To sit and watch a true story meant only one thing in cinema, to be ready to watch something unpleasant, loaded with struggle, with a world of opposition, and an eventual victory over evil. And when we leave, we seem inspired and armored with some invaluable awareness about a life and time that existed.
So when I sat to watch the much acclaimed Marathi motion picture portraying the life and times of the Father of Indian cinema – Dadasaheb Phalke, I had something like that in mind – a daring real story, of a life that represented a landmark effort, and something in and around that.
And then you watch Harishchandrachi Factory, only to realize how incredibly honestly reality could be portrayed, and how a true story can be told with innocence, humor and beauty.
While a small Marathi community struggled in amazement to the reality of moving pictures entering their lives, the story captures not their anger but the humor, favorable coincidences, support and happiness that accompanied the lives of those who were around it.
This reality is yet exactly how it should have been. The amazements, and amusements, of a conservative Indian community to the foreign creature called moving pictures. And like how everything else foreign that walked into India became Indian, this creature did too, become one amongst them. And so was born the humor, the kinds that I have not seen in the longest of time. Phalke teaches his wife to develop prints, his kids to act, picks his troop from the unusual of places and sees the world through an eye so optimistic that I have never wanted to be a part of an era, more, as much as I have wanted to be a part of his. His obstacles were handled with wit and simplicity, his inspirations and methods had all a touch of innocent dedication and learning.
All I could feel as I sat through the movie was a generous flow of simplicity and a continuous world of happiness. To me it therefore seemed Simplicityachi and Happinesschi factory.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
reality, beyond words..
There are many a loss that humans can bereave over, arising out of complexities of emotions or irreversability of a past. But there still isnt one that could bring itself to compare with loss of a human life. It wouldnt take even the wisest to close their eyes to sense the void that comes alongside death, if it hasnt, to one of their own, to one who they loved .
Every other loss comes with a subject, or a matter, that can be learnt from, ignored, accepted, rationalised, corrected, cursed, hated or merely well-wished to. For the subject still breathes and the matter still resides in that moment. But death is a reality even dreams dont dare to invade, atleast not the ones we control.
Sometimes i have seen it in the eyes of the old, not out of its comprehension, but out of its inevitability. And it felt cold.
The wisest who chose to call it the biggest reality, may still feel insufficient in expressing it.
So a tear that sheds itself, may be the best that a man can do, to embody the grief, where words fail him...a
Every other loss comes with a subject, or a matter, that can be learnt from, ignored, accepted, rationalised, corrected, cursed, hated or merely well-wished to. For the subject still breathes and the matter still resides in that moment. But death is a reality even dreams dont dare to invade, atleast not the ones we control.
Sometimes i have seen it in the eyes of the old, not out of its comprehension, but out of its inevitability. And it felt cold.
The wisest who chose to call it the biggest reality, may still feel insufficient in expressing it.
So a tear that sheds itself, may be the best that a man can do, to embody the grief, where words fail him...a
Monday, February 7, 2011
Kannur Travelogue (Kerala)
Calicut – Kannur (The Bus Journey)
12.30 AM (Mumbai to Calicut) - He got the plane’s last seat, stiff, without recliner, made comfortable by the music on his iPod. The prepaid at Calicut airport arranged an Ambassador to Calicut bus-stand, from where he would take a bus journey, to Kannur.
He got the last seat in the bus too. The trip smelt of destiny already. Kerala began its routine, with the bus journey, with interesting shop names – Brothers (five shops, huddled together, each a Brothers’, from Hardware to Auto-parts and more, truly brotherly), Hayath, Sastha (later corrected, not as “cheap” as translated in Hindi, but a local God). He noticed the word Fancy on shops, not as their name, but used for the kind of goods sold, like a vanity or a gift store - Biji Fancy, or Geetha Fancy. His co-passengers in bus, a family of three, started popping toffees, bringing back the age old association of Kerala buses and nausea. Driven by ex-military men (allegedly drunk at times), these were most feared four wheeled beast on NH-17. He was relieved at the thought that he was empty stomach. He noticed a series of health clubs (Gyms) along small towns to villages, all looked like the other. All inside small halls, set on first floors of one storied buildings, with identically designed banners, announcing what they did, only named different. One such was named shamelessly Red Bull. So he noted down the name of the sleepy village that had it – Payyoli. Around 10 minutes later he realized that it was not a mere sleepy village. It was a village that had witnessed a high, two decades ago. It was where the sprint queen P.T.Usha began her dream journey, to become an icon of Indian sports history. And to be called Payyoli Express.
North Kerala was new to him. All his trips to Kerala since childhood had been to the south of the State. It may not have seemed too different to many, but he seemed to see the cultural divide, and feel a sense of newness. Bus journey continued. The town of Mahe passed him next, giving a sense of being a holiday destination, and of a preferred beach town. This coupled with another realization, that this was not Kerala, literally. This was a part of Pondicherry, the tiny Union Territory on the east coast of southern India, off the Bay of Bengal. And it had a broken extension here, 650 kilometers away, in north Kerala, off the Arabian Sea. This was something he knew, from map games played on Oxford’s India Atlas as a child, of spotting a given town on a map. Mahe, for its neutrality of sound, was a hot pick. What was new to him was the unpreparedness of passing by it.
He realized every journey is made better by the chances one takes (his was to choose a bus over train), and the excitement that those chances add to every interesting discovery.
