Area of Darkness - some thoughts on our hygiene

'An Area of Darkness'  may not one of those greatest books that the enviable intellect of  VS Naipaul have ever produced, but It's still an interesting read to  those who enjoy Sir Vidia's style of writing and his infamous approach to non-fiction in exploring and exposing uncomfortable truths.

  Book talks about his first visit to India in early 1960's and  it was published in 1964. Lets see what Wikipedia has to say about the book;

"A deeply pessimistic work, An Area of Darkness conveys the acute sense of disillusionment which the author experiences on his first visit to his ancestral land. True to his style, the narration is anecdotal and descriptive.The book was immediately banned in India for its negative portrayal of India and its people"

As precise as the above passage read, it was the result of this deep disappointment which the country of his origin, 'India' created in a Trinidad brought up,  intellectually arrogant, 29 year old man of 1960's that the book was resulted.

Now why the title  'Area of Darkness'?

"To me as a child the India that had produced so many of the persons and things around me was featureless, and I thought of the time when the transference was made as a period of darkness, darkness which also extended to the land, as darkness surrounds a hut at the evening, though there a little way around the hut there is still light. The light was the area of my experience, in time and place. And even now, though time has widened, though space has contracted, and I have traveled lucidly over that area which was to me the area of darkness,something of darkness remains, in those attitudes,those way of thinking and seeing, which are no longer mine."

 Naipaul's ancestors where belonged to a class of upper cast Brahmins, from the state of Uttar pradesh of northern India who migrated to Trinidad, and its interesting to see what he has to say about this.

 "My Grandfather had made a difficult and courageous journey.It must have brought him into collision with startling sights , even like the sea, several hundred miles from his village; yet I cannot help feeling that as soon as he had left his village he ceased to see. "


"He had abandoned India.. and He denied Trinidad. Yet he walked on solid earth . Nothing beyond his village stirred him; nothing had forced him out of himself; he carried his village with him. A few reassuring relationships  a strip of land, and he could satisfyingly re-create  an eastern Uttar Pradesh village in central Trinidad as if in the vastness of India." 

This shows his frustration as child in growing up with a kind of cultural 'darkness' lurking around him in everything he did. No wonder he accuses his grand father for it. He still secretly longed to see his homeland. But, what awaited him in India was shocking, filth, corruption and never ending miseries. He disliked almost everything that he saw and the book, 'Area of darkness' was born.

Parents of Naipaul

He covers all most all area of 'Corruption' in India in those days; with out leaving other disturbing areas like ,  racism,  regional conflicts and apartheid.

He recollects a scene where a 'Sardar' friend of his (A man belonged to Sikh community in Punjab) beating up a man who was sitting opposite to them in a restaurant, shouting;

'This bloody dravidian is staring at me' 
and to Sardar's surprise, the man cries back.
'Sardarji, dont beat me; I am not a south Indian, I am a punjabi like you'

Naipaul admits that he was so scared, and ran away from that restaurant in total shock and disbelief immediately after this incident.

In another instance, he quotes Mahatma Gandhi on an Incident where some delegates of congress defecated on the veranda of assembly itself, failing to see there were toilets available for that purpose; and goes in length , about our Sanitation standards in typical form of his;

"Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly beside the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover"

Its a cruel observation;but its also the most honest of all observations ever made by any one related to it.

By this, we should leave Naipaul for now, and focus on this particular issue of our society.

At least 65 years have passed after India got freedom. A good 62 years have passed after India became a republic.at least a good 50 years have passed after Naipaul made his cruel observation on our sanitation standards. Many governments, Many Political parties, Many different leaders enjoyed the power in all these years. Now lets see where India stands in terms of Sanitation and public hygiene.

The following extract is from a BBC report on Indian Census of 2012.

Nearly half of India's 1.2 billion people have no toilet at home, but more people own a mobile phone, according to the latest census data.Only 46.9% of the 246.6 million households have lavatories while 49.8% defecate in the open. The remaining 3.2% use public toilets.

About 77% of homes in the eastern state of Jharkhand have no toilet facilities, while the figure is 76.6% for Orissa and 75.8% in Bihar. All three are among India's poorest states with huge populations which live on less than a dollar a day.

"Open defecation continues to be a big concern for the country as almost half of the population do it," Registrar General and Census Commissioner C Chandramouli said while releasing the latest data.
"Cultural and traditional reasons and a lack of education are the prime reasons for this unhygienic practice. We have to do a lot in these fronts," he said.

Now Isn't it bit shocking to see nearly half of Indians in 2013 going to open fields to defecate ? . Which other country in the world can claim such a honor?  Now lets see an interesting chart on various Indian states on sanitation standards.

This probably explains why I have never seen any one doing it in open field in all my years I spent in Kerala. The same could not be said about all other three states of south India where I stayed for years or frequently travels to; where the chart is speaking in volumes on the north side of India. Bangalore is the IT capital of India, and also home to at least ten million people.You still see people sitting in open ('Open' is a myth in most of the city, as all you can see is huge apartment blocks) fields in day light to address the nature's call with out being intimidated by the passer by's or people who shout at them from the adjacent apartments.This  extremely disgusting scene is very common at least to the people who live in apartments which are adjacent to the railway lines. Who have to be blamed? Not those who do this but the authorities who are supposed to build toilet facilities and educate to them about it. In corruption India stands tall among fellow nations and I believe India is officially ranked number 5 in the list of most corrupted countries of Asia in recent studies; where Philippines lead the list. But considering the population that we got, the overall effect of corruption is much bigger.

