India Uncut - Combined Feed

Elephant in Kerala

Amit Varma — 2012-03-20T03:38:00+04:30

So it’s about 10.45pm, and we’re headed in a tourist taxi to Siena Village, a resort a few kilometres from Munnar. We’ve already driven about three hours from Kochi airport, I haven’t slept in 48 hours, the fast, winding journey through the ghats has made me feel a little sick, and I’m kind of testy. Our overly talkative driver tells me that road from Munnar to Siena winds through a hilly jungle, and ‘sometimes at night, elephants attack cars.’ We begin that leg of the journey.

Halfway through, we find that an autorickshaw and another car have stopped in the middle of the road, and the rickshaw guy is gesticulating wildly at us to stop. He babbles something in Malayalam, and I assume his auto has broken down and he wants help or suchlike. I’m desperate to get to the hotel and crash. ‘Just drive, dude,’ I tell my driver. ‘Let’s get going.’

‘We can’t go,’ he says. ‘There are elephants charging down the road.’

Along with the rickshaw and the other car, we park our car at a clearing at the side of the road. ‘So what do we do now?’ I ask. ‘Elephant, elephant,’ the driver mumbles, and jumps out of the car to join the others to peer down the road. I’m about to get off when he comes back, gets in the car, and drives about 30 meters back down the road, towards Munnar. There he stops and waits, as we turn around to see what’s happening. The other car also moves away. The rickshaw remains.

Then the elephant lumbers in.

This massive grey beast saunters down the road, stops at the clearing, and stares at the auto, right besides where we had been a minute ago. Then it goes over and gives us a masterclass of how to obliterate an autorickshaw in 40 seconds flat. It uses its trunk to swing it around in the air and bash it on the ground. It uses its legs. It uses its fury. In less than a minute, what was once a vehicle is now mangled bits of metal and plastic. Satisfied at a job well done, the elephant gets back on the road, and looks at us. Or rather, I am sure of it, at me. Our eyes meet.

All this time, our driver is telling us, ‘Take picture, take picture. Get off and take picture.’ We’ve already told him to get on back to Munnar, obviously we’ll find a hotel there for the night. But he doesn’t listen. ‘Take picture, take picture.’

‘Drive,’ I tell him again. ‘Let’s go to Munnar.’

He doesn’t budge. The elephant takes a step towards us. It maintains eye contact. I think it knows my name.

‘Drive!’

The driver doesn’t budge. The elephant does.

‘Drive boss, drive us back to fuckin’ Munnar, what are you waiting for?’

He snaps to life and starts driving. Then he says, ‘Sir, no need to be rude. I have studied engineering, you know.’

The simultaneous urges to sleep, puke and get away from an elephant have made me lose it by now. ‘So why are you driving a tourist taxi then?’ I ask.

‘Because this is Kerala.’

Update: The elephant’s name is Padiappa. It turns out that he had a traumatised childhood, and has killed eight people in the last few years. He’s undergoing ~~counselling~~ treatment, and was apparently given an injection three months ago after which he calmed down somewhat. However, he got restless again a couple of days ago. He destroyed some crops two nights ago, and then the auto last night.

All this was told to me by the Mallu driver Bipin, who is no longer mad at me. I can’t be sure about Padiappa, though, and am avoiding casual social encounters with him.

‘The Businessman Panicked’

Amit Varma — 2012-03-12T03:41:01+04:30

I don’t know why, but I find this kind of funny.

And what’s with the quote marks in that ToI headline? Succinct editorial comment, you think?

III = III + III

Amit Varma — 2012-03-10T02:22:00+04:30

Jonah Lehrer writes in Wired:

Here’s a brain teaser: Your task is to move a single line so that the false arithmetic statement below becomes true.

IV = III + III

Did you get it? In this case, the solution is rather obvious – you should move the first “I” to the right side of the “V,” so that the statement now reads: VI = III + III. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of people (92 percent) quickly solve this problem, as it requires a standard problem-solving approach in which only the answer is altered. What’s perhaps a bit more surprising is that nearly 90 percent of patients with brain damage to the prefrontal lobes — this leaves them with severe attentional deficits, unable to control their mental spotlight — are also able to find the answer.

