The day I challenged the stars!

I wish I could write this blog.doc in Malayalam.

I am in office on a busy day but I want to do this now. I have some risks on my table which I should finish today and then have to finish some pending work as well. All of these are the most un-creative work on earth. I have to do it as I have no other options.

As per an astrologer I will get married today! In the middle of all these things. My parents went to an astrologer and he having looked at all the stars said that I will get married within May 14, 2009. If I can trust the date on my mobile, my work station, the calendar on my mouse pad and the calendar on my room wall then today is Thursday the 14^th of May and the year is 2009 (please don’t start the crap that I saw in Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock starred Lake House to tell me that it is actually 2074!)

In all the probabilities I don’t see a reason or chance of me getting married today.

I used to believe in all these stuff, astrology, palmistry and things like that until I starved in Australia. There have been days I lived on Lebanese bread. They call it kuboose in Middle East. Brunswick, a suburb in Melbourne is famous for cheap accommodation and considerable Lebanese population. I lived there for more than year during my uni days and cycled to uni which was four kilometers away. There were many Lebanese groceries in Brunswick and they all sold Lebanese bread for two dollars. They were fresh, made in early morning. Lebanese bread doesn’t get spoiled in day but they get harder. So, on the next day they kept the ‘one day old’ bread in a box and sold it for one dollar. I lived on that for quite a long time. A glass of plain water, kuboose and a rollies quenched my hunger. I never saw god there, I never saw stars there and I never encountered luck or destiny there. It was simple economics. There were many people like me which created the demand. There were many Lebanese families who run the bread making industry and that made the supply. If I had a dollar that gave the purchasing power, period.

That was the best lesson that I learned in Australia. Hard work gets you ahead in your life.

The astrologer said that he would stop doing his trade if I don’t get married within the period he said. My parents have seen a girl in Pathanapuram and if eventually I am going to marry her, then every one is going to amend the rules in astrologer’s favor. What if I don’t marry that girl?

I am not trying to crucify any one here. The moment you realize that every one is doing what they doing to earn their bread you rest in peace.

So are you going to have songs in your movies?

Is it me writing this blog? I doubt.

How can I be writing a blog past five posts and haven’t written any thing on cinema? One question that I find hard to answer under any given circumstances is on my favorite movie.

In one of those after dinner sessions mother would ask me about the cinema in my mind and waiting not to listen to my answer would remind me on the importance of ‘family-stories’. You know, the family saga kind of stuff with morals in it. I disagree with her for two reasons. Firstly, don’t intrude into my creative freedom; don’t tell me on what films I should be making. I am being harsh here and she is not happy or rather she is sad. I need to pacify and I say, amma in screen play there is a text book style called ‘linear writing’. It is the format where the boy is born, goes to school, plays his first innings, smokes his first ciggie, drinks his first beer, first kiss and then gets a job. He lives and lives and then lives happily ever after. I am not going to do that. I can’t go to bed when my mother is not happy. Compromise time, I will do one of those kinds one day. But no promises though.

I am having dinner with friends and surfing through the channels and stop at a channel playing film songs. Malayalam songs; and the song on screen for no particular reason ‘show cases’ heroine’s naval button. A rare occurrence in Malayalam cinema in 1990s and early 00s. Are you going to do that? Am I going to do what? To show a belly button? I feel my creative freedom questioned. I make an excuse to leave the dinner table and try to pacify my anger on a cigarette.

Become a blogger and they need to know what sort of movies you like the most. It was funny to note that even matrimonial sites would want to know your movie preferences. Are you telling me that a girl born out of soft porn liking father and action liking mother will do a Paris Hilton when she grows up? I keep quiet, I ignore and move on to the next question.

So are you going to have songs in your movies?

Wake-up and Make-up sex over the weekend

The weekend wasn’t bad. Sorry, it was good.

The funniest comment I ever read on weekend, was in a blog. Googling on a lazy Sunday morning took me to this interesting blog where an English lady summed her weekend in two phrases, “wake-up sex and make-up sex”. I loved it. English are good at humour. They seem to be classy.