  'Cultural and traditional reasons' as mentioned by Census commissioner also play a big role in our sanitation issues. For example, it was reported that, even though the government built free lavatories in houses of  rural areas of Karnataka, people refused to use it for the intended purpose; and all those lavatories were soon transformed into the storerooms to keep grains that they produced.

Now lets come back to the Book;
'Area of Darkness' was not written for the typical, emotionally attached, conservative 'Indians' who would stand straight and  sing 'Sare Jahan Se Acha; Hindustan Hamara' (Our India is the best in the world)  with out  batting their eye even once.

I love my country too, but same time, I believe such honest works on our country make us think about the reality of the situation that we often underplay comfortably. For that reason I liked this book. And who knows one day, we could  even reach bit closer to 'the best in the world' stanza of that patriotic song, in its true sense?

Saga of Gaomi

Celebrated Noble Laurette of China, Mo Yan's  1996 novel, 'Big breasts and wide hips' is a saga of a blacksmith's family named 'Shangguan' in a small town named  'North east Township of Gaomi'. The novel talks about a mother of nine, Shangguan Lu who bore eight daughters and one son to at least 5 different men as she was married to an impotent. She and all her strong minded daughters are being involved directly or indirectly to different struggles that china faced from 1930's to 1990; right from Japanese Invasion, Cultural revolution, Civil war,  Rightist struggles in communist china to even the new found capitalism in the modern china. They are all victimized, subjected to different set of cruelty through out these struggles.When mother and her all bold daughters fights for survival, the only son of her's is extremely incapable and totally spoiled even to understand what was going on. apparently he was the one who is the narrator of the novel.

This was my first read of Mo Yan and also my first read on any book that was classified as 'Hallusionary Realism'. I thoroughly enjoyed the books of magic realism like Yuan Rulfo's Mexian classic Pedro Paramo, Nobel Laurette Gabriel Garcia Marquis's works like 'One hundred years of solitude' and naturally I wanted to read the modern masters of this craft.  Mo Yan is extremely skillful in writing, Cruel, always reluctant to use polished, beautiful prose; a documentary styled, 'as it is' type of narration. But, he has a story to tell and he knows how to do it. 


 I liked it most, I didn't like it somewhere, but, I believe  it definitely worth reading especially if someone is interested in china and its culture.And Its easy to note that, he is so cruelly honest when writing about his country.

It seems like Mo Yan, the celebrated writer of 'Hallussionary Realism' has already something hallusionary  about his childhood. He says, he used to talk to himself a lot even when he was grown up and his parents were extremely anxious about this behavioral aberration. He had to promise his mother that he would not do that in future, something which he could not keep. But this resulted in choosing the pen name Mo yan which means 'dont speak'. A man who was brought up in one of the poorest counties in china, who had very little formal education, spent his childhood in extreme poverty in the famine hit china . A man who belonged to the
generation of Chinese writers who were subjected to censorship in the hand of communists, where everyone was afraid of being branded as 'rightists'. When In Soviet Russia intellectuals were sent to Siberia to spend the rest of the life fighting to survive, in china it seems like they were sent to fields to take care of the cattle or  even to carry the manure in group farms for survival. Mo yan describes , he was forced to write a pro-communist short story to establish himself as a writer but still failed to do so as the authorities rejected classifying it as less revolutionary.

 He openly admits in his early days, he wanted his writing to have nothing to do with society but to make some money so that he could eat good food. As more and more he read western and other foreign literature's he developed a serious influence at least from some of them,  and its obvious to see traces of Gabriel Garcia Marques  in his works.  Take this novel  for instance ; if Marques spoke about the mystical village 'Macondo  and  the influential family of Buendía's in his most celebrated work, 'One hundred years of solitude' for Mo yan, its 'North east township of Gaomi' and he talks about the black smith family of 'Shangguan' extending generations.


Mo Yan's writing has good flow and initially the book seemed to be un-putdownable but in later stages,
his unusual penchant for cheap melodramas spoiled the class of the book. As in some silly movie script, long lost Brother and sister re-join somewhere in an unusual work place and introduce to each other, as ' I was sold to a Russian when I was young, and I believe I was your 7th sister'  or, like a Sidney Sheldon novel, you often see 'out of blue' rag to rich and rich to rag transformations. Another example of silly melodrama is one of the sisters who was sold to a brothel thirty years back, coming back to home with some good money  saying, 'I slept with ten thousand men to save this' and dies in her mother's hands.

Main character and also the narrator of the novel, Shangguan Jintong was shown to be breast fed for most of the early years of his life and even at the age of 42 he is breast fed by a 52 year old woman. Novel describes in detail about his unusual fetish for breasts.He even makes love to a corpse and arrested for necrophilia and murder. He is being ridiculed, and harassed by different sects of society, from women to men, children to adults, leftist authorities to Rightist gorillas. Both communists and bourgeoisie subject him to luxury and harassment in different phases.He seems to represent the 'common Chinese man'  who's scared to react  and I think this character  fits in perfectly to the plot. The magical character, 'Birdman Han' reminded me of the wizard of 'macendo' but again its a very own mo yan thing, even though influence of Marquez can be seen many characters in this book.