Here’s a much more challenging equation to fix:

III = III + III

In this case, only 43 percent of normal subjects were able to solve the problem. Most stared at the Roman numerals for a few minutes and then surrendered. The patients who couldn’t pay attention, however, had an 82 percent success rate. What accounts for this bizarre result?

The piece is titled ‘Why Being Sleepy and Drunk Are Great for Creativity’, and is about “the unexpected benefits of not being able to focus.” (The next time your loved one asks you to pay attention, just snap back at her that you’re busy being creative.) That might just explain absent-minded geniuses—their absent-mindedness is part of the reason they’re geniuses, and not some regrettable offshoot of their abilities.

Um, what was I saying?

‘An Offer They Could Not Refuse’

Amit Varma — 2012-03-10T02:06:01+04:30

So while everyone’s celebrating the arrival of Akhilesh Yadav and how he’s revitalised the Samajwadi Party and UP Politics, take a look at this news report, about how Mulayam Singh Yadav managed to persuade his party veterans to allow his son to be chief minister:

Earlier during the day, when Akhilesh’s name was thrown up for discussion at the informal meet, the response was overwhelming. Only a few feeble voices of dissent were raised.

But an astute Mulayam did not take much time to dilute these voices. Sources said that Mulayam managed to placate both his younger brother Shiv Pal Yadav and close confidante Azam Khan by making an offer that they could not refuse.

While Shiv Pal was assured the most lucrative of portfolios in the new cabinet, Khan was promised the prestigious slot of assembly speaker.

Note the phrasing: the most lucrative of portfolios. And that, in a nutshell, is politics in India. Bring in the new, long live the old…

Good Old Dravid…

Amit Varma — 2012-03-10T01:37:00+04:30

... is done. The next time India walk out to play a Test match, my favourite sportsman of all time won’t be there, and I’m not even sure I’ll feel like watching. India with someone else at No. 3 will seem like Led Zeppelin without Jimmy Page—and yeah, so what if Robert Plant does get that 100th hundred?

As you’d expect, there have been quite a few moving tributes to him, and I think this wonderful piece by Sambit Bal captured the man’s essence really well. An excerpt:

When we spoke a couple of weeks ago, I asked if he regretted not having retired in England. His response was a further revelation of character. He would certainly have retired if he hadn’t had a good series, he said, but after doing so well, retiring would have been selfish. There was a series to be won in Australia, and he owed it to the team to make the trip. And no, there were no regrets. He would do it no other way, even if offered a second chance.

I’d written a bunch of pieces on Dravid back in my days as a cricket writer, the last of which, I think, was this: ‘Rahul Dravid: Transcending History’. Many of the pieces celebrating him today and yesterday, unfortunately, seek to reinforce a bunch of entirely untrue cliches about him. No, Dravid was not just a dour technician with loads of patience—he was a beautiful, attractive strokeplayer at his best, who combined elegance and grace with a sense of purpose. No, he was not a misfit in one-day cricket: for a period of maybe four years, he was possibly even the best ODI finisher in the world, batting at Nos. 5 and 6. And no, despite the debacle of the 2007 World Cup, he wasn’t a failed captain: he led us to memorable series victories outside the subcontinent, in West Indies and England, something we hadn’t managed for a decade before he took over.

Anyway, here a bunch of pieces about Dravid that I enjoyed reading, by Sharda Ugra, Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (1 and 2), Rob Smyth, Patrick Kidd and Alex Massie.

Bloody hell, I’m going to hate cricket for the rest of this week. Sob.

Update: And here’s a fine piece by Mukul Kesavan: ‘Stylish in the Trenches’. The money quote:

It is a retirement freighted with more meaning than merely the end of an individual career. Rahul Dravid was an old-fashioned cricketer: he was a Test match batsman who was great without being glamorous, brave without being brash. He was, if you like, the polar opposite of Virat Kohli, Indian cricket’s new poster boy. When this honourable man called it a day, middle-aged fans across the subcontinent shivered: they felt a goose walk over Test cricket’s grave.

Update 2: Here’s a wonderful piece by Vijeeta Dravid on Rahul: ‘My Husband, the Perfectionist.’ I was touched by this bit:

When I began to understand the kind of politics there are in the game, he only said one thing: that this game has given me so much in life that I will never be bitter. There is so much to be thankful for, no matter what else happens, that never goes away.