Wake-up sex: It was Audrey Tautou who took me to Spanish Apartment. I will write another post on this wonderful actress on some other day, much have to be told. Spanish Apartment, a 2002 French movie originally titled L’auberge espagnole chronicled around a bunch of college students staying together at an apartment. Wasn’t a great a movie but had that French touch to it. I remember one scene from that movie. Romain Duris, Tautou’s boyfriend is driving with his mother. They are going to see mother’s new boyfriend. Mother is old, old as in old as sixty. But she is tensed as to whether her son would like her choice and vice verca. With expressions with the most subtle coding, emphasizing the futility of the whole exercise, she says, “I have heard that Rhinoceros choose their partner and stay with that partner for the rest of their life”.

That was bit of a side track.

Spanish Apartment was huge success. It minted money in Europe and was a smash hit in other parts of the globe too. While in Australia I saw this movie at Nova on a Monday afternoon for five dollars. I know that I am going to step into another side track here, but can’t resist this. Don’t bother about Spanish Apartment but watch The Apartment (L’appartement) a 1996 French movie with Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, and Romane Bohringer. This was later remade into Hollywood as ‘Wicker Park’ in 2004, avoid that.

Back to where we started. Following the huge success the producers including the director teamed up to make a sequel in 2005, Russian Dolls (Les poupees russes). Interestingly, I saw this in Australia too. As I didn’t watch first two episodes of Lord of the Rings in Australia this movie is part of my ‘history’ in Australia. As said earlier Spanish Apartment wasn’t a great movie and so was Russian Dolls. But, not boring at all.

There were two exceptional scenes in this movie. Kevin Bishop an English guy falls in love with a Russian ballet dancer and that triggers a reunion of the flat mates in Russia. They are there for the marriage. To introduce his girl friend Kevin takes the flat mates to an opera house (or where the ballet is played). She isn’t the lead actress; she is just a dancer among the ten other dancers. The friends sitting in the balcony can’t really make out her and to their amusement Kevin says, “can’t you cognize her, she is the second from last and don’t you think she is beautiful”. Well, you need to see it.

At the end, we are on to the point.

I don’t want to say all the story but the point is Romain Duris ends up having a relation ship with Kelly Reilly and there you get to see the best wake-up sex scene in a movie. French and English in bed, the camera movement and Kelly Reilly’s dialogue at the end. I will leave it there for your judgment.

Make-up sex: I hate being a champion of elucidation. However, to make sure that we all are on the same boat, the said phrase refers to that ‘catching up’ thing over the week end. Make-up not as in facial but as in make-up your loss. Only a Brit woman could bring that sarcasm into it .

So where do I stand?

Well, I slept. I finished a vodka (Danzka, produce of Holland, cranberry flavour with chilled cranberry juice and slice of lime shaken) with few friends and ate the biriyani that I made and slept. Then I woke up and had few Passport scotch with lemonade (don’t ask me on the combination, I just hate soft drinks) and slept again. And I dreamed about suicide. Today I am extremely happy and doing great, but I just wanted to tell you that I dreamed suicide this weekend.

I am an uncle, again.

Yesterday, the sixth of May, 2009 my sister delivered a baby boy in America. I am an uncle, again.

I welcome him to this beautiful world. It is a beautiful world, my boy. No sarcasm meant.

On my dad, whom I always tried to respect

(This was written as an invitation to my friends in yahoo group and facebook on my dad’s retirement. Thanks to Rekha who fondly asked me to quit my job and pursue writing. Had to have few drinks that night to celebrate the compliment but it was so soothing)

ACT: 1

He ate three bananas and drank a liter of water. The time was 5am at Bangalore. The weighing machine mimicked a bullock tied to a fully loaded cart and managed to touch 48 kilos for speck of a second. He sighed. The sardar smiled and nodded his head in approval. That was his passport to Indian Air Force. Chempum Kandathil Kuttiyamma Sadanandan joined the Indian Air Force. The year was 1966.

ACT: 2

Jiscinda was Australian and her father was Italian. The BBQ was held at their private forest in the middle of their 17 hectare vineyard which had the same name of their ancestral home in Sicily. In an accent that carried all the distance between two continents and worsened by un-counted numbers of Fosters he asked, “did you call your dad?”. I nodded. Italians unlike Europeans never laugh at such gestures.
Jiscinda was having a fight with her brother. I still don’t understand why I was looking at Jiscinda while saying this, “when I was three years dad was my super hero for I believed that he could do anything and everything and sitting here after 24 years I still believe the same”.
The day was Fathers day and the year was 2006.