Moyan' Big breast and wide hips  is a very complex work of political satire and one of the big rightist work ever especially against china. His imagination and his ability to create stories is amazing. The canvas of north east township of gaomi is big enough to portray the untold history of modern china. Famine, Jap attack. Chinese Women, 'Bound feet' to Martial Arts, Power and misery of communist regime, emergence of Bourgeoisie in later years, state controlled suppression of intellectuality and expressionism. Considering all this I am sure, this work would be appealing  to most non-Chinese readers like me. Mo yan's  depiction of Poverty and exploitation of the poor and hungry by the people of power were extremely skillful unbearably painful. It was heart breaking to read, the narration of the  rape of 'Qiao Qisha', the seventh sister of Jintong before his own eyes. I have not read anything more cruel before.

As i am just one book old in Mo yan's world, and may be this school of literature  is new to me. I am not fit enough to criticize him by one book. But I should say,  Nobel comity has always shown interest in rightist writers of communist countries  from Solzhenitsyn, of Soviet Era.

Mo yan has seen it all in china, he  sarcastically pukes on Chinese communism and end of the day, he is a good writer. But 'did he deserve a Nobel'. is what critics argue on.

Now lets see, how Mo Yan speaks about his own style.

'I am a writer with no theoretical training; but I possess a fertile imagination, thanks in part to china's popular traditions, which I am intent on continuing. I may be ignorant of high-flown literary concepts but I do know how to spin a bewitching tale, something I learned as a child from my grand father, grand mother; and variety of village story tellers. Critics who base their views of literature on scientific theories of one sort of other don't think much of me. But lets see them write a story that captures a reader's imagination'

'

chhota bheem and the throne of bali

        Poor imagination, sick story line, absolute ignorance of the children psychology,  a totally filthy story with goriest and poorest of all the characters ever created in the history of animation. To add to this, some typical old-Bollywood style slapstick's,melodrama, and group dances;and all of these were created on the screen with absolute primitive of the animation techniques.  One would never stop cursing for that two forgettable hours those were spent in extreme agony watching those sick characters performing on the screen, especially when some one's ill-fated enough to subject his or her  little one to all such unsuitable visuals.

Being an avid fan an of Animated movies, I think I have what it takes to criticize this movie.  I have watched almost all of Walt Disney's creations right from the very old, Snowhite and seven dwarfs (1937) and always admired their works.Almost hundred years has passed and its pathetic to see where the 'Indian animated movie' (definitely not about the  Indian's animation skills; they do pretty well for their foreign clients)  stands in terms of story line, characterization, and above all animation itself.  Trust me, I haven't had  expected a 'Miyasaki' perfection to a movie like this one. But, as its a movie that was released in theaters,there was nothing wrong in expecting something,which could come close the word 'OK'.

 'Chotta Bheem and the throne of Bali' is one of the sickest animation  movies ever created in the history of animation.  Its not the theme or story line that make a movie unsuitable for children its the treatment that matters. For example. Miyasaki's Spirited away, Henry Selick's Coraline, Walt disney's own, Monster's Inc; all dealt with Monster/devil/black magic stories,  but they were all 'class' ;thanks to the beauty of their characters and the overall treatment;  and alas, they were all  suitable for children.

Creators of Chotta Bheem possess nothing but the greed for quick money and as their character Chotta Bheem has already established in India as a super brand, they assume the best way is to do that, is to make something quick,  add some Bollywood style songs to it, market it hard with cute looking posters and cheat the parent of the Indian children shamelessly. Their merchandise is already doing great in the market in form of water bottles, school bags and what not. Thanks to our second largest population in the world, new found buying power of IT employees in metro cities, anything sell in our country.

'Chota Bheem' as a character was afresh when introduced; all those 'Village', 'Laddu', simple costumes all worked well initially. But, as the team went dry with lack of ideas,  they started churning out idiotic 'wrote-in-a-minute' stories for children who were glued to the TV Set waiting for their favorite character to appear on the screen. But for TV, they still can be accepted. People don't pay for it, and there is something called 'remote controller' to move away from all those stupid, repeated scenes again and again. But, a movie in a theater is a different story, People shell out their hard earned money for couple of hours of good time for their beloved children and they shouldn't feel looted.

Its a shame; and its robbery; Mr Rajeev Chilaka  (a Product of Osmania University of Hyderabad) should consider movie making in 'Telugu' for spice loving folks of his, and leave the innocent children alone.

I just cant help wondering;  What could be the up coming titles of Chotta Bheem? 'Chotta Bheem and the gangs of wasseypur', or 'Chotta Bheem and the shoot out at Lokhandwala'?

'Bin-Jip'

Just watched 3-iron,(Bin-Jip)  the 2004 Korean art house movie by the celebrated director Kim ki-duk. This movie had won dozens of international awards including best director award at the Venice Film Festival. At this point,I have no idea how many times I am going to watch it again.Its the sheer beauty of magic realism, the beauty of not knowing the reality from the fantasy, and the beauty of absolute silence that qualifies to reach the level of tranquility at times,that make this movie a class.  It was an amazing cinema experience in a midnight, and I couldn't ask for more.

The Plot is about a lonely man who breaks into other's apartments when they are away, to live a night or two after which he silently leaves, but only after fixing some broken articles as a thanks giving gesture for their unintended hospitality.His strange ways, life and his passion for golf, taking a serious turn when he meets a rich man's tormented wife,who elopes with him when he decides to punish the man to save the woman from abuse.  The movie talks about, their relationship, the secret life  they share,which only they can understand, and the consequences which they get to face.They don't speak to each other, but they don't need to, as they talk in silence in most of the time and its this silence that rules their romance and the movie.

(Kim Ki-duk)

'3-iron' is definitely a  modern masterpiece and I honestly regret for wasting eight long years before I finally watched it.