Floor-tiles shops, light shops and liquor stores – this odd combination of most seen shops intrigued him as he passed on. He later discovered that the tax exemption for a Union Territory made Mahe a desired destination for purchases like these. He then passed Thalasserry, a small and pleasant beach town, and an eatery named Regency Fried Chicken (RFC). It seemed like the most unlikely of places one would run into in to, next to the bus stand. Not to forget that it looked better than a KFC itself. He came across advertising boards with names of companies that end with International Group that he had never heard of, or other's whose sign-off lines said-'conquering the world', which did not ring a bell that it should have ideally. But Thalassery was beautiful. Somewhere he saw a weathered billboard declaring it as 'god's own country', but if one would see what he saw, they would know that it never need a saying.
Late afternoon, passing by, he noticed few odd stores with long queues that looked similar to the ones at banks, reservation counter. Just that these if you notice carefully, in fine print, barely legible to on-board bus passenger like him, announced a liquor store. Liquor has the maximum per capita consumption in Kerala. The State government has taxed them heavy (151%) and even declared 1st of every month a holiday, just so that the men would bring their salaries home.
Bus stand in Kannur seemed fancier than some of the airports he had seen. Getting down, he attended to his long held hunger and asked for grape juice at a store. He had imagined it light green, and it turned turned dark purple, because this was Kerala. He had always wondered why this state had a bigger fascination for the darker version than light in grapes. He still does not know why.
Kerala had always fascinated him. He was one amongst them by origin, but an outsider by upbringing. He considered it an advantage, to be able to be one amongst them and yet observe like an outsider. It was a gift to his imagination, and he loved every moment of being in it.
He stood, waiting, in the middle of a sea of people, each of whom knew that he was not one of them, while he knew that he was. His friend came down, few minutes later, and picked him up…
12.30 AM (Mumbai to Calicut) - He got the plane’s last seat, stiff, without recliner, made comfortable by the music on his iPod. The prepaid at Calicut airport arranged an Ambassador to Calicut bus-stand, from where he would take a bus journey, to Kannur.
He got the last seat in the bus too. The trip smelt of destiny already. Kerala began its routine, with the bus journey, with interesting shop names – Brothers (five shops, huddled together, each a Brothers’, from Hardware to Auto-parts and more, truly brotherly), Hayath, Sastha (later corrected, not as “cheap” as translated in Hindi, but a local God). He noticed the word Fancy on shops, not as their name, but used for the kind of goods sold, like a vanity or a gift store - Biji Fancy, or Geetha Fancy. His co-passengers in bus, a family of three, started popping toffees, bringing back the age old association of Kerala buses and nausea. Driven by ex-military men (allegedly drunk at times), these were most feared four wheeled beast on NH-17. He was relieved at the thought that he was empty stomach. He noticed a series of health clubs (Gyms) along small towns to villages, all looked like the other. All inside small halls, set on first floors of one storied buildings, with identically designed banners, announcing what they did, only named different. One such was named shamelessly Red Bull. So he noted down the name of the sleepy village that had it – Payyoli. Around 10 minutes later he realized that it was not a mere sleepy village. It was a village that had witnessed a high, two decades ago. It was where the sprint queen P.T.Usha began her dream journey, to become an icon of Indian sports history. And to be called Payyoli Express.
North Kerala was new to him. All his trips to Kerala since childhood had been to the south of the State. It may not have seemed too different to many, but he seemed to see the cultural divide, and feel a sense of newness. Bus journey continued. The town of Mahe passed him next, giving a sense of being a holiday destination, and of a preferred beach town. This coupled with another realization, that this was not Kerala, literally. This was a part of Pondicherry, the tiny Union Territory on the east coast of southern India, off the Bay of Bengal. And it had a broken extension here, 650 kilometers away, in north Kerala, off the Arabian Sea. This was something he knew, from map games played on Oxford’s India Atlas as a child, of spotting a given town on a map. Mahe, for its neutrality of sound, was a hot pick. What was new to him was the unpreparedness of passing by it.
He realized every journey is made better by the chances one takes (his was to choose a bus over train), and the excitement that those chances add to every interesting discovery.
Floor-tiles shops, light shops and liquor stores – this odd combination of most seen shops intrigued him as he passed on. He later discovered that the tax exemption for a Union Territory made Mahe a desired destination for purchases like these. He then passed Thalasserry, a small and pleasant beach town, and an eatery named Regency Fried Chicken (RFC). It seemed like the most unlikely of places one would run into in to, next to the bus stand. Not to forget that it looked better than a KFC itself. He came across advertising boards with names of companies that end with International Group that he had never heard of, or other's whose sign-off lines said-'conquering the world', which did not ring a bell that it should have ideally. But Thalassery was beautiful. Somewhere he saw a weathered billboard declaring it as 'god's own country', but if one would see what he saw, they would know that it never need a saying.
Late afternoon, passing by, he noticed few odd stores with long queues that looked similar to the ones at banks, reservation counter. Just that these if you notice carefully, in fine print, barely legible to on-board bus passenger like him, announced a liquor store. Liquor has the maximum per capita consumption in Kerala. The State government has taxed them heavy (151%) and even declared 1st of every month a holiday, just so that the men would bring their salaries home.
Bus stand in Kannur seemed fancier than some of the airports he had seen. Getting down, he attended to his long held hunger and asked for grape juice at a store. He had imagined it light green, and it turned turned dark purple, because this was Kerala. He had always wondered why this state had a bigger fascination for the darker version than light in grapes. He still does not know why.
Kerala had always fascinated him. He was one amongst them by origin, but an outsider by upbringing. He considered it an advantage, to be able to be one amongst them and yet observe like an outsider. It was a gift to his imagination, and he loved every moment of being in it.
He stood, waiting, in the middle of a sea of people, each of whom knew that he was not one of them, while he knew that he was. His friend came down, few minutes later, and picked him up…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)