ACT: 3

An uncle came from USA. He never bought me gifts and dad was never sure whether he used alcohol. Still, we both liked his visits for he had too many stories to share. A week after one of such visits he called from USA. He had an offer for me the worth of which dad couldn’t understand at that time.
Almost a decade later I walked away from dad because, if I stayed he would have told sorry to me with tears in his eyes. It took him ten years and a single sentence from my cousin’s husband.
It was one of those after dinner sessions at my aunt’s house in Malabar and the year was 2005.

ACT: 4

The pink color book contained all the information on Sainik School summarized in ten pages. There were prints on back cover too. He opened the book just before dinner as you are not supposed to make decisions after dinner. The first page had Indian pledge which he didn’t bother to read. The second page was captioned, ‘Daily Routine Schedule’. It said, quote – 5.30 am, wake up alarm; 5.45 am, parade (uniform color – white) –unquote. He closed the book and said, “I don’t want to send my son to a military school”. We had dinner at kitchen table and the year was 1990.

ACT: 5

It was eight days short to my eighteenth birthday. He bought me a new 100cc motor bike. She liked its color but said Yamaha had much appealing sound and I hated her for that comment. On our return from the show room he told me, “I want my son to have everything which I never had and I don’t want him to have anything which I ever had”. I noticed grey hairs on him for the first time and the year was 1999.

ACT: 6

He had a beard in that suiting’s advertisement. He directed two Indian movies. He gave Anil Kapoor one of his earlier commercial successes. He used a body double to show the frontal nudity of Seema Biswas. He directed two Hollywood movies on a prominent Anglo-Saxon aristocrat. In one of them he is the man who knives the Bishop. He divorced his wife. The advertisement said he is a complete man. Nobody can question a copywriter’s imaginary excellence.

My father is not a complete man.

Neither Francois Truffaut nor Gandhi influenced me. The only man who ever influenced me in my life is my dad. I never saw such innocence elsewhere.

A dream that remained a dream for ever

It is better not to have dreams unless you dare to pursue them!

They called it some rare blood disease for Arun’s blood contained too much venom. Arun couldn’t play, couldn’t stand sun, couldn’t run and couldn’t afford scolding. Arun would turn red if any of these happened and remained as a silent, obedient and macro-disciplined boy through out his childhood. There weren’t any medicines and Arun was told that he would be fine when he grow up, little they knew about the venom that it would remain in him for the rest of his life.

So, Arun never dreamed about becoming a cop or to start with he never wanted to be a pilot. Doctor wasn’t a good idea either and in those days there were no engineers in his family or village to draw inspiration from. When Arun went to Navodaya, the joining form had a column on your dream and he said, Arun want to be a scientist. When Arun was a kid he fancied microscope and to his knowledge every man who looked into a microscope was destined to become a scientist. Later, Arun found that it was his sub-conscious mind falling in love with a lens which attracted him to microscope. The point is, to become a scientist wasn’t a dream as Arun thought rather it was a career ambition.

Arun was twelve and he was on his vacation. He had seen so many movies by then as he had a Keltron color TV and VHS video cassette player at home. Arun went out and rented a cassette. It was a Malayalam movie titled, ‘Vachanam’.

Lenin Rajendran was the director of ‘Vachanam’. There was a lengthy shot in which Tilakan playing a cop was walking very fast with his assistant and the camera following. He hasn’t seen a scene like this before and realized that movies can be different. Arun decided to become a movie director.

Now, he knew why he always liked watching movies. Why he preferred motion pictures over any other form of art. Why he had too many dreams with visuals sans sound. Why he loved colors. Why the whole world always appeared kinetic to him and he had no choice but to remain static and watch it. Why he always sat and watched happenings around him and never wanted to be part of it. Why he always watched, watched and watched.

Arun grew up as he had no choice! He never met any body who carried a dream with them for so long. Alas, along with the dream Arun carried with him the poisoned blood and his macro-disciplined nature.

Every one had an advice. Every one wanted him to prove what they left out to prove.

This is a case study. You need to decide the path that you wish to take up. Do you want to pursue your dream? Or do you want to remain that macro-disciplined guy making others happy. At the end they are going to come and find you, the people whom you made happy, and they are going to tell you that they were never happy. I warned you!