                         ****/******
                           
    It was last night that I saw the movie and blogged about it. Today, I woke up, dropped my child to her school and came back, still thinking about the movie. I feel this is what makes a cinema great. You don't just watch it, say 'clap--clap thank ma'am' and go to sleep and forget about it. A good cinema is that haunts you at least for few days or even for ever. You would see some frames coming into your mind when ever you close your eyes. On my bike, all my way back to home, I was thinking about 'Golf'. The game of Golf was used as one of the recurring imageries in the movie, You also see, a Motor bike,  screw driver,weighing machine; But, 'Golf 'scenes dominates. For example he uses golf to take revenge on some one.  I was wondering, why 'golf'?. I think, golf represents plan, speed, power, and above all a 'ruthless execution' to hit the target. But its not only these features of golf that makes it being used here. I think, golf also stands for expanding the boundaries and the conquering of far away lands.  In the movie, you see, Tae Suk practices Golf with a ball tied to a hard wire attached to a pole.Sun Hwa often accompanies him in those exercises. I guess, this practice shows his attitude to be with in himself and his secret way of life. He can't just stretch it and set free one day  to lead a normal  life. How ever he hits hard, the ball never flies away, It stays right under the tree after each such executuion. There is one instance, where the ball actually flies out of the pole after a blow, and it badly hurts woman who passed by, in her car. This incident seriously hurts Tae and he weeps in extreme agony. May be, this explains why an extremely skilled,(the movie shows this, when he fixes electronic or mechanical gadgets at other people's homes, in a quick and precise fashion) college graduate to lead such a reckless life. He simply cannot do anything else. Its the territory he is with in, he just cannot expand beyond that. Movie is all about this 'territory' and 'territorial marking' , trespassing other's,  and being punished for it. Like a predator scratching  on a tree to mark it's presence in an unknown territory, he carries a camera with him to take photos of himself before  a certain object in other people's homes. He invades into their privacy, and leaves a deliberate note to show that he was there and leaves silently back to his world.Reading a good cinema is a tough task. you often  end up reaching your own erratic conclusions missing your way through such imageries. You end up assuming things. For example, movie never shows, Tse being killed at the Police station, but it certainly suggests it, with sound effects after a scene were he is being dragged out of his cell by three men. Director confuses you by giving clues about his being free. Tse is shown practicing the art of shadow walking(Sinanju?)  inside the Jail and testing his skills against a rough police man, so that he could escape from anywhere and enter any body's house without being noticed. Also, Sun Hwa's husband receives a phone call about his freedom at night and he eagerly waits for his arrival. only Sun Hwa feels him where all others get to feel is his ghostly presence.Movie shows people from different houses feeling somebody's presence at their home. There is only one word sun hwa utters in the whole movie which is 'I love you' to this ghostly presence which only she could see. Movie ends with a note, 'It is hard to tell the world we live in is either a reality or a dream' and that pretty much summarizes it. I should add that Jae Hee(Tse) and Lee Seung (Sun)had that  beautiful on- screen chemistry and it really worked.

If you haven't seen this, you definitely have missed something.

Ponyo On the Cliff

 This post is because I believe no Miyazaki film should be missed out in here if I had watched it. 'Ponyo' (2008)has got all usual Miyazaki elements, 'Strong feminine' , lush green country(sea) side, Innocent childhood to the minute details including their big mouthed cry/laugher and fast paced movements, a serious liking towards the elements of nature (if it was woods in Totoro, its ocean in Ponyo), and 'spirits' that rule Japanese mythology. But, above all, its the heart that he puts in to his craft that makes his works unique. For example, in the time of extreme CGI, he preferred hand drawn animation with at least 1,70,000 images to produce Ponyo. On Animation front, Ponyo or any Miyazaki movie doesn't offer the CGI built perfection that Disney offers with its own works like 'Tangled' ,but the magic he creates with his pure animation technique is so interesting and so incomparable, that make each of his characters into a cult status.  Compare his works with disney's classics like 'Dumbo' and you would be surprised to find the similarity in the techniques that Miyazaki uses in the modern world. May be this simplicity is what that makes movies like dumbo defy the age. Worldwide adaption of miyazaki movies and themes are the result of his way of simple story telling. There are western critics who criticize miyazaki for poor characterization and they blame he doesn't try to show the real expressions of adults (an over stressed mother is missing in Ponyo, when her husband is in rough sea fighting for his life) but, I believe its more to do with the Japanese culture or their human nature in comparison to the western. Miyazaki celebrates strong feminine side of his women leads, who would wield a sword rather than to lie down and weep.

Hotel Transylvania

Spirited Away

 Lets look on the brief about the hyped up 2012 Hollywood animation movie Hotel Transylvania, "The film tells a story of Dracula, the owner of Hotel Transylvania, where the world's monsters can take a rest from human civilization. Dracula invites some of the most famous monsters..." and, an uninvited human intervention actually creates the story. Now, isn't the plot sounds similar? Yes, Its miyazaki's 'Spirited Away', and Hollywood keeps adapting this Asian genius,who else can offer such complex yet captivating stories for children with such beautiful animation.

Bobby against the World!