Contrast that with some of the bitterness you see in some former and current cricketers.

Also, here’s a fine piece by Tanya Aldred.

Men, Listen Up

Amit Varma — 2012-02-14T06:54:00+04:30

According to the Times of India, the five things men need to do to attract women are 1] grow old, 2] hang around in a hot place, 3] get beaten up, 4] wear spectacles and 5] carry a plant around. Apparently, “it takes a patient, affectionate man to grow healthy plants.” Also,"experts say that if you can take care of your garden for only 30 minutes a week, it can improve your health and performance in bed.” Not just that, “fertile women are subconsciously drawn to men who are good at gardening.”

Well, ok, I made that last quote up. But would you be surprised if I hadn’t?

Heavy Fuel

Amit Varma — 2012-02-09T05:53:00+04:30

Mid Day reports:

In an attempt to prevent animal abuse, the state government has instructed petroleum giants Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum to not transport oil using animal power.

I’m blogging this only because of the delicious irony of Petroleum companies transporting their fuel in bullock carts. I have no comment to make on the animal rights angle here— though it’s not as bizarre as the report about the five killer whales in San Diego who “have been named in a slavery case that argues they should have the same constitutional rights as humans.” I mean, if whales have rights, it could be argued that chickens and cows do as well, and then your food could start suing you posthumously. If PETA ever sues me on behalf of a chicken that I ate the previous night, I will snap produce a legal document with an illegible scrawl on it, and say, “The chicken signed this waiver of its rights before I cooked it. Choke on that.”

Ok, lunchtime.

(Photo courtesy Mid Day.)

The Dalit Cartel

Amit Varma — 2012-02-08T08:53:00+04:30

Check out this piece by Shikha Dalmia on the role that market forces play in perpetuating the caste system. Quite fascinating; though I wish her editors had thought of a better headline…

Ban Nudity! Ban Nightlife!

Amit Varma — 2012-02-08T08:22:00+04:30

Our right-wing lunatics are so funny sometimes that it’s hard to hate them. Balbir Punj has a bizarre (but typical, so maybe not so bizarre) rant up on the New Indian Express about how Western values are ruining our country. His arguments are so priceless that you have the read the whole thing, I can’t just excerpt for WTFness. Among other things, he thinks that ‘nudity’ and ‘nightlife’ are “Western aberrations”, and rants against same-sex unions on the grounds that they only take place for ‘pleasure’, which, in his opinion, is a bad thing. Punj has it exactly the wrong way around: the rising divorce rates he rails against are, in my opinion, something to celebrate, and the decline of family values is a damn good thing.

Ooh, I can imagine Punj choking on his coffee if he reads this. But wait, coffee must surely also be a Western aberration, no?

City News

Amit Varma — 2012-02-08T07:17:01+04:30

Having resumed blogging, it was natural for me to head over to the ToI site for the potential double WTFness of 1. what’s happening and 2. what the ToI is reporting. Not much gratification there, though their ‘city’ section did provide some food for thought. Here are the four headlines on that section:

* * *

I actually clicked on one of them. Apparently Ayesha Takia complained on Twitter about Kingfisher Airlines, and Siddharth Mallya responded: “Not too sure who she is, an actor of some sorts?? [sic]” Well, I’m not sure who Siddharth Mallya is. Someone or the other’s son and boyfriend? Is there anything else he’s famous for?

Bombastic Little Creep

Amit Varma — 2008-11-05T13:29:01+04:30

This character’s creator described him as “insufferable”, and called him a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep”. On August 6 1975, the New York Times carried his obituary, the only time it has thus honoured a fictional character. Who?

Workoutable © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Flash’em Poker

Amit Varma — 2008-06-28T00:29:00+04:30

In Texas Hold’em Poker, which hand is known as ‘six tits’?

