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The Bombzooka Question

Amit Varma — 2012-12-17T04:36:00+04:30

I have three hypothetical questions for you guys. Humour me and try and read all the way through.

One. Knives can be used to kill people. They can also be used to cut vegetables. But because they enable murder, to users so inclined, should they be banned? Or is that an abrogation of individual freedom?

Two. Guns can be used to kill people. They can also be used for self defence. Should they be banned, or is that a violation of your rights?

Three. Bombzookas are a new invention of mine. I’ve created an easily mass-produced semi-nuclear device that can be sold over the counter in retail outlets everywhere, like knives. A Bombzooka destroys everything within 20 square km of it. It’s easy to use—you can place it somewhere and activate it via mobile phone—and obviously lethal. Like knives and guns, it can be used to kill people. Should Bombzookas be banned, or is that a violation of your rights?

The answers to my first and third questions should be uniform, regardless of what ideology you believe in. Even the most ardent libertarian would surely agree that Bombzookas should be banned. The strongest supporter of gun control would agree that knives should be legal. The inevitable dispute over the second question, of gun control, thus seems to me to simply be about where we draw the line between a knife and a bombzooka? It hinges on the quantum of damage the instrument can cause. In other words, it isn’t about principle at all, provided we accept that Bombzookas should not be sold over the counter.

No?

* * *

As for where I personally stand on gun control, well, I’m a libertarian but I’m happy that guns aren’t sold over the counter in India. If they were, someone would have put a bullet through my head in some underground poker game or the other at some point in time. ‘You busted my aces again. Blam!’ Or suchlike.

I can probably construct an elaborate argument for my position, but I’m feeling too lazy right now. So shoot me.

A Tale of Two Cities

Amit Varma — 2012-11-19T17:25:01+04:30

I was on a CNN-IBN show earlier this evening, where the topic under discussion was the arrest of two girls over a Facebook post one of them made (and the other one ‘liked’) about how the city should not be shut down just because Bal Thackeray had died. The channel seemed to be treating it as if the event was out of the ordinary. It wasn’t. It was same-old, same-old, in two distinct ways.

One, it illustrates the legacy that Thackeray has left behind. In my mind, Bombay and Mumbai are two separate entities: Bombay is a thriving cosmopolitan city which embraces immigrants and the entrepreneurial energy they bring with them, and is a harmonious melting pot of cultures. Mumbai is an intellectually repressed place, the creation of a divisive demagogue that thrives on intolerance. These two girls were arrested in Mumbai, the city that Thackeray built. Bombay is the city some of us cherish and are trying to save. And even though Thackeray might himself now be dead, his dangerous legacy clearly lives on.

Two, while in the studio they kept discussing Section 66 of the IT Act, the truth is that the problem is a broader one than just social media and the IT Act. The Indian Penal Code contains sections that are just as draconian, such as Sections 295 (a), 153 (a) and 124 (a), and Article 19 (2) of the Indian constitution lays down caveats to free speech, such as “public order” and “decency and morality”, which are open to interpretation and, thus, to misuse. It’s sad, but our constitution does not give free speech the same kind of protection that, say, the First Amendment of the US constitution does, and our laws, many of them framed in colonial times, allow authorities to clamp down on free speech whenever they so desire. (For more, read: ‘Don’t Insult Pasta.’) It’s not just the IT Act that is a problem here.

So Thackeray is dead, and free speech is ailing. Such it goes.

Also read

Bal Thackeray’s Poisonous Legacies—Rohit Chopra
Fear and Loathing in Mumbai—Vinay Sitapati
Why I can’t pay tribute to Thackeray—Markandey Katju
Thackeray could have done so much more for Marathis—Aroon Tikekar

Thodi Si Tu Lift Karade

Amit Varma — 2012-10-20T10:01:00+04:30

I suppose I should display some empathy here, but I can’t help but be a little amused by the plight of the residents of a swank society in Santa Cruz, who have “filed a police complaint and a consumer case against a developer who, they say, installed car lifts too small to accommodate their large, swanky sedans and SUVs, forcing them to park their cars on the road despite paying astronomical prices for their posh homes.” One such gentleman, who “owns a Toyota Corolla and a 3-BHK flat in the building,” has apparently been stuck in the lift multiple times. On one such occasion, he says:

I struggled to get out of the car. There was no way that I could open the door, so I had to force myself out of the window, climb on to the roof of the car, somehow open the lift door and jump down a level.