It was said, Bobby Fischer to chess was like Mohammad Ali to Boxing.That could be true in some sense. If Ali could popularize boxing all over the world with his knockout bouts and equally powerful tongue lashes, it was Bobby Fischer's mercuric rise into the chess-world and the mad genius of the man that popularized chess all over the world. Historians calls this as 'Fischer Boom' . May be he was much more than a Mohammed Ali of chess, some one who rose up and fought America's cold war on his own. Fischer's war was not against the politics of USSR even though he despised 'commies', it was against the 'Soviet dominance in chess, and the politics that ruled it. His war was not simple, as it was a one man army marching against the whole chess machinery of the largest nation in the world, where chess was taught in schools and played in all most all levels of society,which  produced world chess champions with scientific precision.Chess was definitely a religion in United Soviet Socialist Republic back then, and they always considered chess as the metaphor for intellectual supremacy which the soviet regime wanted to showcase to rest of the world. Bobby Fischer, a shy Brooklyn school boy of a broken mother,who played 'game of the century' at the age of 13, youngest American champion at the age of 14 had come of age to qualify for the world championship candidates once again in 1972 . He crushed Mark Taimanov 6-0, Bent Larsen of Sweden 6-0, Former world champion Tigran Petrosian 6.5/2.5  and marched on to clinch the world title from Boris Spassky by the score 12.5-8.5 at Reykjavik, Iceland. In 1972 Fide Ratings,Fischer was on 2875, 125 points ahead world number two Spassky, and as expected and badly wanted by all Americans  Fischer became 11th world Champion. But this story is not as simple as I put in a paragraph. It was full of struggle, drama, total madness and above all a magical  story with a fairy tale finish.

Reading the book 'Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer'  by Frank Brady was an amazing experience. Brady has a beautiful, simple and a very unbiased way of writing. Unlike other biographies Brady is not trying to glorify his subject. He is just drawing the sketch of Fischer that he knew.  It was definitely like 'knowing' Fischer. He was arguably the most hated and the most loved chess player at the same time but unarguably the most admired chess genius ever. Icing on the cake was watching the documentary 'Bobby Fischer Against The World'  a wonderful biopic by Liz Garbus immediately after reading the book. It was like seeing the 'text' that  I just had read coming alive on screen. This had never happened before.
   
     Fischer and spassky were hyped as arch rivals and '1972 Reykjavik' was nothing less than a war. But, in fact 1972 was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between these two geniuses of chess. They respected each other. Bad mouthed Fischer never uttered anything against spassky ever  and spassky considered him as his brother. When Fischer was imprisoned  in Japan for months , spassky commented that he wanted to be in the same cell with bobby so that they could play chess.  After losing in 1972 against bobby he said, Fischer was an 'artist' and after prize giving ceremony bobby bought a camera and sent to Spassky's hotel. Spassky was instrumental in introducing a woman to bobby whom he thought bobby could marry; a decision which he regretted later.When bobby passed away, Spassky said, he lost his brother. In the return match of 1972's war, Spassky lost again to Fischer. It was in Yugoslavia in the year 1992, named 'Revenge Match of the Century'. Spassky later mentioned, even though he wanted to win, he wanted Fischer to win that championship more, as he was afraid, losing that match would send Fischer back to oblivion again. 

What ever was the outcome of the match, Fischer was issued an arrest warrant by US government for playing in Yugoslavia, a nation that was under US Sanction. Fischer never took it seriously, In fact he publicly spat on the letter that was sent to him about it. But, when United States of America decided to chase their own hero,  it was the beginning of  Fischer's true 'End Game' which he would never win. Now the same fate is happening to Spassky, who was living in France for long time now, has ran away from France and took shelter in Moscow few days back. Unlike his friend, it was not a country that wanted him to be dead, it was his own wife. Or is it like, both the friends shared 'Paranoia' (Fischer's real problem according to the experts) apart from their beautiful friendship.

An interesting and arguably the most honest work on bobby Fischer's life ever 'End Game' is a must read for any one who loves chess.After all it was written by some one who walked with Fischer.  It was like unraveling the most mysterious man who intrigued the world with a board game for years together.The same goes to the HBO original, 'Bobby Fischer against the world'.it's more dramatic than your favorite drama. When Fischer refused to take treatment for his ailment and finally died in an hospital in Iceland, he was 64 years old, exactly the number of squares on a chess board, what else can be more dramatic.

Everything you always wanted to know about....!

It seems like Woody Allen movies don't feel the age. They're still totally entertaining, totally mesmerizing, and his penchant for ultimate sarcasm still seems totally shaking. I am talking about his brave, crazy, spoof movie 'Everything you always wanted to know about sex(but were afraid to ask)'. This could be my second movie with a real long name after Kubrick's 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'

'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)' is actually a book by Dr.David Reuben, originally published in 1969 which was translated into 54 different languages. Hype and Impact of this book in the popular American culture was so much so that, Woody Allen decided to make a parody of this in his 1972 movie

Movie is designed in chapters as it intends to explore and clarify some mythical beliefs about certain notions related to sexuality or the psychological side of it.Intentions very soon turn out as less noble on contrary to the book, but a great comical way to make pooh-pooh about those very notions. Most of the men's and women magazines pen tons of pages about such 'clinical' advices even though almost everyone know about it, as they are one column which would never lose attention. Now this is sir Woody's take on clearing the world's doubts and there goes Sarcasm at it's best.

Out of seven different movies with in it, my pick is certainly 'What is Sodomy? ' about two middle aged men of two different class, falling in love with an Armenian sheep.Are we dealing with the ugliest term 'bestiality'. No we're not. Its just a humorous take on the meaningless and super glorified 'true' love. The most beautiful element is definitely the great Gene Wilder whose, 'Dr.Ross' was totally convincing.

