Saturday, March 28, 2009

An Encounter



An empty sun hangs over a vast expanse of desert sand.

On the hot sand she sits, cross-legged, with beads around her neck and large rings on her fingers. She stares off into the distance as a fire rages behind her. The heat waves bounce off her hair and slam into me. My eyes hurt from the brilliance in her eyes and the wicked glint from the jewels studding the rings on her fingers. My head pounds as my ears fill with the clanging of loud bells. I sit down across her and my thoughts vaporize. The air suddenly goes cold and the sky turns black. Time freezes as the raging fire is now a blazing splash of bright orange against the black sky. She looks hard into my eyes till she can see the very depths of my soul. I look into her eyes and my mind reels as I race back in time to the dawn of civilization and then back again.

She reaches down and grabs a handful of sand. She runs the sand through her flaming hair.

"Wisdom Persists", she says.

The fire rages with an orange fury as she walks away into the black sky.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Conversation




"An old man came to our house this morning. He had a long white beard."

"What did he want?"

"I dont know. He said he lived very far away and if I wanted I could visit him."

"Where does he stay?"

"On a hill far away."

"Are you going to go there?"

"No."

"Why? Did he say something to you?"

"I asked him why infinity never tired of waiting."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. He picked out little stars from his long white beard and scattered them on the ground."

"What did you do then?"

"I looked down and saw the little stars changing colors. I noticed I could not see any blue. And I wondered why blue was the most brilliant of all colors."

"Was he saying anything then?"

"No. I asked him what the space between In and Out meant to him."

"Did he answer?"

"No. He just shrugged his shoulders."

"Maybe he didnt know the answer. Did you ask him anything else?"

"Yes. I asked him why blue was the most brilliant of all colors."

"He must have answered that."

"No. He just asked me if I liked fish."

"What did you tell him?"

"I took everything I found inbetween In and Out and placed it in the palm of my hand. I then held out my hand to the old man and asked him to tell me what he saw there."

"Did he see anything there?"

"I dont know. He looked at it for a long time. He then turned his head and pulled his beard. He suddenly stood up and muttered something that I didnt understand and suddenly broke up into a thousand and fifty two pieces. And suddenly they all disappeared."

"What do you think he was trying to say."

"I dont know. I will just have to wait for him to come back and tell me about infinity, the color blue and the space between In and Out which I now will have to keep holding in the palm of my hand."

"What do you want to do now?"

Come, lets go play cricket with the others."

"OK."

Sunday, March 15, 2009

A little break, a little madness, a little fun

A little dose of Little Zizou and you’re all set to restore your belief in humanity. For long I have maintained that we are a serious nation that takes the serious bit a little too seriously. It is sheer physical inability that prevents us as a collective from turning into a non-stop never-ending in-your-face manifestation of the classic Lament !! Your eyebrow twitched? Look around you pal – what you see is not normal. It was not meant to be this way – ok so you went and made a mess of the way we as a historical collective turned out to be but that doesn’t mean you resign yourself and the rest of your ilk to eternal gloom. But there is hope. You see it in the changes happening around you. There is more merriment in the air, there is more laughter, and there is more of the chill-pills going around. But theres still a long ways to go, but then its happening.

Little Zizou, written and directed by Sooni Taraporevala, is a delightful film that takes a look at the wacky, funny and endearing ways of a local parsi community. Its like the ads say – a little madness, a little fun. And that’s how things should be.

So what do we have?

Cyrus II Khodaji (Sohrab Ardeshir), who is

- The self proclaimed voice of God going to deliver his people from whatever it is they want to be delivered from and return them to “Purity”
- convinced the Russians are going to invade, because they have indicated their intentions of doing so by laying claim to the faith.
- raising an army – PLO (Parsis Liiberation Organization) – to try and stave off the Russian invasion.
- The same army which after two-and-a-half rounds of an attempted march past pack up and go home.
- is assisted by (Shernaz Patel ), a hip-flask swigging, proper, overworked, underloved personal assistant who helps with the daily chant rituals


Boman Pressvala (Boman Irani), who is

- determined to expose Cyrus II Khodaji for the fraud that he is
- uses his newspaper to print his rants against his methods (including photographs of his attempts to put together the “army”).
- In love old music, has a blast with all his 100+ year-old friends at home
- totally disapproves of his daughter going out on dates


then we have:

Xerxes, who is Little Zizou, named after Big Zizou (Zinadine Zidane), bunking school every opportunity he gets to play Zizou in cybercafes and waiting for the big day when he will meet his idol.

Artaxerxes, working towards becoming a graphic novelist,sketching every minute he can find, and also working on a secret project with two buddies on restoring an old abandoned cockpit of a 747 Jumbo Jet into a flight simulator

Zenobia, who talks Artaxerxes into chauffering her around while she meets up with her boyfriend.

Liana, who loves animals more than humans, rats on her older sister’s escapades and is insanely jealous of Xerxes because her mother showers a little too much affection on him

Roxanne, Boman’s wife, who appears to be the only stable character in the whole film.

Roxanne's mother, who stays in a derelict ruin of what used to be a hotel in the old glory days, who has fought with everybody in the little seaside town and has a bunch of stray dogs to keep her company. She also offers to help Roxanne and promptly forgets all about her offer the next morning.

And a whole bunch of other wacky characters each playing a role in this little mad outing that is a fun watch. If you are quite up to here with all the stuff that is going on around you, and need a little break, a little madness, a little fun – then a couple of hours watching this one would be time well spent.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Through the Gloom, a plume did bloom...