Workoutable © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Glory and Sadness, Beauty and Pain

Amit Varma — 2008-05-22T18:17:00+04:30

X is a song written by Y and famously covered by Z. Time Magazine’s Josh Tyrangiel described it thus:

Y murmured the original like a dirge, but except for a single overwrought breath before the music kicks in, Z treated the 7-min. song like a tiny capsule of humanity, using his voice to careen between glory and sadness, beauty and pain, mostly just by repeating the word X. It’s not only Z’s best song — it’s one of the great songs, and because it covers so much emotional ground and is not (yet) a painfully obvious choice, it has become the go-to track whenever a TV show wants to create instant mood. ‘X can be joyous or bittersweet, depending on what part of it you use,’ says Sony ATV’s Kathy Coleman. ‘It’s one of those rare songs that the more it gets used, the more people want to use it.’

Name X, Y and Z.

Workoutable © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

May be harmful if inhaled or swallowed

Amit Varma — 2008-05-18T13:30:00+04:30

In the book “The World of _____” by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K Bealer, there is a photograph of a label from a jar of pharmaceutical-grade crystals. It reads:

“WARNING: MAY BE HARMFUL IF INHALED OR SWALLOWED. HAS CAUSED MUTAGENIC AND REPRODUCTIVE EFFECTS IN LABORATORY ANIMALS. INHALATION CAUSES RAPID HEART RATE, EXCITEMENT, DIZZINESS, PAIN, COLLAPSE, HYPOTENSION, FEVER, SHORTNESS OF BREATH. MAY CAUSE HEADACHE, INSOMNIA, VOMITING, STOMACH PAIN, COLLAPSE AND CONVULSIONS.”

Fill in the blank.

Workoutable © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

XYZ

Amit Varma — 2008-05-13T19:16:00+04:30

In 1981, Jimmy Page, Chris Squire and Alan White got together to form a band, and tried to recruit Robert Plant into it. Plant attended one rehearsal, chose not to join the band, and the project fell through. Had it survived, the band would have called itself XYZ. Why?

Workoutable © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

A Small Eye Poet

Amit Varma — 2007-12-11T13:55:00+04:30

"I am a small eye poet.” Who once wrote these words in a letter to his mother?

Workoutable © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Dileep Kumar and Saira Banu

Abhishek Toraskar — 2007-11-22T07:48:00+04:30

Who used to be known as Dileep Kumar, and is now married to Saira Banu?

Workoutable © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Extrowords #106: Generalissimo 76

Amit Varma — 2007-12-21T18:15:00+04:30

Sample clues

9 across: Van Morrison classic from Moondance (7)

6 down: Order beginning with ‘A’ (12)

6 across: Fatal weakness (8,4)

19 across: Rolling Stones classic (12)

4 down: Massacre tool (8)

Extrowords © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Extrowords #105: Generalissimo 75

Amit Varma — 2007-12-17T06:25:00+04:30

Sample clues

5 across: Robbie Robertson song about Richard Manuel (6,5)

2 down: F5 on a keyboard (7)

10 across: Lionel Richie hit (5)

3 down: ALTAIR, for example (5)

16 down: The problem with Florida 2000 (5)

Extrowords © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Extrowords #104: Generalissimo 74

Amit Varma — 2007-12-13T18:18:00+04:30

Sample clues

6 across: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s breakthrough film (6,6)

19 across: Soft leather shoe (8)

7 down: Randroids, for example (12)

12 down: First American World Chess Champion (7)

17 down: Circle of influence (5)

Extrowords © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Extrowords #103: Generalissimo 74

Amit Varma — 2007-12-11T15:27:00+04:30

Sample clues

14 across: FDR’s baby (3,4)

1 down: A glitch in the Matrix? (4,2)

4 down: Slanted character (6)

5 down: New Year’s venue in New York (5,6)

16 down: Atmosphere of melancholy (5)

Extrowords © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

Extrowords #102: Generalissimo 73

Amit Varma — 2007-12-10T18:27:00+04:30

Sample clues

5 across: The US president’s bird (3,5,3)

11 down: Group once known as the Quarrymen (7)

10 across: Cavalry sword (5)

19 across: Masonic ritual (5,6)

1 down: Pioneer of Ostpolitik (6)

Extrowords © 2007 IndiaUncut.com. All rights reserved.
India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

This Video Hurts the Sentiments of Hindu’s [sic] Across the World

Amitava Kumar — 2009-10-27T07:22:01+04:30

I loved Nina Paley’s brilliant animated film Sita Sings the Blues. If you’re reading this, stop right now—and watch the film here.