'What are sex perverts' is a nice parody of the famous US game show of 70' 'Whats my line' but, I feel its totally relevant now in India as the whole Indians going gaga over their favorite reality shows.Sir woody, would not miss a slightest chance to whip on the religions as he does to the Jews in this movie, portraying a Rabbi who had the secret fascination of being spanked by some gorgeous slutty blonds.

I found the movie 'Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate? ' a  super blow on the, most favorite Hollywood theme, 'one super hero rises to save the world' .Is n't it hilarious , when our hero announces “ don't worry! I know how to handle %&$#”'

Movies 'Are Transvestites Homosexuals? ' and 'Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm? ' , are interestingly funny where, the 'Do Aphrodisiacs Work?' takes on False chastity and extreme morality and pride of the Victorian era. 'What Happens During Ejaculation? ' was the craziest example of woody;s extreme imagination and he was right there dressed up as an Innocent sperm all scared to go out .

And after all, Woody was the one who said once.

“In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!”

Amazing Woody! Isn't it?

"The Secret World of Miyazaki"!

It seems like I am already a 'Studio Ghibli' fan. Or is it better to call myself a  Hayao Miyazaki  fan? Who else creates  those beautiful anime's of oriental charm. Miyazaki didnt direct 'Secret world of Arriety'; he just 'planned' as the credit goes. In fact, he  wrote the screen play,supervised the production but gave the director's baton to the younger colleague of him, the talented Hiromasa Yonebayashi. The story  is based on an award winning English fantasy novel for children named 'Borrowers' written in 1952 by Mary Norton about the tiny people living under floor or behind walls in a house. 'Secret World of Arriety' has the beauty of friendship that blossoms between the tiny girl Arriety and the boy next door. It a deep innocent friendship with a secret shade of romance in it. Its a beautiful movie especially to those who love Ghibli style animation of lushly rich frames.

After, 'My neighbor Totoro' , I saw two more Ghibli movies, 'Kiki's delivery Service' and 'Spirited Away' before watching 'Arriety' and I particularly loved 'Kiki's delivery Service' for its universal theme and beauty where, I found 'spirited away'  an elegantly animated movie with a complex story line and hundreds of character's in detail, but more enjoyable to a Japanese audience who could easily connect to the mythological base of this 'over spirited' theme.' Spirited away' won many international awards including Oscar and is considered as a classic among animation movies.

 

Kiki's delivery Service is about a little cute witch who would come to a new city as part of her witch training, flying on her broomstick. She chooses 'delivery service' as her profession to survive in the city. 'Spirited away' is about a girl who's trapped inside a  resort that's open only for ghosts and spirits to make them rejuvenated ; when her greedy parents commits a stupid mistake crashing into the place.

If you are new to Anime's or Japanese animation movies; I seriously recommend watching Ghibli flims especially Totoro and you are going to love it.

May be not mere coincidence, Miyazaki;s central characters are always girls and you find all of them, brave and possess character. Another way, Miyazaki's celebrating this culture of strong feminine which could also be a part of Japanese culture.

The Greatest Game Ever Played!

As 'Rotten Tomatoes' put , 'The greatest Game Ever Played' is definitely not one of those 'under dog' sports movies you get to watch any other day. It has got class and the beauty that would glue you to the screen as it never happened to you anytime before. At least that was my experience. I already knew, this movie was graded one of the best in this genre. But until I experienced it, I never had the slightest idea that, a breathtaking experience was awaiting me.Even though I work in an office which is situated right opposite to a   prominent golf course in the city, 'Golf' as a game never attracted me and i feel the entire perception is going to be changed after this. 


 A 2005 movie directed by actor/director Bill Paxton is based on the real life story of famous american golfer Francis Ouimet. Movie shows how the twenty year old boy  of a poor immigrant worker's  family challenged all the odds to take part in an elite tournament( 'US open') of the most elite game 'Golf' and eventually winning it by defeating some biggest names in the history of golf ,  Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a dramatic fashion. Its not just a sports movie but a saga of a low class amateur coming out of those ridicules and apartheid, challenging the upper  class in their own game, and winning it in class to show them that its not the blood line but the talent that matters. 

Francis celebrating his victory(from Movie)

(Real Photograph-1913 US open)

Actors ShiaLaBeouf,Stephen Dillane, Elias Koteas all performed well and it was an excellent casting over all.background score is also to be mentioned especially in the climax sequence. To summarize, a brilliantly directed movie with breathtaking visuals and dramatic sequences which would never disappoint any one and a definite treat to those who love sports.

Tonari no Totoro

"Here is a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy" said, Roger Ebert,a top film Critic of Chicago Sun times and I totally agree with him.He was commenting about an Asian animated movie that was released in 80's.

I have been watching a lot of animated movies for children lately. Most of those movies were of Disney's from Bambi to Tangled.It almost had become a routine to sit with my four year old daughter and watch each one of them. Some were good, some were bad, some where boring, some were thrilling, some were cute, some  were funny but none of them was as good as 'My neighbor totoro' that we watched today.

 Its a 1988 animated movie directed by one of the prominent Japanese animators 'Hayao Miyazaki'. Movie talks about  two little girls who moves into a haunted house in a strange village on the country side with their father, their encounters with some 'forest spirits' that live close by, and an interesting  adventure where their ailing mother is involved. But heart of the movie is the element of 'nature' and the way those children bond with it. Tiny creatures those live in their neighborhood or the spirit those hover around, no matter what, those smart girls are up to it. Nothing scares them and they scare nothing. Its the absolute harmony as enchanting as an ecological poem, that only few of us can connect with but all of us would love to live in.

