The language is simple but full of meaning, yet you have to put in some effort in remaining with the book.

At one point Caroline says
“….I felt like I was writing to a void that is why I could express myself so freely”.
I am in perennial quest for my void.

It would make a really nice movie, the kind that you have never heard of and you accidentally catch it while surfing channels, and makes for great rainy Saturday afternoon viewing.