There’s a JG Ballard novel in this somewhere.

The Gathering Birds

Amit Varma — 2012-10-20T09:42:00+04:30

’Before anyone else was interested in the ornithology of terror he saw the gathering birds,’ Salman Rushdie writes about himself in Joseph Anton.

Something new was happening here: the growth of a new intolerance. It was spreading across the surface of the earth, but nobody wanted to know. A new word had been created to help the blind remain blind: Islamophobia. To criticize the militant stridency of this religion in its contemporary incarnation was to be a bigot. A phobic person was extreme and irrational in his views, and so the fault lay with such persons and not with the belief system that boasted over one billion followers worldwide. One billion believers could not be wrong, therefore the critics must be the ones foaming at the mouth. When, he wanted to know, did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent. “He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill,” wrote Edmund Burke. “Our antagonist is our helper.” Only the weak and the authoritarian turned away from their opponents and called them names and sometimes wished to do them harm.

It was Islam that had changed, not people like himself, it was Islam that had become phobic of a very wide range of ideas, behaviors, and things.

Read the full thing. I know people who are turned off by the stylistic flourishes of his novels, but Joseph Anton brims with clarity and insight, and is well worth your time.

‘A Living Room Full of Guys’

Amit Varma — 2012-10-18T21:01:00+04:30

Check out this TED Talk by Tony Porter on how men get trapped in a ‘Manbox’—and women bear the consequences of that. It’s quite excellent, and I especially recommend you watch it if you’re a parent.

First Lessons

Amit Varma — 2012-10-16T09:42:00+04:30

The quote of the day comes from Thomas Sowell:

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

I got the quote from an excellent piece by David Boaz on the fallacies in many arguments for a bigger role for the state: The Empty Case for Big Government. Read the full thing.

Small Brother is Watching You

Amit Varma — 2012-10-15T14:45:00+04:30

Some people demonize CCTV as something as a threat to our privacy, as a tool for ostensible Big Brothers everywhere to potentially be watching us. But in many ways, I think they can do just the opposite: they can empower common people, and act as a check on oppressors, who thrive on controlling the flow of information. As an example, check out this video below, which compiles CCTV footage to show the following sequence of events:

1] Rabia Imran, daughter of Shahbaz Sharif, visits a bakery in Lahore on a Sunday morning. The bakery is closed.

2] One of her minions gets it opened. There’s a sweeper inside, who informs Rabia that the shop will open in the afternoon, and he obviously can’t sell her anything right away.

3] But Rabia needs her sugar kick. She needs it now.

4] She calls another minion. The two minions take the sweeper aside and slap him around. They leave.

5] A few hours later, three more minions, accompanied by uniformed cops, come to the bakery.

6] They take the sweeper outside and thrash him.

7] Then, with the police watching, they bundle him into a van. A few hours later, we are informed, he is dropped off bearing marks of severe assault.

And all this is on CCTV, undeniably there. They can’t even deny it.

Of course, you could argue, so what, we all know this happens, this is hardly a revelation. True. But I think there is a possibility that if Big Brother knows that Small Brother is watching, he might be inclined to behave just a little better. So thank goodness for all the tools of surveillance and of spreading information that empower all of us.

* * *

I hardly need to add that even though this particular footage is from Pakistan, this kind of attitude and behaviour is endemic in India as well. We’re also a developing nation with a feudal mindset. No?

The Two Roads to Happiness

Amit Varma — 2012-10-14T11:28:00+04:30

In an interview with Abheek Bhattacharya, the Chinese economist Zhang Weiying says:

We human beings always seek happiness. Now there are two ways. You make yourself happy by making other people unhappy—I call that the logic of robbery. The other way, you make yourself happy by making other people happy—that’s the logic of the market. Which way do you prefer?

Or what John Stossel once called ‘The Double “Thank You” Moment’. It’s a ridiculously simple insight, which makes it all the more amazing that so many people just don’t get it.

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?

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?

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Flash’em Poker

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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?

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.