 Miyazaki's animation is truly class. He creates movements those are hyper-natural yet extremely captivating. Look at the way the four year old Mei is portrayed. Each of her moves is hilarious and original.He adapted original hand drawn animation ,used water color and took to computers only when it was needed.if Lush green backgrounds of the movie was truly  phenomenal, the 'sound' is one extra bonus that we get.Who can forget the scene where Totoro and children waiting for their dad's bus when it rains?.It was one true beauty. No wonder that, ever since this movie, 'Totoro' became a nationwide cult and even an asteroid was named after him.

Ploy!!

'Ploy', a 2007 movie from Thailand directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang is beautiful, intense, dramatic, almost silent; yet cinematic with it's calm intriguing way of story telling. Movie is revolved around reality and dreams and some times, the layer between these two seems to be so thin that you get confused about the whole thing. May be this element is what giving the movie a surrealistic charm. You are already through a good sequence of detailed visuals only to realise that the entire sequence was a dream that one of those characters had. It reminded me of  Luis Bunuel's 'The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' . Wiki article on the movie has a detailed plot which I think is not accurate; Plot cannot be explained in a direct manner with a so called 'spiler alert'  as the director wants you to choose a certain event as real or unreal at times. I think this flexibility in interpreting the movie opens a great window for a fresh cinematic experience every time you watch it. Ploy is a teen aged girl who happens to cross her path with a couple Wit and Dang who seems to be going through a seventh year itch. The entire movie is about one night in their life in a hotel room in Bangkok where Ploy joins them; Movie unfolds through the suspicions, and restlessness her visit creates among the couple, and also through the dreams and nightmares each one of them get. There are three to four other characters which thickens the plot in an indirect manner. Ploy cannot be explained, it has to be felt.

Among Believers

Islam undoubtedly is the most controversial and talked about religion of our times. Due to the so called International Islamic terrorism, the religion has become the hottest topic in our living rooms, which each one of us would love to talk about, but some time scared even to think about: thanks to the rising intolerance of its practitioners towards criticism. Ever since the infamous 9/11 attack of AL Qaeda in 2011, and the mercuric rise of Osama bin Laden into the Summit of the most wanted list of  international Villainy, I was curious about the elements within this religion that creates most terrifying cold blooded terrorist on one side, and most calm saints on the other. What is the magic of this religion? How does it work? Being an atheist and serious non-follower of any kind of religion, I wanted one neutral approach in understanding the religion. What I most likely   had been searching was an outsider’s unbiased view on it.

‘Among the believers – An Islamic Journey’ was an easy answer to start with. Naipaul was my favorite ever since I read his Booker winner of 1971, ‘In a Free State’.

This book is special as it’s not written by some genius couch potato, sitting and relaxing on his chair, but by some one who took the pain to travel around the world to study about the religion before writing about it.

Naipaul wrote this in the year 1981 after travelling around Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia for seven months.

His journey starts in 1979 with a visit to Iran, where he visits the holy city of QOM and interviews number of famous authorities and practitioners of the religion.

There he meets, infamous Ayatollah Khalkhalli, the right hand of Ayatollah Khomeni who says,

“The mullah’s are going to rule now. We are going to have ten thousand years of the Islamic republic. The Marxists will go on with Lenin. We will go on in the way of Khomeini”

This was in the same year where Khomeini’s Islamic revolution succeeded in Iran after they over threw Shah to rule the country.

The intention behind each of such meetings, interviews, attending religious meetings and even talking to each one of the common men (Taxi driver, Restaurant waiter or who ever he comes across) that he meets there is clear. Naipaul wanted know, what religion (Islam) meant to them. That’s what a scholar does, and as it’s from some one who is essentially an atheist, the result is an unbiased report which is thoroughly trustable.

He goes to Pakistan and searches in vein for the hyped up ‘Islamic Bank’ (An Islamic idea of Banking with no Interest charged against cash loans) and he wonders, if it was an utopian idea which was never possible to implement, then what was the point behind the partition and forming up a separate Islamic country.

In Indonesia he visits ‘Pesantrens’ (traditional Islamic village schools) to understand what they taught in there to the villagers and how that teaching helped them to progress. The result of the expedition is controversial as he puts,

“The Sufi center turned school: the discipline of monks and dervishes applied to the young: it wasn’t traditional, and it wasn’t education. It was braking away from the Indonesian past; it was Islamization; it was stupefaction, greater than any that could have with a western-style curriculum. And yet it was attractive to the people concerned, because twisted up with it, was the old monkish celebration of the idea of poverty: an idea which applied to a school in java in 1979, came out as little more than the poor teaching the poor to be poor. “

Naipaul was very brave and we cannot take it like 1981 was, a haven of intellectual freedom and criticism on the religion was taken positively, though it seems to be much better time than our era of extreme intolerance.

                             (One of my favorite: Sir Vidia with his mistress- an old photograph)

Naipaul’s observations and his homework on the religion before he started his expeditions seemed to be deep. Take a sample from the introduction to the account of his trip to Malaysia.

“It was from India or the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent that religion went to south-east Asia. Hinduism and Buddhism went first. They quickened the great civilizations of Cambodia and java, whose monument- Angkor, Borobudur – are among the wonders of the world. These Indian religions, we are told, were not spread by armies of colonists but by merchants and priest. And that was the kind of Indian traveler who after Islam had come to the sub-continent began in the fourteenth or fifteenth century to take Islam to Indonesia and Malaysia.