Paley has set the story of the Ramayana to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. The epic tale is interwoven with Paley’s account of her husband’s move to India from where he dumps her by e-mail. The Ramayana is presented with the tagline: “The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told.”

All of this should make us curious. But there are other reasons for admiring this film:

The film returns us to the message that is made clear by every village-performance of the Ramlila: the epics are for everyone. Also, there is no authoritative narration of an epic. This film is aided by three shadow puppets who, drawing upon memory and unabashedly incomplete knowledge, boldly go where only pundits and philosophers have gone before. The result is a rendition of the epic that is gloriously a part of the everyday.

This idea is taken even further. Paley says that the work came from a shared culture, and it is to a shared culture that it must return: she has put the film on Creative Commons—viewers are invited to distribute, copy, remix the film.

Of course, such art drives the purists and fundamentalists crazy. On the Channel 13 website, “Durgadevi” and “Shridhar” rant about the evil done to Hinduism. It is as if Paley had lit her tail (tale!) and set our houses on fire!

The Hard Edges of Modern Lives

Amitava Kumar — 2009-03-20T08:26:00+04:30

This new film is the latest remake of Devdas, but what is equally interesting is the fact that it is in conversation with films made in the West. Unlike Bhansali’s more spectacular version of the older story, Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D is a genuine rewriting of Sarat Chandra’s novel. Kashyap doesn’t flinch from depicting the individual’s downward spiral, but he also gives women their own strength. He has set out to right a wrong—or, at least, tell a more realistic, even redemptive, story. If these characters have lost some of the affective depth of the original creations, they have also gained the hard edges of modern lives.

We don’t always feel the pain of Kashyap’s characters, but we are able to more readily recognize them. Take Chandramukhi, or Chanda, who is a school-girl humiliated by the MMS sex-scandal. Her father, protective and patriarchal, says that he has seen the tape and thinks she knew what she was doing. “How could you watch it?” the girl asks angrily. And then, “Did you get off on it?” When was the last time a father was asked such a question on the Hindi screen? With its frankness toward sex and masturbation, Dev.D takes a huge step toward honesty. In fact, more than the obvious tributes to Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, or the over-extended psychedelic adventure on screen, in fact, as much as the moody style of film-making, the candour of such questions make Dev.D a film that is truly a part of world cinema.

New York Cricket Club

Amitava Kumar — 2008-10-11T05:29:01+04:30

Literate Indians should be familiar with Ashis Nandy’s remark: “Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English.“ A Trinidadian Indian by the name of Chuck Ramkissoon, in Joseph O’Neill’s superbly inflected novel “Netherland”, is also fond of making bold pronouncements on the behalf of the game he wants to introduce to the U.S. “I’m saying that people, all people, Americans, whoever, are at their most civilized when they’re playing cricket. What’s the first thing that happens when Pakistan and India make peace? They play a cricket match…”

It’s now my turn to be bold: “Netherland” is more of an Indian novel than the recent, much feted, Indian fiction. This is not only because O’Neill’s novel feeds our national obsession with the game. Nor even its exquisite description of what transpires on the playing field: “…. where the white-clad ring of infielders, swanning figures on the vast oval, again and again converge in unison toward the batsman and again and again scatter back to their starting points, a repetition of pulmonary rhythm, as if the field breathed through its luminous visitors.” No. My pronouncement is based on the fact that the Indian characters in the book are highly individualized and yet fully global in their identity. “Netherland” is not a sociological-historical epic thesis, nor is it a shallow, cynical report on injustice in the hinterland. Rich in observation, reporting as much on the interior life as on the life outside, it is a captivating literary achievement. A masterpiece.

The Desperate Passion of Ben Foster

Aspi Havewala — 2008-08-11T10:53:01+04:30

I could barely recognize Ben Foster in 3:10 to Yuma, but I was blown away just the same by him as in his star making turn from Hostage. What makes Foster so special in Yuma?

Yuma contains two of Hollywood’s finest: Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Bale is excellent, Crowe a little too relaxed to be cock-sure-dangerous. Both are unable to provide the powder-keg relationship that the movie demands.