If you call this bad poetry, then bad poetry it is. If you call it half-baked lasagna, then lasagna it is. It is whatever you want it to be. Because, today it is you, and you may not be aware of this, it is you who decides. Surprised? Whoa. Yes it is. Wake up and smell the coffee. Was a time when the customer was king. Today it is you. And you dont need to be a customer either. You just need to be one of those teeming masses out there with just half-a-finger access to either a keyboard or some other internet-enabled device. Just that places in your grasp an enormous amount of power. The power to bring a kingdom down to its knees. The power to change the way history is taught in middle school. The power to, well, to brand anything any way you want, or even deny it one if you so decide. Never before have the words "power to the people" resounded so solidly across the cosmos. And therefore, you, the empowered one, have more than enough reason to smile, no to beam, laugh, guffaw, whatever.......so dont, for goodness sake, walk around with your chin hanging down to your toes and walk around like a zombie who has had buckets full of gloom dumped on his head. Get over it. There is no gloom. There is no downturn. Hell, there is no turn either... if at all there is its all in your head!! So stop with your sob stories and tragic acts and GET A LIFE!!!

OK. So you find you suddenly have in excess of a thousand hours in a day. Has confused the hell out of you? Right? If it has, then you desperately need to get a life, cos you pal, more than anybody else, needs it. People go through life begging for that extra few hours that they may be granted where they could do exactly what they wanted. And what, you ask, is to be done to fill up those thousands of hours? If you have to ask that question, then you definitely, really and desperately need to get a life. Buddy, theres a million things you could do with all the time you have on your hands. Read a book. Read many books. Write a book. Sing a song. Learn to play the guitar. If you run out of guitars play the drums. Take acting lessons. Dont have the money - stand in front of mirror and practice. Because thats what will teach you. Cook. Read up on the history of your country. Go in search of an exotic rare flower that has eluded man all these years. If you dont know what it is, make one up and go look for it anyway. Conserve. Contribute to the green movement. Save a whale. Plant a tree. I could go on all night but I guess you got what i am trying to say. So. Just go out there and like the wise men behind those shoes said - Just Do It!

For at the end of the day, or the end of whatever defines units of sunlit time in your part of the world, it is you who can influence you into doing whatever you think you need to do to see through all the gloom, and enjoy the plume that will bloom... or you could sit with your chin keeping your toes company and regale passers by with your grand tale of woe! Up to you, Charlie!

Sunday, March 01, 2009

The Curious Case of backwards movies....

I have seen movies that were told chronologically backwards - Memento was one of them. That made sense. Then today I saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" - and it didnt make any sense. Oh the story did make sense and it was interesting in its own way but I couldnt buy into it and the way it started and made its way to the end was something I was not comfortable with at all.

It starts with a baby who is like 200 years old when it is born. Yes. Thats right - it's the size of a baby but thats about it - it looks like an old man. And as the boy grows up its watching an old old man gaining in height and reducing in age... and it goes on and on and on to its logical end. Actually its an interesting story - the film is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald and made into a movie by David Fincher and it stars Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchette, Tilda Swinton and an old man who has been struck by lightening seven times and is still around to talk about it. And also a huge grandfather clock that runs backwards.

So, a movie where a clock runs backwards, time moves as it should, and a man whose life runs backwards.

Didn't cut if for me.

Older, no wiser...and having a ball !!!

There comes a time in everyone's lives when they have a single moment of clarity in which they see very clearly and in great detail every single moment of their life passing in front of their eyes. And then the next moment they are dead. There are also, in addition to these kinds of moments, others too that occur in everyman's lives, only they are not quite so dramatic and final in their manifestation. These are a little less spectacular and definitely a lot less life-threatening. These are those moments that drop by occasionally. This is when the individual upon whom they decide to descend will put aside whatever he may be doing, pull up his favourite rocking chair, fix his favourite drink and light up a cigarette. He will then sit back and with a vacant and forlorn gaze in his eyes stare off into the distance at nothing in particular. In his mind he would call it an extended moment of nostalgia. Others would call it an extended instant of temporary insanity. Whatever.

When we get older, we try and convince ourselves that we also get wiser. We tell ourselves that we need to mellow down, take things easy, be more tolerant and understanding. And then when we have these other "moments" descend on us we permit ourselves a short commercial break from our daily older wiser lives to indulge in nostalgic journeys into the past and bask in the warm feeling that it brings on. And having reveled in it we snap out of it and get back to our dumb dreary older wiser life existence. For that is what older wiser people are supposed to do. Right? BULL.

There is this huge hovering conspiracy occupying the environs surrounding me that is trying very hard to drive me down that lane. They have been trying now for the last decade or so ever since I crossed over into the accepted older-wiser-mellower mad-man phase of life. When they realized that this person (meaning me) was showing no signs of having realized that such a passage had taken place, they tried nudging with little hints at first, and then with less subtler means such as holding up placards, writing on walls, making announcements on TV and finally screaming at the tops of their voices - first individually then in large collective groups. And when they saw that this person (meaning me) was continuing to ignore them despite all their efforts, they went into conspiracy mode. Much strategy happened, much planning happened, much tandoori chicken happened, but to no avail. This person (meaning me) would not give in.

And so it goes on. The conspiracy hangs heavy in the air. This person (meaning me) hangs loose in and around various places on this planet. Its a standoff. And it will continue for sometime. Who will blink first? Who will back off first?

The conspirators, hanging heavy in the air, cannot afford to. For if they do, they fall flat on the ground and end up with egg (or mud if there are no hens around in the neighbourhood) on their face. Not too good for them. And if this person (yeah - meaning me) backs off, he becomes an old, wise, staring-off-into-the-distance-with-stupid-smile-on-face, nostalgia-afflicted nut.

So - standoff. And it will continue. Till the tandoori chicken lays an egg. Till then let floating conspirators stew in their collective strategic sauces while this person meaning me continues his research into investigating the basic interconnectedness of all things.