Islam went to south-east Asia as another religion from India. There was no Arab Invasion, as in Sind; no systematic slaughter of the local warrior caste, no planning of Arab military colonies; no sharing out of loot, no sending back of treasure and slaves to a caliph in Iraq or Syria; no tribute, no taxes on unbelievers. There was no calamity, no overnight abrogation of a settled world-order. Islam spread as an Idea- a Prophet, a divine revelation, heaven and hell, a divinely sanctioned code- and mingled with older ideas. To purify that mixed religion the Islamic missionaries now come; and it is still from the sub continent –and especially from Pakistan that the most passionate missionaries come.”

I guess this is what missing from most of the books on religion. Religion is also ‘local’ and it’s different for each society. And this element needs to be reviewed better, before imposing certain rules and regulations on people who follow the religion. Naipaul studies the history first and then he observes the present. And he connects quickly what it meant to be and what it is now.

Naipaul criticizes the religion in an extremely honest but often flavored with that typical Trinidad’ ian arrogance of his, through out the book. He is unbiased and he is careless how others take his views. After all, he was born in Trinidad to a family that had Upper cast Hindu roots in India, had a semi-Christian upbringing, happily married to a Muslim woman, and was also infamous for finding some controversial way to unleash his verbal fury on anyone who dared to initiate an argument with him.

He ends the book this way,

“High words still; but in Iran and elsewhere men would have to make their peace with the world which they knew existed beyond their faith. The life that had come to Islam had not come from within. It had come from outside events and circumstances, the spread of Universal civilization.”

the Curious Incident of the dog at the night time....

It  was in my teens that I read 'Delilah';  a Malayalam short story of which I cannot recollect much now except that, the story was ended with an actual computer pseudo code depicting an infinite loop.

 While True

Print "Delilah";

End;

Story was a modern adaptation of the Biblical legend of Samson and Delilah (?)  and The context was like; Some one (Samson?) falls into a well and screams the name of his love, "Delilah" and the author wanted to convey that the scream went on and on and he thought the best way to describe this, was through a computer program with no ‘break’ statements written.

(Maythil Radhakrishnan)

That story was written by ‘Maythil Radhakrishnan', a computer geek turned writer who was also a genius in other fields like photography, entomology and so on. He also edited the science supplement of a leading English daily called 'Indian Express' in those days.Ever since ‘Delilah’, I became a serious ‘Maythil’ reader, who would go any length to collect his books and devour it in no time. I remember visiting a book publisher’s warehouse in search of his books those were printed in 70’s and disappeared from the book houses as no one liked to read them. ‘Maythil’ revolutionized Malayalam Literature with a series of books and loved to describe himself as the first eco-political poet of Malayalam. A big number of people were deeply attracted to that Neo-intellectual wave and I was on of them. We were called ‘Maythilians’   in our circles as most of our conversations were started or ended with a ‘Maythilian’ quote.

Many years passed and slowly my reading habit gave way to more interesting pastimes like 'chess'.

And now, after all these years I got a similar ‘Maythil’-ian kick from one little novel which I read recently.

That was, 'The Curious incident of Dog at the night time', a book written by the Brit, Mark Haddon, which was published in the year 2003, and won many reputed awards like ‘Whitebread- Book of the year’ , ‘Commonwealth writer’s prize’ and many other reputed awards and nominations.

(Mark Haddon)

'Unputdownable' is the word which I would steal from a regular book reviewer's terminology to describe the reading experience. The book is presented as a diary that a 15 year old boy keeps and it’s about his investigation on the mysterious murder of a dog in his neighborhood. As he uncovers, the truth behind this, he also unknowingly uncovers some facts which are much more mysterious than the dog and its death itself, which would also change his life for ever. Our hero is not like any other kid that you find in your neighborhood or in some Enid Blyton books. He is Christopher, an unusually talented boy, who is deeply inspired by ‘Sherlock Holmes’ (He loves Holmes, but he dislikes Arthur Conan Doyle as he thinks Doyle was a stupid as he believed supernatural things). What makes him more special is the fact that he suffered from Asperger’s syndrome which is a genetic disorder that falls under the wider spectrum of Autism. Children suffer from this disorder show intense interest in certain things. Wiki has an interesting article on this.

The back cover of the book reads;

“Fifteen-year-old Christopher has a photographic memory. He understands maths. He understands science. What he can’t understand are other human beings.”

  Mark usually writes children fiction and this book was an exception; a book which can be thoroughly enjoyable to people of any age.

Just take some samples from the book.

“Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”

Let’s see how he debates with a priest on the existence of ‘Heaven’;

“I said that there wasn't anything outside the universe and there wasn't another kind of place altogether.

Except that there might be if you went through a black hole, but a black hole is what is called a

singularity, which means it is impossible to find out what is on the other side because the gravity of a

black hole is so big that even electromagnetic waves like light can't get out of it, and electromagnetic

waves are how we get information about things which are far away. And if heaven was on the other side

of a black hole, dead people would have to be fired into space on rockets to get there, and they aren't or

people would notice.”

I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on

living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the

rubbish. “

(A child suffering from Asperger's Syndrome staring at
a molecular model that he is obsessed with-Wiki)

And in the same chapter, among all these grey verses of rationality, you suddenly find the lyrical beauty of his innocent thoughts on his dead mother.

“But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burned and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the

Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rain forests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere”

I don’t intent to be a total spoiler here but strongly suggest this book to every one who loves a ‘different’ and quick read for a refreshing experience.