Into this void steps Ben Foster. He plays Charlie Prince, sidekick to Crowe’s dangerous and celebrated outlaw Ben Wade. When Wade is captured, Prince is infuriated. He initiates an effort suffused with desperate passion to rescue his boss.

Playing Prince with a mildly effeminate gait, Foster quickly becomes the movie’s beating heart. What struck me in particular was that Foster was able to balance method acting with just plain good acting. He plays his character organically but isn’t above drawing attention with controlled staginess.

Gradually, Foster’s willingness to control a scene blend in with that of Prince’s. Is the character manipulating his circumstances in the movie or is it the actor playing a fine hand? Foster is so entertaining, the answer is immaterial.

One Chai and a Wills Navy Cut

Amitava Kumar — 2008-05-13T18:44:00+04:30

Pablo Bartholomew’s beautiful photo-show “Outside In” opened in Manhattan a few evenings ago. The exhibition is being held at Bodhi Art in Chelsea. Black-and-white photographs from the seventies and the eighties—reflecting Bartholomew’s engagement with people and places in Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta.

These are not the pictures that made Bartholomew famous. The undying image of the father brushing the dust from the face of the child he is burying—that was the iconic photograph from the Bhopal tragedy in 1984. It also won for Bartholomew, still in his twenties, the World Press Photo’s Picture of the Year Award.

The images in “Outside In” do not commemorate grim tragedies or celebrate well-publicised public events. Instead, they are documents that offer intimate recall of a period and a milieu. Please click here to look at these photographs.

People who share a context with the photographer will have their own private reading of the scenes. For me, they evoke days when happiness seemed only one chai and a Wills Navy Cut away. There is charm and candor in these scenes. And because the young believe they will live forever, there is nothing defensive or stuck-up or overly self-conscious about their faces and postures.

Even the language of the captions is true to this spirit: “Self-portrait after a trippy night…”; “Nona writing and Alok zonked out…”; “Hanging out with the Maharani Bagh gang….” The exhibition catalogue has a fine essay by Aveek Sen that has also been published in the latest issue of Biblio.

Brown is the New Black

Amitava Kumar — 2007-11-11T20:01:00+04:30

I’m coming to the party late—last weekend, for the first but not the last time, I watched Manish Acharya’s comedy, Loins of Punjab Presents. Behan____, what a film!

I will not rehearse the synopsis or plot, partly because of the lateness of the hour, but also because it is available here. Instead, let me note quickly that the comedy keeps ticking, and the attention to detail in all matters, from the plot to the casting, makes this film a pleasure to watch.

Let me use one scene to make a point about where the film is coming from. Ishitta Sharma, playing a demure, Gujju girl called Preeti Patel, is one of the competitors in the Desi Idol competition in New Jersey. We have watched her sing beautifully, and we have watched her stay silent, eyes downcast, as her family-members make fools of themselves. But there’s a moment later in the film, when an older, wily competitor, played with classy ease by Shabana Azmi, tries to manipulate her. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Preeti Patel turns upon the Shabana character. It’s as if she always had a dagger hiding in her hand.

When I saw that, I thought that there was a similar strength in the movie I was watching. It’s all laughs but it has a quicksilver intelligence within. It is a declaration of independence by the desi diaspora—and what is great is that it celebrates this freedom by mocking, and loving, almost everything in sight.

Winding Up

Amit Varma — 2007-09-26T08:08:00+04:30

A couple of evenings ago, my cousin Debika and I were discussing how we’d react if we were told we had just a few months to live. She said she would try and do everything she liked in that time, and surround herself with her family. I said that I’d be inclined to save people I cared for the pain of watching me die—whatever that took. Ironically and unexpectedly, shortly after this conversation, we found ourselves watching François Ozon’s remarkable film Time to Leave.

The film begins with its protagonist, Romain, discovering that he is terminally ill with cancer, and deciding not to bother with treatment. He does not tell his friends or family of his condition. He is rude to his sister, and drives her to tears. He tells his lover, Sasha, that he does not love him, and drives him to move out of their house. This is a transparent lie, but though we see it, Sasha doesn’t. He confides to his grandmother—marvellously played by Jeanne Moreau—because she is like him, and “will die soon.” But even in this winding up, complications ensue.

Melvil Poupaud plays Romain, and is magnificent – understated, yet effortlessly expressive. But it is Ozon’s storytelling that makes this film memorable. It is spare, focussing only on the essential, and revealing its essence. There is not a frame out of place in this heartbreaking film that ends, like Romain, too soon and in great beauty.

Vintage Vega

Aspi Havewala — 2007-09-21T11:00:00+04:30

Over ten years ago, Suzanne Vega hit a terribly sexy groove with an album called Nine Objects of Desire that made me seek out every CD she has done since then. She’s kept us waiting for six years for her new studio effort, but it’s such vintage Vega that the reward is well worth the wait.

The first thing to note on Beauty & Crime is that producer Jimmy Hogarth and mixer Tchad Blake have tuned the album’s tracks entirely to suit Vega’s rather inflexible, breathy voice. With the sonic help, Vega is freed up to focus on enunciating the layers behind her lyrics. Yet Hogarth and Blake also manage to seed each song with finely crafted arrangements and subtle hooks that make them musically interesting.

Although Vega uses a large canvas to record her ruminations, her most touching songs are those that are personal. On “Ludlow Street” she quietly mourns the passing of her brother: “I find each stoop and doorway’s incomplete/without you there”.

On the superbly produced “Bound”, she seems to be confirming her longtime friend Paul Mills’s continuing interest in her after her divorce from Michael Froom in 2001. On “As You Are Now” she manages – against all odds - to fit in a parent’s love for her child in four sweet verses.

Independence Day

Amitava Kumar — 2007-08-15T23:39:00+04:30

I’m writing this on August 15. It is our Independence Day. A young Kashmiri Muslim told me in Srinagar a few months ago that this is the day on which everyone there tries to stay indoors. This is not because the people support Pakistan, but because they are most suspect on August 15. You are questioned, searched, and locked. If any of the readers have had a chance to view Sanjay Kak’s powerful documentary Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Freedom) you’ll see how Sanjay, coming in to Srinagar for a visit around Independence Day, is struck by the fact that the only people present for the ceremony are the cops and members of the armed forces. (That’s Rave Out #1. For Jashn-e-Azadi.)

Last week’s announcement of the Indian Express-CNN/IBN poll, that an overwhelming majority of Kashmiris in the valley want azadi, also underlines the importance of a genuine rethinking on the question of independence rather than empty, nationalist sabre-rattling. (Anyway, that’s Rave Out #2. For Indian Express and CNN/IBN, as well as the good folk at CSDS who designed the poll.)

This is a good day for re-opening the pages of 13 December: A Reader, in which thirteen writers and journalists point out the injustice involved in the quick media-lynching of SAR Geelani and the denial of a fair trial to Afzal Guru. (This would be Rave Out #3, for the book, although wouldn’t it be great if the book weren’t needed?)

Snogworthy jams + social commentary

Aspi Havewala — 2007-08-09T11:35:00+04:30

Once while eating dinner in Montreal, our friendly, intoxicated waitress plopped herself in my lap and proceeded to tell us about how obsessed she was with the CD that was playing - singing out the lyrics at an ungodly volume and flinging her arms about. Wow, I thought to myself, people who listen to Morcheeba sure seem to have a lot of fun, and promised to check them out.

Several CDs later, they are firmly one of my favorites. And their trip hop meditation, 2003’s Charango remains one of my most played CDs.

Morcheeba (Mor = more, Cheeba = pot) are brothers Ross and Paul Godfrey with singer Skye Edwards (who has since been replaced). Part trance, part ambience, Charango is full of smooth, snogworthy jams. And just as you surrender to its seductive groove, Slick Rick shows up with a rap called “Women Lose Weight”.

Lamenting his wife putting on weight after having kids and stalled by his mistress who wants a clean break before she shacks up with him, he decides the easiest way out of it all is to kill the spouse. Considering different ways to do the deed, he finally rams his car into her Chevy over a long lunch break one fine day. It is an unexpected, stunning, tongue-in-cheek social commentary that makes it a CD you won’t forget easily.